Abstract
Abstract This chapter offers an overview of 1 Maccabees, which is in the Catholic Old Testament and the Protestant Apocrypha. The book is a detailed historiographic narrative about political and military affairs in Palestine mainly from 175 to 135 bce. It recounts the catastrophic policies of the Seleucid king Antiochus IV, whom the book presents as prohibiting Jewish traditions, which triggers the Maccabean revolt. 1 Maccabees presents the revolt as militarily successful and led by the Maccabees, especially Judas. This leads to the creation of the Hasmonean dynasty, an independent Jewish state led in turn by the Maccabean family. The book is a kind of Hasmonean propaganda. It attempts to legitimize the Hasmonean dynasty, which was unpopular when the text was composed in the early first century bce, by highlighting its origins in the Maccabean revolt.
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