The Zealots of Masada: Story of a Dig

THE ROMANS They had everything, the best scholars, the best military, the best judicial system and look at all the loot they got from terrorizing neighborhoods, killing people so efficiently. I got this book at Masada in 2000, almost exactly four years ago when I went with a church group to Israel. I had heard the story before, a very gory one at that, about how a group of jewish zealots fended off a Roman legion, then took their own lives. I really was not that interested in going there. However, I fell in love with the judean desert, the place where David fled when he was on the run from his father-in-law, King Saul, Israel's first king, who wanted David dead. Here also, John the Baptist preached, Jesus was baptized and tempted, the essenes gathered and studied, where, somehow, the dead sea scrolls were amassed at Qumran, where Moses' gaze hovered over a land he would never set foot on. After going to Masada and hearing the guides' narration of the events that transpired here, I had to admit I was so glad it was on our itinerary. And then I purchased this book and read it when I got back to the U.S. The book tells both the story of Masada, the zealots' conflict with the Romans as told by Josephus and the story of Yigael Yadin, archaeologist, professor, Israeli army veteran who took to task the effort to find proofs that Josephus' story was true in 1965. That task took as much planning probably as that of the Roman army for where Masada is, is in the middle of blessed nowhere south of the Dead Sea. Some of their finds were invaluable and enabled other researchers to more accurately date their sites. What was most memorable to me about Masada was the many contrasts between the zealots and the Romans on the one hand, and that between the zealots and Herod who stocked that bastion of his with food and water as a retreat in case people finally figured out how rotten he was. It would seem like a duel was set at Masada, between Rome, represented by the titled General Flavius Silva and Jerusalem, represented by Eliezar ben Ya'ir. However, if you have G_d on your side, as the frazzled, rag tag band of orthodox jews did, there is no contest to speak of. They will conquer us, but G-D WILL DESTROY THEM. Masada has an amazing story to tell.