This is an intriguing question; there's no direct evidence, the situation, like that in any revolution, was confused and shifted rapidly, and our only major source is extremely partisan, to say the least. But maybe it's possible to make some sense out of it all.
Intially, the
Jewish government was made up of aristocrats, who probably did want freedom from
Rome, but definitely didn't want to make concessions to the peasants, as their main agenda was doubtless to hang onto their property and power. They must have lost the trust of the peasants very quickly, if they ever
had it at all. When Josephus became governor of Galilee, he was never trusted by the people, and fought a short and unsucessful campaign against a militia led by Simon
bar Giora, who will crop up again later. Herestoredproperty to
Agrippa II, a
Roman puppet, and eventually changed sides. The rest of them were no different. Their first attempt at a government only lasted a few months; it was succeeded in the autumn of 66 by a second led by the High Priest, Ananus ben Ananus. Year 1 coinage is all AR, and consists of shekels, half-shekels, and avery
rare quarter-shekel. This fits a priestly agenda, which would presumably give priority to the
Temple Tax, and if it was Ananus' government which minted them, that would fit the common pattern of governments minting coin to suit their own needs; he may not have been too bothered about whether the people
had Ae's to fit their wants. The shekels have no images, which fits the radicalization of Jerusalem at the time, and the
inscription 'Freedom of Zion' reflects the reality of the day; Judea
had indeed been freed from
Roman rule.
In late autumn of 67, or the following
winter, this government collapsed, and Jerusalem came under the control of peasant militias dominated by John of Gischala, a wealthy
man who became the leader of the largest militia. The typical War prutoth were minted during Years 2 and 3, and if John was responible for their production, this would fit both with the period of
his dominance in the city, and with
his likely concerns; the people no doubt wanted coin which was free from images like the new Temple coinage. Coining of AE's in Judea
had traditionally been desultory and designed purely to suit local requirements; they were produced in vast quantities, and minting probably stopped when enough
had been produced. If I'm right, the 'barbarous' Year 2 prutoth would most likely have been their first attempts, and then better dies were cut as they gained skill.
Hendin suggests that these could have been produced by Simon
bar Giora, but he was leading an insurgency in southern Judea at the time, and the resources may well not have been avilable out in the countryside. I suspect he came into the picture later. Production of AR for the
Temple tax continued as before.
In April 69, the regime was overthrown by an
alliance of the high priests with Simon, who then joined the new government. He seems to have been a 'social bandit' like, say, Sancho Panza, rather than an opportunist as John of Gischala seems to have been. Josephus says that he 'proclaimed
liberty to slaves and rewards to those who were free', which sounds very much like the redistribution of property and freeing of slaves required by the Law of Jubilee. Never observed in practice that we know of, this lays down that every 50th year, slaves were to be freed and property returned to the families who originally owned it. In theory there should have been no inherited wealth of poverty, and hence no extremes of wealth and poverty. This
had become the radical dream of the
poor, and crops up in the Gospels. After Simon established himself in Jerusalem, the
inscription on the coinage changed to 'The Redemption of Zion'; I
had thought that this referred to hopes of divine deliverance from the advancing
Romans, but I'm now thinking that I may have been wrong, as it was only at the end of Year 4, in April 70, that the
Romans arrived outside Jerusalem, and many or most of the coins were presumably minted earlier than this. The collapse of the
Nero regime and the subsequent civil war must have looked providential, and there's no reason for morale to have been low at this time.
In Hebrew tradition, a 'redeemer' (go'el in Hebrew) is a relative who buys back property which has
had to be sold, or a person who has
had to sell himself into slavery; both of these must have been common as a result of debt. This fits with Simon's apparent aim of redistributing property to the
poor, so he may well have been responsible for the change in
inscription, and thus probably the production of coin.
What do the rest of you think? In particular, does
Meshorer, which I don't have, have anything to say on the issue?