the maccabean revolt was directed against

The small state of Judea, with a radius of about twenty miles around its capital Jerusalem, was ruled by wealthy priestly and lay families. Also in the US Civil Rights movement and its contemporary religious-left heirs in the United States, issues of Christian piety and economic justice are inseparable as well. The meaning of words is subject to change over time. What follows is my own attempt to unravel what triggered the revolt, no doubt influenced by current events. Copyright 2023 Center for the National Interest All Rights Reserved. By Pierre Vidal-Naquet. Consequently, the fact that 2 Maccabees emphasizes Judahs piety is evidence not that its author was religiously minded, but that he was a supporter of the Hasmonean dynasty! Re-Examining Hanukkah In these movements, issues of proper Islamic practice and economic justice are often rhetorically inseparable. I wonder if these cultural codes were universal among Judeans or simply among the elites who wrote the texts. WebAntiochus Epiphanes IV Antiochus Epiphanes seized the throne in Israel after Seleucus died. He did not understand their own particular religious and cultural traditions, but proceeded to treat them like everybody else. He and his family took refuge in the hills, and began to go around tearing down altars and killing those who, in their eyes, were renegades and sinners. October 2014. Bickermann saw the origin of the problem in the attempt of "Hellenized" Jews to reform the "antiquated" and "outdated" religion practiced in Jerusalem, and to rid it of superstitious elements. The revised interpretation I am proposing is predicated on three methodological premises. The issues of tax increases and royal appointments to the High Priesthood arise repeatedly throughout 2 Maccabeesalways in conjunction with one another, and always decried by equating royal appointments with unworthy candidates. "Farther East" means Bactria. The Maccabean Revolt was a Jewish uprising against the Seleucid Empire that was launched in 167 BCE. By casting these events in this manner, the Judeans were able to incorporate them into their collective memory, resulting in the Hanukkah festival as we know it today. Maccabean Revolt Timeline This was not the case in ancient times. As those who adopted Greek ways are simply labeled as renegades, one cannot reconstruct what their views really were. It is nothing but the word of cowardice!" The Maccabean Revolt was a Jewish uprising against the Seleucid Empire that was launched in 167 In 167 BCE the Seleucid king Antiochus IV Epiphanes (reign from 175164 BCE) ordered the religious persecution of the Jews living in the satrapy of Coele Syria In the narrative of I Maccabees, after Antiochus issued his decrees forbidding Jewish religious practice, a rural Jewish priest from Modiin, Mattathias the Hasmonean, sparked the According to 1 Maccabees, then, the king was attempting to hellenize the Jews, and this is how the Maccabean revolt is usually portrayed. WebThe Maccabean Revolt is the Jewish rebellion against the Seleucid Empire from around 167 BC to 160 BC recorded in the Apocryphal books of First and Second Maccabees as Thank you for these comments. It was this arrogance of ignorance that started the insurgency. I certainly hope that the Jewish religion is included in the game, and that a Jewish faction can emerge. This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions. Revolt of the Maccabees | The National Interest History & Overview of the Maccabees - Jewish Virtual Library The banning of Judean religious practices, which in the collective memory of the Judeans was thenceforth remembered as religious persecution, triggered a popular revolt against the Seleucids and their local supporters, the Hellenized Judeans, led successively by the Maccabean brothersJudah, Jonathan and Simon. The Seleucids were in constant struggles with the Ptolemies of Egypt for control of the coastline from present-day Lebanon to the Red Sea, which had been in Egyptian hands since 301 B.C.E. University of Tel Aviv Maccabean Revolt - Biblical Studies - Oxford Bibliographies A critical reading of 1 and 2 Maccabees presupposes that we are aware of the cultural differences existing between our perception of the world and method of translating experience into words, as modern Westerners, and those of the ancient authors. A low level of assimilation would be avoiding contact with Gentiles as much as possible. (Jews uprising Seleucid Empire), http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maccabean_Revolt, http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=579214, http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=548547, http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=574371, Fourth Age Total War - The Dominion of Men - Gameplay and Faction Guides, Fourth Age Total War - Expanded Tech Trees submod, If this is your first visit, be sure to For the Jews, this would entail sacrificing to idols. WebIn the year 142 BCE, after more than 500 years of subjugation, the Jews were again masters of their own fate. This patternwith appropriate cosmetic changes to adapt it to the replacement of Israelite kingship with a High Priest as ruleris what underpins the main narrative sections of both 1 and 2 Maccabees. In 175 BCE he was deposed by his brother, Jason, who promised to pay the provincial tribute at a substantially higher rate if Antiochus IVwho had just ascended to the Seleucid throneappointed him High Priest. Antiochus Epiphanes Who was he We are fortunate to have these two different versions, particularly as they describe the events from the perspective of the insurgents. One suspects that he may have been influenced in his view by an antipathy to Reform Judaism in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Germany. The Seleucid However, while the festival commemorates this story in accordance with its Full-scale, open revolt against the Romans occurred with the First JewishRoman War in 66 CE. My hunch is that if we were to go back in time and ask a Judean peasant, the tax issues would figure far more prominently in their narrative of the revolt than the cultic issues (although the latter would certainly not be absent from the narrative or conceptually separate from the tax issues). People need to remember that "something" happened for the reshaped version to be credible. Antiochus Epiphanes (God manifest) was called Epimanes (madman) by his enemies. However, following the battle of Panion (200 B.C.E. Updated: 01/31/2023 When Was the Maccabean Revolt? While modern scholars closelyand uncriticallyrely on 1 and 2 Maccabees to reconstruct the course of these events, they are wary of using them to establish the causes of the rebellion. 1 Maccabees and 2 Maccabees give different accounts of the origin of the revolt. Read more about this topic: Maccabees Religious Persecution or High Taxes? Scholars have given very different views for the cause of this revolt. You must have JavaScript enabled to use this form. Based on this reading, therefore, 2 Maccabees is all about which leaders were pious, and which were not. He started to reign in Israel in 175 BC (1 Macc. Dying in a fight against high taxes struck no symbolic and no emotional chords in Judean cultureconversely, dying for the Law did. You might also like The Hasmonean Dynasty. WebMaccabean Revolt. John Ma, Re-examining Hanukkah. InThe Marginalia Review of Books,http://marginalia.lareviewofbooks.org(9 July 2013). The account of the suppression was reshaped using a narrative pattern that is well documented in Babylonian literate culture: righteous kings enforced divine law, and wicked kings violated it. We know the details of the The situation is sometimes described as an idyllic one. ), this entire region--including Judea--became part of the Seleucid Empire. However, there are indications of factional strife between and within the priestly families, and there was some friction between the rulers of Jerusalem and the Seleucid king. check out the. First, by defining 2 Maccabees as theological history simply because it focuses on the Temples fate, we risk overlooking the fact that in ancient Judea, the Temple was as much a political as a religious institution: in Hellenistic times, the Jerusalem High Priest was the actual ruler of Judea. I don't think this thread is really the place for antisemitism. Although Jason and Menelaus were Hellenized High Priests, we have no reason to believe that they ever harmed the Temple, as 2 Maccabees claimed, or that Menelaus took part in the religious persecution of fellow Jews, as some modern scholars contended. Since the author himself had coined the Greek termIoudaismos, and was using the termHellenismosin an innovative way, we must first understand that he was giving these words meanings that were rooted in his own cultural and linguistic experiencenot ours. ; and second, whom did God appoint as His human agent to restore His Temple? In 2 Maccabees, Jason and Menelaus, along with Antiochus IV, are designated as the culprits who had incurred Gods wrath for their impiety, and Judah Maccabee is depicted as Gods chosen one. Antiochus made it a capital crime to practice Temple offerings, Sabbaths, festivals, and circumcision (1 Macc. 1 Maccabees blames Antiochus IV, the Seleucid ruler, for wanting to make all the people of his empire "one people, and that all should give up their particular customs." The Maccabean Revolt WebJoined by a ragtag army of others like them, simple farmers dedicated to the laws of Moses, armed only with spears, bows and arrows, and rocks from the terrain, the Maccabees, as Maccabean Revolt. Jewish individuals who wished to keep their identity and traditions did not like what Seleucids were doing and decided to fight against them. Judah Maccabee and his brothers led the rebellion, liberated Jerusalem, and restored the Temple. The Maccabees won the war and reestablished the kingdom of Judah . See Also:Tales of High Priests and Taxes: The Books of the Maccabees and the Judean Rebellion against Antiochos IV(University of California Press, 2014). WebThe Revolt of the Maccabees. The methodological assumption of numerous scholars, to which I subscribe, is that stories reshape events and do not make them up altogether. Flavius Josephus, The War of the Jews, Book 1.1 2 The author of the First Book of Maccabees regarded the Maccabean revolt asa rising of pious Jews against the Seleucid king (who had tried to eradicate their religion) and against the Jews who supported him. In 70 CE, Jerusalem was besieged and the Second Temple was destroyed. Jason, the high-priest of Jerusalem, is said to have sent money for a sacrifice to Herakles, but those carrying the money thought it inappropriate. Antiochus IV was quite ignorant about the group with whom he was dealing. WebThe Maccabean Revolt was a conflict, lasting from 167 to 160 BC, between a Judean rebel group known as the Maccabees and the Seleucid Empire. J.E. I also recall that popular revolts in both Mesopotamia and Greece were quite often very openly about high taxes, debt, etc., and that Babylonian kings often issued (usually ineffective) debt cancellation decrees under the pretext of "establishing justice (i.e. "Caution, Sir! What You Need to Know About the Hanukkah Story Contrary to what modern scholars claim, therefore, it is doubtful that the author of 2 Maccabees, as a so-called theologian, wrote his account to demonstrate that God Himself saved His Temple. In other words, in 2 MaccabeesIoudaismosmeans the pious social order established by Judah Maccabee upon refounding the Temple, and by which the Hasmoneans rule. Conversely, its antithesis,Hellenismos, means the wicked social order established by Jason in founding the gymnasium (i.e., the Greek polis), by which he and Menelaus ruledin 2 Maccabees, Jasonsgymnasiumis cast as the anti-Temple.. WebPre-Rebellion In 198 BCE Seleucids took over Jerusalem and oppressed the Jews religiously (Antioch IV was the king of the Seleucid empire). Department of History The Maccabean Revolt Flashcards | Quizlet For most people in the modern West (and the Middle East, and probably elsewhere), standards of social and economic justice are still not completely separate from the notion of "What (the) God(s) want(s). Share. The author does not elaborate as to why certain villages were attacked or who was ambushed, but only states that Judas acted in this manner. WebJudas Maccabaeus led the rebellion from around 167166 BC, winning battle after battle, including the defeat of Antiochus and restoration of the temple circa 165 BC. One might discern different attitudes in the two books towards tactics. The author of 2 Maccabees certainly details a lot of bloodshed, but does not state that every captured male was executed, and his emphasis on Judas' forces honoring the Sabbath might exclude defensive war on the Sabbath. For the ancient Judeans, such a conclusion was merely stating the obvious. Maccabees - Wikipedia WebThe traditional Jewish explanation is that Maccabee ( Hebrew: Machabi) is an acronym for the Torah verse that was the battle-cry of the Maccabees, "M i ch amocha The temple in Jerusalem became the temple of Olympian Zeus, and the Jews were forced to celebrate festivals in honor of the Greek god Dionysos. However this in my view is the most plausible solution, based both on historical parallels, and on my literary analysis of the text. After the death of Alexander the Great, three major powers emerged in the Eastern Mediterranean: the Macedonian Empire in Greece; the Ptolemaic Empire based in Egypt; and the Seleucid Empire, which stretched from present-day Turkey to present-day Afghanistan. Answer The Maccabean Revolt was a Jewish rebellion against their Greek/Syrian oppressors in Israel, c. 167160 BC, as well as a rejection of Hellenistic Another thread about jews and the Maccabean Revolt . The story of the revolt is told in two versions, the First and the Second Books of the Maccabees (although the second is not a sequel to the first, but a completely different telling). 191 Rome and its allies defeat Antiochus III at Thermopylae and Corycus. WebThe centuries leading up to the birth of Christ were filled with the drama of conquest and revolution. Of course, this does not perforce mean that "what happened" was a popular rebellion. In the narrative of I Thus, the modern view that the author of 2 Maccabees viewed the revolt as a religious and cultural struggle must be a misrepresentation. The Maccabean Revolt: The Jewish Rebellion Against the Seleucid WebBy Steven H. Werlin In modern Judaism, the holiday of Chanukah celebrates the victorious revolt of the Jews against the Seleucid Greeks in 167-164 BCE (before the common The Maccabees fought both the foreign Seleucids and homegrown Hellenism. Here we go again. The idea of popular solidarity behind the divine decrees would make a powerful counterpart to the account of the fall of the former Kingdom precisely because the people had not been faithful and the kings had not made them see the error of their ways. WebI Maccabees was originally written in Hebrew as an official court history for the Hasmonean Dynasty. When Mattathias died, the revolt was led by his son Judas, or Judah Maccabee, as he is often called. Mattathias is said to have struck the man down with his sword, as well as those who were forcing the Jews to sacrifice. The Maccabean Revolt in game? The biblical accounts in the 1 and 2 Books of Maccabee are Apocryphal, and focus on the religious aspects Several issues are lumped together here. While the First Book glorifies the deeds of the Hasmonean family "through whom deliverance was given to Israel", 2 Maccabees stresses God as the defender and protector of his people and their temple, if they obey his laws. Updated 21 August, 2021 - 18:51 dhwty The Maccabean Revolt: The Jewish Rebellion Against the Seleucid Empire Read Later Print The Maccabean Revolt was a However, while the festival commemorates this story in accordance with its later, rabbinical version, modern scholarly reconstructions are based on 1 and 2 Maccabees. Wright --University of Arizona, Center for Judaic Studies The insurgents seem to have started in a small way. Tcherikover, perhaps influenced by socialist concerns, saw the uprising as one of the rural peasants against the rich elite. Maccabees If a city revolted, however, the tolerance ended. Maccabees | Meaning, History, Significance, Revolt, & Facts Like all popular revolts in ancient times, its principal cause was the newly-imposed high taxes. was the Maccabean Revolt? What were some This event was a profoundly traumatic the Maccabees Judah Maccabee liberated the city of Jerusalem, and purified the Temple; Simon went on to found the Hasmonean dynasty. WebThe revolt of the Jews against Antiochus IV is the story at the heart of the Jewish festival of Hanukkah. WebAnswer (1 of 4): The Maccabean Revolt was a Jewish rebellion, lasting from 167 to 160 BC, led by the Maccabees against the Seleucid Empire and the Hellenistic influence on Jewish life. The obvious conclusion is that both these works recount the founding myth of the Hasmonean dynasty: Judahs purification of the Temple was equated with a temple foundation (Hanukkahin Hebrew means dedication), andin accordance with the traditional contractual transaction of temple in return for dynastypiety qualified him, and his brothers, to be king. They were the ones who egged on Antiochus IV and instituted the religious reform in Jerusalem. when the victorious Achaean leader, Philopoemen, had abolished the Spartan educational system. 1 Maccabees blames Antiochus IV, the Seleucid ruler, for wanting to make all the The revolt of the Jews against Antiochus IV is the story at the heart of the Jewish festival of Hanukkah. Maccabees This deity chose a man for his outstanding piety and ordered him to build His (or Her) templeand in return, He (or She) pledged to give that man a dynasty. RamesIII&IV,? During the first twenty years of Seleucid hegemony over Judea there does not seem to have been any confrontation between the authorities in Judea and the Seleucid rulers. the Babylonian king O the Seleucid leaders of Jerusalem O Alexander the Great This problem has been solved! In truth, there are good reasons to believe that the king was not mistaken: there was indeed a popular revolt taking placewhich means that what we have here is an account that is doubly deceptive, due to its political bias. ", #1 - Robert M. Jennings - 10/18/2014 - 19:07. The Maccabean Revolt Maccabean Revolt | My Jewish Learning The sheer size of the Seleucid Empire led to problems of control, and, during the third century B.C.E., it gradually shrunk, both in the western part of present-day Turkey and in the eastern side at Afghanistan and eastern Iran. News and Interpretations on the Bible and Ancient Near East History. The king agreed. This administrative revamping had disastrous religious consequences: as subjects of a Greekpolis, the Judeans were compelled to give up their traditional customs and take part in Greek religious rites that were jointly introduced by the foreign settlers and the Hellenized Judeans of Antioch-in-Jerusalem. Jennie Ebeling --Department of Archaeology and Art History, University of Evansville, Copyright 2000-2023 The Bible and Interpretation| All Rights Reserved |The University of Arizona | Developed bySBS Tech Some Jews adopted these practices, but others, notably the Maccabees, did not. The Revolt of the Maccabees - Judaism Online
Who Owns Heartland Food Products Group, Bottled-in-bond Bourbon, Jail View Madison County, Alabama, What Is Benchmark In Stock Market, Articles T