It's perhaps the best known Jewish festival of the year, but what exactly are Hanukkah's origins, and why was it first celebrated?On today's episode of the Ancients, Tristan Hughes is joined once again by Dr Jodi Magness to answer these questions and unravel the holiday's complex history. On their journey they discover it emerged from an incredibly important event in ancient Judaean history - the Maccabean Revolt, over 2,000 years ago at a time when the successors of Alexander the Great ruled supreme. It is a gripping story of defiance, of Jewish civil war, and of resistance against the oppressive Seleucid Empire.Presented by Tristan Hughes. Audio editor is Aidan Lonergan, the producer is Joseph Knight. The senior producer is Anne-Marie Luff.The Ancients is a History Hit podcast.All music from Epidemic SoundSign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe. You can take part in our listener survey here.
Chapter 1: What are the origins of Hanukkah?
Hanukkah emerged from an incredibly important event in ancient Judean history, a revolt known as the Maccabean Revolt, which happened more than 2,000 years ago at a time when the great Hellenistic successor kingdoms of Alexander the Great reigned supreme over Judea and the Middle East.
This is a story of defiance, of Jewish civil war, but also of resistance against a foreign Hellenistic superpower, the Seleucid Empire. Now the Maccabean Revolt is a complex topic, so joining me to help untangle it and its central link to Hanukkah is a regular guest on The Ancients, Professor Jodie Magnus from the University of North Carolina. Now I'm a big fan of Jodie and her work.
She's a wonderful speaker, a force of nature who knows so much about the ancient Levant. I really do hope you enjoy as we explore the origins of Hanukkah and the story of the Maccabean Revolt. Jodie, it is wonderful, as always, wonderful to have you back on the podcast.
And it's great to be back. Thank you, Tristan.
You're more than welcome. And we're talking about the Maccabean Revolt. And this feels like an incredibly important event in Jewish history and in the story of ancient Judea.
It is, actually. And, you know, it's funny. Most people, I think, don't realize that they're familiar with this already because most people are familiar with the holiday of Hanukkah, but are not necessarily aware of its connections to this revolt.
Yeah, very closely intertwined, aren't they? But from what I gather, we've got a lot to get through in the next 40 or 50 minutes. So without further ado, let's delve straight into it. Second century BC, early second century BC Judea. What is the context for just before this revolt breaks out?
Right. So in the early second century BC, Judea, which is sort of the area around Jerusalem, was under the rule of one of Alexander the Great's Greek successors. So here I just have to go back a little bit to Alexander the Great. Alexander the Great had conquered the area of Judea with other parts of the Near East in, let's say, well, Judea in 332 BC.
And after he died, his empire was split up among various generals. And two of his generals got the lion's share of his empire. One was a guy named Ptolemy who got Egypt. And the other was a guy named Seleucus who got the area to the north of Judea, the area of Syria, Asia Minor, sort of through the area of what is today Iraq or Mesopotamia.
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Chapter 2: What led to the Maccabean Revolt?
And the situation of the Jews is interesting because these successors of Alexander ruled their kingdoms in different ways, by which I mean that there were different kinds of administrative units within their kingdoms. And a little bit different from most of the rest of these kingdoms, Judea was a bit of a semi-autonomous area.
This had been the case for centuries going back to the Persians, even before the conquest of Alexander. Jews were given the freedom and in fact required to live according to biblical Jewish law. That is that biblical Jewish law was the law of the land. If you were a Jew, meaning a Judean, a person Jewish,
from Judea or of Judean descent, you were required to follow those laws as the law of the land. So in a sense, Judea was this kind of semi-autonomous territory where the Jews enjoyed what we might consider today to be a great deal of religious freedom. And the administration of the territory was under the governance of a council called the Gerousia.
The Gerousia, that Greek name, yeah. Yeah.
That's right, a Greek word that comes from the word meaning elderly, because it was a council of elders, older people. I always like to point out to my students that in these societies, older people were venerated, were respected for their knowledge and their experience. And so that's basically the situation as we enter the second century BC.
The Jews now had been living literally for hundreds of years already with a great deal of relative autonomy and certainly religious freedom.
So it's interesting because you say the Seleucids and Ptolemies fought over this land. I think it's like one, two, three, four, five Syrian wars on there for control of Judea. Ptolemy is there for the Jews, the people of Judea, but Greek influence is there too. That's really important to highlight. Greek influence is there too, especially when we come to the outbreak of the revolt.
Yes, that's absolutely right. And so this is one of the really interesting things. And we see this actually in other periods as well. For example, we see this during the reign of Herod the Great.
Oh, our favorite.
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Chapter 3: How did Greek influence affect Judea?
So you have that in Jerusalem, but of course, the whole province of Judea, it's much more than just the city. So that's happening there. And as you say, it's really interesting, even though it seems to be contrary to biblical Jewish law, that they are embracing this Greek culture. So where does the trouble begin, Jodie?
I'm presuming it's beyond the walls of Jerusalem, that there's a bit more fight back and resistance to this.
Yeah, so here's where things get a little bit complicated.
Okay.
But okay, so I'll try to explain. So I should point out that, you know, I just mentioned Jason, whose Hebrew name was Yeshua, which is actually Jesus. Oh, wow. Yeah, it's actually a variant of the name Joshua, Yeshua, Joshua, Yehoshua. And so it's actually a very common name among Jewish men at the time.
And interestingly to notice, by the way, that this high priest adopted also a Greek name, Jason, and he's known by his Greek name. But there's a little bit of background to Jason because Jason actually was not the official high priest in Jerusalem.
The official high priest in Jerusalem was his older brother, a guy named Onias, specifically Onias III, who, for various reasons that I won't go into, had to leave Jerusalem and go up to Antioch in Syria, which was the capital of the Seleucid kingdom, in order to meet with the Seleucid king. While he's gone, he leaves his brother, Jason, in charge.
So Jason was kind of like the interim high priest in Jerusalem, and it's when he becomes the interim high priest, he then actually bribes the Seleucid king to keep him in place as the high priest, because it was up to the Seleucid king to confirm that. the appointments of high priests. And Jason then obtains the position, sort of permanently, of high priest.
And his brother, his older brother, Onias III, never returns to Judea. He actually ends up being assassinated in Antioch. There's a whole other thread of a story connected with that. And then what happens is that three years after Jason secures the high priesthood for himself, so now we're in 172 B.C.,
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Chapter 4: What were the consequences of Antiochus IV's edict?
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Hallo ihr Mäuse, wir sind Janni und Alina vom Podcast Wine Wednesday.
Und wir spielen am 12.06. im Kino am Olympiasee. Sagt man am Olympiasee? Oder im Olympiasee?
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Oh, das wäre geil, so eine Tretbotshow. Und wir spielen am 12.06. am Kino im Olympiasee.
Im Kino am Olympiasee.
Und wir spielen am 12.06. im Kino am Olympiasee in Zusammenarbeit mit unserem Partner Backmarket eine Live-Show, unser allererstes Open Air.
Das Geile ist, wir dürfen auf der Bühne an euch Zuschauer und Zuschauerinnen ein 800 Euro Voucher für Backmarket verlosen. Es lohnt sich also nicht nur wegen unseren schönen Gesichtern zu kommen.
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Chapter 5: What role did the temple play during this period?
There were other benefits, like, for example, you had tax exemptions or tax breaks and things like that. So it was great benefit, actually. But it also helped these successors of Alexander promote the spread of Greek culture. Because the kingdoms that these successors of Alexander ruled over were very diverse. They had different populations, ancient Near Eastern populations.
They spoke different languages. They had different customs. They worshiped different gods. And one of the ways that Alexander's successors were able to sort of unify these diverse populations was by spreading Greek culture. And the establishment of these Greek cities was a way to sort of promote the spread of Greek culture. And now what you had were the youth learning groups the Greek language.
And of course, even if you weren't young and you went to a theater play. And so this was a kind of a way that these successors of Alexander used Greek culture as a means of unifying their kingdoms. And I actually think that that's what Antiochus IV was trying to do here.
I think, you know, we saw Judea, you know, it's got all these different people with these different or what he probably thought were sort of weird customs or whatever. And, you know, we thought, well, let's bring them into the fold.
Let's mandate that everybody is going to now adopt Greek culture and get rid of sort of these problems, which, you know, are fostered by these kind of internal civil wars and opposition and so on. So I think that he was using I'll say this term, it's debated. But anyway, he's using Hellenization, meaning sort of the trying to promote the spread of Greek culture, not to punish the Jews, per se.
or to try to eliminate Judaism as a religion, but rather to deal with what he saw as a problematic part of his kingdom and bring all of these people into the fold, so to speak. So I think that that's what's going on. Now, of course, it didn't have the desired impact, right?
Exactly, Jody. So that might have been how he saw it, but how do those in Judea, how do they see this?
Exactly. And so here again, we get that very different picture that apparently there were some Jews, certainly among the elite, but maybe even among the masses who either thought this was fine with them or, you know, were so busy just trying to subsist that they didn't really care one way or the other.
And so there, you know, in some parts of the Jewish population, there was no opposition to this at all. And the revolt actually starts after the edict is issued by Antiochus IV, when with an incident in a small town, not in Jerusalem, the revolt didn't start in Jerusalem. And by the way, the first Jewish revolt against the Romans did not start in Jerusalem either. It started in Caesarea.
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Chapter 6: What sparked the Jewish resistance against Greek culture?
Yeah. So it comes from Judah's nickname, right? Maccabee. And it kind of gives this name to the whole revolt. The family, by the way, sometimes we refer to them as the Maccabees, but they're actually the Hasmonean family. And they and their descendants will be known as the Hasmoneans. But Maccabee comes from that nickname. That's given to Judah. Right, Judah the Hammer.
And so he, you know, our sources describe this. And again, a lot of our information comes from 1 and 2 Maccabees, which are these two books that are included in the Catholic Bible. And then we also have some information from Josephus, the ancient Jewish historian. So... What happens is that Judah gathers some supporters and they flee, right? They flee into the wilderness.
They hide out and they sort of, as they go around, they recruit more and more followers. And without going into a great deal of detail, of course, the Seleucid king sends, you know, troops to, I mean, Antiochus IV isn't going to put up with a revolt. So he sends troops to put down the revolt. And there are a series of battles that are fought.
And it's one of the very, you know, really surprising things of history that the, let's call them the Maccabees at this point, were successful. They basically have a guerrilla band is what it is, right? But somehow they were able to register some significant victories against the Seleucid forces. And there's been a lot of scholarship written about how this happened.
And the other thing that I'll mention, though, is that at this very early stage of the revolt, it wasn't just an external revolt against the Seleucids, but it was also an internal civil war because our sources tell us that Judah and his followers also rooted out men or people who they refer to as lawless.
And lawless means Jews who were not observing biblical Jewish law, meaning Jews who were going along with the royal mandate, right, accepting it. So basically, it's kind of a two-pronged approach. On the one hand, rooting out anybody who is complying with this requirement to worship Greek gods and adopt Greek culture. And on the other hand, fighting against the Seleucid forces.
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So does that then make Jerusalem, with that place, I mean, was that almost kind of an anti-Maccabean stronghold at that time? You know, it was almost like a spotlight.
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Chapter 7: How did the civil unrest unfold in Judea?
Right. And so the kingdom now is put under the rule of a regent, basically. And Antiochus V issues an edict.
Not bad for being five years old.
Yes, he was very ahead of his years. He issues an edict. And this edict then basically reversed his father's edict in allowing the Jews again to worship the God of Israel. The temple in Jerusalem was returned to them. They are, you know, Judaism is no longer outlawed. Jews are now free to worship the God of Israel, you know, without fear of persecution.
And the temple then is returned to the Jews and Judah and his brothers then cleanse the temple to rededicate it to the God of Israel. So in the meantime... All sorts of practices had been done in the temple that, you know, were again antithetical to Judaism.
You know, the offering of pigs for sacrifice and I mean, all sorts of stuff like that, which had basically polluted it in the eyes of Jews observing biblical law. So, you know, they cleansed the temple in order to rededicate it to the worship of the God of Israel. Now, one of the pieces of furniture, cultic furniture in the Jerusalem temple was a seven branched lampstand.
called the menorah and there was special oil that was used for the menorah because of course these are basically oil lamps right so the oil that was used for the menorah the lamp stand in the temple was a special oil that had to be prepared it had to be ritually pure oil and in the intervening three years you know during the revolt there had been no preparation allowed of anything like that there was no oil you know no special oil to light the menorah so the story this is a story now we're going into stories
But the story goes that they're cleansing the temple to rededicate it. They need to light the lampstand and there's no oil. And they find a little jar of special oil that was somehow tucked away that had enough oil in it to last for one day and one day only or one night or whatever. And they light the lampstand and somehow miraculously the oil burns instead of for one day, it burns for eight days.
And in the meantime, they're able to go and prepare new special oil to keep the lampstand lit. And that then becomes sort of the origin story, if you wish, of Hanukkah, the holiday of Hanukkah, which basically celebrates the outcome of the revolt, right? But this symbol of the lampstand becomes associated with the holiday of Hanukkah.
And so Hanukkah then becomes a holiday that is celebrated for eight days, right? Eight days and eight nights. And where, you know, the lampstand, now the lampstand, by the way, in the Jerusalem temple had seven branches, right? It had seven branches. It had a central branch in the middle and then three branches on either side of that.
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