Did Bar Kokhba come late to the revolt?

REVISIONIST HISTORY: The Bar Kokhba Revolt Against the Romans in 131 CE Was Initially Led by Jewish-Origin Legionaries (Guillermo Carvajal, LBV).

A recent study led by Haggai Olshanetsky, a researcher at the University of Warsaw, has changed the historical perception of the Bar Kokhba Revolt or Second Jewish Revolt (sometimes also called the Third Jewish-Roman War) against the Roman Empire between 132 and 136 CE.

According to this analysis, Simon Bar Kokhba, traditionally regarded as the undisputed leader of the uprising, assumed control amid the conflict by displacing or eliminating the original leaders. This revelation challenges the narrative established by Roman and Judeo-Christian sources and sheds new light on the events of this historic rebellion.

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Bold-font emphasis in original.

The open access, underlying article in the Palestine Exploration Quarterly is available online:

The Identity of the Leaders of the Second Jewish Revolt and Bar Koseba's True Role in the Insurrection
Haggai Olshanetsky
Published online: 09 Dec 2024
https://doi.org/10.1080/00310328.2024.2435788

ABSTRACT

This paper demonstrates that Bar Koseba was not necessarily the only leader of the uprising at its inception; the insurrection's leadership possibly included Jews who had previously served in the Roman army. The theory that there were numerous leaders in the beginning agrees with Dio's description and explains why, unlike Jewish-Christian sources, no Roman author named Bar Koseba occurs in any of the accounts. This interpretation answers further questions regarding the archaeological evidence from the war, such as how the revolt could have lasted so long despite the limited geographical area in which rebel coins were discovered, and why there are hidden complexes in the Galilee but no rebel coins or destruction layers. This is owing to the likely withdrawal of numerous provinces from the uprising once, or in the following months after, Bar Koseba came to power, a theory that fits well with the scrolls discovered in the Judaean Desert that are linked to the conflict.

There are countless PaleoJudaica posts involving the Bar Kokhba revolt. For many, not all, of them, see the links collecte here, plus here, here, here, here, here, here, and here, sometimes with additional links.

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