Maccabean Revolt Research Articles

Elena Dugan’s “Apocalypse of the Birds”: A critical review

Elena Dugan’s book, The Apocalypse of the Birds: 1 Enoch and the Jewish Revolt Against Rome, seeks to overturn the prevailing scholarly consensus that the “Animal Apocalypse” (1 En. 85–90) is a unified work, written at the time of the Maccabean revolt or shortly thereafter. She argues that it is two works and that the second part, called by her “The Apocalypse of the Birds,” was written in the latter ‘60s C.E. It does not describe the Maccabean revolt, but the “first Jewish revolt” against Rome and the defeat of Cestius Gallus in 66 C.E. She points out that the latter part of the “Animal Apocalypse” is not attested at Qumran, and she tries to show on literary grounds that the work has two parts. She further points to many alleged deficiencies in the “Maccabean hypothesis” and strengths in her “Roman hypothesis.” This review constitutes a detailed rebuttal to Dugan’s book by a representative of the “Maccabean hypothesis.” It also makes a new and original case for an allusion to the “Animal Apocalypse” in Jubilees 4:19, something Dugan denies.

Forgetting the Seleucids

Abstract The place given to Antiochus III’s first edict for Jerusalem (Ant. 12.138–44) in the historiography of Hellenistic period Judea and Judaism, the Maccabean revolt, and the Hasmonean state is exceptional. But this is an internal Seleucid document that is absent of any local Judean perspectives, and in fact does not contain the actual instrument of royal benefaction. In recent years there has been a growing realization that empire and imperial rule relied on the acceptance of local elites that was guaranteed through negotiation. This paper traces Antiochus III’s Judean elite negotiants and the ways in which this decree was received and employed in Judea in Ben Sira, 1 and 2 Maccabees. It thus restores a local perspective to this crucial moment in Jewish history.

Dispatches from Kolob

Dispatches from Kolob

Mutual Empowerment in the "Power Era": US Jews and American Indians in the Post–Civil Rights Movement United States

Mutual Empowerment in the "Power Era":US Jews and American Indians in the Post–Civil Rights Movement United States1 Avery Weinman (bio) On December 7, 1969, Joel Brooks and Rabbi Roger E. Herst—two US Jews representing the northern California division of the American Jewish Congress (AJCongress), a major institution of organized Jewish life in the United States—moored the newly rechristened boat Shalom I to the crags of Alcatraz Island in the heart of the San Francisco Bay.2 Brooks and Herst had sailed to the island to answer a public call for donations and support issued by Indians of All Tribes (IAT), the American Indian activist group who began their occupation of Alcatraz, the notorious former federal penitentiary ominously nicknamed "The Rock," a month earlier in order to call attention to the United States' violations of tribes' treaty rights.3 Over the course of nineteen months, from November 20, 1969 to June 11, 1971, IAT's Alcatraz occupation electrified a rapt public already thrumming with anti-establishment radicalism.4 For American Indians, Alcatraz came to symbolize core tenets of Red Power: full-throated rejection of assimilation, renewed interest in tribal sociocultural and linguistic traditions, and staunch advocacy for American Indian self-determination and legal autonomy on ancestral lands.5 [End Page 339] IAT designed the occupation primarily to speak to American Indians, but their activism also resonated with US Jews. The day that Brooks and Herst arrived on Alcatraz was the eighteenth day of the occupation, but it was also the fourth night of Hanukkah, the holiday in which Jews celebrate the reclamation of Jerusalem from Roman forces and the rededication of the Second Temple during the Maccabean Revolt in the second century BCE. For AJCongress members like Brooks and Herst who were sympathetic to IAT's cause, this was a meaningful confluence of liberation. In addition to ten cases packed with much-needed food and blankets for IAT activists living on Alcatraz, Brooks and Herst also brought a plastic hanukkiyah to use in a special Hanukkah service that symbolized Jewish and American Indian solidarity.6 On the windswept island, Brooks and Herst joined IAT activists for a feast of "Hebrew food" and recited the Hanukkah blessings to mark the "Jewish holiday of national liberation."7 Following services, Brooks and Herst explained their support for IAT to the San Francisco Examiner, making special mention of parallels in Jewish and American Indian history.8 For Brooks, the fact that "Jews know what it means to be dispossessed of their land" meant that they, like American Indians, understood the struggle for self-determination in their ancient ancestral territories. Similarly, Herst connected the Jewish past to the American Indian present in a comment to IAT activist Al Miller (Seminole), remarking that "Hanukkah is our festival of liberation from oppressive forces… We feel Alcatraz will become your symbol of that same struggle."9 The sentiments shared by Brooks and Herst echoed the press release that the Northern California division of the AJCongress had published days earlier, [End Page 340] which expressed the organization's hope that the traditional exchange of Hanukkah gifts, "Indian and Jewish folk-dancing," and occasion to "break bread" in celebration of "one of man's first attempts to gain national liberation" would make the joint IAT-AJCongress Hanukkah service powerful for both groups.10 Before departing the island, Brooks and Herst gathered with Miller and another American Indian IAT activist, Frank Robbins (tribe unknown), for a photograph to mark the event (see figure 1). In front of an old prison sign newly changed from "United States Property" to "United Indian Property," the four posed together, standing side by side in an interwoven pattern, as they the gripped the hanukkiyah in solidarity.11 This arresting photograph symbolizes an understudied trend: in the post–civil rights movement "Power Era" in the United States, amid a domestic surge of cultural pluralism and global waves of counterhegemonic radicalism, US Jews and American Indians looked to each other as sources of mutual empowerment. Here, the term "Power Era" refers to the discursive world of the late 1960s and 1970s, which was characterized by activists' enthusiastic embrace of third worldism, internationalism, antiracism, and...

Gandhi and the World of the Hebrew Bible: The Case of Daniel as Satyagrahi

Among the biblical characters used as examples in developing and explaining satyagraha, Daniel is the most important after Jesus. In Gandhi’s speeches and writings from 1909 to 1946, Daniel served as the ideal satyagrahi both in South Africa and in India. Over time, Daniel received company in the gallery of examples in which Socrates occupied a prominent place. Depending on theme, place, and audience, past and present characters from different traditions and scriptures accompanied Daniel. They represented the development of aspects of satyagraha: nonviolent active resistance as a weapon of the strong, courageous actions as a deliberate choice without excitement, love for the antagonist, preparedness to suffer, and no fear of death. All these aspects are embodied by the Gandhian Daniel. Gandhi emphasized the active role of Daniel as a resister, not the traditional view of the victim of court intrigues. In this paper, I argue that the image of the ideal satyagrahi Daniel could be strengthened by combining the court narratives from the first half and the apocalypses from the second one of the biblical book. The article provides context both for Gandhi’s political and religious practice and for the book of Daniel. The strange world of apocalypses seems to contradict the model of the Gandhian figure Daniel. However, they are crisis literature, and it makes sense to observe how the protagonist and his audience in times of occupation, persecutions, and war ask for guidance. Apocalypses show how Jewish resistance to foreign rule was conceived. The result of the survey is a complex image of competing literatures from roughly the same period and the hands, heads, beliefs, and sufferings behind them. The view of the end of history, a program of nonviolence, and hope in the Daniel apocalypse serve as contrast propaganda to contemporary visions on the violent Maccabean revolt and the Seleucid persecutions. They offer a nonviolent counterweight to the ideology of the state propaganda of the Seleucids. They contradict the historiographic idealization of the Maccabean revolt and its armed resistance.

The Changing Ideology of Hasmonean Family

Makedonyalı Büyük İskender’in, günümüz Filistin, İsrail ve Ürdün topraklarının bir kısmından ibaret olan Yahudiye’yi MÖ 332 yılında fethetmesiyle bölge Yahudileri, Helenistik hâkimiyetin altına girmiştir. Büyük İskender’in ölümünün ardındansa geride bıraktığı devasa imparatorluk üzerinde generalleri birbiriyle mücadele etmeye başlamış ve nihayetinde çeşitli Helenistik krallıklar kurulmuştur. Yahudiye, MÖ 301 yılında bahsi geçen Helenistik devletlerden Ptolemaios Devleti hâkimiyeti altında kalmışsa da devam eden mücadeleler kapsamında MÖ 200 yılında bir diğer Helenistik Devlet olan Seleukoslara tabi hâle gelmiştir. Seleukos hâkimiyetinin başlangıcı itibariyle dinî ve idari anlamda nispeten rahat bir ortama sahip olan Yahudi ahali, ilerleyen dönemde özellikle dinî ve idari bazı yaptırımlara maruz kalacaktır. Bahse konu yaptırımlar sebebiyle bölgede Modeinli Mattathias ve beş oğlu önderliğinde literatürde Makkabi İsyanı olarak bilinen isyan hareketi başlamıştır. Hareketi yürüten aile Haşmonayim Ailesi veya Makkabiler olarak bilinmektedir. Haşmonayim adı, ailenin kaynaklarda varlığı tespit edilebilen büyük atasından ötürü kullanılmaktadır. Makkabi adı ise esasen, Mattathias’ın oğlu Ioudas Makkabaios’un epitheti olup, onun gösterdiği başarılar sebebiyle hem isyanı hem de aileyi anmak için kullanılır hâle gelmiştir. Haşmonayim veya Makkabiler olarak bilinen aile ilk olarak MÖ 167 yılında, Seleukos idaresi altında bulunan Yahudilerin dönemin kralı IV. Antiokhos Epiphanes’in dinî dayatmalarına karşı Mattathias tarafından başlatılan isyan hareketiyle tarih sahnesine çıkmıştır. Mattathias’ın ölümünün ardından hareket, geride kalan beş oğlu ve sonrasında ise torunları tarafından devam ettirilmiştir. Başlangıç itibariyle yerel bir isyan hüviyetinde olan hareket, zaman içerisinde ailenin bir hanedanlığa dönüşmesine yol açmıştır. Hanedanlık olarak mücadelesini sürdüren Haşmonayim Ailesi, Seleukoslar karşısında çeşitli vesilelerle elde ettikleri kazanımlarla önce vassal bir yapıya ve nihayetinde ise bağımsız bir siyasi yapıya sahip olmuştur. Aile hakkında birincil kaynak niteliğindeki bilgiler genel itibariyle apokrif Makabeler Kitapları ile Yahudi tarihçi Flavius Iosephus’un eserlerinden edinilmektedir. Mevcut bilgiler doğrultusunda MÖ 167 ile MÖ 63 yılları aralığını kapsayan ailenin faaliyet dönemi üzerine özellikle yabancı literatürde, ailenin ve hareketin siyasi tarihi ile dinler tarihi özellikle Yahudilik açısından önemi ve etkileri hususunda çeşitli incelemeler yapılmıştır. Ancak ailenin faaliyetlerini yürütürken benimsediği hareket motivasyonu ile meşruiyet kazandıkları dayanak noktaları üzerine pek fazla çalışma bulunmamaktadır. Hâlbuki ailenin tarihi seyri takip edilirken sahip oldukları hareket ideolojisinin, mücadele gerekçelerinin ve meşruiyet dayanaklarının süreklilik arz edecek şekilde değişiklik gösterdiği ve güncellendiği dikkat çekmektedir. Bu çalışmada, Haşmonayim Hanedanlığının siyasi tarihi ve bir din olarak Yahudiliğe ifade ettiği anlamdan ziyade, ailenin tarih sahnesine çıkışından sahip oldukları bağımsız devletin yıkılışına kadar geçen süre içerisindeki ideolojisi, meşruiyet dayanakları ve bahse konu ögeler üzerinde meydana gelen değişiklikler sebepleriyle beraber incelenmeye çalışılmıştır. İncelemeler neticesinde meydana gelen değişimlerin özellikle ailenin hareket kapsamında edindiği kazanımlara ve mevcut siyasi konjonktüre göre gerçekleştiği belirlenmiştir. Ailenin hareket ideolojisi üzerinde gerçekleşen değişimler belli hadiseler neticesinde meydana gelmiştir. Bu yönüyle ailenin hareket motivasyonunu isyan dönemi ideolojisi, hanedanlık dönemi ideolojisi ve devlet dönemi ideolojisi olmak üzere üç kısımda incelemek mümkündür. Hareket henüz isyan dönemindeyken ailenin ideolojisi millilikten oldukça uzaktır ve din temelli bir zeminde bulunmaktadır. Aile hareket meşruiyetini, aynı ideolojisi gibi, bu dönemde dinî dayanaklardan almaktadır. Makkabi İsyanı’nın hedeflerinin başarıya ulaştığı sonraki hanedanlık döneminde ailenin ideolojisi ve meşruiyet zemini büyük bir değişime uğramıştır. Artık ortada dinî bir hedef kalmaması sebebiyle aile milli bir ideolojiyle hareket ederek siyasi bağımsızlık hedefleri güder hâle gelmiştir. Siyasi bağımsızlığın tesis edildiği devlet döneminde ise artık siyasi bağımsızlık gibi bir hedef mevcut olmadığı için hanedanlığın bekasını koruma ve kişisel iktidar güdüsüyle hareket edildiği dikkat çekmektedir.

Государство Хасмонеев в современной российской историографии (1991-2020 гг.)

The paper aims to reveal views of the Russian historians of 1991-2020 on the Hasmonean state. Scientific originality of the study lies in the fact that the author for the first time provides a historiographical analysis of the problem. The researcher’s attention is focused on the following issues: causes of the Maccabean Revolt and influence of the Hellenistic tradition on the Hasmonean state. In fact, most scientists agree on the following points: the Maccabean Revolt was provoked by the harsh anti-Jewish policy of Antiochus IV Epiphanes; the Jewish statehood was based on the Hellenistic model with influence of the local tradition. The researcher concludes on the necessity to create a fundamental work on the history of Judea of the II-I centuries B.C.

Aluzje literackie w teologicznej ocenie działań arcykapłana Szymona w 1 Mch 14,5

Każda z ksiąg biblijnych odsłania swe orędzie teologiczne w bardzo zróżnicowany sposób literacki. W analizowanym wersecie 1 Mch 14,5 – jak i wszystkich pozostałych w księdze – zastosowany został centon, znany i praktykowany w starożytności gatunek literacki. Łączy w sobie poszczególne sformułowania wersetów wcześniejszych ksiąg starotestamentowych budując własne przesłanie teologiczne. W ten sposób powstaje aluzja intertekstualna, której fundamentem jest całkowita zgodność treściowa wersetów 1 Mch z przywoływanymi zwrotami. Zasadnicze znaczenie posiada literacki kontekst decydujący o doborze aluzji. On bowiem wpływa na teologiczną nośność samych wersetów i to, co proponują one ze swej treści dla skonstruowania nowego orędzia. Aluzje odsłaniają rzeczywisty sens opisywanych wydarzeń w kontekście teologicznym. Odkrycie właściwej intencji hagiografa pozwala czytelnikowi poprawnie ocenić postępowanie poszczególnych bohaterów, w tym przypadku Szymona Machabeusza, arcykapłana Żydów z okresu powstania machabejskiego.

Antiochus IV, Jewish Quarrels, and the Maccabean Revolt

This paper discusses how Jewish quarreling was a reason that Antiochus IV entered Jerusalem in 168 BCE and violently acted against the anti-Seleucid Jews. Two primary sources, 1+2 Maccabees and Josephus, are used extensively to demonstrate that this was indeed the case.

The Circulation of Ptolemaic Silver in Seleucid Coele Syria and Phoenicia from Antiochus III to the Maccabean Revolt: Monetary Policies and Political Consequences

The Circulation of Ptolemaic Silver in Seleucid Coele Syria and Phoenicia from Antiochus III to the Maccabean Revolt: Monetary Policies and Political Consequences

The meaning of the noun ὁρκισμός in 1 Macc 6:62

The discussed text of 1 Macc 6:62 contains the noun ὁρκισμός, which defines an oath given to the leader of the Maccabean revolt by the king, and which is worthy of investigation. The fact that this oath is taken by the most noble person in the country, and is given to his adversary who played the highest role in the insurrection, i.e. that of the leader, reveals the term’s significant value. Additionally, the two surrounding verbs related to the activity of taking an oath show that the term must be interpreted as an extremely important activity undertaken solemnly with a high degree of responsibility on the part of the one who takes it, so that he can keep it. What is at stake is personal honor, which guarantees the trust of the other party. An oath taken in such a way should be kept by any means necessary, even if this would require the highest costs and efforts from the one who made an oath to its beneficiary. If breaking the oath entirely ruins one’s honor, then no office can compensate for one’s loss of uthority. In the discussed book, this downfall is also related to the fact that, contrary to the Jews, promises are never kept by the Gentiles.

The Influence of Societal Changes in the Late Second Temple Period on the Functions and Composition of Psalms

ABSTRACTThis study deals with the question of why there is a Book of Psalms in the Hebrew Bible. In previous studies the question has typically been seen as an either-or issue between liturgical, educational, and prophetic use of the psalms. It is shown in this study that all these different uses persisted at least until the end of the Second Temple period, were common to both now biblical and apocryphal psalms, and together contributed to the emergence of a canonical book of psalms. While it will be demonstrated that a division of psalm material cannot be based on such functional indicators or a sense of prestige given to a specific collection of psalms, it will be argued that the Maccabean revolt led to a historical process that incidentally created a watershed between most psalms composed before and after this gradual process. Such markers are visible in the style of the psalms and their functional markers but most of all in a marked shift of perspective from a more general aim to influence the whole people of Israel common to earlier psalms to the consistent use of group perspectives in later works. This shift in the perspective of psalms also contributed to the recontextualization of many earlier psalms to new settings, which further contributed to a later perceivable boundary between the earlier and later psalm material. By focusing on the historical processes instigated by radical societal changes this study offers fresh alternatives for understanding the complex developments that led to the eventual canonization of a book of psalms.

Katell Berthelot. In Search of the Promised Land? The Hasmonean Dynasty between Biblical Models and Hellenistic Diplomacy. Translated by Margaret Rigaud. Journal of Ancient Judaism Supplements 24. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2018. 494 pp.

Reviewed by: In Search of the Promised Land? The Hasmonean Dynasty between Biblical Models and Hellenistic Diplomacy by Katell Berthelot Robert Doran Katell Berthelot. In Search of the Promised Land? The Hasmonean Dynasty between Biblical Models and Hellenistic Diplomacy. Translated by Margaret Rigaud. Journal of Ancient Judaism Supplements 24. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2018. 494 pp. doi:10.1017/S036400941900014X Katell Bertholet investigates the bases for the claim by many twentieth-century scholars that the Hasmoneans had intended to reclaim the land promised by God to Israel or to reinstate the kingdom of David and Solomon. In her introductory chapter, Berthelot provides a succinct overview of historical scholarship on the Hasmonean period from 1850 to 1950, which supported the view that the Hasmoneans had set out to reclaim the Promised Land of Israel. She notes the dissident voices that have downplayed the biblical models for Hasmonean [End Page 206] action and preferred a more "secular" model for the dynasty's aims. The author points to problems in seeking biblical models to explain the Hasmonean policies: (a) there are several borders given in the Bible for the Promised Land; (b) it was not clear how long the commandment to conquer the Promised Land was to endure; (c) there is no biblical precedent for the forced conversion of non-Jews. She emphasizes that one must be cautious in speaking of the Hasmoneans as a whole, and that each ruler must be studied separately. After this introductory chapter, the work is divided into three parts. Part 1 concentrates on the account of the actions of Judas, Jonathan, and Simon in 1 Maccabees. The author first provides an analysis of 1 Maccabees, and looks at 2 Maccabees and the parallel accounts in Josephus's War and Antiquities. She finds that: "1) the author of 1 Maccabees could have made the land (even if only the Judean territory) into a much more explicit motivation for the Maccabean revolt, but he did not do so; 2) the reconquest of the promised land is not listed among the objectives of the revolt in either 2 Maccabees or the writings of Josephus" (91). She further concludes that "the conquest of parcels of land within and outside Judea did however constitute a major economic, demographic, political and military incentive for the Hasmoneans" (93). As for biblical models, she finds that Joshua and the war against the nations of Canaan do not play a major role in 1 Maccabees, but rather that the primary biblical touchstones are royal figures—David, Solomon—who provide legitimation for the rule of the Hasmoneans. She finds no mention of the purification of the land as a goal. Her analysis of the response of Simon to the threat of Antiochus VII at 1 Maccabees 15:33—"We have neither taken foreign land nor seized foreign property, but only the inheritance of our ancestors, which at one time had been unjustly taken by our enemies"—shows how Simon here does not base his answer on the notion that the land had been given to Israel as a divine gift, but grounds it on the juridical category of ancestral ownership, an argument found in other territorial disputes in the Hellenistic world. In part 2, Berthelot examines the Judean territorial expansion from John Hyrcanus to Aristobulus II. She shows by her analysis of the sources that the territorial expansion from Simon on was made possible by a specific set of historical and political circumstances: the Seleucid Empire was becoming weaker, and the Romans did not interfere until the reigns of Aristobulus II and Hyrcanus II. "Besides these historical circumstances and geopolitical factors, the sources suggest that the Hasmonean wars were motivated by questions of strategy and national security, as well as by political and economic concerns. Demographic issues may also have played a role" (282). She discusses the role of "forced conversions" (283–324) and sees this policy as a means not only to exclude idolatrous practices but also to consolidate Hasmonean power through the fiscal demands of the temple in Jerusalem. These "conversions," therefore, were linked to the political and economic interests of the Hasmoneans and considerably enriched Judea. As for the use of mercenaries, "their presence...

The Cambridge Companion to the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament ed. by Stephen B. Chapman and Marvin A. Sweeney

Reviewed by: The Cambridge Companion to the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament ed. by Stephen B. Chapman and Marvin A. Sweeney Isaac M. Alderman stephen b. chapman and marvin a. sweeney, The Cambridge Companion to the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament (Cambridge Companions to Religion; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2016). Pp. xvii + 525. $101.27. This collection of twenty-three essays is introduced as an attempt to express that the diversity of the field is a result of the diversity of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament itself. There is no neutral approach, because there are no neutral texts. The editors also hope to model the collaborative possibilities by engaging this diversity. The volume consists of five parts, addressing the matters of text, historical context, methods, collections and genres, and receptions. The first section ("Text and Canon") consists of two essays. In "Texts, Titles, and Translations," James C. VandkerKam addresses the extant textual evidence of the Hebrew Bible, such as the Hebrew and Greek versions, the Samaritan Pentateuch, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and ancient translations. He also covers the ways in which the biblical books were denoted, such as "the Law and the Prophets." Finally, he discusses matters of modern translations. Apart from a shared display of alliteration, Chapman's essay ("Collections, Canons, and Communities") treats the process and meaning of canonicity, including explanations of the different usages, history, and impact of various terms such as Old Testament, [End Page 743] Hebrew Bible, or Tanakh. He also addresses the examples of canon lists from various points in time. In part 2 ("Historical Background"), the first two entries directly address matters of context, looking at the ancient Near East and Israelite religion, while the third is more theoretical. Kenton L. Sparks ("The Ancient Near Eastern Context") provides an outline of the history of the Near East from the time preceding the Israelites until the Maccabean Revolt. Brent A. Strawn ("The History of Israelite Religion") gives an overview of some of the concerns and sources for the task of historical reconstruction. In the final entry, Marc Zvi Brettler ("The Hebrew Bible and History") explains tensions between history and historiography. He concludes that the Bible provides many narratives that depict a past, but that political or religious motivations behind them make problematic the use of the Bible as a primary source for constructing a history of Israel. The third part of the volume ("Methods and Approaches") also has only three entries. John J. Collins ("Historical-Critical Methods") examines the history of the approach and delineates its principles and discusses the criticisms of those principles. He concludes that the critics of the method are generally unconvincing. He praises the approach for freeing the text from fundamentalism and allowing collaboration among people of different faiths, or no faith at all. The second and third entries are broader in scope, looking at social-scientific (Victor H. Matthews, "Social Science Models") and literary (Adele Berlin, "Literary Approaches to the Hebrew Bible") approaches to the Bible. Berlin's contribution is especially interesting with regard to the divide among scholars whose literary approaches might be considered modern versus postmodern. Part 4 ("Subcollections and Genres") contains the following essays, constituting more than one-third of the volume: Thomas B. Dozeman, "The Pentateuch and Israelite Law"; Richard D. Nelson, "The Former Prophets and Historiography"; Marvin A. Sweeney, "The Latter Prophets and Prophecy"; William P. Brown, "The Psalms and Hebrew Poetry"; Samuel E. Balentine, "Wisdom"; Ehud Ben Zvi, "Late Historical Books and Rewritten History"; Lawrence M. Wills, "The Biblical Short Story"; Stephen L. Cook, "Apocalyptic Writings"; and Sharon Pace, "Deuterocanonical/Apocryphal Books." These articles are not dissimilar to the introductions found at the beginning of certain sections of the New Oxford Annotated Bible. These entries could be very useful as introductory readings in a survey class. Part 5 ("Reception and Use") contains the following six articles: Frederick E. Greenspahn, "The Hebrew Bible in Judaism"; R. W. L. Moberly, "The Old Testament in Christianity"; Walid A. Saleh, "The Hebrew Bible in Islam"; David Lyle Jeffrey, "The Hebrew Bible in Art and Literature"; Nancy J. Duff, "The Old Testament in Public: The Ten Commandments, Evolution, and Sabbath Closing Laws"; and John Goldingay, "The Theology of the...

The Invention of Judaism: Torah and Jewish Identity from Deuteronomy to Paul by John J. Collins (review)

Reviewed by: The Invention of Judaism: Torah and Jewish Identity from Deuteronomy to Paul by John J. Collins David Arthur Lambert John J. Collins. The Invention of Judaism: Torah and Jewish Identity from Deuteronomy to Paul. The Taubman Lectures in Jewish Studies 7. Oakland: University of California Press, 2017. 319 pp. doi:10.1017/S0364009418000545 The Invention of Judaism is really a book about the status of the Torah in ancient Judaism, and its complexities, that also considers how its varying construal impacted questions of Jewish or Judean identity. In this capacity, Collins successfully problematizes our understanding of the place of the Pentateuch as authoritative Scripture in the Second Temple period by highlighting its surprising absences. His work points to a real need for further theorizing concerning the nature and use of the Torah. As such, The Invention of Judaism represents an important advance over standard accounts of the formation of the canon. These histories have tended to focus on a canonical series of core texts, such as the prologue to Ben Sira and 2 Maccabees, to determine whether they reflect a closed canon or one that remains open. Such a procedure presumes a relatively uniform concept of authority and, invariably, a process of linear development. Instead, Collins considers the more fundamental question of how directly various groups of Judeans even related to the Torah. In the process, he succinctly reviews many key debates in the field, making characteristically judicious choices among them. Collins's evenhandedness and clarity makes the book quite useful and highly readable for students and scholars alike. "Introduction: Jews, Judeans, and the Maccabean Crisis" reviews current thinking about the nature of ioudaios as a form of identity. Collins seems to side with the view that "religion" was embedded in a wider web of ethnic identity, but that "Judaism" did not exist in an "unembedded" form. For Collins, much of the question hinges on the place assigned to the Judeans' "ancestral law," a concept that helpfully identifies how issues of practice and identity intersect. As [End Page 443] such, Antiochus IV Ephiphanes's attack on Torah observances, which provoked the Maccabean crisis, could be seen as a form of political repression, deprivation of the right to follow one's ancestral customs, rather than an implausible direct assault on religion. In "Deuteronomy and the Invention of the Torah," following several recent scholars, Collins makes the case for the Deuteronomic Code never constituting a comprehensive, prescriptive source of authoritative law, but serving instead an educational or propagandistic purpose. "Torah in the Persian Period" notes the striking absence of Torah in early restoration texts as well as in the records preserved from the Jewish community at Elephantine. That picture fits the sense of novelty around the Torah's position in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah. There too there are questions about the version of the Torah in use, as well as the vagueness of references to it, but it is clear from the frequent use of the formula, kakathub, "as it is written," that there is in view some concern for actual adherence to a textual authority. Despite the clear emergence of the Pentateuch from the Persian period on, "The Persistence of Non-Mosaic Judaism" questions whether according primary importance to the Torah was basic to Judean identity in the Hellenistic period. Indeed, its acknowledgment is surprisingly absent from entire corpora of literature—the wisdom tradition prior to Ben Sira, Enochic literature, and diasporic tales such as Esther and Daniel 1–6. As noted in "Torah as Narrative and Wisdom," even so-called "Rewritten Bible" texts, so clearly dependent on the Torah, fail to relate to it explicitly as works of exegesis. Ben Sira recognizes the authority of the "Law of Moses," but associates it with a broader sense of wisdom and refrains from explicit citation; Tobit references the "Law of Moses," but only in general terms of piety, and even attributes to it laws not found there. "Torah as Law" looks at how observance of ancestral law, an important focus after the Maccabean revolt, could be a basis for a common Judaism, but also lead to a heightened scrutiny of Torah as religious law, evident in such texts...

Teologiczna ocena prośby o obcą interwencję przeciw rodakom w 1 Mch 6,21-27

The passage 1 Macc 6: 21-27 contains no less than a request of renegades from the Jewishcommunity for military intervention of the Seleucid troops in Judea. This request serves to endthe Maccabean Revolt and continue with the policy of transforming Israel into a region completely submitted to the central royal authority. As such, and from a theological point of view, the renegades’ request receives a completely negative evaluation from the inspired author. The question why the citadel’s besieged defenders even manage to escape and do it successfully is given here much thought. If God is in one way or another the foundation and cause of all human activity in the theology of the Old Testament, then the successful escape could be evaluated as God’s objection to the arbitrary actions taken by Judas, who becomes too intoxicated with his previous achievements. The siege of the citadel might be perceived as the insurgents’ insubordination to God’s will and consequently a beginning of His withdrawal from supporting the rebels, which ultimately ends in their defeat in the soon-to-come Battle of Elasa.

Israel's Past at 70: The Twofold Attack on the Zionist Historical Narrative

Israel's Past at 70:The Twofold Attack on the Zionist Historical Narrative Eyal Naveh (bio) Seventy years have passed since Israel achieved its independence following about another 70 years since the initiation of the Zionist movement. During these 150 years, the emerging and evolving Hebrew society constructed a national historical narrative. The narrative told and invested meaning in the life experience of the Jewish people over time, leading to the creation of the Zionist movement and ultimately to the establishment and endurance of the state of Israel as the sovereign nation state for the Jewish people. I characterize the essence of this narrative and argue that after 70 years of Israel's existence such a narrative faces a twofold challenge from diametrically opposing directions: civic post-Zionism on one hand and religious redemptive-Zionism on the other. Though these challenges do not completely eradicate the meaning of the Zionist historical narrative—still used as catchphrase by politicians, journalists, social activists, educators, spokespersons, diplomats, and other Israelis—the cumulative effect of this twofold attack has severely eroded its significance and harmed its inspiring and motivating dimension. Thus, the Zionist historical narrative appeared to most Israelis as worn and overused—incapable of providing passion and bereft of its sublime value. THE ZIONIST NARRATIVE—RETURN FROM EXILE TO SOVEREIGNTY History is shown in the declaration of Israel's independence as multifaceted. Viewed as the point of departure and founding origin of the Jewish people in ancient time, it is also perceived as a tragic setting for rootless, persecuted Jews in the recent past. This awful situation provides historical [End Page 76] right and legitimation to the present existence of Israel; however, it also entails teleological lessons for the Zionist project by its progression toward future culmination and even redemption. History thus is viewed as a point of departure, tragic arena, source of present right, and fulcrum for future lessons and judgments. Within such a multidimensional historical consciousness the Zionist narrative was constructed as a tragic-heroic story of "returning from exile to sovereignty" wherein the Jewish collective performs and functions in history as victorious victim. The tension between the suffering object of history in exile and the triumphant subject and agent of history in a sovereign state, made such a narrative both moral and powerful. Within the paradigm of "returning from exile to sovereignty", the State of Israel constituted both the beginning of the process of national salvation and a formative educational tool that would ensure that process's continuation. Israel appeared both as the onset of modern Jewish national revival, as well as a historical expression of a primordial process of Jewish redemption. Such a paradigm based its historical outlook on the following incompatible grounds. On one hand, the Zionist historical narrative viewed Zionism as a revolutionary act and even as a breakthrough of Jewish history. It cultivated an archetypal "new Jew" who revolts against the fate that traditional Judaism imposed upon him, thereby transforming himself into an active agent of history and part of modern progress. Consequently, it interprets the sovereignty of the State of Israel as an indication of establishing normal relations between the Jews and the rest of the world. We can define this attitude as "Revolution toward universal Normalcy". On the other hand, the narrative emphasized the Jewish historical everlasting relationship with the old-new homeland known as the Land of Israel. It regarded Jewish tribulation in history as an inevitable stage that lent moral validity to Zionist actions against any anti-Jewish menacing forces of evil. It even looked at the course of Jewish history as an unfolding revealing process, tantamount to the vision of redemption. I term this attitude as "Evolution toward particular Anomaly". Such contradictory attitudes toward history perceived the return from exile to sovereignty and the creation of the state of Israel as a phenomenal shortcut to the future, which also entailed certain dimensions of renaissance of the past. This leap of time aimed to construct historical sequence by integrating primordial events, like the Biblical Kingdom of David, the Maccabean revolt against the Greek-Syrians, or the heroism of Masada, with modern heroic events such as the story of Tel Hai...

Writing Jewish Astronomy in the Early Hellenistic Age: The Enochic Astronomical Book as Aramaic Wisdom and Archival Impulse

The full publication of 4Q208 and 4Q209 in 2000 has enabled a renaissance of research on the Enochic Astronomical Book, illumining its deep connections with Babylonian scholasticism and spurring debate about the precise channels by which such “scientific” knowledge came to reach Jewish scribes. This article asks whether attention to Aramaic manuscripts related to the Astronomical Book might also reveal something about Jewish scribal pedagogy and literary production in the early Hellenistic age, particularly prior to the Maccabean Revolt. Engaging recent studies from Classics and the History of Science concerning astronomy, pedagogy, and the place of scribes and books in the cultural politics of the third century bce, it uses the test-case of the Astronomical Book to explore the potential significance of Aramaic sources for charting changes within Jewish literary cultures at the advent of Macedonian rule in the Near East.

An Apocryphal God: Beyond Divine Maturity by Mark McEntire

Reviewed by: An Apocryphal God: Beyond Divine Maturity by Mark McEntire Bradley C. Gregory mark mcentire, An Apocryphal God: Beyond Divine Maturity (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2015). Pp. xi + 283. Paper $39. Building on McEntire’s previous book, Portraits of a Mature God: Choices in Old Testament Theology (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2013), this book extends the same approach into the Jewish literature of the Second Temple period, concentrating on the last three centuries b.c.e. The title of the book functions as a clever double entendre: the literature commonly designated “Apocrypha” constitutes a substantial portion of the study, and the meaning of “apocrypha” as “hidden” is an allusion to the conclusion of his earlier book, in which the character of God had become increasingly “hidden” or obscure by the end of the Tanak. The goal of this book is to assess how the Jewish literature of the late Second Temple period responded to the problem of God’s perceived detachment from the world. M. takes a narrative-theological approach in which he explores what these texts reveal about the various authors’ understanding of God within their cultural milieu. Rather than proceeding chronologically through this period, M. groups the literature by commonalities of approach, genre, subject matter, or viewpoints. This has the advantage of creating an interesting dialogical relationship between the works in how they grapple with understanding God’s relationship with the world, though M. is careful to emphasize that the works themselves were not necessarily written in direct response to one another. Thus, the particular arrangement of his treatment of this literature should be understood as primarily heuristic. The disadvantage of this approach, however, is that works are treated out of chronological order, making diachronic developments a little more difficult to follow, and sometimes particular books (e.g., Daniel) are split into different chapters. For each text, M. provides an introduction covering standard issues such as authorship and provenance before guiding the reader through the contents of the work. Along the way he makes observations about how the text presents God or God’s role or, even more interestingly, what assumptions about God the work takes for granted. After introducing the scope and methodology of the book, three chapters (“God of the Defeated and Scattered,” Parts I, II, and III) are devoted to the question of how various authors grappled with the experiences of subjugation in the Second Temple period. In [End Page 120] chap. 2, M. examines how the portrait of God was reconfigured in Jubilees, 1 Enoch 1–36 (the Book of the Watchers), and 1 Esdras as their authors retold Israel’s past. M. finds that the God of these works is more removed from the world than in the corresponding stories in the Tanak and that, to compensate for this gulf, supernatural beings play a more prominent role. In chap. 3, M. demonstrates how stories found in Judith, Tobit, Daniel 1–6, the Greek additions to Daniel, the Greek additions to Esther, and 3 Maccabees depict God as assisting pious Jews in various ways as they showed ingenuity and resourcefulness. In chap. 4, M. explores the books of Sirach, Baruch, and Wisdom of Solomon and finds that, in comparison with the sapiential books of the Tanak, these books place a greater emphasis on God’s actions in Israel’s history. The move toward integration of wisdom with the rest of Israelite religion facilitates the successful living of the wise in the shifting sociopolitical environments of the Second Temple period. In chap. 5, “God of Revolt,” M. examines how 1 and 2 Maccabees view God’s role in the Maccabean revolt and the eventual triumph of the Hasmoneans. While both works portray God as providing assistance in the clash with the Seleucids, they have striking differences as well. God’s assistance is more subtle and implicit in 1 Maccabees, while in 2 Maccabees it is more overt, even if appearing inconsistently. In chap. 6, “God of Dreams and Visions,” M. treats the depiction of God in the apocalyptic works of 1 Enoch 72–105 (the Astronomical Book, the Dream Visions, and the Epistle of Enoch), Daniel 7–14 (Greek), and Jubilees 1 and 23. The spatial and temporal...

The Seleucid Administration of Judea, the High Priesthood and the Rise of the Hasmoneans

The nature of Seleucid rule over Judea was to a large degree determined by the interaction between imperial and local traditions. The article studies the role of the Seleucid and the Judean high priesthood in this process. The first part deals with the pre-Hasmonean Seleucid administration. The current consensus that there was a groundbreaking reform in 178 BCE, based on the new inscription from Maresha, cannot be upheld. Contrary to the prevailing interpretation, there is no causal relation between the introduction of the Seleucid high priesthood and the Maccabean revolt. Severe changes in the treatment of the Judean high priesthood were made only by Antiochus IV in 175, and this same ruler seems to have let the Seleucid high priesthood fall into oblivion. His measures were largely determined by ad hoc-reactions to current events, not by administrative constraints. The second part of the paper analyzes the rise of the Hasmoneans within the Seleucid administration. Contrary to a recent theory, Jonathan did not become a Seleucid high priest in 152; instead, the Hasmonean high priests were integrated into the Seleucid administration through military offices. Nevertheless, a new conceptualization of the high priesthood was the result of a series of experiments. When Simon claimed independence in 143, he called himself archiereus megas in Greek, to show that his powers went beyond the competences of the former Seleucid archiereis and the competences accorded to him by the current compromise. All this shows how a local institution could be incorporated into Seleucid imperial administration in very different ways, with severe results for both Seleucid rule and the institution itself.