The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions (2760 page)

 
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see
TAO-HSIN
.

 
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(Gk.,
zelos
, ‘be hot, boil’). Enthusiasm which may become intemperate, and thus an ambiguous religious emotion. The
Septuagint
used
zelos
to translate Heb.,
qana
, ‘to be dyed red’, which expresses the visible change of appearance of those under strong emotion. In Jewish scripture, the zeal of God expresses his involvement in his chosen people, and this zeal may be expressed as anger or mercy. Conversely, people are full of zeal for God, (Psalm 69. 5), but
zealots
are not unambiguously good people. In the New Testament, the same ambiguity continues: Paul regarded himself as a zealot for the
traditions
of Judaism when he tried to destroy the new movement which became Christianity (Galatians 1. 14), and
zelos
(or
zeloi
in the plural) are included in his list of vices in Galatians 5. 20 and 2 Corinthians 12. 21. Yet equally, he praises the Christians at Corinth for their zeal for the good of others.

 
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Zealots
.

Jewish resistance fighters in the Jewish–Roman War, 66–73 CE. The movement stemmed from the activities of Judah the Galilean who ‘incited his countrymen to revolt’. In the War against the Romans, one of the sons of Judah seized the fortress of Masada and took command of the Jewish forces in Jerusalem until his murder in 68. The majority of the Zealots died in the siege of Jerusalem; Masada fell in 73, and those who fled to Egypt were rounded up, tortured, and executed.

 
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see
N
DRAMA
.

 
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Zechariah
.

Eleventh of the
Minor Prophets
in the Hebrew scriptures and Christian Old Testament. The book is attributed to Zechariah, son of Berechiah, and three of the prophecies are dated between the second and fourth year of the reign of King Darius (520–518 BCE).

 
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