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Zealot

Zealot

8 9.9
A member of an ancient Jewish group in Judea who strongly opposed Roman rule and sometimes used violence
  • noun
  • /ˈzɛlət/
  • Literature
translation icon : zelote
  • Jesus chose just such people: fishermen and tax collectors, known as sinners and zealots.
  • religious zealots
  • Jewish Zealots
  • Zealots target Romans

If you ask anyone who knows Roman history, Brandon in his book Jesus and the Zealots, makes this point very powerfully.

Examples

  • If we are to believe Yadin and most modern students of Masada, the people who took Masada and held out there for six years were survivors of the Zealots who had masterminded the Great Revolt and who, under the leadership of Eleazar ben Yair, wanted to live as free people.

    Academic text (2002)
  • The Zealots are coming!

  • And there was Simon the zealot.

  • Jesus had room for Simon the Zealot and Matthew the Tax Collector.

    Blog text (3)
  • The Zealots have been driven into the mountains.

  • Once they regroup... the Zealots will be back.

  • This Jesus of Nazareth is more dangerous than all of the Zealots combined.

  • That's what the Zealots want.

  • The zealots denounce you as a puppet, enthroned by the Roman emperor... against the will of the Jewish people.

  • The Zealots fiercely opposed Roman rule and fought against anyone who collaborated with them.

Compounds

One of the twelve followers of Jesus, called the Zealot

Surface Forms

Zealot singular
Zealots plural

Etymology

The word Zealot comes from the same root as zeal, meaning 'great passion'. It was once the name of a first-century Jewish group who fought the Romans, so today a zealot is someone with very strong, sometimes dangerous, beliefs and actions.