The Hellenistic World: Kingdom and Empires • the Northwestern Third Of

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The Hellenistic World: Kingdom and Empires • The northwestern third of Alexander’s empire after his death is often simply called the “Macedonian Empire” and emerged as a stable power after a series of small wars from 321 B.C. until 301 B.C., in which Alexander’s generals fought over his territories. Various officers, descendents of officers, and descendents of Alexander ruled it, and it was subject to frequent civil wars. In 168 B.C. it was conquered by the Romans and became one of their territories. • The southwestern third of Alexander’s empire was formed into the Ptolemaic Empire in 323 B.C., and ruled by Ptolemy, one of Alexander’s generals. The dynasty continued until the rule of Ptolemy XV, the son of Cleopatra; it will engage in frequent warfare with the Seleucid Empire over disputed border territories. When Cleopatra and her son die in 30 B.C., the Romans will annex the territory. • Seleucus, one of Alexander’s generals, ruled eastern third of Alexander’s empire; hence it is called the Seleucid Empire. He was firmly in power by 321 B.C., and over the next few decades expanded his borders in warfare. The decline of the Seleucid Empire began sometime before 190 B.C., in which year the Romans began serious military takeover of Seleucid territories. By 64 B.C., the Romans will take over the entire area, and the Seleucid Empire will cease to exist. o The Maccabees were a political dynasty among the Jews in Israel; in 168 B.C., they organized a rebellion against a Seleucid ruler named Antiochus IV Epiphanes. (Israel was part of the Seleucid territory.) They succeeded in obtaining a limited amount of religious freedom and a limited amount of political independence for a limited time. The rulers of the Maccabee family became known as the Hasmonean dynasty. When the Romans overtook the Seleucid Empire in 64 B.C., the Hasmonean dynasty within it also fell. The Romans, looking for local rulers to manage the territory for them, arranged a marriage between a Hasmonean princess, one of the last of her dynasty, and a aristocrat named Herod. So the dynasty of Herod family began, ruling the area for the Romans. .

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Honigmanonigman - 9780520275584.Indd9780520275584.Indd 1 228/06/148/06/14 2:382:38 PMPM 2 General Introduction
General Introduction SUMMARY Th e fi rst and second books of Maccabees narrate events that occurred in Judea from the 170s through the 150s and eventually led to the rise of the Hasmonean dynasty: the toppling of the last high priest of the Oniad dynasty, the transforma- tion of Jerusalem into a Greek polis, Antiochos IV’s storming of Jerusalem, his desecration of the temple and his so-called persecution of the Jews, the liberation of the city and rededication of the temple altar by Judas Maccabee, the foundation of the commemorative festival of Hanukkah, and the subsequent wars against Seleukid troops. 1 Maccabees covers the deeds of Mattathias, the ancestor of the Maccabean/Hasmonean family, and his three sons, Judas, Jonathan, and Simon, taking its story down to the establishment of the dynastic transmission of power within the Hasmonean family when John, Simon’s son, succeeded his father; whereas 2 Maccabees, which starts from Heliodoros’s visit to Jerusalem under the high priest Onias III, focuses on Judas and the temple rededication, further dis- playing a pointed interest in the role of martyrs alongside that of Judas. Because of this diff erence in chronological scope and emphasis, it is usually considered that 1 Maccabees is a dynastic chronicle written by a court historian, whereas 2 Macca- bees is the work of a pious author whose attitude toward the Hasmoneans has been diversely appreciated—from mild support, through indiff erence, to hostility. Moreover, the place of redaction of 2 Maccabees, either Jerusalem or Alexandria, is debated. Both because of its comparatively fl amboyant style and the author’s alleged primarily religious concerns, 2 Maccabees is held as an unreliable source of evidence about the causes of the Judean revolt.
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Preliminary Contents
1 BIBLIOGRAPHY Abba, R 1961. The divine name Yahweh. JBL 80, 320-328. Abramsky, S 1967. The house of Rechab. Eretz-Israel 8, 76, 255-264. — 1971. Rechabites, in Berman & Carlebach (eds) 1971 vol 13, 1609-1612. Abusch, T 1999. Ishtar, in Van der Toorn et al (eds) 1999:452-456. Ackerman, S 1992. Under every green tree: popular religion in sixth-century Judah. Atlan- ta: Scholars Press. (HSM 46.) — 1993. The queen mother and the cult in ancient Israel. JBL 112(3), 385-401. Aharoni, M 1993. The Israelite citadels, in Stern, E (ed), The new encyclopedia of archaeo- logical excavations in the Holy Land, vol 1, 82-87. New York: Simon & Schuster. Aharoni, Y 1973. The Solomonic temple, the tabernacle and the Arad sanctuary, in Hoffner (ed) 1973:1-8. — 1981. Arad inscriptions. Ed and rev by A F Rainey. Tr by J Ben-Or. Jerusalem: Ben-Zvi Printing Enterprises. Albertz, R 1994. A history of Israelite religion in the Old Testament period. Vol 1. From the beginnings to the end of the exile. Tr by J Bowden. London: SCM. Albright, W F 1944. A prince of Taanach in the fifteenth century B.C. BASOR 94, 12-27. — [1949] 1960. The archaeology of Palestine. Rev ed. Middlesex: Penguin. — 1968. Yahweh and the gods of Canaan: a historical analysis of two contrasting faiths. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns. Aldred, C [1961] 1998. The Egyptians. 3rd ed rev and updated by A Dodson. London: Thames & Hudson. Allon, Y 1971. Kenite, in Berman & Carlebach (eds) 1971 vol 10, 906-907. Alster, B 1999.
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