flight of the Hebrews from Egypt (Exodus14). Yet, however much
at a general level Theudas might seem to resemble Jesus, he did
not, so far as we can tell, claim to be the Messiah.
Nearly a century later, during the reign of the emperor
Hadrian (117–38), a Jewish rebel didclaim messianic status. From
132 until 135, the Jews made a last, ultimately futile, effort to
throw off the yoke of Roman rule. Their leader in this is usually
called Simon bar Kosiba in Jewish sources, but in Christian ones
is called Simon bar Kochba. Bar Kochba means ‘son of the star’
and seems to indicate a connection with messianic prophecy in
the Old Testament book of Numbersthat ‘a star shall rise out of
Jacob and a sceptre shall rise out of Israel’ to vanquish the enemies
of the people of God (Numbers24.17). Although this form of
Simon’s name is known only from Christian sources, it seems
certain that he was proclaimed Messiah by a contemporary rabbi.
Meanwhile, the rebels minted coins naming Simon as ‘nasi
(prince) of Israel’. The extent to which Simon’s titles provide a
parallel for Jesus is open to debate, but they show how a mes-
sianic claim could be associated with an individual involved in
rebellious activity (Schürer 1973–87: I, 543–5; Smallwood 1976:
439–41).
The question at issue, however, is more complex than
identifying the extent to which Jesus’ activities (as represented in
the gospels) find echoes in those of contemporary Jews, or
whether certain Jewish rebel leaders claimed to be messiahs. If
we focus on the question of messianic expectation, it is clear that
Jewish writings from the age of Jesus do not present one unam-
biguous image of what the Messiah should be, but several. The
Dead Sea Scrolls from Qumran, for example, describe a number
of messianic figures: there is a kingly messiah modelled on David,
and a priestly one associated with Aaron (Knibb 1999). If we
examine the whole of Jewish scripture, apocrypha, and pseude-
pigrapha from the period 300 BC–AD200, then the range of
figures who might be expected to intercede with God on Israel’s
behalf becomes bewilderingly wide, encompassing not only royal
and priestly messiahs, but also prophets and mysterious figures
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