Books Jesus Read

16

Books Jesus Read

wicked King Antiochus Epiphanes 1 command the priest Mattathias and his sons to forsake the laws of Moses and sacrifice to the king, Mattathias kills them and leads his like-minded fellow Jews into hiding. They must then decide how to respond when the king’s soldiers come after them. 1 Maccabees 1 introduces readers to the two rulers who are central to the background of the entire book: Alexander the Great, whose conquests spread the Greek culture and language throughout the Mediterranean world by the process known as Hellenization, and Antiochus Epiphanes, the archetype of an oppressive dictator. 1 Maccabees 2 introduces Mattathias, the courageous patriarch of the Jewish rebellion, and 1 Maccabees 3 his son, Judas, whose skill in battle wins him the name Maccabeus—the Hammer. 1 Maccabees 4 describes the many battles of Judas leading up to the cleansing and rededication of the Jerusalem temple, 2 the celebration of which is commemorated on Hannukah. Throughout 1 Maccabees, war is waged not only against Gentiles but also against the apostates of Israel, who adopt pagan Greek culture in order to avoid persecution. The events that occur throughout the book of 1 Maccabees are dated from the 137th to the 177th year of “the Kingdom of the Greeks,” years we know as 175–143 BC. The culmination of these events is described prophetically in Daniel 11.

1 Epiphanes – “God manifest.” 2 1 Macc also refers to the Jewish temple as the “sanctuary.”