ζηλωτής

From the study of Acts 1:13

Range of meaning

One who is zealous, an ardent devotee or enthusiast. In Jewish usage it meant especially one zealous for God and the Torah, jealous for God's honour and ready to act against idolatry and breaches of the covenant, sometimes violently. From the Jewish revolt of 66–70 CE onward it also named a specific revolutionary faction, the Zealots.

Against the English

BSB, WEB, NIV and ESV print 'the Zealot' with a capital Z, which suggests membership of a political party. KJV/YLT keep the Greek-looking 'Zelotes', which tells modern readers very little. Mark 3:18 and Matthew 10:4 call him ho Kananaios, from Aramaic qan'ana, 'zealous'. The KJV rendered that as 'the Canaanite', a misreading of an Aramaic word as a place name.

How it drifted

Modern English treats 'the Zealots' as the anti-Roman resistance movement. That movement is real, but Josephus first uses 'Zealots' as the name of an organised faction for the war years (Jewish War 4.160–161, c. 67–68 CE), about thirty-five years after Jesus' ministry.

Used elsewhere in the period

The model is Phinehas, who was 'zealous for his God' (Num 25:11–13), and Elijah (1 Kgs 19:10). In 1 Maccabees 2:24–27, 50 Mattathias kills an apostate and cries, 'Let everyone who is zealous for the Law… follow me.' In the New Testament, Paul calls himself 'zealous for God' (Acts 22:3) and 'extremely zealous for the traditions of my fathers' (Gal 1:14). The Jerusalem believers are 'all zealous for the Law' (Acts 21:20). Josephus describes an earlier 'fourth philosophy' of Judas the Galilean (6 CE) that refused Roman rule, but does not call it 'Zealots'.