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

ANTIOCHUS IV EPIPHANES IN JERUSALEM 49
arrogantly, our problem disappears. Antiochus, as a wicked king,
would obviously continue to be characterized by after leaving
Jerusalem, as much as before.
To summarize: recognizing that represents leaves
us with less reason to assume that both narratives describe the same
event. If previously we thought that 1 Maccabees, just as 2 Maccabees,
refers to both massacre and robbery, this turns out not to be true.
1 Maccabees makes no reference to massacre, which is certainly a
major part of the story of 2 Maccabees 5. This is our first point
against the usual reconstruction.
Second, even without the massacre, the account in 1 Maccabees
is very hard to accept. For after reporting that all the central Temple
vessels were stolen in 169 and bemoaning the event in a dirge (vv
25-28), it goes on to resume the story with the note that "after two
years of days" Antiochus sent a new governor to Jerusalem (v. 29);
new trouble came in the wake of that development. Should we really
believe that such a serious attack on the Temple elicited no immediate
reaction? Should we really believe that the Temple cult could continue
for even a day, despite the loss of its most central appurtenances,
or that life in Judaea and Jerusalem would go on with nothing
remarkable to report for another year or two? In contrast, the story
in 2 Maccabees 5 passes directly, and naturally, from the pillage of
the Temple to the sending of the new governor and new troubles.
Third, Josephus, a secondary but important source, reports that
Antiochus visited Jerusalem twice, dating the visits explicitly to 143
SE (Ant. 12.246-47) and 145 SE (Ant. 12.248ff.), i.e., 170/169 and
168/167 BCE, and placing the robbery of the Temple in the context
of the second visit (Ant. 12.249-50). Josephus' account of the first
visit has Antiochus stealing nothing from the Temple and killing only
his opponents—a rational and understandable act, however unpleasant;
his account of the second visit, just as in 2 Maccabees, has
Antiochus massacring and enslaving thousands and also robbing the
Temple. Indeed, in §251 Josephus even distinguishes those killed
from those enslaved, in a way very reminiscent of 2 Macc. 5:14;
there is nothing like this in 1 Maccabees 1.
Josephus, in summary, reports that Antiochus visited Jerusalem
and robbed there twice. His account, just as much as Daniel, encourages
us to add the narrative in 2 Maccabees 5 to the one in 1 Maccabees
1. But, according to Josephus, during Antiochus' first visit to
the Jerusalem (Ant. 12.247), the king had no contact whatsoever