These accounts of the Maccabean revolt, by which the sons of Mattathias reclaimed the temple of Jerusalem, tell an important story of the founding of the Jewish people. "The Hammerers" is the meaning of the nickname "Maccabees," given to Mattathias's sons, who lived in a time of revolution. Empires struggled for control of Greece, Egypt, and Asia, and the small population of Jews tried to preserve their claim to Judea. The five brothers also made heroic contributions to the practice of Judaism. Their rededication of the temple establishes the annual celebration of Hanukkah, and the martyr stories in Second Maccabees emphasize faithfulness to the law of Moses. The books of First and Second Maccabees are also important for Christians, as in them is told how the Jewish people established the political and religious culture into which Jesus was born. The martyr stories inform the early Christian martyrdoms, and the books are written in Greek, the language in which the Jews of Jesus' time read the Scriptures. As Father Harrington notes, without the Maccabees "the fate of Judaism (and with it Christianity and Islam) was uncertain."
Mr Bartlett's volume, like the others in the series, contains the text in the New English Bible. After a general introduction to the book as a whole, the text is given in short passages, with a commentary directly following each. These Jewish historical works, the two books of the Maccabees, were written to describe the struggles of the Jews in the second century BC against encroachment of the Greek way of life and against the political domination of the Syrians. The particular purpose of this commentary is to bring out the political and religious motives of the various parties to the struggle.
Hebrew Maccabees is one of the stranger Hebrew books to have survived to the present and is either a relic of the oldest surviving book about Judas the Hammer, or a remarkably heretical medieval forgery. There is no academic consensus on what it is, and few scholars have bothered to comment on it. The book deals with the life of Judas ‘the Maccabee,’ which is of little interest to Christians. His life is of interest to Jews, however, almost all books dealing with the Maccabean Revolt are rejected as scripture in Rabbinical Judaism. Jews generally treat the Septuagint’s 1st and 2nd Maccabees, and Josephus’ Antiquities of the Judeans as historical texts of debatable accuracy, while using the Megillat Taanit and Megillat Antiochus as sources on how Hanukkah should be practiced. Hanukkah, also called the Festival of Lights, is a holiday based on the rededication of the temple in Jerusalem that happened when Judas occupied Jerusalem. The festival continues, but all records of what happened are lost or ignored. The Megillat Taanit dates to the 1st century AD, and Megillat Antiochus dates to the 2nd century AD, and neither is considered a historically reliable source by academics. This suggests that what actually happened in the time of Judas was actively suppressed during the Hasmonean and Herodian dynasties, likely because Judas was later viewed as a heretic. In most of the books featuring Judas, he reports seeing angelic horsemen that no one else could see. These horsemen are clearly part of Judas’ story, however, if they were, in fact, angels riding horses, then Judas would be a prophet. Yet, he is not accepted as a prophet in Judaism or Christianity. The idea of angels riding horses is itself unheard of in Israelite and Judahite texts, other than in texts related to Judas, which suggests he may have actually been following a different religion. During the era of the Maccabean Revolt, the high priest in Jerusalem was not a Judahite, but a Phrygian named Philip. The Phrygians worshiped Sabazdiôs, the great horseman of the sky, who was represented by a hand. The Greeks interpreted the Phrygian Sabazdiôs and Judahite Sabaoth as two forms of Dionysus. In 2ⁿᵈ Maccabees, Dionysus is used as the name of the god worshiped in the temple in Jerusalem under Greek rule. Sabaoth was recorded by the Greeks of the Hellenistic era as the name of the Judahite god, based on the Aramaic ṣbảwt, meaning ‘desires.’ However, this word took on a very different meaning as Classical Hebrew formed during the Maccabean Revolt, becoming a word meaning ‘armies’ or ‘battles.’ The duel meanings of ‘ṣbảwt’ in Semitic languages go back to very ancient times, where the oldest recorded form was the Akkadian ṣābum, meaning ‘soldier.’ Over thousands of years, the name transitioned to ‘server’ and finally ‘desires’ in Aramaic and ‘abundance’ in Arabic. When the Hasmonean dynasty decided to ‘restore’ the Hebrew language, many ancient words and meanings were introduced to the Judahite dialect of Canaanite, resulting in the new Hebrew language having many archaic terms, including ṣbảwt. The name Sabaoth is used in the Septuagint, generally where the Masoretic texts used the word ‘armies,' which has resulted in many modern academics simply accepting this as a mistranslation, however, in Hebrew Maccabees, Judas is repeatedly referred to as the ‘Anointed of Sabaoth,’ confirming that if nothing else, the author viewed Sabaoth as a proper god. While it is natural to assume that the Maccabean Revolt was about getting rid of the worship of Sabaoth / Sabazios / Dionysus, as recounted in 2nd Maccabees, this book contradicts that, and reports that Judas was a Sabaoth worshiper. Moreover, there is some incidental evidence of the continuation of Sabaoth worship under the rule of the Hasmoneans in the writing of Josephus, and also the Babylonian Talmud.
This book explores the period from the 160s to 63 B.C.E., when the Maccabees ruled the Jews, up to the publication of the Mishnah in the second century C.E.
In the wake of the conquests of Alexander the Great, the ancient world of the Bible—the ancient Near East—came under Greek rule, and in the land of Israel, time-old traditions met Greek culture. But with the accession of King Antiochos IV, the soft power of culture was replaced with armed conflict, and soon the Jews rebelled against their imperial masters, as recorded in the Biblical books of the Maccabees. Whereas most scholars have dismissed the biblical accounts of religious persecution and cultural clash, Sylvie Honigman combines subtle literary analysis with deep historical insight to show how their testimony can be reconciled with modern historical analysis by conversing with the biblical authors, so to speak, in their own language to understand the ways they described their experiences. Honigman contends that these stories are not mere fantasies but genuine attempts to cope with the massacre that followed the rebellion by giving it new meaning. This reading also discloses fresh political and economic factors.
Based on an interdisciplinary conference held in Münster, this volume discusses the interrelation between political change and Jewish identity in the three centuries between the Maccabean and the Bar Kokhba revolt (168 BCE – 135 CE).
The volume contains essays on various problems of the early Jewish works: the Books of the Maccabees. Authors include renowned international specialists in the literature and thinking of early Judaism.
This work stands among the most important publications in biblical studies over the past twenty-five years. Richard Bauckham, James Davila, and Alexander Panayotov’s new two-volume collection of Old Testament pseudepigrapha contains many previously unpublished and newly translated texts, complementing James Charlesworth’s Old Testament Pseudepigrapha and other earlier collections. Including virtually all known surviving pseudepigrapha written before the rise of Islam, this volume, among other things, presents the sacred legends and spiritual reflections of numerous long-dead authors whose works were lost, neglected, or suppressed for many centuries. Excellent English translations along with authoritative yet accessible introductions bring those ancient documents to life for readers today.
Concise and accessible, this one-volume edition of the New Collegeville Bible Commentary: New Testament allows readers to explore any or all of the books with just one resource alongside their Bibles. The individual commentaries collected here are written by respected scholars, and they break open the biblical texts in a lively fashion. Readers will be able to engage Scripture more deeply and reflect on its meanings, nuances, and imperatives for living a Christian life in the twenty-first century. Continuing Liturgical Press's long tradition of publishing biblical scholarship and interpretation, this commentary also answers the Second Vatican Council's call to make access to Scripture "open wide to the Christian faithful." Daniel Durken, OSB, is a Benedictine monk and priest of Saint John's Abbey. He taught Scripture and speech classes at Saint John's University for almost five decades and served as director of Liturgical Press from 1978-88. He still writes homily hints and daily reflections for the Loose-Leaf Lectionary and is the founding editor of Abbey Banner, the magazine for the relatives, friends, and oblates of the monastic community.
