2.12 Grappling with the Greeks III: The Maccabeans Revolt

History in the Bible

Garry Stevens

History, Christianity, Judaism, Bible, Religion & Spirituality

4.6 • 693 Ratings

🗓️ 24 December 2017

⏱️ 30 minutes

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Summary

Rival high priests Jason and Menelaus plunge Judah into turmoil. Many Jews thought that both Jason and Menelaus were too Greek for their own good. Antiochus IV over-reacts and attempts to quash the civil strife. The Maccabeans stage a nationalistic rebellion. Judas Maccabeus reclaims the temple and creates Hanukkah. After Judas' death, his brother Jonathon transforms from insurgent to high-priest.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Gide. I'm Gary Stevens.
0:08.0	And welcome to the second series of the History in the Bible podcast.
0:13.1	More of the history in more of the books in all the Bibles.
0:20.0	Episode 2.12
0:22.3	Grappling with the Greeks Part 3
0:25.0	The Maccabians Revolt
0:27.2	Merry Christmas to you all
0:30.0	It's time for some Maccabian mayhem
0:32.9	for you to digest over Christmas dinner
0:35.6	In the last episode I related how the book of First Maccabees ascribed the revolt of the
0:44.2	aggrieved priest Matathias to the unendurable attempt of the Greeks to suppress Judaism.
0:51.3	First Maccabees lays the culpability full square on King Antiochus the Bonkers and his mad attempt to destroy the religion.
1:00.6	If the story in First Maccabees is correct, it presents a great puzzle. Why would a salucid king want to suppress an entire nation's religion?
1:12.5	The Hellenistic kings, like the Romans after them, were extremely tolerant of religious practices.
1:20.4	Alexander the Great and his successors constructed religious policies they hoped would bind all their disparate peoples together.
1:29.3	They encouraged religious syncretism, which means a mixing together.
1:35.3	Alexander encouraged people to think that he was the son of Apollo.
1:40.3	This was not a Greek notion, but it was very much a convention in Mesopotamia and Persia
1:47.0	for kings to be regarded by their people as the sons of gods.
1:52.6	The Hellenes encouraged people to identify their own gods with the gods of other nations.
1:59.5	Your goddess Isis, your goddess Ashtati, is the one we call Aphrodite.
2:05.6	We're all in this together.
	...

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