Reading
Lane and MacMullen 12.3-13.6 (pp. 150-63)
Norlin Reserve:1 Maccabees 1-5 (pp. 570-81) and 2 Maccabees 1-10 (pp. 604-19) also at http://wesley.nnu.edu/noncanon/apocrypha.htm
Because of Alexander the Great’s conquests, the Greeks came to control much of the eastern Mediterranean.After Alexander’s death, his territories were split up among his generals whose families came to rule the various lands he had taken as kings.The dynasty which received the former Persian empire, the Seleucids, became the most powerful among these successor families in the late third century BC.Among the territories they controlled was that of Judaea, homeland of the Jewish people.Though these Greek dynasts had formerly established a measure of peace with their Jewish subjects, the situation deteriorated under the Seleucid monarch Antiochus IV Epiphanes (ruled 187-164 BC).Antiochus decided to impose a garrison of soldiers in Jerusalem and to place an image of the pagan god Zeus Olympias (Baal Shamin) in the Jewish temple there.Complicit in this action was a group of ‘Hellenizing’ Jews, Jews who were comfortable making concessions to the culture which ruled them even to the point of turning against thebasic tenets of their religion.
The name Maccabee, probably meaning ‘the hammer’ was the appellation of Judas son of Mattathias, leader of a major Judaean Revolt against Antiochus IV.He and his more conservative followers (also called the Maccabees) managed to conduct a successful guerilla war from the hills of Judaea and eventually won concessions from the Seleucid regent Lysias (who had ruled on behalf of the young Antiochus V, son of Antiochus IV).Judas rededicated the Jewish Temple on 25 Kislev (December) 164 BC with a celebration that is still memorialized today as Hanukkah.
We are reading selections from two books, written in Greek not Hebrew but by a Jew, which describe this revolt and its aftermath in the years when Judas Maccabeus and his sons and descendants came to rule Israel as kings and high priests (the so-called Hasmonean dynasts).These books are not considered canonical in the Jewish or Protestant scriptures but remain an important part of the Catholic and Orthodox bible.We are also reading material in Lane and MacMullen about attitudes toward Jews by other peoples in the ancient Mediterranean.As we do so, ask yourself the following:
Questions
1. How does the author regard the Greeks:as benign rulers or intruders?Did all Jews feel the same way about Greeks?What might have led some Jews to cooperate with and even apostasize (switch over) to Greek pagan ways?
2. How did the Greeks deal with the Jews?Why might they have been interested in suppressing Judaism?How did they enforce their decrees?How successful were they?
3. What can we learn about Jewish custom / ritual from these texts, especially about purity, prayer, sacrifice?How did the Jews adapt their rituals and customs to deal with the extreme circumstances of ongoing warfare?
4. From your reading in Lane and MacMullen, how did other gentiles (non-Jews) in the ancient world regard Jews and Judaism?Did all react to it in the same way?Are Jews especially liable to persecution?
5. Was the Maccabbean uprising a civil war, a rebellion, a bandit action, a holy war or a war of conquest?Is there some of each of these in it?To what extent did the Jews use the war to acquire neighboring territories?To what extent did they use it to win international support?
6. How did Jewish History and awareness of the Jewish heritage give strength to the uprising?How does the story told in Maccabees remind you of other stories familiar from the Old Testament?