Jesus Christ’s Competitors: The History of Israel’s Other Messiahs during the Reign of the Roman Empire

*Includes pictures
*Includes ancient accounts
*Includes online resources and a bibliography for further reading
*Includes a table of contents

In the 1st century CE there lived a man named Jesus in Judea, a Roman province at the time. The humble peasant was considered by some to be a prophet, others saw him as a madman, and some considered him as a threat to the safety of the land. In his last days he preached in Jerusalem about the imminent destruction of the Holy City and its temple. He gained notoriety and his warning had an eerie feel about it. His prophecy included parabolic language. Jesus spoke, according to sources, about the wind that carried signs, possibly echoing the words of the prophet Isaiah, and enigmatic parables about the wedding groom and his bride. Some people found his words offensive, and had him arrested and flogged.

Unsure what to do with him, the temple authorities handed him over to the Roman procurator. When Jesus was before him, Rome's governor questioned him and asked him what was all that he was prophesying about, but the prisoner did not utter a single word. The procurator had him whipped again, but Jesus did not complain or shed a tear. He did not curse the guards who made fun of him and beat his crushed body. Jesus lamented once again for the fate of the people of Jerusalem, and it was there, not far from the temple, that he was killed by a catapult.

There are no other details about Jesus, the son of Ananias, or Jesus ben Ananias, who died near the temple of Jerusalem in 70 AD when a stone thrown by a Roman ballista hit him in the head, except that his last words were “Woe to me!.” This doomed prophet was active four decades after a much more famous predecessor, Jesus of Nazareth, who was not knocked down by a stone near the temple but crucified outside the city around 30 AD. It’s even possible that both individuals once crossed paths when the son of Ananias was a boy and the Nazarene was already an influential prophet. Maybe the latter was inspired by the Galilean. Historians will likely never know for sure because his disciples, if he had any, did not preserve his words or remember his deeds. Indeed, this Jesus may have been forgotten altogether if not for the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus recounting his strange story The Jewish Wars, written five years after the event.

The former anecdote is, above all, great evidence that Jesus of Nazareth, the Christian messiah, was not the only charismatic prophet in Judea, not even in his native Galilee, which was populated by prophets and rebels. Jesus of Nazareth was not the only Jew of his time to be considered a son of God with power to perform miracles, and he was certainly not the only one to be called the messiah during the years of Roman occupation. Like him, other Galileans were executed by the imperial forces under charges of sedition ("This is the king of the Jews"). Indeed, the founder of Christianity lived in a province and a time where others like him blossomed, spiritual men who claimed to carry a divine message or mission from the heavenly Father for the redemption of his children, Israel. For the most part forgotten, they were “the other” prophets, miracle workers and messiahs - in some cases acclaimed as kings – and they were certainly contemporaries of Jesus of Nazareth. The New Testament does not deny the existence of such characters; in fact, it gives subtle but unequivocal clues to their presence.

Like Jesus, other prophets, miracle-makers and aspiring messiahs were active in Judea under Herod and his sons, and then under Rome´s prefects, like Pilate. They felt that the authority of the Highest was with them; they proclaimed that there was no other king but God, and they promised their followers they would see miraculous signs and God's deliverance if they only resisted just a little longer.