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What lay at the root of the Maccabees’ revolt? Who were their opponents, and why did the land of Israel undergo such an explosive outbreak? A 1959 classic by Victor Tcherikover, Hellenistic Civilization and the Jews, offers some explanations. I’ll try to downplay his more speculative suggestions, and focus on what seems pretty certain.
Like many key historical events, the revolt was predicated on simmering resentments, but was triggered by stupidities and overreaching on the part of powerful men.
The resentments sprang from hellenization of the Middle East, which has many parallels with cross-border economic movements later in history, including what is called “globalization” in our own era. The increased reach of traders and the movement of peoples during hellenization led to vastly expanded economic opportunities, but they were captured mostly by elites alert to the advantages to be gained. These elites precisely embodied the warnings of Deuteronomy 8:14-17 some 600 years before: “You will forget the Lord your God…. You may say to yourself, My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me.”
The trigger was probably a serious misstep by the High Priest. Vying with rivals, he violated ethical boundaries by offering sacred Temple treasures as a bribe to Antiochus’s court. This convinced the ordinary people of Jerusalem that their leaders were ready to undermine their religion, as well as steal the proceeds of their hard labor. Tcherikover says that the revolt was truly popular—not just a fanatic expression of the Maccabean tribe, as some modern researchers like to claim—and came before the attempt of Antiochus to replace the Jewish religion.
Furthermore, the decree of Antiochus that tried to exterminate the Jewish religion was extreme. There were precedents in the Greek world for suppressing dangerous beliefs, but they were rare and never applied to such a large and well-formed religion. Antiochus probably underestimated the extent of support for Judaism. The religion by then was well-rooted and unchallenged by most of the Jews.
The Hasmonean rule that emerged from the Maccabees was cruel and quickly degenerated. There are chilling parallels with modern Israel: a Gentile population that hated the Jews, constant war, and an impetus of the Hasmoneans to kill or expel the non-Jews and take over all the historic lands of ancient Israel. We don’t have to maintain sympathy for the Hasmoneans. They quickly adopted the haughty and undemocratic practices of surrounding Greek nations and made a compact with rich, corrupt Jews to oppress the bulk of the population. Their internal opposition consisted of the Pharisees, originally associated with scribes known as Ḥasidim and later associated with the Rabbis of the Talmudic era. These Pharisees, enthusiastically supported by the ordinary Jewish people, used reasoning and debate to reach decisions about how to apply the laws. This is not democracy as we know it, but far more flexible and fair than the Hellenistic practices adopted by the rulers of Israel and the other surrounding states.
What can we take from these somewhat speculative observations? We can be proud of the revolt of the people, who upheld the eternal Jewish notions of justice and dignity for the poor. We can also be proud that our intellectual ancestors in Judaism recognized the degeneration of the Maccabean revolution and tried to return to its roots in the outcries of oppressed people.
February 14, 2022
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.