This may seem very ignorant, but I was watching the 1973 version of Jesus Christ Superstar the other day and there was several implications that the movement Jesus headed was one that was revolutionary against the Roman occupation, and that Jesus was often the force dampening this revolutionary zeal and chastising members for their eagerness for fighting back.

While I don't really know much at all about the original story as written, I'd never heard this reading of history before.

In some ways in makes intuitive sense as an explanation for the unanimous lethal response by the ruling classes, for Jesus' historical worship as a martyr, and for a potential source of conflict between Jesus and Judas (imagine if you had been successfully building a revolutionary movement and its figurehead starts to talk about being a God.)

But that being said it seems to stretch against the more traditional expressions of the story I've previously heard. Maybe this was just an effort by the director to connect the story with the anti-colonial struggles that gripped the world during the making of the film?

If this is totally wrong, what did the apostles stand for that was deemed so uacceptable by both local royalty and the Roman empire? What did they believe in besides basic human compassion that caused such a phenomenal response?