RE: I still don't understand why anyone would make up a person like the Biblical Christ..
September 10, 2011 at 3:57 pm
Quote:portray Judas Maccaebus and crew as a 2nd century BC version of the Taliban.
OK - back to this.
What do we really know about this period in history? In the aftermath of the death of Alexander the Great his empire was divided up among his generals, the Diadochi, who set up rival kingdoms in Macedonia, Syria and Egypt. At first the Ptolemies in Alexandria controlled the Levant but the area was a battle field between the Ptolemies and the Seleucid Empire based in Syria. By 198 BC Antiochus III defeated the Ptolemies at Panium and ended Egyptian rule over Palestine.
Antiochus III however was not interested in pursuing the war further into Egypt. In 197 A Roman army led by T. Quinctius Flamininus had defeated the Macedonian ( more or less an ally of Antiochus ) Phillip V. Antiochus saw an opportunity ( or a need ) to confront the Romans. In 191 he crossed into Greece, met a Roman army under the command of M. Acilius Glabrio at Thermopylae and was routed and forced to withdraw from Greece. Not satisfied, the following year the Romans crossed into Asia Minor and destroyed Antiochus III at Magnesia. A crushing indemnity was imposed on the defeated Seleucids and in 187 Antiochus was killed in a campaign trying to get money to pay off the Romans.
Upon his death, Antiochus IV Epiphanes, villain of the Book of Maccabees, becomes king. Not daring to look to the west, where the Romans were ascendant, Antiochus resumed the pressure on Egypt. Most people have heard the story of how Antiochus, on his way to battle Egypt, is intercepted by the Roman ambassador Gaius Popilius Laenas who directs him to withdraw from Egypt or find himself at war with Rome. Antiochus stalls, asks for time to consult his generals and Popilius draws a circle around him and tells him not to leave the circle before giving his answer. Antiochus withdraws humiliated but somehow a rumor spread that he had been killed. A revolt breaks out in Jerusalem and the intact army of Antiochus retakes the city in 167. The troubles begin from here.
Bible horseshit aside, Yehud ( as Judaea was called by the Persians ) was a loyal Persian ally right up to the time Alexander came rolling through. After that they were loyal to the Greeks with the exception that there were rival Greek empires fighting each other and the locals could not help but be caught in the middle. Nonetheless, we have a period of about 4 centuries of foreign domination and there were a great many Jews who had been "Hellenized." Antiochus seems to have sided with them as the Greeks considered Jewish customs barbaric ( like circumcision.) With the Greeks representing the "modern" world of the time it would be fairly easy to see how a group of religious zealots might be portrayed as the Taliban are: Reactionary assholes...just like xtian fundies. They think they are doing 'god's' work and we think they are assholes. Probably Antiochus IV felt the same way IF ( big if coming here) the story as told in the Books of Maccabees is true. Once again, the book was written after the fact and serves the interest of those who wrote it.
For all we know this was nothing more than a sordid power grab by a disgruntled noble seeking to take advantage of the weakness of the Seleucid empire to break away. For also in 167 the Parthian empire attacked the eastern holdings of the Seleucids which left Antiochus IV no choice but to deal with the more significant threat. Indications are that Antiochus was actually doing fairly well until he got sick and died in 164 and left only an infant son as his heir. The Seleucid empire entered a terminal spiral of decline because of civil wars over the succession. The prolonged guerilla campaign by Jewish brigands must be evaluated against the apparent desire of the Seleucids to kill each other, first.
Since the "books" were written later...doubtlessly by "priests" or scribes employed by priests, it isn't too hard to imagine them writing a religious motivation into the story which was really nothing more than power politics, is it?
