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girl would spend a minute with such a bore, but as he sat on the floor and rocked and recited scripture, she would stare silently at him for hours, as if he were a charmed snake. Like her parents and a few other Nazarenes, she was oblivious to the political war happening around them. She did not even know that her brother Nathan, who, like James, was eighteen or nineteen, ran with bandits who attacked wealthy Judeans as they passed through the wilderness.
    According to Judas, Nathan was a member of the Zealots, a rather widespread faction more organized than the nameless, rural insurrectionist bandits. The Zealots had begun an open rebellion against the Romans about ten years earlier after a census resulted in increased taxation. They soon switched to more covert tactics, often forming alliances with bandit groups to launch stealth attacks upon soldiers and travelers.
    The Zealots and bandits were encouraged by many of our people, but some accused them of being more interested in robbing the rich than in liberating any of us. Others believed their activities only aggravated the Romans in the region. Soldiers rounded up and executed accused bandits every day, often killing them on the spot instead of first arresting them and taking them before a government official. Some of our people feared that the Romans would soon tire of these amateur assailants, who did occasionally succeed in killing a soldier, and wage a large-scale sweep of our entire land, killing all men who appeared to have the minimum strength to lift a sword against them. When we were younger, Jesus, Judas, I, and a few of the other Nazarene boys our age would pretend to be Zealots, dark heroes fighting for our country and our Lord, and we’d run about the village with wooden swords Jesus and I had made, slashing at imaginary legions.
    One day, Nathan and his fellow brigands, full of wine and themselves, attacked a detachment of Roman soldiers. Nathan was carried into town on a plank with a sword wound in the chest—or maybe his stomach―but either way, I had never seen so much blood, even when a sheep was killed. He had shat on himself, and I wondered how much of the stench came from the shit and how much from the bile and blood.
    Most of the village gathered to watch him quiver. He looked as if he were freezing, his face white and gnarled like curdled milk. Sarah and her mother knelt in dirt beside him and wailed. James took Sarah by the shoulders, but she slapped him away. Nathan’s incessant screams finally reduced to moans after what must have been an hour, and I hoped he had gained enough control over the pain that we had seen the worst of it. Jesus and I were among the first at the scene and so were standing beside Nathan when he held out a dagger and said, “Take this. It cannot serve me now.”
    Jesus raised the knife before his face and squinted as if trying to read an inscription on the blade. He hefted it a couple of times as you might test the weight of a hammer. “Did it serve you before?” he asked.
    â€œI shall make it serve us,” said Judas as he sprang forward and snatched the dagger from Jesus. Judas had just returned from the fields tending his father’s sheep, and he was wild-eyed and jumpy, probably as horrified as I to see a young man in such terrifying agony, or maybe he was actually excited to see the bloody result of the battles he’d fantasized about.
    Nathan’s mother cradled her son’s head and wept the entire time, unable to utter a word. At last she begged, “Can anyone help him?”
    Jesus was the only one in the crowd who appeared undisturbed, and he answered Nathan’s mother, “Perhaps the Romans have already done that.”
    Shocked, I said, “Brother! Nathan may be dying, and you’re talking like a smug sage.”
    â€œWe’re all better dead than living under Roman heels,” said Judas.
    â€œThere are many ways to live,” said Jesus,