Hanukkah & the Maccabees

Speaker 1 Ever wondered why the Romans were defeated in the Tudorberg Forest? What secrets lie buried in prehistoric Ireland? Or what made Alexander truly great?

Speaker 1 With a subscription to History Hit, you can explore our ancient past alongside the world's leading historians and archaeologists.

Speaker 1 You'll also unlock hundreds of hours of original documentaries with a brand new release every single week covering everything from the ancient world to World War Two.

Speaker 1 Just visit historyhit.com/slash subscribe.

Speaker 4 Dashing through the store, Dave's looking for a gift.

Speaker 5 One you can't ignore, but not the socks he picks. I know, I'm putting them back.

Speaker 2 Hey, Dave, here's a tip: put scratchers on your list.

Speaker 7 Oh, scratchers, good idea.

Speaker 9 It's an easy shopping trip.

Speaker 5 We're glad we could assist.

Speaker 10 Thanks, random singing people.

Speaker 11 So be like Dave this holiday and give the gift of play.

Speaker 6 Scratchers from the California lottery.

Speaker 12 A little play can make your day.

Speaker 13 Please play responsibly. Must be 18 years or older to purchase play or claim.
Why choose a sleep number smart bed?

Speaker 14 Can I make my site softer?

Speaker 1 Can I make my site firmer?

Speaker 8 Can we sleep cooler?

Speaker 13 Sleep number does that, cools up to eight times faster, and lets you choose your ideal comfort on either side. Your sleep number setting.

Speaker 13 Enjoy a personalized comfort for better sleep night after night. It's our Black Friday sale, recharged this season with a bundle of cozy, soothing comfort.

Speaker 13 Now only $17.99 for our C2 mattress and base plus free premium delivery. Price is higher in Alaska and Hawaii.
Check it out at a sleepbumber store or sleepbumber.com today.

Speaker 7 Okay.

Speaker 5 Only 10 more presents to wrap.

Speaker 13 You're almost at the finish line.

Speaker 8 But first,

Speaker 5 there,

Speaker 5 the last one.

Speaker 15 Enjoy a Coca-Cola for a pause that

Speaker 11 refreshes.

Speaker 1 It's the Ancients from History Hit. I'm Tristan Hughes, your host.
And in today's episode, well, we're exploring the origins of the most well-known Jewish festival of the year, Hanukkah.

Speaker 1 Hanukkah emerged from an incredibly important event in ancient Judean history, a revolt known as the Maccabean Revolt, which happened more than 2,000 years ago at a time when the great Hellenistic successor kingdoms of Alexander the Great reigned supreme over Judea and the Middle East.

Speaker 1 This is a story of defiance, of Jewish civil war, but also of resistance against a foreign Hellenistic superpower, the Seleucid Empire.

Speaker 1 Now the Maccabean Revolt is a complex topic, so joining me to help untangle it and its central link to Hanukkah is a regular guest on the ancients, Professor Jodi Magnus from the University of North Carolina.

Speaker 1 Now I'm a big fan of Jodi and her work. She's a wonderful speaker, a force of nature who knows so much about the ancient Levant.

Speaker 1 I really do hope you enjoy as we explore the origins of Hanukkah and the story of the Maccabean Revolt.

Speaker 1 Jodi, it is wonderful. As always, wonderful to have you back on the podcast.

Speaker 14 And it's great to be back. Thank you, Tristan.

Speaker 13 You're more than welcome.

Speaker 1 And we're talking about the Maccabean Revolt. And this feels like an incredibly important event in Jewish history and in the story of ancient Judea.

Speaker 14 It is, actually. And, you know, it's funny.
Most people, I think, don't realize that they're familiar with this already because most people are familiar with the holiday of Hanukkah.

Speaker 14 but are not necessarily aware of its connections to this revolt.

Speaker 1 Yeah, very closely intertwined, aren't they? But from what I gather, we've got a lot to get through in the next 40 or 50 minutes. So without further ado, let's delve straight into it.

Speaker 1 2nd century BC, early 2nd century BC Judea.

Speaker 1 What is the context for just before this revolt breaks out?

Speaker 14 Right. So in the early 2nd century BC, Judea, which is sort of the area around Jerusalem, was under the rule of one of Alexander the Great's Greek successors.

Speaker 14 So here I just have to go back a little bit to Alexander the Great. Alexander the Great had conquered the area of Judea with other parts of the Near East in, let's say, well, Judea in 332 BC.

Speaker 14 And after he died, his empire was split up among various generals. And two of his generals got the lion's share of his empire.
One was a guy named Ptolemy, who got Egypt.

Speaker 14 And the other was a guy named Seleucus, who got the area to the north of Judea, the area of Assyria, Asia Minor, sort of through the area of what is today Iraq or Mesopotamia.

Speaker 14 And Judea, of course, lay right in the middle between those kind of two power blocks, those two kingdoms, which were ruled by the successors of Ptolemy and Seleucus, who are called the Ptolemies and the Seleucids.

Speaker 14 And it became sort of a bone of contention between them.

Speaker 14 And for most of the third century BC, Judea was under the rule of the Ptolemies down in Egypt.

Speaker 14 But in the beginning of the second century BC, it comes under the rule of the Seleucids, specifically a Seleucid king named Antiochus III. So at this point, Judea is under the rule of Antiochus III.

Speaker 14 And the situation of the Jews is interesting because these successors of Alexander ruled their kingdoms in different ways, by which I mean that there were different kinds of administrative units within their kingdoms.

Speaker 14 And a little bit different from most of the rest of these kingdoms, Judea was a bit of a semi-autonomous area.

Speaker 14 This had been the case for centuries, going back to the Persians, even before the conquest of Alexander. Jews were given the freedom, and in fact required, to live according to biblical Jewish law.

Speaker 14 That is, that biblical Jewish law was the law of the land. If you were a Jew, meaning a Judean, a person from Judea or of Judean descent, you were required to follow those laws as the law of the land.

Speaker 14 So, in a sense, Judea was this kind of semi-autonomous territory where the Jews enjoyed what we might consider today to be a great deal of religious freedom.

Speaker 14 And the administration of the territory was under the governance of a council called the Gerusia.

Speaker 1 The Gerusia, that Greek name, yeah.

Speaker 14 That's right, a Greek word that comes from the word meaning elderly because it was a council of elders, older people.

Speaker 14 I always like to point out to my students that in these societies, older people were venerated, were respected. Respect your elders

Speaker 14 for their knowledge and their experience. And so that's basically the situation as we enter the second century BC.

Speaker 14 The Jews now had been living literally for hundreds of years already with a great deal of relative autonomy and certainly religious freedom.

Speaker 1 So it's interesting, because you say the Seleucids and Ptolemies fought over this land. I think it's like one, two, three, four, five Syrian wars, aren't there? For control of Judea.

Speaker 1 Autonomy is there for the Jews, the people of Judea, but Greek influence is there too. That's really important to highlight.

Speaker 1 Greek influence is there too, especially when we come to the outbreak of the revolt.

Speaker 14 Yes, that's absolutely right. And so this is one of the really interesting things.
And we see this actually in other periods as well. For example, we see this during the reign of Herod the Great.

Speaker 1 Oh, our favorite.

Speaker 14 Yes, exactly.

Speaker 14 Where especially there is external influence or cultural influence on the local elites who have the money, the means to be able to adopt these kind of outside customs, which are sort of the fashion, the modern fashion, even while continuing to observe biblical Jewish law.

Speaker 14 And we see that certainly among the Jerusalem elite after the conquest of Alexander, we see an increasing amount of sort of what we might call Greek influence on the local elite.

Speaker 14 And this comes to a head in 175 BC. So now we're entering, let's say, the second quarter of the second century BC.

Speaker 14 The high priest in Jerusalem, whose name was Jason, basically paid off the Seleucid king to get permission to turn Jerusalem into a Greek pulis, into a Greek city,

Speaker 14 right? To rename the city Antioch, to give some of the inhabitants of Jerusalem citizenship in this Greek polis. And as a result, Greek institutions were now introduced into Jerusalem.

Speaker 14 I would qualify and say that the worship of the God of Israel was still allowed. There was no persecution for observing biblical Jewish law or worshiping the God of Israel.

Speaker 14 The temple in Jerusalem continued to function as it had previously, as a a place for the center of the worship of the God of Israel.

Speaker 14 But we now have the introduction of these sort of Greek-style institutions into Jerusalem, something we had not seen before. And that includes things like theaters and gymnasiums.

Speaker 14 And yes, very important, a gymnasium and an Ephibion.

Speaker 14 And what's important about that is that the gymnasia and ephebia, or gymnasiums and ephibians, if we put it in English, were basically schools for youth, male youth, by the way, not women, but only males.

Speaker 14 But they were Greek institutions where the youth, and here we're talking particularly about, again, the elites, would receive a good Greek education.

Speaker 14 And they would learn the Greek language and they would learn Greek classics and become acculturated to Greek culture. And this is the first time that we see something like this.

Speaker 14 Now, the problem is that a lot of these aspects of Greek culture are antithetical to biblical Jewish law and Jewish practice.

Speaker 14 And so, for example, the word gymnasium comes from the Greek word gymnos, which means nudity or naked, because one of the centerpieces of a good Greek education was that the male youth were also educated in athletics, right?

Speaker 14 They also participated in athletic competitions, you know, whether it's races or foot races or wrestling matches or discus throwing. And those competitions were held in the nude.

Speaker 14 Those male Greek athletes competed in the nude, and that was also the case, by the way, at the ancient Olympic Games.

Speaker 14 And, you know, biblical Jewish law considers nudity, human nudity, to be an affront to the eyes of God. And so this is completely antithetical, right?

Speaker 14 To now, so we have the introduction, and we have a couple, you know, we have some ancient sources that talk about what's going on in Jerusalem.

Speaker 14 And one of them is a work called Second Maccabees, which you would find in a Catholic Bible, but not in a Hebrew or Protestant Bible.

Speaker 14 And the author of 2 Maccabees obviously was completely opposed to these new innovations and describes how, and is scandalized, describing how, for example, the priests serving in the temple would, you know, rush to finish the sacrifices before they would run off to watch the athletic competitions.

Speaker 14 and how the finest of the young Jewish men took to wearing the Greek hat and things like that. So this marks a real turning point.
But what's interesting is that

Speaker 14 even though, let's say, the author of 2 Maccabees obviously was scandalized by this, there's no indication in our sources of any sort of real Jewish opposition to any of this.

Speaker 14 So there's no indication that some of the families of Jerusalem rose up against Jason and anything like that.

Speaker 14 So this is really an entirely internal thing.

Speaker 14 And it does, again, highlight the fact that, especially among the elite, or at least many of the elite, there was no problem reconciling the adoption of, let's say, in this case, Greek culture, with the continuing worship of the God of Israel.

Speaker 1 So you have that in Jerusalem, but of course, the whole province of Judea, it's much more than just the city. So that's happening there.

Speaker 1 And as you say, it's really interesting, even though it seems to be contrary to biblical Jewish law that they are embracing this Greek culture. So where does the trouble begin, Jody?

Speaker 1 I'm presuming it's beyond the walls of Jerusalem that there's a bit more fight back and resistance to this.

Speaker 14 Yeah, so here's where things get a little bit complicated.

Speaker 6 Okay.

Speaker 14 But okay, so I'll try to explain. So I should point out that, you know, I just mentioned Jason, whose Hebrew name was Jeshua, Yeshua, which is actually Jesus.

Speaker 14 Wow. It's a very common, yeah, it's actually a variant of the name Joshua.
Yeshua, Joshua, Yahoshua. And so it's actually a very common name among Jewish men at the time.

Speaker 14 And interestingly to notice, by the way, that this

Speaker 14 high priest adopted also a a Greek name, Jason, and he's known by his Greek name. But there's a little bit of background to Jason because Jason actually was not the official high priest in Jerusalem.

Speaker 14 The official high priest in Jerusalem was his older brother, a guy named Onius, specifically Onias III, who, for various reasons that I won't go into, had to leave Jerusalem and go up to Antioch in Syria, which was the capital of the Seleucid kingdom, in order to meet with the Seleucid king.

Speaker 14 While he's gone, he leaves his brother, Jason, in charge.

Speaker 14 So Jason was kind of like the interim high priest in Jerusalem, and it's when he becomes the interim high priest, he then actually bribes the Seleucid king to keep him in place as the high priest, because it was up to the Seleucid king to confirm the appointments of high priests.

Speaker 14 And Jason then obtains the position sort of permanently of high priest. And his brother, his older brother, Onias III, never returns to Judea.
He actually ends up being assassinated in Antioch.

Speaker 14 There's a whole nother thread of a story connected with that. And then what happens is, is that three years after Jason secures the high priesthood for himself, and so now we're in 172 BC,

Speaker 14 he sends another priest who's an official in the temple, but not related to Jason, a guy named Menelaus, to Antioch to make a payment to the king.

Speaker 14 Now, probably this was an annual payment, so probably the high priest had to sort of pay an annual fee to, you know, to be be able to serve in their office.

Speaker 14 And this Menelaus was not, not only was he not related to Jason, he was not a member of that family.

Speaker 14 So here I now have to see, I'm sorry, it gets a little complicated, but here I have to backtrack again. So Jason and his older brother were members of a family that were called the Zadokites.

Speaker 14 The Zadokites were descended, or at least claimed, to be descended from the very first high priest who Solomon had appointed to officiate as high priest in the very first temple that he built centuries earlier in Jerusalem.

Speaker 14 Since then, since Solomon's time, the high priests in the temple in Jerusalem had claimed ancestry from the original Zadok, and they were called the Zadokite line of high priests, and they became kind of the official, you know, the official high priestly family.

Speaker 14 So Menelaus was from a priestly family, but he was not a Zadokite. He goes to Antioch with the payment.
And what he does is he meets with the king up there and he outbids Jason.

Speaker 14 He says, you know what, if you make me high priest, I'll give you even more money.

Speaker 1 Brutal stuff.

Speaker 14 Right. And what does the king care? The king's like, sure, you know, I'll take more money.
And so Menelaus is able to secure the high priesthood for himself. Now, and he goes back to Jerusalem.

Speaker 14 Now, there's a whole episode that occurs after this

Speaker 14 that I won't go into, but there ends up being kind of a little civil war between Jason and Menelaus. And eventually, Jason is...

Speaker 14 ends up having to leave the country. He actually ends up going to Sparta.
And there's a really interesting connection between some of the elite and

Speaker 14 you know priestly jews of this period and sparta which is kind of fascinating actually anyway he ends up eventually going to sparta menelaus becomes the high priest this transition so to speak leads to a kind of a lot of unrest there was you know there was some dissatisfaction among some and i should mention that that the factions supporting jason and menelaus it wasn't just religious, it was also political, because they were also political factions, pro-Ptolemy, pro-Seleucid, whatever, right?

Speaker 14 Anyway, the bigger background here is that by the time we get into, let's say, the 160s BC, the country is now under the rule of a son of Antiochus III, whose name is Antiochus IV, specifically Antiochus IV Epiphanes.

Speaker 14 Epiphanes is an epithet of the god Olympian Zeus, the chief deity of the Greeks, and it means the manifest god.

Speaker 14 And it's because Antiochus IV sort of venerated that particular god as his his special patron deity. So he adopts the epithet of that god.
Now, Antiochus IV had been raised in Rome.

Speaker 14 He actually, there's a whole backstory to this, too. His father had at some point sent him as a hostage to Rome after

Speaker 1 the Romans defeat Antiochus III. The Romans are rising in the background, basically, but the Seleucids are still a big power in the East.

Speaker 14 Exactly so. That's right.
There had been a devastating battle that Antiochus III lost against the Romans in the year 190 BC, the Battle of Magnesia, Magnesia on the Meander in Asia Minor.

Speaker 14 As a result of that battle, the Romans imposed really harsh terms of surrender on Antiochus III.

Speaker 14 He actually ended up paying, if we put it into modern terms, what was the largest war indemnity in history until our time, basically bankrupted the Seleucid kingdom.

Speaker 14 And as one of the terms of surrender, his younger son, Antiochus IV, was sent as a hostage to Rome. So by the time we get at the beginning of the 160s BC, Antiochus III is dead.

Speaker 14 There actually had been another king in the meantime. We'll skip over that.
And now Antiochus IV, Epiphanes, is the ruler of the Seleucid kingdom.

Speaker 14 You know, one of the things that the Romans did in that peace treaty, it's called the Peace of Apamea in 188 BC.

Speaker 14 One of the things that the Romans did was to try and make it impossible for the Seleucid kingdom ever to become a threat to Rome again, right?

Speaker 14 So they wanted to make sure that the Seleucid kingdom was sort of permanently weakened. Well, so we get into the beginning of the 160s BC, and what does Antiochus IV do? He invades Egypt.

Speaker 14 And this Egypt campaign is going pretty well, actually. And the Romans are kind of monitoring what's going on.
And at some point, it looks like Antiochus IV is going to be able to take Egypt.

Speaker 14 And at that point, the Romans apparently send some ships over and they threaten him. And they say, listen, you withdraw or you're going to suffer the consequences.

Speaker 14 And so he ends up having to withdraw. Now, while Antiochus IV was in Egypt, rumors began to spread around Judea that he had died.
He had been killed. That then led to a kind of a local uprising.

Speaker 14 This is when Jason, by the way, reappears briefly on the scene. Anyway, there's a kind of a local uprising.
All of this then puts Antiochus IV into a really, really bad mood.

Speaker 14 So on, you know, he's forced to withdraw from what had been a really successful campaign in Egypt because of Roman pressure.

Speaker 14 And, you know, he's withdrawing and he hears that basically Judea is up in revolt and it's a mess and he has to send troops to kind of

Speaker 14 put down all of that instability. And so all of this is kind of background to what happens the following year.
So the following year, 167 BC, Antiochus IV issues an edict.

Speaker 14 And this edict now really does completely change everything that had been going on before. And that is that he basically mandates that everyone in his kingdom is now to adopt Greek culture.

Speaker 14 And he doesn't put it this way, Greek religion, what we would call Greek religion. In other words, everybody's basically to become like Greeks.

Speaker 14 And that meant that now the worship of the God of Israel was outlawed because everybody's supposed to worship the Greek gods. The Jerusalem temple was rededicated to the worship of Olympian Zeus.

Speaker 14 And by the way, very interesting, the ancient Greeks and then the Romans later equated the chief deity of the Jews, who was the God of Israel, with their own chief deity.

Speaker 14 So in their minds, Jewish God was sort of equivalent to Olympian Zeus, because these are chief deities who are celestial deities.

Speaker 14 I mean, the difference is that the Jews didn't worship other gods, didn't have a pantheon of other gods that they worshipped alongside their chief deity.

Speaker 14 But in the minds of the Greeks and the Romans, they're kind of equivalent.

Speaker 14 And so, for example, centuries later, it's not a coincidence that the Roman Emperor Hadrian builds a temple dedicated, well, supposedly, there's debate about whether he actually did this, but builds a temple or shrine dedicated to capital line Jupiter on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem and makes that god Jupiter, capital line Jupiter, the new patron deity of the city of Jerusalem.

Speaker 14 So in their minds, this was kind of an equivalent thing. So now the Jerusalem temple is rededicated to the worship of Olympian Zeus.

Speaker 14 Everybody, all Jews now are to adopt Greek customs, and it is now illegal, it is now outlawed to follow biblical Jewish law you're no longer allowed to refrain from work on the Sabbath you're no longer allowed to let's say circumcise your your boys you're no longer allowed to prepare special food and and abstain from eating pork and you know all of that sort of stuff it all becomes outlawed on pain of death so this is obviously very different from what had happened under Jason

Speaker 14 and also you know dramatically different from the from sort of the position that the Jews Jews had enjoyed now for centuries, right?

Speaker 14 As sort of being this kind of semi-autonomous and having complete religious freedom.

Speaker 1 This episode is sponsored by Ruler.

Speaker 1 Finding a therapist who not only has time for new clients, but also actually takes your insurance can feel impossible. Deciding to reach out and ask for help is huge.

Speaker 1 To then be hit by wall after wall can be so demoralizing.

Speaker 1 Many therapists don't take insurance packages at all, which means that you're stuck paying the full cost out of pocket or paying for an expensive monthly subscription. That's where Ruler comes in.

Speaker 1 They partner with over 100 insurance plans, making the average co-pay just $15 per session.

Speaker 1 Now that's real therapy from licensed professionals chosen based on your particular situation at a price that actually makes sense.

Speaker 1 You use your insurance benefits to maintain your physical health, so why wouldn't you do the same for your mental health?

Speaker 1 Thousands of people are already using Ruler to get affordable, high-quality therapy that's actually covered by insurance. Visit ruler.com/slash ancients to get started.

Speaker 1 After you sign up, you'll be asked how you heard about them. Please support our show and let them know we sent you.
That's rula.com/slash ancients.

Speaker 1 You deserve mental health care that works with you, not against your budget.

Speaker 15 This holiday, Verizon is helping you bundle up incredible gifts and savings. You'll get the latest phone with a new line on my plan, and a brand new smartwatch and tablet.

Speaker 15 No trade-in needed, even on our lowest price plan. That's two gifts for your family and one for you.
Or two for you and one for someone else, or three gifts for you and only you.

Speaker 15 Either way, you save big on three amazing gifts at Verizon. All on the best 5G network.
Visit Verizon today. Rankings based on Root Metric Root Score Report dated 1 each 2025.
Your results may vary.

Speaker 15 Service plan required for watch and tablet. Additional terms apply.

Speaker 4 Dashing through the store, Dave's looking for a gift.

Speaker 3 One you can't ignore.

Speaker 5 But not the socks he picks.

Speaker 10 I know, I'm putting them back.

Speaker 2 Hey, Dave, here's a tip.

Speaker 6 Put scratchers on your list.

Speaker 7 Oh, scratchers?

Speaker 8 Good idea.

Speaker 9 It's an easy shopping trip.

Speaker 5 We're glad we could assist.

Speaker 10 Thanks, random singing people.

Speaker 11 So be like Dave this holiday and give the gift of play.

Speaker 12 Scratchers from the California lottery. A little play can make your day.

Speaker 13 Please play responsibly. Must be 18 years or older to purchase play or claim.

Speaker 15 This holiday season, millions of families will pack their bags, load up the car, and head off for a family vacation. But not every trip is going to be somewhere fun.

Speaker 15 The American Red Cross responds to about 7,000 emergencies during the holiday season alone, from home fires to natural disasters, providing families a safe place to go when the unthinkable happens.

Speaker 15 But they can't do it without your support please donate at redcross.org

Speaker 1 just summarize that it seems like it's gone from more of a a softer introducing of greek culture let's say we as you highlighted with jason and that was in the cities as well so not really the countryside to this next king antiochus iv being in a bit of of a strop

Speaker 1 after failing to complete his conquest of Egypt, and then go from that soft approach to a much harsher approach and probably not really thought through.

Speaker 1 Because as you say, this is a complete change in direction as to how he's treating his subjects, maybe a knee-jerk reaction, but surely... That's not good.

Speaker 1 With Jason, as you're saying, like, it seems that there didn't seem to be any resistance, but here, it must be the complete opposite.

Speaker 14 Well, yeah, except, okay, so a couple of things. So remember, with with Jason, the initiative here came from within the Jewish community.
It wasn't imposed on the Jews, right? The Jews requested it.

Speaker 14 You know, that's a big difference here. So it's not that what Jason did was kind of what we saw with Jason was some sort of punishment or imposition from an outside power on the Jews.

Speaker 14 In this case, though, this is imposed on the Jews. And there's, you know, there is a lot of discussion about why Antiochus IV did this.
You know, it depends on who you follow.

Speaker 14 So, you know, if you look at the author of the book of Daniel, in Daniel, there's a reference to this that, you know, makes it sound like this was kind of the king being upset after the end of the Egyptian campaign and kind of punishing the Jews in that way.

Speaker 14 The Roman historian Tacitus, who's notoriously anti-Jewish or very negative towards Jews, at least, presents it as if Antiochus IV wanted to sort of obliterate Judaism, which is what this would have done.

Speaker 14 in effect had it actually happened. And that's kind of the way that he presents it.
That's not the way I understand it.

Speaker 14 So the way that I understand this is that, so if we go back to Alexander the Great and his successor, so when Alexander conquered all of these lands to create his empire, one of the places that he conquered was Egypt.

Speaker 14 In fact, he went through Judea in 332 BC on his way to Egypt.

Speaker 14 And while he was in Egypt, one of the things that he did was to establish a new city on the coast, which he named after himself, Alexandria.

Speaker 14 His successors then followed Alexander's example and established Greek cities throughout their kingdoms, which they named after themselves. And this was a deliberate policy.

Speaker 14 For one thing, it helped them establish their legitimacy, their ties to Alexander by emulating what he had done. Because, you know, basically, Alexander's successors were all usurpers.

Speaker 14 None of them were related to Alexander by blood. So they had to establish their connection to Alexander.
And one of the ways that they did it was by emulating what he had done.

Speaker 14 So they established throughout their kingdoms cities which they named after themselves. So you get Antiochias, you get Ptolemais, you get Seleucias, whatever, throughout their kingdoms.
And

Speaker 14 the sort of advantage of doing this was that these Greek cities, which literally are called Apolis, which is the word for city in Greek, these Greek cities had a lot of advantages for the inhabitants.

Speaker 14 So, if you were living in a city that was now newly established, or a city that had already existed but was rebuilt and given the status of a Greek city, you had the advantage of now living in a city where you had great new schools to send your kids to for an education, theaters where you could go and watch performances, new temples to worship the gods.

Speaker 14 There were other benefits, like for example, you had tax exemptions or tax breaks and things like that. So it was a great benefit, actually.

Speaker 14 But it also helped these successors of Alexander promote the spread of Greek culture. Because the kingdoms that these successors of Alexander ruled over were very diverse.

Speaker 14 They had different populations, ancient Near Eastern populations. They spoke different languages.
They had different customs. They worshiped different gods.

Speaker 14 And one of the ways that Alexander's successors were able to sort of unify these diverse populations was by spreading Greek culture.

Speaker 14 And the establishment of these Greek cities was a way to sort of promote the spread of Greek culture. And now, what you had were the youth learning the Greek language.

Speaker 14 And of course, even if you weren't young and you went to a theater play. And so this was a kind of a way that these successors of Alexander used Greek culture as a means of unifying their kingdoms.

Speaker 14 And I actually think that that's what Antiochus IV was trying to do here.

Speaker 14 I think, you know, we saw Judea, you know, it's got all these different people and this, these, these, with these different or what he probably thought were sort of weird customs or whatever.

Speaker 14 And, you know, he thought, well, let's bring them into the fold.

Speaker 14 Let's mandate that everybody's going to now adopt Greek culture and get rid of sort of these problems, which, you know, are fostered by these kind of internal civil wars and opposition and so on.

Speaker 14 So I think that he was using, I'll say this term, it's debated, but anyway, he's using Hellenization, meaning sort of the trying to promote the spread of Greek culture, not to punish the Jews per se, or to try to eliminate Judaism as a religion, but rather to deal with what he saw as a problematic part of his kingdom and, you know, bring all of these people into the fold, so to speak.

Speaker 14 So I think that that's what's going on. Now, of course, it didn't have the desired impact, right?

Speaker 1 Well, exactly, Jodi. So that might have been how he saw it.
but how do those in Judea, how do they see this?

Speaker 14 Exactly.

Speaker 14 And so here again, we get that very different picture that apparently there were some Jews, certainly among the elite, but maybe even among the masses, who either thought this was fine with them or, you know, were so busy just trying to subsist that they didn't really care one way or the other.

Speaker 14 And so they're among, you know, in some parts of the Jewish population, there was no opposition to this at all. And the revolt actually starts after the edict is issued by Antiochus IV,

Speaker 14 with an incident in a small town, not in Jerusalem. The revolt didn't start in Jerusalem.
And by the way, the first Jewish revolt against the Romans did not start in Jerusalem either.

Speaker 14 It started in Caesarea. But in this case, this revolt starts in a, I mean, really, it was a village that's about halfway between today Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.
It's called Modiin.

Speaker 14 And there there was a local village priest. His name was Mattathias, and he had five sons.

Speaker 14 And what happens is that the king's officials are sent out you know around the kingdom to make sure that everybody is complying with the new mandate and as part of that there was a sacrifice being offered to a greek god apparently with pork and a jew was about to offer this sacrifice and there's an officer a royal officer there overseeing this and this priest this local village priest mattathias who was already an elderly man at that point but he kills the jew This is interesting, right?

Speaker 14 So he kills the Jew for complying, and he also kills the officer.

Speaker 14 The Jew and the officer are killed, and that then sparks the outbreak of the revolt, because at that point, of course, you've killed an officer of the king.

Speaker 14 You've not only disobeyed the edict, but you've also killed one of the king's officers. And so the revolt officially starts with this, and Mattathias dies within a year of the outbreak of the revolt.

Speaker 14 As I said, he was elderly, but the revolt in its first years was led by the third son, whose name was Judah, who becomes known as Judah Maccabee. Maccabee is, it's a nickname.

Speaker 14 It means Judah the hammer.

Speaker 1 Yes, the word Maccabee, yes, I mean, because we said right, Maccabeean revolts. I mean, what actually was the word Maccabee?

Speaker 14 Yeah, so it comes from Judah's nickname, right, Maccabee, and it kind of gives this name to the whole revolt.

Speaker 14 The family, by the way, sometimes we refer to them as the Maccabees, but they're actually the Hasmonean family. So, and

Speaker 14 they and their descendants will be known as the Hasmoneans. But Maccabee comes from that nickname that's given to Judah.
And right, Judah the Hammer. And so he,

Speaker 14 you know, our sources describe this. And again, a lot of our information comes from 1st and 2 Maccabees, which are these two books that are included in the Catholic Bible.

Speaker 14 And then we also have some information from Josephus, the ancient Jewish historian. So what happens is that Judah gathers some supporters and they flee, right? They flee into the wilderness.

Speaker 14 They hide out. And they sort of, as they go around, they recruit more and more followers.

Speaker 14 And without going into a great deal of detail, of course, the Seleucid king sends, you know, troops to, I mean, Antiochus IV isn't going to put up with a revolt.

Speaker 14 So he sends troops to put down the revolt. And there are a series of battles that are fought.

Speaker 14 And it's one of the very, you know, really surprising things of history that the Mac, let's call them the Maccabees at this point. were successful.

Speaker 14 They basically have a guerrilla band is what it is, right? But somehow they were able to register some significant victories against the Seleucid forces.

Speaker 14 And there's been a lot of scholarship written about how this happened.

Speaker 14 And the other thing that I'll mention, though, is that at this very early stage of the revolt, it wasn't just an external revolt against the Seleucids, but it was also an internal civil war.

Speaker 14 Because our sources tell us that Judah and his followers also rooted out men or people who they refer to as lawless.

Speaker 14 And lawless means Jews who were not observing biblical Jewish law, meaning Jews who were going along with the royal mandate, right? Accepting it.

Speaker 14 So basically, it's kind of a two-pronged approach, on the one hand, rooting out anybody who is complying with this, you know, requirement to worship Greek gods and adopt Greek culture, and on the other hand, fighting against the Seleucid forces.

Speaker 4 Dashing through the store, Dave's looking for a gift.

Speaker 3 One you can't ignore, but not the socks he picks.

Speaker 5 I know, I'm putting them back.

Speaker 2 Hey, Dave, here's a tip: put scratchers on your list.

Speaker 7 Oh, scratchers, good idea.

Speaker 9 It's an easy shopping trip.

Speaker 5 We're glad we could assist.

Speaker 10 Thanks, random singing people.

Speaker 11 So be like Dave this holiday and give the gift of play.

Speaker 12 Scratchers from the California lottery. A little play can make your day.

Speaker 13 Please play responsibly. Must be 18 years or older to purchase play or claim.
Why choose a sleep number smart bed?

Speaker 14 Can I make my site softer?

Speaker 1 Can I make my site firmer?

Speaker 8 Can we sleep cooler?

Speaker 13 Sleep number does that, cools up to eight times faster, and lets you choose your ideal comfort on either side. Your sleep number setting.

Speaker 13 Enjoy a personalized comfort for better sleep night after night. It's our Black Friday sale, recharged this season with a bundle of cozy, soothing comfort.

Speaker 13 Now only $17.99 for our C2 mattress and base plus free premium delivery. Price is higher in Alaska and Hawaii.
Check it out at a SleepNumber store or sleepbumber.com today.

Speaker 1 So does that then make Jerusalem with that place? I mean, was that almost kind of an anti-Maccabean stronghold at that time? You know, it was almost like a spotlight.

Speaker 14 Yeah, so one of the interesting things, and I didn't mention this previously, but you know, when Antiochus IV, after the Egyptian campaign, and he finds all this unrest in Jerusalem and Judea.

Speaker 14 One of the things that he does is to build a fortress in Jerusalem called the Accra, which apparently overlooked the temple, or at least overlooked the temple, but also apparently maybe guarded some of the access to the temple precinct.

Speaker 1 So that was on Temple Mount as well, do you think?

Speaker 14 Well, no, it was not on the Temple Mount. And the location of the Accra is one of the most hotly debated points among archaeologists.
And that's a whole nother story we can go into.

Speaker 14 But anyway uh it was not on the temple mount whether it was adjacent to the temple mount or somewhere else in jerusalem you know a lot of disagreement about that uh but he garrisoned the term akra which in greek means high point suggests that it somehow overlooked the temple right it was some on some sort of a high point and he garrisoned this fortress the occra fortress with gentile soldiers that is non-jewish soldiers with the idea being again that they would be able to control the temple mount now after 167 bc when the revolt starts, of course, the Akra is still there, but the Akra will continue to be in Jerusalem and have a garrison of soldiers in it for another couple of decades until finally, one of finally, a couple of decades later, one of Judah's brothers, this is long after Judah dies, one of Judah's brothers manages to take the occra and razes it to the ground.

Speaker 14 But so that's the situation in Jerusalem, let's say after 167. It basically, you know, this, in addition, by the way, to

Speaker 14 very interesting, to the temple in Jerusalem being rededicated to the worship of Olympia and Zeus.

Speaker 14 You know, there was another temple dedicated to the God of Israel in a territory next door, which is Samaria, which is the territory of the Samarians or Samaritans.

Speaker 14 And that temple was rededicated to the same god, Zeus, Zeus Hellenius, also after the king issued his edict. So again, no more worship of the God of Israel in the territory of the Seleucid kingdom.
So

Speaker 14 this, kind of revolt, sort of internal civil war slash revolt goes on for several years until we get to the year 164 BC. And during those several years, again, the Maccabees registered some

Speaker 14 surprising victories against the Seleucids. It wasn't always, they weren't always, but they had some very significant victories.
And then what happens in 164 BC is that Antiochus IV dies.

Speaker 14 And when he died, he was succeeded to the throne by his son, Antiochus V, who was five years old at the time.

Speaker 14 Right. And so the kingdom now is put under the rule of a regent, basically.
And Antiochus V issues an edict, or his regent.

Speaker 1 Apart from being five years old, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 14 Yes, he was very ahead of his years. He issues an edict, and this edict then basically reversed his father's edict in allowing the Jews again to worship the God of Israel.

Speaker 14 The temple in Jerusalem was returned to them. They are, you know, Judaism is no longer outlawed.
Jews are now free to worship the God of Israel, you know, without fear of persecution.

Speaker 14 And the temple then is returned to the Jews, and Judah and his brothers then cleanse the temple to rededicate it to the God of Israel.

Speaker 14 So, in the meantime, all sorts of practices had been done in the temple that, you know, were again antithetical to Judaism, you know, the offering of pigs for sacrifice, and I mean, all sorts of stuff like that, which had basically polluted it in the eyes of Jews observing biblical law.

Speaker 14 So, you know, they cleanse cleansed the temple in order to rededicate it to the worship of the god of israel now one of the pieces of furniture cultic furniture in the jerusalem temple was a seven-branched lampstand

Speaker 14 called the menorah and there was special oil that was used for the menorah because of course these are basically oil lamps right so the oil that was used for the menorah, the lampstand in the temple, was a special oil that had to be prepared.

Speaker 14 It had to be ritually pure oil. And in the intervening three three years, you know, during the revolt, there had been no preparation allowed of anything like that.

Speaker 14 There was no oil, you know, no special oil to light the menorah. So the story, this is a story now.
We're going into stories. But the story goes that they're cleansing the temple to rededicate it.

Speaker 14 They need to light the lampstand and

Speaker 14 there's no oil. And they find, you know, a little jar of special oil that was somehow, you know, tucked away that had enough oil in it to last for one day and one day only or one night or whatever.

Speaker 14 And they light the lampstand lampstand, and somehow, miraculously, the oil burns instead of for one day, it burns for eight days.

Speaker 14 And in the meantime, they're able to go and prepare new special oil to keep the lampstand lit.

Speaker 14 And that then becomes sort of the origin story, if you wish, of Hanukkah, the holiday of Hanukkah, which basically celebrates the outcome of the revolt, right?

Speaker 14 But this symbol of the lampstand becomes associated with the holiday of Hanukkah. And so Hanukkah then becomes a holiday that is celebrated for eight days, right?

Speaker 14 Eight days and eight nights, and where, you know, the lampstand. Now, the lampstand, by the way, in the Jerusalem temple had seven branches, right? It had seven branches.

Speaker 14 It had a central branch in the middle, and then three branches on either side of that.

Speaker 14 Well, for the holiday of Hanukkah, that lampstand for use in the holiday of Hanukkah, the lampstand was kind of adapted and an extra branch on either side was added to it.

Speaker 14 So now you have one central stand,

Speaker 14 right?

Speaker 14 And then four arms on either side of it with those four arms meaning eight symbolizing the eight days and nights you know of hanukkah and so for the celebration of the holiday of hanukkah it became you know it became traditional to light this lampstand and every night an additional lamp was was lit and still is lit until you know all of them are lit on finally on the last night of Hanukkah.

Speaker 14 So that's how we get that, what's called the Hanukkah menorah, right? That is sort of the symbol of the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah today.

Speaker 14 And so the holiday of Hanukkah actually celebrates the outcome of the revolt here, at least in 164, with the rededication of the temple to the God of Israel and symbolizing really the continued survival of the Jewish religion, right, of Judaism until today.

Speaker 14 So here I just want to point out to your listeners that Hanukkah, therefore, has nothing to do with Christmas. It has nothing to do necessarily with gift giving.

Speaker 14 There's no connection between Hanukkah and Christmas except that they occur at roughly the same time of year. I teach my students about this a lot.

Speaker 14 I do my little, what I call my Hanukkah rant and rave, which is that if you ask most people, at least in the U.S.

Speaker 14 today and probably in many other parts of the world, if they know of any Jewish holiday at all, can you name a Jewish holiday? Many of them will only be familiar with Hanukkah.

Speaker 1 Well, it's the same here. I would say I'd be exactly the same in the UK.

Speaker 14 Right, exactly. And the reason is because of its proximity to Christmas.
Now, so because of that, Hanukkah has become presented as a major Jewish holiday, but actually it's not a major Jewish holiday.

Speaker 14 In fact, it's a minor Jewish holiday because the major Jewish holidays are biblically mandated. In other words, the major Jewish holidays have a scriptural basis in the five books of Moses.

Speaker 14 These are holidays that the God of Israel commanded his people to observe. So the major Jewish holidays well, you have the great pilgrimage holidays to the Jerusalem temple, right?

Speaker 14 So you have Tsukkot, which is the Feast of Tabernacles and Passover and Shabuot, which is the Feast of Weeks, and then you have the New Year, and then you have Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, and those are the major holidays.

Speaker 14 So this holiday, Hanukkah, has no scriptural basis. It is a holiday that was invented probably by the Hasmoneans, the successors of the Maccabees, to legitimize their dynasty.

Speaker 14 It's a holiday that probably was not, well, I could say certainly was not recognized. for a while among at least some sectors of the Jewish population.

Speaker 14 The Qumran sect associated with the Dead Sea Scrolls would not have recognized this as a legitimate holiday.

Speaker 14 So the only reason it becomes important or it's important today is because of its temporal proximity to Christmas. I like to compare it to Thanksgiving here in the U.S.

Speaker 14 It's a holiday that's kind of like a national holiday in a way, but not a religious holiday.

Speaker 1 Origins of Hanukkah is very much associated with the end of this part of the revolt, but we probably should stress it's this part because there is actually more to come.

Speaker 14 Absolutely. And so everybody thinks Hanukkah, you know, and the cleansing of the temple is the end of the story.

Speaker 14 But what happens after that is that Judah and his brothers continue the revolt, even after the rededication of the temple, because the Seleucid kingdom was growing very weak.

Speaker 14 And they took advantage of that. And, you know, there's another series of battles, and Judah loses his life, and, you know, another couple of his brothers, you know, eventually die.

Speaker 14 But what happens eventually is that under a couple of Judah's other brothers, Jonathan and Simon, eventually the Jews are able to gain independence, complete independence from Seleucid rule.

Speaker 14 This finally happens under Simon, the youngest of the five brothers. So by 140 BC, there's an independent Jewish kingdom in Judea ruled by Judah's youngest brother.

Speaker 14 And then after Simon's death, the successors of these brothers, the Hasmoneans, rule this kingdom, which over the course of time expands through territorial expansion.

Speaker 14 They take over adjoining territories also that had been under Seleucid rule.

Speaker 14 Very interesting, they forcibly convert the populations of these territories that they conquer, which were not Jewish territories.

Speaker 14 They forcibly convert them to Judaism and eventually establish a pretty significant independent kingdom that encompasses substantial areas outside of Judea.

Speaker 1 So, yes, absolutely. There's much more to the story, which we have to do in separate podcasts in their own right.
But still, Jodi, congratulations.

Speaker 1 You've filled in, you've given us so much information over the past 15 minutes or so, as you always always do, whether it's the Tomb of King Herod or the Dead Sea Scrolls, Origins of Jerusalem, or Petra, or the Origins of Hanukkah and the Maccabean Revolt, as you have done today.

Speaker 1 It just goes for me to say, as always, thank you so much for taking the time to come on the podcast today.

Speaker 14 Thank you.

Speaker 1 Well, there you go. There was Professor Jody Magnus returning to the show to explain the origins of Hanukkah and its link to this Maccabeean revolt that occurred more than 2,000 years ago.

Speaker 1 I hope you enjoyed the episode. Thank you for listening.
Please follow the ancients on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. It really helps us, and you'll be doing us a big favor.

Speaker 1 Don't forget, you can also listen to us and all of History Hit's podcasts ad-free, and watch hundreds of TV documentaries when you subscribe at historyhit.com/slash subscribe.

Speaker 16 Take control of the numbers and supercharge your small business with zero. That's X E R O

Speaker 16 With our easy-to-use accounting software with automation and reporting features. You'll spend less time on manual tasks and more time understanding how your business is doing.
87% of surveyed U.S.

Speaker 16 customers agree Zero helps improve financial visibility. Search Zero with an X or visit zero.com slash ACAST to start your 30-day free trial.
Conditions apply.

Speaker 4 Dashing through the store, Dave's looking for a gift.

Speaker 5 One you can't ignore, but not the stocks he picks. I know, I'm putting them back.

Speaker 2 Hey, Dave, here's a tip.

Speaker 6 Put scratchers on your list.

Speaker 7 Oh, scratchers, good idea.

Speaker 9 It's an easy shopping trip.

Speaker 5 We're glad we could assist.

Speaker 10 Thanks, random singing people.

Speaker 6 So be like Dave this holiday and give the gift of play.

Speaker 12 Scratchers from the count work and lottery. A little play can make your day.

Speaker 13 Please play responsibly. Must be 18 years or older to purchase play or claim.