Monday, August 13, 2018

The Wars of the Maccabees Hardcover – April 2, 2012 by John D. Grainger ( Pen and Sword)



One of the best features of this book is that unlike many histories of events in the Holy Land the biblical and other Jewish sources (mainly Josephus) aren't take at face value. Instead the author has put a great deal of effort into comparing their version of events with those from a wide range of other sources, and many achievements claimed for the Maccabees don't survive that scrutiny - in particular cities that are meant to have been conquered remain in other hands and some reputations don't really survive the process... This is a good piece of work on an importan

By the early second century BC, Israel had long been under the rule of the Hellenistic Seleucid Empire. But the policy of deliberate Hellenization and suppression of Jewish religious practices by Antiochus IV, sparked a revolt in 167 BC which was led initially by Judah Maccabee and later by his brothers and their descendants. Relying on guerrilla tactics the growing insurrection repeatedly took on the sophisticated might of the Seleucid army with mixed, but generally successful, results, establishing the Maccabees as the Hasmonean Dynasty of rulers over a once-more independent Israel. (It is Judah Maccabee's ritual cleansing of the Temple after his victories over the Seleucids that is celebrated by Jews every year at Hannukah). Internal disputes weakened the revived state, however, and it eventually fell victim to the Romans who replaced the Seleucids as the local superpower. John D Grainger explains the causes of the revolt and traces the course of the various campaigns of the Maccabees, first against the Seleucids and then the Romans who captured Jerusalem in 63BC and partitioned the kingdom. The last chapters consider the continued Jewish resistance to Roman rule and factional fighting, until the crowning of Herod, marked the end of the Hasmonean dynasty.

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