00:00As we already mentioned, some think that the Pharisees and the Sesenians may have originated
00:20in the group of the Asidim, Hasidim or pious ones who initially helped the Maccabees in their
00:29He fights to defend the Jewish faith, although there is no certainty about it. Additionally,
00:36The Sadducee group may have originated from a stance of the Sadducee priests who sought to survive
00:44to the Hasmonean imposition of non-Zadokite priests. It seems the Sadducees thought it was better
00:54to subsist in a precarious situation and not disappear from the historical scene. During
01:01During the Hasmonean struggles, the different groups supported the Pharisees and the Sadducees, but when
01:09Herod the Great rose to power, preferring to rule alone and without the help of any group.
01:16All the groups were left without support. However, with the arrival of the Roman prefecture
01:24In Judea, the Sadducees saw their primacy restored due to their union with the high priest,
01:32The quintessential interlocutor between Rome and Judea. As the Jewish faith encompasses all of life
01:40In the town, religion and politics are easily intertwined, and some groups are
01:48Some were political, some religious, some only religious, and still others only political. However,
01:57We also have a group that is more of a guild or profession and that has mistakenly been
02:04identified as a religious group. Now, let's begin with the groups that have fewer
02:12weight in the narrative of the gospels, but which have a certain political emphasis and two groups with a
02:19a more pronounced religious character. The order to follow will be Herodians, Zealots, Essenes, and Samaritans.
02:29And in the next lesson we will study the scribes, who are more than a religious group; they are a
02:36profession, and at the end we will see the Sadducees and Pharisees, leaving for the last group with the
02:44who had the most contact with Jesus and about whom we know much less than we think and want to, who are
02:52The Pharisees. We begin with the Herodians. It is most likely that this title applies to slaves.
03:01courtiers or officials of Herod. It can also be applied to all those who were supporters
03:09of Herod's government, whether or not they were a structured group. In the accounts of disputes that took place
03:18In Galilee and Jerusalem, Mark presents the Pharisees and Herodians as being in association, seeking
03:26to attack or discredit Jesus. The only conclusion we can draw is that some servants, officials
03:35Herod's supporters would seek to know or approach Jesus as spies, since Herod saw him as
03:46Jesus as a threat to the political stability of his kingdom, as he saw in John the Baptist or
03:53in his claim to the throne, given that Jesus preached a reign of God, and among the people the
04:02rumor that Jesus was a descendant of David. The group called the Zealots was always associated, without further ado,
04:10to the Jewish-Roman war that concluded in 70 AD, with the destruction of Jerusalem,
04:18their temple and the dispersion of the Jews throughout the Roman Empire. We owe this association to
04:26Flavius Josephus. However, confusing the Zealots of Jesus' time with the Zealots of the
04:33The Jewish revolt of the years 66 and 70 AD is a misreading by readers of
04:42The canonical gospels. The Zealot group that participated in the armed uprising against Rome
04:49It did not emerge as such until the year 66 AD, and they made their appearance in Jerusalem between
04:57The years 1967 and 1968, when various groups were fighting for control of the armed uprising. Therefore,
05:07Jesus never had any contact with the Zealot movement, understood as a revolutionary group.
05:14risen up against Roman power. The term Zealot had in Jesus' time the meaning of zealous for
05:22Jewish law, which was to be lived faithfully and strictly as Saint Paul called it.
05:31himself. This group of people sought at all costs the separation between Jews and Gentiles,
05:40and in some extreme cases they might use violence or harassment to maintain that
05:48Separation. Out of the same zeal, St. Paul tells us that he persecuted the church of God. It is this
05:57The meaning we apply to Simon, called a Zealot or Canaanite by the evangelists, and to whom Jesus
06:05He asked him to continue giving him everything and thus become one of the twelve. This following implied for
06:15Simon joined a community that had festive meals with tax collectors and sinners, and he also accepted
06:25Among his colleagues was Alevi, a tax collector.
