Introductions and Historiography

Introductions

People

• Name
• How do you identify?
• Ideas for major, career
• Interest in the course

Syllabus (LINK)

The biblical canon

• A canon is a list of supremely authoritative books to which none can be added and none can be removed.
• The Jewish canon was not closed until after the destruction of the temple in 70 CE.

Historical and geographic context

Slideshow (PPT)

Major geography

• Persia
• Babylon / Mesopotamia
• Syria (Antioch, Damascus)
• Palestine
  • Galilee
  • Samaria
  • Judea (Jerusalem)
• Egypt (Alexandria)
• Rome

Major periods

• Seleucid
• Hasmonean
• Roman

Major people

• Alexander the Great
• Antiochus Epiphanes
• Judah Maccabee

Universalism, particularism, and parallelism in 1 Maccabees 1

Prepare 1 Maccabees 1 (PDF)

Universalism and particularism

• Universalism – the idea that all people are or should be the same
• Particularism – the idea that some people are or should be different from everyone else
• Different approaches to unity

Jewish identity arguments

• Assimilation with Gentiles allows Jews to participate in larger society
• Jewish law / covenant with God requires distinct identity, separation from Gentiles
• Controversial things that separated Jews from Gentiles in antiquity:
  • Circumcision
  • Food laws
  • No festivals to other gods
  • No gymnasium
  • Sabbath

1 Maccabees 1:11–15, assimilationists

• Perspective of the assimilationists
• Perspective of the author
• When was the separation?
• Initiative: assimilationist Jews in 11–15, foreign imposed in 41–64

Parallelism

• Most basic feature of Hebrew poetry
• Second part of verse (B) restates, amplifies, or completes first part (A)
• Most words within B parallel words within A

1 Macc 1:25–28 (literal translation)

A: And the mourning was great upon Israel,
B: in all their territory the rulers and the elders groaned.

A: Young girls and boys languished,

B: and the beauty of the women faded.

A: Every bridegroom took up lamentation,
B: While the bride sitting in her chamber mourned.

A: And the land [of Israel] quaked on account of its inhabitants
B: and all the house of Jacob [Israel] was clothed with shame

The rhetorical argument of 1:25–28

• Looting of temple was a very big deal
• All Israel equally effected
• All Israel should be united in supporting the liberator of the temple
• Us vs. them = Israel vs. Gentiles and Assimilationists
• 29–40 makes a similar point: honor of sanctuary is honor of the whole nation

The Justification for Killing in 1 Macc 2

Prepare 1 Maccabees 2:1—6:16 (especially chapter 2)

Reasons for fighting: honor and shame

• Loyalty to ancestral law (1 Macc 2:19–22)
• Independent sovereignty (1 Macc 2:67–68)
• Limits of fighting?

Interpreting the Bible to support killing other Jews

• 1 Macc 2:23–26, Mattathias compared to Phinehas, Num 25:1–14 (LINK)
  • Public apostasy
  • Killing foreign tempter and Israelite tempted
  • Reward is high-priesthood (justifies Hasmonean priesthood)
  • Zeal
• 1 Macc 2:27–30, Compared to Levites, Ex 32:25–29 (LINK)
  • Virtue is zeal for the law
  • Action is killing other Jews
  • Reward is priesthood
• 1 Macc 2:51–64, List of Biblical heroes who resisted foreigners or killed for God

Reasons for dying

• Argument for dying rather than fighting on the sabbath (1 Macc 2:37)
• Argument for fighting on the sabbath (1 Macc 2:40–41, Mattathias, author)
• Reward for dying according to Mattathias (1 Macc 2:50–51)

God and Suffering in 1 Macc and 2 Macc

Prepare 2 Maccabees 2:19—5:27 (PDF)

Role of God in 1 Macc

• Word “God” never used… substitute “Heaven”
  • Ancestral laws ≠ God’s laws; fighting for honor ≠ fighting for God; zeal for law ≠ zeal for God
• Narrator never discusses God’s role or motives
• Characters have a general piety but mostly no divine intervention
  • 1 Macc 3:59–60, “It is better for us to die in battle than to witness the evils befalling our nation and our sanctuary. Whatever is willed in heaven will be done.”
• Why?

Role of God in 2 Macc

• Omnipresent, main character
• God’s motives explain history
• Flashy miracles
• Sin and piety are the main roles of humans
• Why?

Explanation of suffering in 1 Macc

Bad humans do bad things until good humans kill them.

Explanation of suffering in 2 Macc

• God protects when God wants
  • 2 Macc 3:1–2, peace and prosperity as long as laws observed
• Jews sometimes sin
  • 2 Macc 4:16–17, suffering because of neglect of God’s law
• God punishes sin
  • 2 Macc 5:17–20, the Lord was angry because of the sins of the Jews
  • 2 Macc 6:12, “these punishments were meant for the correction of our nation”
  • 2 Macc 7:18, “We suffer these things on our own account, because we have sinned against our God.”
  • Antiochus is the instrument of God’s chastisement
• Jews return to God
  • 2 Macc 7:37–38, Martyrs
• God restores protection
  • 2 Macc 8:5, The Lord’s wrath had now changed to mercy
  • 2 Macc 8:36, Nicanor testifies that Jews are “invulnerable for the very reason that they followed the laws laid down by [God].”

Martyrdom

Prepare 2 Macc 6:1—10:8

Martyrdom defined

• Voluntary death for God or a cause
• Variety of logic and expectations
• Natural and supernatural

1 Macc 2:31–41, Sabbath

• Logic of those who choose martyrdom
• Logic of those who reject martyrdom
• View of the historiographer?

2 Macc 6:18–31, Eleazar

• Glorious death over life without honor
• Self-sacrifice for greater good of future generations
• Relatively natural standard of self-sacrifice

2 Macc 7:7–14, brothers 2–4

• Resurrection of the body
• 7:9, “You are depriving us of this present life, but the king of the world will raise us up to live again forever. It is for his laws that we are dying.”
• 7:11, “It was from Heaven that I received these [tongue and hands]; from him I hope to receive them again.”
• 7:14, “hope of being restored to life by him; but for you there will be no resurrection to life.”
• 7:23, “will give you back both breath and life”
• 7:29, “in the time of mercy I may receive you again with them [your brothers]”

2 Macc 7:30–41, brother 7

• Vicarious suffering – suffering on behalf of others
• 7:33, “Though our living Lord treats us harshly for a little while to correct us with chastisements, he will again be reconciled with his servants.”
• 7:38, “Through me and my brothers, may there be an end to the wrath of the Almighty that has justly fallen on our whole nation.”

Josephus and historiography

Prepare 1Macc/Josephus Comparison (PDF)

The Role of the historiographer according to 2 Macc 2

• Jason of Cyrene: record keeper, details, compared to builder of house
• Epitomizer: summarizer, compared to banquet host and decorator
• Historiography: Telling stories is a creative art even when based on reality

2 Macc 2:26 For us who have undertaken the labor of making this digest, the task, far from being easy, is one of sweat and of sleepless nights. ²⁷ Just so, the preparation of a festive banquet is no light matter for one who seeks to give enjoyment to others. Similarly, to win the gratitude of many we will gladly endure this labor, ²⁸ leaving the responsibility for exact details to the historian^{record keeper}, and confining our efforts to presenting only a summary outline. ²⁹ As the architect of a new house must pay attention to the whole structure, while the one who undertakes the decoration and the frescoes has to be concerned only with what is needed for ornamentation, so I think it is with us. ³⁰ To enter into questions and examine them from all sides and to be busy about details is the task of the historian^{one who lays the foundation for story}; ³¹ but one who is making an adaptation should be allowed to aim at brevity of expression and to forgo complete treatment of the matter. ³² Here, then, let us begin our account without adding to what has already been said; it would be silly to lengthen the preface to the history and then cut short the history itself.

Josephus’ historical context

• Source: his own autobiography
• Jewish general in the war that began 66 CE
• Captured and befriended by Vespasian
• Lived in Vespasian’s private home when Vespasian became Emperor in 69 CE
• Primary audience: wrote accounts of the Jewish War, and subsequently all of Jewish history, for the Roman elites (also an autobiography and a response to a polemic against the Jews)
• Secondary audience (?): Jews in Diaspora adjusting to life without a homeland

Tendencies in Josephus

• Style: elevated language, psychology, drama, eroticism
• Elevates heroes (response to accusations that there have been no great men among the Jews)
• Roman standards of honorable warfare
• Jews as good neighbors (response to accusations of misanthropy)
• God as an invisible presence, almost a philosophical principle, often referred to as “providence”
• Prophecy continues, seems to consider himself a prophet
• Scholars differ on the reliability of Josephus’ accounts

Josephus’ rewriting of 1 Macc

Attitude toward Gentiles (1 Macc 3:5–10)

• 1 Macc: killed
• Josephus: expelled

Attitude toward “law breaking” Jews

• 1 Macc: intimidated
• Josephus: executed

Portrayal of conflict

• 1 Macc: resistance to foreign invasion
• Josephus: local conflict

Audience

• 1 Macc: Jews
• Josephus: Romans

Role of God

• 1 Macc: Limited but trace in speeches
• Josephus: Even less. God is object of piety, not interventionist

Role of temple

• 1 Macc: main reason for war
• Josephus: proper response of virtuous people

Purification of temple

• 1 Macc: remove defilement of Gentiles
• Josephus: repair after abandoned

Prophecy

• 1 Macc: ceased, rely on scroll of law
• Josephus: omits cessation of prophecy

Overview of author, audience, and purpose

Test

• Practice commentaries (PDF)
• Study guide (PDF)