Still, it would be inaccurate to think of the Zealot movement as a religious movement. This motley group of priests, brigands, and social revolutionaries functioned more as a primitive social movement, one focused as much on the liberation of Israel as on religious purity. Considering that most Jews in first-century Palestine would have framed their political and religious sentiments in the same language, the Zealots’ call for “the sole rule of God” would have been indistinguishable from the call for freedom from Roman occupation.
