(May 19, 2015 at 3:15 am)Wyrd of Gawd Wrote:(May 19, 2015 at 2:21 am)Minimalist Wrote: Antiochus IV seems to be the beginning of the dispute between Hellenized Jews and primitive goat fuckers. (Think of modern baptists rolling around in vats of shit v smart people from the north.)
Prior to that, no one seems to have given a flying fuck about Judaea.
The fairy tale does a good job of hiding Antiochus IV except for his role in the Maccabee books and oblique references to him elsewhere. It tends for emphasize the Egyptians, Assyrians, Babylonians, and Persians instead of the Seleucids. I wouldn't be a bit surprised if the majority of Old Testament stories aren't actually about the Seleucids and Antiochus IV as the God character, even including him as the God character in the Moses story.
The God rants in the later Old Testament books are definitely something that could be attributed to Antiochus IV based upon his actions in history.
Josephus ( as well as Livy and Polybius ) all recount in one form or another the tale of Antiochus IV being intercepted by a Roman Ambassador (Gaius Popillius Laenus) as he was invading Egypt. Laenus carried a letter from the Senate directing Antiochus to withdraw or be at war with Rome. Laenus supposedly drew a circle around Antiochus and told him to answer the Senate before leaving the circle. Picturesque image to be sure. Anyway, Antiochus withdrew. Josephus picks up the tale on the way back in Book XII of Antiquities and recounts that a chastened Antiochus arrived at Jerusalem in what one imagines to be a foul mood and finds that the Hellenized Jews are being attacked by what would have to be considered fundie Jews and reacts by taking out his frustrations on the fundies who he regarded as a bunch of dick-snipping primitive barbarian fucks. He wanted to bring the joys of Greek culture to these miscreants and probably set off the so-called Maccabean revolt in the process. This is in 168 BC.
But, he was not present to do so himself. In 167 the Parthians attacked into Syria and cut the silk road. This was a far more serious matter for the Seleucids than the fucking jews. Antiochus left a junior commander to deal with Palestine while he himself spent the last 3 years of his life fighting Parthia. He got sick and died in 164 which is another fuck-up in "Daniel" that evangelicals desperately try to ignore.
By the way, Antiochus only took that name when he became king in 175. Prior to that he was known as Mithridates ( Gift of Mithra) which indicates that Mithraism was well established in Asia by the second century and certainly supports Plutarch's observation that the earliest Roman contact with Mithraism came when Pompey's Army reached Asia c 68 BC. In fact, Roman armies and merchants had been active in Asia since the Battle of Magnesia in 190 BC and it seems unlikely that it took another century for it to become known.
