historical perspectives: from the hasmoneans to bar kokhba in light ...

ANTIOGHUS IV EPIPHANES IN JERUSALEM 47
(2) 4:21 does not call Antiochus' trip to Jaffa an to Egypt (or
to anywhere else); (3) in 2 Maccabees, plainly means "invasion."
Thus, for example, 2 Maccabees 13 begins with an account
of an invasion of Judaea by Antiochus Eupator and Lysias, along
with a huge army, and ends with the statement that "so ended
Antiochus' and his withdrawal" (13:26). To quote Ettelson:
(apart from 1 Maccabees) "The word is found elsewhere in
the LXX only in II Macc., where it occurs indeed six times, but
always in the hostile sense of 'inroad', 'assault' (II Macc. 5:1; 8:12;
12:21; 13:26; 14:15; 15:8)." 6
Hence, there remains a real contradiction between 1 and 2
Maccabees: the former places Antiochus' robbery of the Temple in
169 BCE and the latter, in 168. Of course, an obvious possibility is
that Antiochus IV visited and robbed Jerusalem after both of his
Egyptian campaigns. Indeed, Dan. 11:28-30 seems to refer to two
such visits. 7 However, we cannot simply arrange the account in
2 Maccabees 5 after the one in 1 Maccabees 1, because they both
report similar things about the visit: 1 Macc. 1:21-23 gives a long
and detailed list of the Temple vessels and Temple property that
Antiochus stole, while 2 Macc. 5:15—16, although lacking in details,
reports that Antiochus entered the Temple and stole the holy vessels
and dedications. If Antiochus stole the long list of central Temple
items in 169, including the golden altar, the table of presentation,
the candelabrum and all their ancillary vessels, not to mention all
the other vessels and gold he could find, there wouldn't have been
much left to take in 168.
Hence, the reconstructions current today assume that whether
Antiochus visited Jerusalem once or twice, the story of the Temple
robbery, told in 2 Maccabees 5, in fact refers to the first visit. Some
scholars, including Schurer and Gera, presume that Antiochus visited
Jerusalem only once, in 169, and so maintain that everything
in 2 Maccabees 5 applies to that visit; even the many scholars who
6 H. W. Ettelson, "The Integrity of I Maccabees," Transactions of the Connecticut
Academy of Arts and Sciences 27 (1925): 319. More or less the same is indicated by
the usage of the best contemporary guide to 2 Maccabees' vocabulary; see A.
Mauersberger, Polybios-Lexikon, vol. I/2 (Berlin: Akademic-Verlag, 1961), 1063-66.
' Although this is denied by some, such as Schurer, History of the Jewish People,
152 n. 37, followed by Gera, Judaea and Mediterranean Politics, 155 n. 132. For insistence
that Daniel implies two visits by Antiochus, see V. Tcherikover, Hellenistic
Civilization and the Jews (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1959), 186.