Talk:Sicarii

old talk
It may appear the Islamic Assissins, Nizari Ismaelis, derive their lineage to the Sicarii.

Requires Islam to be devolved from the Essenes (perhaps the real mainstream of Messianic Judaism of 100 B.C.E - 74 C.E. and not that portrayed in the Temple at Jerusalem at the time - that portrayed at Q'umran).

Want a bio of Muhammad prior to his visions. What was the religion of his family and forebears? As far back as possible. There appears to be nothing. A notation in one book simply says he was a Jew. For that to have been true he would have to have been religiously descended from Jews fleeing from Q'umran or other settlements like it. Perhaps even an Essene (say mainstream Judaism of the 1st century C.E.) camp in Arabia. Mecca?

Anybody know? Have heard? References appreciated. --216.79.207.24 13:50, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)Cyphre 08/22/2004


 * Are all assassins culturally related, in the teachings, o master? Wetman 19:32, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)

perhaps so.

Small Inaccuracy
Hi, I detect one rather minor inaccuracy in the article.

At one point the article states: "Like the Masada dead-enders, the Assassins built mountain fortresses in desolate areas to defend themselves against military enemies."

This isn't quite right ... the Sicarri didn't actually build Masada, they seized it when they were driven from Jerusalem by an opposing Zealot faction. Masada was actually built by Herod, and as far as I know, it was the only 'mountain stronghold' occupied by the Sicarii.


 * Regarding the above comment, I believe you are correct in stating that the Sicarri did not construct Masada, but they were not driven to it by other Zealots; the Sicarri themselves, along with their supporters, were the Zealots, and their persecutors were the Romans and the Herodian Sadducees who had defected from the 'true' Sadducees to maintain control over the Temple and the officiating ceremonies.

The only problem with this theory is that it is totally at odds with Josephus' account, which has competing Zealot factions in control of Jerusalem at the time Eleazar takes his band to Masada. One - the Sicarii - is led by Eleazar who controls the temple, another led by a "John" plunders the lower city, and a third group led by Simon bar-Gorias controls the Upper City. Prior to the arrival of Titus, Simon sieges the temple, driving Eleazar off to Masada. Simon and John, according to Josephus, continue to battle for control of the city after Eleazar leaves and are still at it during the Roman siege.

What exactly does Eisenmann say about Judas?
This statement is a run-on sentence. Can someone familiar with the Eisenman material clarify it?


 * Though when the Gospels are translated into modern Hebrew, Judas is rendered as "Ish-Kerayot," making him a man from the townships, Robert Eisenman presents the general view of secular historians (Eisenman p 179) in identifying "'Judas the Sicarios".


 * I made a few changes to the paragraph to try to make it more readable. Let me know if it makes sense to you. mennonot 00:31, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

It's much more clear now. Thanks! --Shunpiker 06:08, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

Sicarios (Colombia)
Shouldn't this be a separate article? Also: Indeed, long before Escobar's time, Colombia in particular had a long legacy of professional kidnappers (secuestarios) and murderers, whom he emulated. — any source for the word "secuestarios"? I never heard it in Spanish and Google gives no hits (except this article).--84.188.202.145 00:08, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

I changed the "secuestrarios" for "secuestradores". Obviously whoever did this has no idea about how to speak spanish, and assumed "-rios" is a common suffix in adverb/noun forms of verbs. It isn't. "Sicarios" is an irregular word due to its direct decendence from Latin usage.

I have also deleted this line:

"The term sicario was only recently used for these people, and the term has not attained much prominence outside of Colombia."

This is untrue. "Sicario" is a word in the cannonical Spanish dictionary of the "Real Academia" (Royal Academy), it puts the meaning simply as "professional assassin" or "paid assassin", and has no regional annotations hence in use in all of the spanish speaking world.

It had indeed fallen into disuse until the drug trade explosion in the 1980s and early 1990s, but the press, looking for a buzzworth, resurrected it. This might explain the original author's ignorance of the word and the assumption that it is a colombian only usage. But a simple perusal of a common cannonical dictionary would have disabused the author of the notion. (Sloppy people make wikipedia less) --Cerejota 07:07, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

I agree that "sicario" should have its own article, separate from "sicarius", since they're not really connected, except by etymology. I ran across the word in an NPR story. Also, how long it has been used in Spanish isn't that relevant to the English Wikipedia article, which should deal with the word as used in English. —KCinDC (talk) 22:36, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Sicarios (2014)
Sicarios redirects to this article, but there's now no discussion of them on the article. AnonMoos (talk) 08:26, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

Sicarii were NOT Zealots
Scholarship over the last several decades -- mostly just based on close readings of Josephus' texts -- has pretty conclusively demonstrated that the Sicarii were NOT simply a branch of the Zealots. They were an independent organization that predated the Zealots and then competed with the Zealots for control of the anti-Roman revolt. What distinguished the Sicarii was their targeting of Jews who collaborated with the Romans. Some of the relevant scholarship on this question:

Ben-Yehuda, Nachman. The Masada Myth. University of Wisconsin Press, 1995. Brighton, Mark. The Sicarii in Josephus' Judean War. Unpublished dissertation. University of California, Irvine, 2005. Horsley, Richard A. “The Sicarii:  Ancient Jewish ‘Terrorists,’” The Journal of Religion, vol. 59, no. 4 (Oct 1979): 435-458. Zeitlin, S. "Zealots and Sicarii," Journal of Biblical Literature, vol. 81, no. 4 (Dec 1962):  395-398.Terrasirradient 23:21, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Modern-day Sicarii
Please note this article in the NYTimes

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/28/world/middleeast/israeli-girl-at-center-of-tension-over-religious-extremism.html?pagewanted=all

From the article: "The virulent coercion in Beit Shemesh has been attributed mainly to a group of several hundred ultra-Orthodox extremists who came here from Jerusalem, known as the Sicarii, or daggermen, after a violent and stealthy faction of Jews who tried to expel the Romans in the decades before the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD. Religious extremism is hardly new to Israel, but the Sicarii and their bullying ilk push with a bold vigor that has yet to be fully explained. Certainly, Israel’s coalition politics have allowed the ultra-Orthodox parties to wield disproportionate power beyond the roughly 10 percent of the population they currently represent."

Is there a consensus that these latter-day Sicarii need an entry by themselves?

Frunobulax (talk) 14:52, 3 March 2012 (UTC)


 * Just for the record: Sikrikim. Bataaf van Oranje (Prinsgezinde) (talk) 17:32, 3 June 2016 (UTC)