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Why the Maccabean Revolt?

It should be remembered that this revolt of the Jews was not at first a matter of
religion. The main reason for the insurrection was to establish an independent Jewish
state.

The Maccabean uprising, at least in its initial stages, was not against Hellenism
BUT RATHER FOR NATIONAL INDEPENDENCE. And when independence,
real or nominal, was secured, the object of the Maccabean principality was to hold
its head up among other principalities that had arisen out of the ruins of the
Seleucid Empire; there was NOTHING LIKE AN ANTI-GREEK PROGRAM
(Goodspeed, The Apocrypha, pp, xiv, xv).

The majority of Jews had not been anxious to depart from their Hellenism. What
they wanted primarily was their freedom from the foreign yoke. The matter of religion
was really invoked to get the people united in one common cause -- to drive the foreigner
from Judaea. There was no real desire among the multitudes to get back to the Law of
God. And religion only became a major issue when Antiochus Epiphanes voiced his
anti-religious decrees.

The Jewish historian, Moses Hadas, adequately describes the situation during the
Maccabean Revolt.

The standard of religion was raised in the countryside, and then served to rally the
people to the cause. It was only after religion had become the battle cry of the
rebels that Antiochus IV [Epiphanes] issued his decrees against the observance of
central religious rites, and it is highly significant that as soon as the anti-religious
decrees were rescinded the pietest group [the religious people] withdrew from the
fighting. The object of the Hasmonaean [Maccabean] rulers WAS NOT TO
PROTECT RELIGION ... but to maintain a sovereignty ... among others which
were being carved out of the weakened Seleucid empire" (Hellenistic Culture, p.
43).

After independence was realized, the Hellenistic element still remained among the
Jews. They had been so wedded to its influence for so long that it was an impossibility to
remove that influence from them. We will read more of this next time!

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