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

54 DANIEL R. SCHWARTZ
Jerusalem, the massacre and enslavement of multitudes of Jerusalemites,
and the pillage of the Temple. The Hasmonean rebellion came only
later, after Antiochus imposed his decrees against Judaism. 13
If we now return to our last question and ask why the author of
1 Maccabees conflated the pillage of the Temple with the attack
upon Jerusalem in 169 BCE and skipped over the rebellion of
168, the answer is now obvious. On the one hand, the author of
1 Maccabees was definitely a pro-Hasmonean, and his whole work
is a piece of Hasmonean propaganda. Chapter one of 1 Maccabees,
correspondingly, is designed to present the terrible situation of the
Jews under Antiochus Epiphanes. Their trials and tribulations reach
their lowest point at the very end of the chapter ("and there was a
very great wrath upon Israel," 1:64), preparing the reader, at the
opening of chapter two, for the upbeat introduction of the Hasmoneans,
the family that was to bring salvation to Israel (5:62). In this context,
any admission that there were Jewish patriots who raised the
banner of rebellion before the Hasmonean revolt would be totally
counter-productive, so none was made. There is no reference to the
rebellion of 168 BCE.
On the other hand, however, while the author of 1 Maccabees
had good reason to ignore the rebels of 168, he had no reason at
all to ignore the pillage of the Temple that followed upon the repression
of that rebellion. On the contrary, such a graphic illustration
of Antiochus' wickedness would have suited his purposes admirably. 14
To have his cake and eat it too, he moved the pillage up to 169.
In summary, 1 Maccabees claims that Antiochus' plundering of
the Temple in 169 BCE elicited no response; 2 Maccabees and
Josephus claim that Antiochus robbed the Temple only a year or
more later and that that brought an immediate reaction. The latter
version sounds more reasonable, and the former version is easily
explained away as a result of the tendencies of Hasmonean propaganda.
Moreover, 2 Maccabees and Josephus seem to be supported
by Daniel 11 and now by 4Q248 which, of course, has much in
common with Daniel 11—12.
13 See Tcherikover, Hellenistic Civilization and the Jews, esp. 186—90.
14 See esp. 1 Macc. 1:10, which characterizes Antiochus simply as a "wicked
sprout" from the stock of his wicked hellenistic forbears (see esp. vv. 3 and 9). On
the wicked "Gentiles roundabout" of 1 Maccabees, see my "The Other in 1 and
2 Maccabees," in Tolerance and Intolerance in Early Judaism and Christianity, ed. G. N.
Stanton and G. G. Stroumsa (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 30-37.