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The Hasmoneans and the Hasmonean Era · Reformed Thinking

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Welcome to reformed thinking. I want you to imagine a dying
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man on a cross. OK, His wife and children are
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being executed right in front of him and he is forced to watch
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them perish. Well, he slowly suffocates.
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Wow, that is a brutal image. It is, and it sounds like a
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scene of standard Roman brutality.
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Right. Oh, absolutely.
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It sounds like something right out of their own playbook.
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But the man ordering this mass crucifixion isn't a Roman
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emperor, he is a Jewish high priest.
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Yeah, that is the part that usually shocks people.
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Right. And the people dying on those
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crosses, they are his own countrymen.
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That horrific event is where the collision of religion, politics
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and absolute control reached its terrifying peak.
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So today we're doing a deep dive into the 130 year gap between
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the Old and New Testaments. The Hasmonean era.
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Yes, stretching from roughly 167 BC to 36 BC.
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And for you, the listener, understanding this era is well,
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it's like finding the missing puzzle piece that makes the
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entire New Testament suddenly makes sense it.
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Really is. It is a dark, fascinating and
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crucial period of history, and before we get into the details
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of the Maccabean revolt, the rise of the priest kings and the
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eventual Roman takeover, we should probably clarify our
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theological framework. Yes, that's a good idea.
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We approach this history from a Protestant Reformed perspective
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because we adhere to the Westminster Confession of Faith.
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We do not view the primary texts of this era, specifically 1st
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and 2nd Maccabees, as inspired canonical scripture.
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Right, they are part of the Apocrypha.
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Correct. However, stripping them of
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canonical status does not strip them of their immense historical
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value. I mean they are vital records.
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They really are. Through these texts, alongside
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the writings of the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus, we
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see God's Providence orchestrating world history.
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He was setting the political, cultural and religious stage for
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the arrival of Jesus Christ. That is a vital distinction for
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you, the listener, to keep in mind.
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We are reading history, not scripture.
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Yeah, precisely. And Speaking of history, we need
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to establish how we know what we know.
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Today. We are relying on excerpts from
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Larry R Hillier's work on the Hasmoneans.
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And we also have a text edited by Joel B Green and Lee Martin
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MacDonald which deals specifically with the Pharisees,
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right? But looking at our primary
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ancient sources, it strikes me that reading 1st and 2nd
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Maccabees is well, it is like reading a victorious general's
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personal memoir. Oh, that is a great way to put
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it. Yeah, because it is not an
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objective historical log. The authors have a clear,
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distinct bias. I mean the common people, the
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average Jewish farmers and merchants, they only seem to
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appear as background props in this grand theater of the ruling
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class. The authors are clearly writing
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to justify a dynasty. Your analogy of the Victorious
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Generals memoir is spot on. We always have to read ancient
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sources with a critical eye, you know, recognizing the specific
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agenda of the author. Like the author of First
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Maccabees, for instance, was an ardent supporter of the
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Hasemonian family. He wrote his account to
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legitimize their political project, painting them as the
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exclusive saviors of Israel. The text is highly favorable to
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their dynasty. But Second Maccabees is
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different, right? Yes, very different.
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The author of Second Maccabees had a totally different agenda.
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He admired the early hero Judas Maccabees, but essentially
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ignored Judas successors because he did not approve of their
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later political maneuvers. That is so interesting.
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It is, but both books, however inadvertently, let slip a
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fascinating truth. Many Jews were actually quite
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hostile to the nationalistic political agenda of the
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Hazmonians. That is a massive point.
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I mean, we often picture the entire Jewish nation rising up
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as one unified front against the Greeks, but the reality was far
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more fractured. Oh, it was very fractured.
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The Hazmonians were fighting a brutal 2 front war.
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Yes, they were fighting the foreign Seleucid Empire, but
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they were also fighting against Hellenizing Jews.
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Their own countrymen. Exactly their own countrymen who
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advocated for Greek assimilation, These Hellenizing
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Jews actively supported the agenda to turn Judea into a
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Greek temple state, complete with the gymnasium and Greek
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cultural norms. Wow.
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And when we bring the historian Josephus into the mix, we get
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another layer of perspective. We do.
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Josephus shows pride in the early Hasmonean achievements,
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but he does not conceal the horrific flaws and the moral rot
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of the later priest kings. So a close reading of all these
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sources reveals dissenting voices that barely get a hearing
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in the official propaganda. It really requires immense
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discernment to sift the facts from the spin.
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It absolutely does. So we have a messy bias
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historical record, but it is the best we have.
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Let's set the stage for the listener.
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What was the catalyst for this entire rebellion?
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Right. Why did the Jews go to war in
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the 1st? Place.
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Yeah, it all begins with the tyrannical overreach of a
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Seleucid king named Antiochus the 5th Epiphanes, who ruled the
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region from 175 to 164 B. He's a very ambitious guy.
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He was incredibly ambitious, but according to our sources, he ran
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into a massive geopolitical roadblock.
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Yes, he was campaigning in Egypt, ready to conquer, when a
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Roman envoy essentially drew a line in the sand and forced him
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to withdraw under the threat of war with the Roman Republic.
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Which was a humiliating public defeat for him.
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Absolutely humiliating. Following this humiliation, he
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heard rumors that the Jews in Jerusalem thought he was dead.
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And we're celebrating. Oh wow, so he responded by
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unleashing an unprecedented campaign of anti Judaism.
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To understand why he did this, we have to look at the mechanics
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of his empire. Antiochus realized that with the
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rising aggressive might of Rome breathing down his neck, he
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needed a culturally unified empire to withstand their
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expansion. That makes political sense in a
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twisted way. Right.
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Having a Jewish enclave situated right at the critical land
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bridge of his empire was a massive political liability.
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Because they were so different. Exactly.
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Here was a people fiercely devoted to an exclusive faith,
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worshipping only one God and adhering to strict ritual purity
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laws that kept them separate from their neighbors.
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They would not eat with Greeks. They would not worship Greek
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gods and they would not assimilate.
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Right. So Antiochus believed that the
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only way to secure his borders was to force cultural
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homogeneity. He wanted everyone on the same
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page, worshipping the same gods, participating in the same
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economy and sharing the same culture.
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Yeah, that was his goal. And to get that, he initiated
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what is often described as the first known religious
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persecution in recorded history. He decided to force Hellenistic
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assimilation at the point of a sword.
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And the measures he unleashed were draconian.
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I mean, he issued official decrees that all citizens of his
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empire should be one people, demanding the Jews give up their
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specific covenantal customs. The edicts targeted the very
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core of Jewish identity. They really did.
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Mothers were forbidden to circumcise their infant sons.
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The Jewish people were commanded to openly profane the Sabbath
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day. Which is unthinkable for them.
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Right. And worst of all, they were
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ordered to make themselves ritually abominable by
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sacrificing unclean animals, specifically pigs, to Pagan
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idols on their own altars. Just to humiliate them.
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Yeah, the explicit goal, as stated in the decrees, was that
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they would entirely forget the Law of Moses and change all the
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ordinances of their faith. And if anyone was caught
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disobeying, the penalty was immediate execution.
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I want the listener to really visualize this.
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Put yourself in the shoes of a Jewish family in the year 167
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BC. It is terrifying to even think
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about. It is your entire life.
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Your rhythm of time, your diet, your understanding of your
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standing before God is wrapped up in the Torah.
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Suddenly foreign soldiers are walking through your streets
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demanding you eat pork and worship Zeus.
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If you circumcise your newborn son as a sign of the covenant
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with God, soldiers will kill you and hang the infant from your
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neck. The shoe tension is suffocating.
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Suffocating is a good word for. It and that tension finally
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snapped in a small village called Modane, which was about
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17 miles northwest of Jerusalem. Yeah, the incident at Modane is
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the spark that ignited the entire powder keg.
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How'd it play out? Well, an official delegation
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from the king arrived in this quiet village to enforce the new
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edict. They set up a Pagan altar in the
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center of the town and demanded A sacrifice to demonstrate
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loyalty to the Seleucid Empire. And they picked a specific
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leader. Right, Yes.
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They singled out an aged priest named Mattathias.
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He was a highly respected leader in the community and they
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expected him to lead by example. The classic strategy get the
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leader to cave and the rest follow.
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Right. The official likely thought that
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if Mattathias complied, the rest of the village would fall in
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line, but Metathius steadfastly refused.
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He publicly declared that even if every other nation obeyed the
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King, he and his family would keep the covenant of their
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fathers. That takes incredible courage.
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But then the unthinkable happens.
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Another Jewish man steps forward, volunteering to offer
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the Pagan sacrifice on the altar.
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He capitulates. He does, and Manothius reacts
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with absolute unrestrained fury. The text compare him to Phineas
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from the Book of Numbers, filled with zealous rage for the
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holiness of God. He just completely snaps.
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He does. Manothius lunges forward and
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kills the apostate Jew right there on the altar.
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Then he turns his weapon on the King's delegate and kills him
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too. He tears down the Pagan altar,
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turning the village square into a scene of chaos and bloodshed.
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He cries out, Let everyone who is zealous for the law and
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supports the covenant come out with me.
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And that was it, the point of no return.
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Right. And with that, he and his sons
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flee into the rugged Goffna Hills.
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It is a single violent act of defiance that triggers a
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national avalanche. That moment altered the
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trajectory of world history. Mattifias and his five sons,
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John, Simon, Judas, Eliazar and Jonathan.
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They fled into the wilderness caves.
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And they were not alone for long.
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No, they weren't. These remote areas became a
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haven for other Jews who refused to assimilate.
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A significant group known as the Hasidians join them.
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Which translates to the pious ones.
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Right. Yes, the pious ones.
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The Citians were fiercely devoted to the Torah and swelled
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the ranks of this nascent rebellion.
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At first they had to operate strictly as a guerrilla force.
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Because they couldn't just March out and fight a conventional
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war. Right, they could not fight the
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massive Seleucid armies and open pitched battles.
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Instead, they launched night raids.
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What else did they do? They tore down Pagan altars and
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neighboring towns. They punished and killed
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apostate Jews, hidden tourist scrolls, and they forcibly
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circumcised Jewish boys to reverse the Hellenistic
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assimilation. They were fighting for their
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spiritual survival. They really were.
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But Mattifyus, being an old man, died shortly after sparking this
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revolt. He lit the match, but he left
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his sons facing a massive, highly trained Imperial army.
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That is a tough spot to be in. It is they desperately needed a
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military strategy to survive the inevitable retaliation from the
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Syrian forces. That necessity brought his son
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Judas to the forefront. Judas assumed command of the
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insurgents, and he proved to be a military genius.
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His leadership was staggering. It was so staggering, so
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effective, that he earned the nickname Maccabeus.
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Which means the hammer, right? Yes, the hammer or the mallet
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head. It was a fitting title as he
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delivered violent, crushing blows against both the
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Hellenizing Jews and the Seleucid dynasty.
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Even though he was completely outnumbered.
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Massively outnumbered against vastly superior numbers and
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advanced weaponry, including war elephants and heavily armored
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phalanxes, Judas utilized the rugged Judean terrain to his
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advantage. He used the landscape.
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Right. He relied on stealth, rapid
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mobilization and raw courage to score 4 stunning victories over
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the Seleucid forces. Let me stop you right there
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because I want to look at the strategic decision Judas made.
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That feels incredibly jarring when reading the history.
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OK, what is that? The sources mentioned that
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Judas, in his quest to secure political independence, forged a
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mutual defense pact with the Roman Republic.
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He did in 161 BC. Right.
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This treaty sent shock waves through the Seleucid regime
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because nobody wanted to provoke Rome.
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But I have to ask, was this a massive miscalculation?
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Well, we know how the story ends.
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This courtship dance with Rome eventually turns into a dance of
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death, resulting in the woman's destroying Jerusalem and burning
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the Temple to the ground in 8070.
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Did Judas invite the very empire that would eventually crush his
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people into his living room? That is a brilliant observation,
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and it highlights the tension between immediate tactical
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necessity and long term historical consequences.
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Right. He was thinking about the
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present. Yeah.
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In the immediate context of 161 BC, aligning with the rising
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might of the Roman Republic was a masterstroke of diplomacy.
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Judas needed a deterrent. He needed a Big Brother to scare
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off the bullies. Exactly.
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Rome was expanding its influence and loved nothing more than
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weakening the Seleucid Empire by supporting rebellious client
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states. By securing A pact with Rome,
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Judas essentially put a giant warning sign on Judea.
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That said, attack us and you answer to the Roman Senate.
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Wow. But it had a cost.
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It did, however, as you pointed out, in the grand scheme of
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history it introduced formal Roman influence into Judean
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politics. It opened a door that could
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never be closed, culminating in the disastrous Jewish revolts
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and the complete loss of sovereignty centuries later.
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But Judas was fighting a war for survival in the present, not the
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future. He had to stop the bleeding
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right then and there. He really did.
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And his immediate victories allowed him to achieve something
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that millions of people still celebrate today.
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Those four initial victories gave Judas the momentum to March
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into Jerusalem and momentarily reoccupy the city.
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It was a massive moral victory. It was he took control of the
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Temple Mount, though he could not dislodge the Seleucid troops
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barricaded in a massive fortress overlooking the temple known as
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the Aqua. Right, they were still stuck
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there. Yeah, but he had the temple
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itself. He cleansed the sanctuary,
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removed the Pagan idols, rebuilt the altar, and reinstituted
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proper covenantal worship. The rededication of the temple
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was the emotional and spiritual climax of the early revolt.
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Tell us about that day. Well, on the 25th day of the
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month of Chislev, which falls around November or December in
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our calendar, in the year 160, 64 BC, they instituted a massive
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celebration. And it's been incredible.
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They praised God with songs, harps, lutes and symbols, acting
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on the precise anniversary of the day the Gentiles had
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profaned the temple three years prior.
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They decreed that this days long festival of dedication should be
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observed annually. And this is Hanukkah.
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Yes, this event is the historical origin of Hanukkah.
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It was a monumental religious victory for the Jewish people.
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But the celebration did not last long because the reality of
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geopolitics set. In, it always does, yeah.
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Judas soon realized that simply having religious liberty in a
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clean temple in Jerusalem was not enough.
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The Jewish people were surrounded by intense, violent
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hostility from their Gentile neighbors.
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The surrounding areas were very hostile.
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Extremely Jewish communities living in regions outside Judea
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like Hebron, Gilead, Galilee and the coastal plain were facing
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outright annihilation. Their neighbors saw the Jewish
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uprising in Jerusalem and started attacking the vulnerable
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Jewish minority populations in their own cities.
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This existential threat forced a major evolution in the nature of
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the rebellion. He changed everything.
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It did. Judas had to transition the
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movement from a strictly religious struggle for the
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freedom of the Torah into a full blown political and military
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war. You need to protect his people.
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Right. He had to launch rapid rescue
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missions to save these isolated Jewish communities, bringing
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many of them back to Judea for safety.
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Because of this, the objective shifted.
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It was no longer just about the right to worship.
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It became a war for secure, defensible borders and political
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independence. The logic makes sense.
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I mean, religious liberty means nothing if your neighbors are
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actively trying to wipe you off the map.
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You need a state. You need an army.
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Yeah, you need infrastructure. Eventually, the successor to the
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Seleucid throne, Antiochus V, grew incredibly weary of this
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protracted conflict. He was dealing with rival
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claimants to his own throne back home and could not afford to
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keep fighting in Judea. He was distracted.
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So he opted for negotiations. He officially agreed to let the
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Jews live by their own laws, as they did before, effectively
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ending the first phase of the War of liberation.
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But Judas did not get to enjoy a peaceful retirement.
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No, sadly, peace was entirely fleeting.
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Hostilities eventually resumed as new Seleucid rulers tried to
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reassert control, but the internal landscape of the Jewish
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rebellion had shifted drastically.
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What changed internally? Well, the Hasidians, those
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deeply pious fighters who formed the backbone of Judas's early
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army, abandoned him. Really.
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Why? They were satisfied with
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achieving mere religious freedom.
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Oh wait, I mean they were satisfied with just getting
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religious freedom back. Once the Seleucids agreed to let
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them practice the Torah and worship at the Temple, the
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Hasidians had no appetite for an ongoing, bloody political war of
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national expansion. They just wanted to go home and
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worship. Exactly.
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They viewed the fight as over. Having lost a massive portion of
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his fighting force, Judas Maccabeus was highly vulnerable.
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And that led to his downfall. It did.
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He fell in battle against a massive Seleucid army at Alosa
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in 161 BC. He was buried in the ancestral
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tomb at Modane, leaving his brothers to navigate a highly
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precarious situation. With Judas dead, the sheer
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military brute force of the rebellion died with him.
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The Hasmoneans were backed into a corner.
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They needed a new strategy. Yeah, because when you can no
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longer win on the battlefield through tactical brilliance, you
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have to win in the throne room. You have to play politics.
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And that is precisely what the next brother, Jonathan did to
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secure the survival of the state.
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He was a very different kind of leader.
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He was. If Judas was the hammer,
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Jonathan was the master of high stakes geopolitical poker.
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He looked at the absolute chaos happening within the Syrian
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empire and used it to extract massive concessions.
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The transition from military insurgency to diplomatic
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manipulation is fascinating. Jonathan assumed leadership in
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his tenure, stretching from 1:52 to 1:43.
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BC is a master class in opportunistic statecraft.
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What did he do? Well around 152 BC, the Seleucid
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Empire was fracturing from within.
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A man named Alexander Ballas claimed to be the legitimate
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heir to the throne and prepared to overthrow the incumbent
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ruler, Demetrius the first A. Civil War.
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Right. Both of these men were desperate
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for military allies in the Civil War.
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Jonathan recognized his leverage.
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He let them engage in a bidding war for his military support.
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It is brilliant, he basically says whoever gives my people the
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best deal gets our swords. Yeah, that was his play.
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And the strategy paid off immensely.
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It yielded staggering results. Through this bidding war,
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Jonathan managed to be appointed as a general and the governor of
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Judea. That is a massive step up.
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And even more significantly, Alexander Ballas appointed him
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as the High Priest of the Jerusalem Temple.
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Wow, so he combined them. Yes, a move that consolidated
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religious and political authority.
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In one man, Jonathan extracted sweeping tax exemptions,
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territorial acquisitions and the release of Jewish hostages held
19:17
in the Accra fortress. So they were legitimate now?
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Completely the ragtag group of guerrilla fighters hiding in the
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caves of the Gafna Hills had officially morphed into a
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recognized formidable military state.
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But playing high stakes geopolitical poker with imperial
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generals is incredibly dangerous.
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One miscalculation, 1 misplaced trust, and you lose everything.
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And that is what happened. Yeah, Jonathan's story ends in a
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devastating betrayal. A Syrian military leader named
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Trifon realized he could not defeat Jonathan's seasoned army
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in a fair fight on the battlefield, so he resorted to
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treachery. This.
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Is a very sneaky move. Trifon dangled a diplomatic
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carrot. He promised to hand over the
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highly valuable seaport of Ptolemies to Jewish control.
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All Jonathan had to do was come inside the city to finalize the
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handover. Right.
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Trifon convinced Jonathan to leave the vast majority of his
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army behind in Galilee and enter the heavily fortified city of
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Ptolemais with only 1000 troops as an honor guard.
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Which was a huge mistake. It was a fatal trap.
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As soon as Jonathan and his men were inside, the people of
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Ptolemais, colluding with Trifon, slammed the city gates
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shut. They slarred.
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The thousand Jewish soldiers took Jonathan prisoner, and
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Trifon eventually executed him. The nation was entirely stunned.
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They had lost their diplomatic mastermind.
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Following Jonathan's murder, the mantle of leadership felt the
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last remaining brother of the original 5 Simon.
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Simon took over. Yes, he ruled from 1:43 to 1:35
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BC and under Simon, the Hasmoneans finally achieved the
20:49
goal. They have been bleeding for over
20:50
3 decades. They reached a watershed moment
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in Jewish history. Simon proved to be an incredibly
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capable leader. In 142 BC, he capitalized on yet
21:00
another shift in Seleucid politics.
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The new ruler, Demetrius the Second, was desperate for
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Simon's alliance against a rival faction.
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More civil war for the Syrians. Exactly.
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In exchange, Demetrius released the Hasmonean state from paying
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all tribute and canceled the oppressive Crown tax.
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That is a huge financial win. It was the Jewish texts declare
21:21
this moment with incredible triumph, stating that the yoke
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of the Gentiles was removed from Israel.
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I want to pause on that phrase. The yoke of the Gentiles was
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removed. For generations, the Jewish
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people lived as subjects, paying crippling taxes to foreign
21:36
kings, having their wealth drained to fund foreign wars.
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It was a heavy burden. Suddenly they are free.
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It was such a monumental achievement that the Jewish
21:45
people actually reset their calendars.
21:48
They did. They began dating their legal
21:50
documents and contracts in reference to this event, writing
21:54
in the first year of Simon the Great, high priest and commander
21:57
and leader of the Jews. They even struck their own
21:59
coins. Which is the ultimate ancient
22:01
symbol of sovereign economy? It really is, and Simon
22:05
solidified this newly recognized autonomy through massive
22:09
physical consolidation and infrastructure projects.
22:11
Like what? Well, in 141 BC, he achieved a
22:14
massive psychological victory. For over 20 years, the Seleucid
22:18
Garrison stationed in the Aqua Fortress had loomed over the
22:21
Temple Mount in Jerusalem, constantly harassing the
22:24
worshippers. Just a constant reminder of
22:26
foreign occupation. Exactly.
22:28
Simon instituted A blockade, starved out the foreign soldiers
22:32
and the Hellenizing Jews hiding inside, and finally captured it.
22:35
And he didn't just capture it. No, he did not just capture it.
22:38
He raised the fortress to the ground, erasing the final
22:41
physical reminder of Hellenistic dominance in the Holy City.
22:45
He then fortified the city walls around Mount Zion and
22:48
strengthened the defenses of the surrounding towns.
22:51
The people were so grateful for this era of peace and strength
22:54
that they convened a massive public assembly.
22:57
The priests, the leaders of the nation, and the elders
23:00
officially decreed that Simon should be their leader and high
23:03
priest forever until a trustworthy prophet should
23:06
arise. They locked it in.
23:07
They. Etched this decree on bronze
23:09
tablets and set them up in the temple precinct.
23:12
They basically established a new royal dynasty.
23:15
But despite all the success, Simon's life ends with a
23:18
terrible, tragic irony. The irony is well, it is
23:22
devastating. After successfully
23:24
outmaneuvering the might of foreign empires, surviving
23:28
countless battles and securing the borders of his nation, Simon
23:32
met a violent death not on a battlefield facing a foreign
23:36
enemy, but at a banquet table facing his own family.
23:39
That is just awful. In 134 BC, his own son-in-law, a
23:44
man named Ptolemy who had been appointed governor of the
23:46
Jericho region, invited Simon and two of his sons to a feast.
23:50
And he betrayed them. He got them drunk and had hidden
23:53
assassins murder them in a vain, ambitious attempt to seize
23:56
absolute authority over the nation for himself.
23:59
This domestic assassination signals a very dark turning
24:02
point in our narrative. We are moving from the era of
24:05
the heroic liberators into the era of the priest kings, and
24:09
this is the most troubling part of the history we are examining.
24:11
It is where things go off the rails.
24:13
The original Hasemonians, Mattathias, Judas, they fought
24:16
and died to defend the Torah from Pagan corruption.
24:19
They were zealous for the holiness of God.
24:21
But as we look at the subsequent generations of their
24:23
descendants, we see a shocking, rapid moral decline.
24:26
They change completely. They seem to morph into the
24:28
exact despotic, power hungry Hellenistic monarchs they
24:32
originally went to war against. Applying our Reformed
24:35
theological lens here provides A crucial framework for
24:38
understanding this shift. This era perfectly illustrates
24:41
the doctrine of human total depravity.
24:43
Can you unpack that for the listener?
24:45
Sure, total depravity does not mean humans are as evil as they
24:48
could possibly be at all times. Rather, it means that sin has
24:52
entirely infected every aspect of our nature, our minds, our
24:56
wills, our desires. So nobody's immune.
24:59
Right. And what we see in the Hasmonean
25:01
dynasty is a terrifying case study.
25:04
Once given absolute political authority, immense wealth, and
25:07
freedom from accountability, even a family whose roots were
25:09
in righteous rebellion and zeal for God's covenant descended
25:13
into unimaginable cruelty, ambition, and sin.
25:16
Control corrupts, and fallen human nature cannot handle
25:19
absolute control without turning it into tyranny.
25:22
Let us breakdown how that tyranny manifested.
25:24
The third generation begins with Simon's surviving son John
25:27
Hercanis's first, who ruled from 185 to one O 4 BC.
25:31
He had a rough start. He did.
25:33
John Hercanis managed to survive the assassination plot that
25:37
killed his father and brothers, but his reign started with
25:40
severe setbacks. The Seleucid ruler Antiochus the
25:43
7th marched into Judea, besieged Jerusalem and forced Hercanus
25:48
into submission. So they lost the independence.
25:51
Right. Hercanus had to pay a massive
25:53
tribute, watch the city walls get torn down again, and hand
25:56
over hostages, including his own brother.
25:59
It looked like all the hard won independence was evaporating.
26:02
But geopolitical winds shift rapidly.
26:04
Hurricanus caught a massive break when Antiochus 7 was
26:07
killed in a disastrous military campaign against the Parthian
26:10
Empire in the east. The Syrian Army fell apart.
26:13
It was decimated, and the empire plunged back into internal
26:16
chaos. Hurricanus immediately seized
26:18
the opportunity. He stopped all tribute payments,
26:21
sent envoys to Rome to renew their mutual defense pact and
26:24
keep any new Syrian retaliation at Bay, and launched an
26:28
aggressive, massive campaign of territorial expansion.
26:31
He went on the offensive. He operated much like a secular
26:34
Hellenistic king, hiring foreign mercenaries to bolster his army
26:38
because he could no longer rely entirely on Jewish volunteers
26:42
who were increasingly alienated by his political ambition and.
26:45
Where did he expand? Well, he went North and South,
26:48
conquering vital trade routes. He marched into Samaria and in
26:52
128 BC he completely destroyed the Samaritan Temple on Mount
26:56
Jerusalem. Which was a massive statement.
26:58
It was a massive religious and political statement asserting
27:01
the absolute supremacy of the Jerusalem Temple.
27:05
But it is his campaign in the South that really exposes the
27:08
moral rot of his reign. He conquered the Edomins, the
27:11
descendants of the Edomites, and he presented them with a
27:13
chilling ultimatum. The ultimatum was simple.
27:16
Convert to Judaism, which mandated circumcision and
27:19
adherence to the Torah, or face total expulsion from your
27:22
ancestral lands. That is just brutal.
27:25
Faced with the loss of their homes and livelihoods, the
27:27
Edomians chose forced conversion.
27:29
They were absorbed into the Jewish nation at the point of a
27:32
sword. The hypocrisy is staggering.
27:34
Forced conversion by the sword is the precise tactic Antiochus
27:39
Epiphanes tried to inflict on the Jewish people decades
27:42
earlier. It is the exact same thing.
27:44
The Hasmodians went to war to stop forced assimilation, and
27:47
now a generation later they are inflicting it on their neighbors
27:51
to expand their tax base and secure their borders.
27:54
They had become the very monsters they fought.
27:56
And it gets significantly worse when we look at the 4th
27:59
generation. Tell us about them.
28:00
The descend into outright tyranny accelerates with
28:03
Aristobulus Acerst, the son of John Hyrcanus, who ruled briefly
28:07
from one O 4 to one O 3 BC. Only one year.
28:10
Yeah, but he did a lot of damage.
28:12
Aristobulus was not content with the title of high priests or
28:15
ethnarc. He craved the prestige of the
28:17
gentile rulers around him, so he formally assumed the title of
28:21
king and wore a royal diadem. Which upset a lot of people.
28:25
Oh, greatly. The blending of the high
28:27
priesthood with the kingship offended many devout Jews who
28:30
believed the kingship belonged exclusively to the line of
28:33
David. But he didn't care.
28:35
Not at all. Aristobulus did not care about
28:37
theological propriety, he cared about dominance.
28:40
To secure his throne, he imprisoned his own mother and
28:43
deliberately starved her to death.
28:45
That is insane. He also grew paranoid regarding
28:48
his brother Antigonus and had him treacherously executed based
28:52
on false rumors of a coup. Starving his own mother to
28:54
death? Yeah, that tells the listener
28:56
everything they need to know about the state of this family.
28:59
But the violence reached its absolute horrific Nader during
29:03
the reign of his brother Alexander Janius, who took over
29:06
and ruled from one O 3 to 76 BC. He was a very brutal man.
29:10
Under Janius, the policy of military expansion reached its
29:13
absolute peak. Through relentless warfare and
29:16
the heavy use of foreign mercenaries, he pushed the
29:19
borders of the Hasmonean Kingdom to essentially equal the vast
29:22
territory once ruled by King David and King Solomon.
29:25
On a map, the nation looked incredibly strong.
29:28
On a map, yes, but that external expansion masked severe,
29:32
festering internal rot. Geneus was a brutal, deeply
29:36
unpopular ruler among the common people.
29:38
Did he have brother issues too? He did like his predecessor, He
29:42
executed another one of his brothers out of sheer paranoia.
29:45
His entire reign was marked by constant warfare, not just
29:49
against foreign nations, but against his own people.
29:52
He fought his own people. Yes, he aligned himself
29:54
politically with the aristocratic Sadducees who
29:57
supported his Hellenistic royal lifestyle, and he fiercely
30:01
alienated the Popular party of the Pharisees, who demanded
30:04
strict adherence to the Torah and opposed his corruption of
30:07
the high priesthood. And that boiled over.
30:09
The tension erupted into a full scale bloody civil war that
30:13
raged for six years, costing the lives of 10s of thousands of
30:17
Jews. And this civil war culminated in
30:19
the event I mentioned at the very beginning of this deep
30:21
dive, the event the sources refer to as a day of infamy.
30:25
It is a dark day. The Pharisees had actually
30:28
allied with the foreign Syrian king to try and overthrow
30:30
Janaeus. When Janaeus finally defeated
30:33
the rebellion, his vengeance was apocalyptic.
30:36
He captured 800 of his leading Pharisaic opponents. 800 men.
30:39
He brought them to Jerusalem, and while he threw a lavish
30:43
banquet for his concubines, he had all 800 men crucified.
30:47
And while they were hanging on the crosses, agonizing in their
30:50
final hours, he ordered their wives and children to be dragged
30:54
out and slaughtered right before their eyes.
30:56
It is a profound, horrifying historical tragedy.
30:59
I mean the grandsons and great grandsons of men who willingly
31:03
died in caves to protect the Torah.
31:05
We're now utilizing the most brutal execution methods of the
31:08
Pagan empires to murder the very people trying to observe the
31:12
law. It is completely upside down.
31:14
The internal all bloodshed and the deep fractures generated by
31:17
leaders like Alexander Geneus created a massive structural
31:20
vulnerability within the nation. The society was tearing itself
31:23
apart from the inside. And when a society does that, it
31:26
invites trouble. Right in the ancient world,
31:29
internal fracturing is an open invitation for external
31:31
opportunists. This horrific civil strife set
31:34
the stage for Rome's eventual permanent takeover.
31:37
To help the listener understand how Rome got involved, let us
31:40
use an analogy. It is like 2 rival CEO's
31:45
destroying their own massive corporation in a bitter, petty
31:48
boardroom dispute. I like this analogy.
31:50
They are tanking the stock, fighting over assets, and
31:54
eventually they invite a massive predatory hedge fund to come in
31:57
and mediate the dispute. By the time the mediation is
32:00
over, neither CEO has a job and the hedge fund owns the entire
32:04
company. That is a perfect way to
32:06
describe it. That is essentially what the
32:08
next generation of Hasemonians did with the Roman Empire.
32:11
The transition to Roman rule began after a brief,
32:13
surprisingly peaceful reprieve following the death of Alexander
32:17
Jinaeus, his widow, Queen Shalomzi and Alexandra took the
32:21
throne and ruled from 76 to 67 BCA.
32:25
Queen ruling alone was rare. Very rare according to
32:28
historical accounts. Jinaeus gave her deathbed advice
32:30
to reconcile with the Pharisees, knowing their popularity with
32:33
the masses was essential for stability.
32:35
So she listened to him. She followed his advice,
32:38
switching royal patronage to the Pharisees, which brought a
32:41
period of relative of peace and prosperity.
32:44
Because a woman could not serve as high priest, she appointed
32:46
her eldest son, a very passive man named Hyrcanus, the second
32:50
to the priesthood. But the peace died the moment
32:53
she died. Yes, it did.
32:54
She had a younger son, Aristobulus the Second, who was
32:57
incredibly ambitious, energetic, and heavily supported by the
33:00
military and the Sadducees. Upon the Queen's death, deadly
33:04
animosity erupted between the two brothers.
33:06
Brother against brother again. Aristobulus the Second executed
33:10
a rapid military coup, defeated his older brother's forces, and
33:13
forced her Canis the Second to resign from both the kingship
33:17
and the high priesthood, retreating to a quiet private
33:19
life. And that might have been the end
33:21
of the story, with Aristobulus the Second ruling securely if
33:25
not for the introduction of a massive, shadowy new player in
33:28
our historical narrative. Who's that?
33:30
A man named Antipater the Edumian entered the political,
33:33
and Tippeter was an incredibly wealthy and cunning political
33:36
operator. He's also the father of the man
33:38
who would eventually become known as Herod the Great.
33:41
Wow, so Herod's family enters the picture.
33:43
Yes, and remember the brutal irony from earlier The Idumeans
33:47
were the very people John Hyrcanus had forced to convert
33:50
to Judaism by the sword decades prior.
33:53
No? And Edumian was about to
33:55
orchestrate the downfall of the Hasmonian dynasty.
33:57
And idiopater sees the passive ousted her keenness the second
34:01
as the perfect puppet. He approaches your canis and
34:04
essentially says your brother is going to kill you to secure his
34:08
throne. You need to fight back and I
34:10
will help you. He totally plays him.
34:13
And Tipater leverages his vast wealth to enlist the military
34:16
support of the neighboring Nevateen king Ritas.
34:19
Suddenly, Hyrcanus 2 has a massive army at his back.
34:23
He marches on Jerusalem, defeats Aristobulus forces in battle,
34:27
and traps his brother in a protracted siege on the Temple
34:29
Mount. So the nation is once again
34:31
bleeding out in a civil war between two brothers.
34:33
Exactly. And while the brothers were
34:35
slaughtering each other in Jerusalem, the geopolitical
34:37
landscape shifted dramatically. Rome showed up.
34:39
Yes, in 63 BC, the legendary Roman general Pompeii the Great
34:44
arrived in Syria, having just conquered vast territories in
34:47
the east. Pompeii represented the sheer
34:49
unstoppable might of the Roman Republic.
34:52
He was a Titan. Recognizing that Rome was now
34:54
the ultimate deal maker in the region, both brothers,
34:58
Aristobulus the second and Hyrcanus the second, sent
35:01
delegations to Pompeii, offering massive bribes and pleading
35:04
their respective cases to gain Roman backing.
35:08
This is the moment the rival CEO's invite the hedge fund into
35:11
the boardroom, right? But what is truly fascinating is
35:14
that a third delegation showed up to speak to Pompeii.
35:16
People. Yes, A massive group of Jewish
35:19
citizens, thoroughly sickened by the bloodshed, corruption and
35:22
tyranny, the Hasmonean family approached the Roman general.
35:25
They emphatically rejected both brothers.
35:28
They wanted nothing to do with them.
35:29
They asked Pompeii to abolish the monarchy altogether and
35:32
restore the old system where priests managed religious
35:35
affairs and left the politics alone.
35:37
They essentially bade Rome to save them from their own kings.
35:41
Pompeii listened to all three delegations and initially
35:43
commanded them to wait for his official decision, but
35:47
Aristobulus the Second was impatient and distrustful.
35:51
He fled the proceedings and retreated to Jerusalem to
35:53
fortify his military position, preparing to fight.
35:56
You do not run from Pompeii. No, you do not.
35:59
Pompeii, who did not tolerate insubordination, responded with
36:03
overwhelming force. He marched his Roman legions on
36:06
Jerusalem. How did the siege go?
36:08
Well, the supporters of Hyrcanus the Second opened the city gates
36:10
to the Romans, but the supporters of Aristobulus
36:13
barricaded themselves on the fortified Temple.
36:15
Mount Pompeii constructed a massive siege wall, brought up
36:19
battering Rams, and after three brutal months he violently
36:22
crushed all resistance. And he entered the temple,
36:25
didn't he? He did.
36:26
He even brazenly walked into the Holy of Holies in the Temple, an
36:29
act that deeply traumatized the Jewish psyche, though he
36:32
surprisingly left the Temple treasures untouched.
36:34
So the hedge fund has completely taken over the company.
36:37
Pompeii issues his verdict. He strips the Hasmonean state of
36:41
its vast conquered territories, reducing Judea to a small,
36:45
subservient province. The Empire was over.
36:48
He reinstates her Canis the Second as high priest, and gives
36:51
him the lesser title of ethnark. But the real sovereignty now
36:54
belongs to Rome. Judea is a Roman client state
36:57
subject to heavy taxation. Back to paying taxes to
37:00
Gentiles. Right.
37:02
Aristobulus and his family are shipped off to Rome in chains,
37:05
to be paraded in Pompey's military triumph and operating
37:09
entirely behind the scenes, pulling the strings of the
37:11
passive Hyrcanus. The second is Antipater the
37:14
Adumian. The real winner in all this?
37:16
Antipater becomes the true authority behind the throne,
37:19
steadily installing his own sons into key governorships across
37:22
the region. The era of genuine Hasmonean
37:25
independence was officially dead.
37:28
There was, however, one final chaotic gasp of Hasmonean
37:31
ambition. Oh, right, Antigonus.
37:33
Yes, years later, a Prince from the 6th generation named
37:37
Mattheus Antigonus, the son of the exiled Aristobulus the
37:40
Second. A son opportunity.
37:42
The Roman Republic was tearing itself apart in civil wars
37:45
following the assassination of Julius Caesar.
37:47
They were distracted again. Taking advantage of Roman
37:49
distraction, Antigonus alive at the invading Parthian Empire.
37:54
In 40 BC, Parthian forces swept into Judea, overthrew the local
37:59
government, and installed Antigonus as king and high
38:02
priest. And Antigonus knew he had to
38:05
permanently neutralize his uncle Hyrcanus the Second, who still
38:09
held the legitimate claim to the priest.
38:11
He had to get rid of him. He could not just kill him
38:13
because that might spark a rebellion among Hurricanes
38:16
supporters. So Antigonist resorted to a
38:18
brutal technicality, the. Ear biting.
38:20
Yes, Jewish law mandated that a high priest must be free of any
38:24
physical blemish or mutilation. Antigonist personally attacked
38:27
his uncle and bit or cut off his ears, permanently disqualifying
38:31
him from ever holding the sacred office again.
38:34
But this brutal, brief reign by Antigonist was doomed from the
38:37
start. It was doomed because
38:39
Antipater's highly capable and ruthless son Herod managed to
38:43
escape the chaos in Jerusalem. He ran to Rome.
38:45
Herod travelled all the way to Rome, navigating the treacherous
38:48
political waters of the Roman Senate.
38:50
He brilliantly pleaded his case before Mark Antony and Octavian.
38:54
And they liked him. Impressed by his loyalty and
38:56
capability, the Roman Senate conferred upon Herod the title
39:00
of King of the Jews and provided him with massive military
39:03
backing. So he came back with an army.
39:05
Herod returned to Judea, fought a brute, brutal, grinding 3 year
39:09
war against Antigonus, and finally captured Jerusalem in 37
39:14
BC. The Romans took the defeated
39:17
Antigonus away and at Herod's urging, beheaded him.
39:21
Herod the Great is now on the throne.
39:23
But Herod knew his claim was entirely illegitimate in the
39:26
eyes of the Jewish people. He was an Edumian whose family
39:29
converted by force. He had no royal blood.
39:32
He was very insecure about that. So to secure his grip on
39:35
control, he launched A systematic, horrifying campaign
39:38
of extermination against every remaining member of the
39:41
Hasmonian family. Herod's paranoia and
39:43
ruthlessness knew no bounds. He executed the elderly,
39:46
mutilated Hyrcanus 2, fearing he might still be used as a
39:49
figurehead for rebellion. This is just sad.
39:52
Most tragically, Herod executed his own wife, Mariam, who was a
39:56
beautiful Hasmonian Princess he had married to try and
39:58
legitimize his role. He killed his own wife.
40:01
Driven by insane jealousy and court intrigue, he had her
40:04
killed. He then executed her mother,
40:06
Alexandra. He orchestrated a convenient
40:09
drowning accident in a swimming pool in Jericho for his teenage
40:12
brother-in-law, Aristobulus the Third, who had become wildly
40:16
popular when Herod briefly appointed him as high priest.
40:19
A total. Purge.
40:20
Eventually, as he neared the end of his life, Herod even
40:23
sentenced and strangled his own two sons by Mariam, fearing they
40:27
would use their Hasmonian bloodline to usurp him.
40:30
Through relentless bloodshed, the political dynasty of the
40:34
Maccabees was violently erased from the Earth.
40:37
The political dynasty was dead, but here's where we bridge the
40:40
gap for the listener. The religious and cultural
40:43
landscape the Hasmonians created over those 130 years directly
40:47
set the stage for the New Testament world.
40:49
It is the background for everything in the Gospels.
40:51
You open the Gospel of Matthew and suddenly you were confronted
40:53
with Pharisees, Sadducees, Herodians, massive Hellenistic
40:57
cities, and deep political unrest.
41:00
This entire world traces its origins right back to the
41:02
Maccabee intervals. It does.
41:04
I want to look closely at one specific group, the Pharisees.
41:08
We mentioned earlier that their historical roots likely lie with
41:10
his Citians, those zealous, pious fighters who fought in the
41:14
caves alongside Judas to protect the Torah.
41:16
Right, the early heroes so. How did a group of heroic
41:20
zealous freedom fighters end up evolving into the primary
41:23
antagonists of Jesus, fixated on rigid external purity and man
41:27
made traditions? What is the mechanism behind
41:30
that shift? The evolution of the Pharisees
41:33
is a crucial piece of the theological puzzle.
41:36
The very name Pharisee likely derives from a Hebrew root word
41:40
meaning one who is separate. Separate from what?
41:43
Separate from impurity, their origins are deeply tied to the
41:46
trauma of the exile and the subsequent Maccabian crisis.
41:49
They witnessed the horrific consequences of idolatry and
41:52
assimilation. Their foundational goal was
41:55
actually quite noble. What were they trying to do?
41:57
They wanted to ensure that the entire Jewish nation, not just
42:00
the Temple priests, strictly kept the Torah in their daily
42:03
lives. They believed that widespread,
42:06
rigorous obedience would secure God's blessing and hasten the
42:10
arrival of the Messianic age, while compromise would invite
42:13
God's wrath, as it did under Antiochus.
42:16
It is the logic of a traumatized people.
42:18
If we just obey perfectly, God will protect us and the pagans
42:22
will never crush us again. Exactly.
42:24
To achieve that perfect obedience, they started building
42:27
what they called a fence around the Torah.
42:29
Precisely, they developed an exhaustive system of oral
42:32
traditions known as Halakhar, which was the practical
42:35
interpretation and application of the written law.
42:37
Like filling in the blanks. Yes, if the Torah said do not
42:40
work on the Sabbath, the Pharisees took it upon
42:43
themselves to meticulously define what constituted work.
42:46
How far could you walk? Could you tie a knot?
42:48
Could you carry a mat? Very granular.
42:50
Over the decades, their intense concern for maintaining
42:53
separation from gentile impurity rigidified into a massive burden
42:58
of regulations. And according to Josephus, they
43:00
were massively popular among the common people.
43:02
They were the party of the people.
43:03
The Sadducees were the wealthy aristocrats and the temple
43:06
elite, but the Pharisees lived among the masses.
43:10
They had immense grassroots support.
43:12
They were considered the unrivaled experts in the law,
43:15
the local synagogue leaders who guided daily life.
43:18
People really looked up to them. They took immense pride in being
43:21
the most observant, the most separated, the most pure faction
43:24
of Judaism. Because of their reputation as
43:27
accurate interpreters of the law, they wielded immense
43:30
societal and religious influence.
43:33
But this rigid adherence to oral tradition and external boundary
43:37
markers is precisely the mechanism that led to their
43:40
frequent fierce clashes with Jesus.
43:42
Jesus was not focused on the fence.
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No, he was not. When you read the Gospels, the
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disputes are almost never about the core moral law.
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They are about areas of external piety and Holika.
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Jesus clashed with them over tithing tiny garden herbs like
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mint and cumin, over the proper protocols for fasting, over the
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necessity of ritual hand washing before meals, and over their
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incredibly restrictive Sabbath rules.
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They lost the plot. The original noble desire for
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national holiness had calcified over a century into a heavy,
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suffocating burden of legalism. They had elevated their fence
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around the Torah to the same authority as the Torah itself.
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The zeal for purity turned into a mechanism for control.
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We also see the rise of other major sects during this
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Hasmonian period, driven by the same fracturing.
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Let us look at the Qumran community.
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The Essenes. Yes.
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Generally identified by scholars as the Essenes, they feature
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prominently in the famous Dead Sea Scrolls.
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This group completely abandoned mainstream Jewish society.
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They just walked away. They produced sectarian
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literature detailing a bitter, violent conflict between a
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figure they call the Wicked Priest and their own founder,
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the Teacher of Righteousness. The identity of the wicked
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priest is heavily debated among historians.
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Who are the candidates? Some scholars argue it was
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Jonathan or Simon, pointing to their illegitimate usurpation in
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the high priesthood. Others make a compelling case
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that it was the brutal Alexander Geneus, the man who crucified
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the 800 Pharisees. Either way, the they hated the
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leadership. Regardless of the specific
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identity, the dynamic is clear. The Qumran community viewed the
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Hasmonean high priesthood as deeply, hopelessly corrupted.
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In response, they withdrew entirely into the harsh Judean
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desert. They went to the wilderness.
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They set up an isolated monastic style community at Qumran,
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binding themselves to intensely strict interpretations of the
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Torah, apocalyptic expectations and ritual bathing.
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They believed they were the true pure remnant of Israel, waiting
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in the wilderness for God to judge the corrupt authorities in
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Jerusalem. So the Hasmonian era birthed the
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Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the Essenes.
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That fragmentation of Judaism into competing rival sex is a
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direct legacy of the political choices made by the priest
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kings. The old consensus was shattered.
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The old theological consensus forged during the Persian era
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completely shattered under the pressure of Hellenism and self
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rule. And Speaking of Hellenism, we
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have to look at the staggering paradox of this entire 130 year
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narrative. It is a massive paradox.
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The Mckibbian Revolt started as a violent, zealous war to
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completely eradicate Greek culture from Judea.
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Yet over the generations, the Hasmonean rulers eventually
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integrated the very culture they fought against into the fabric
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of their nation. It is the ultimate historical
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irony. Archaeological evidence clearly
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demonstrates the steady creep of Hellenistic integration.
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What do they find? Under the later Hasmoneans, new
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cities were laid out using the Hippodamic plan, which is the
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classic Greek grid pattern of streets intersecting at right
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angles. They transitioned from
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traditional mud brick construction to using finely
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hewn ashlar masonry, a Greek technique.
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So they built like Greeks. They began importing and
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utilizing Hellenistic luxury goods like fine glass and
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foreign wine. We even see it in their death
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practices. Like the tombs?
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Yes. When Simon Maccabeus renovated
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the family tomb in Modian, he integrated massive, imposing
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elements of Greek monumental architecture, including carved
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panoples of armor and ships, to project prestige in a way the
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Greeks would understand and respect.
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Over time, Hellenism became completely indigenous to Jewish
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Palestine. They absorbed the culture of the
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empire they defeated. And the bloodline of this
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complicated family continued to intersect with the New Testament
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narrative long after the dynasty fell.
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It survived through Herod's line.
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The Hasmonean blood mixed with the Aduma line of Herod through
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Mariam carried on into the 9th and 10th generations.
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When you read the book of Acts, you encounter King Herod Agripp,
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this earth who arrested the Apostle Peter and executed
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James. He had hasmonium blood.
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He did. His son, King Agrippa the second
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is the ruler who sat and listened to the Apostle Paul's
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masterful defense in Caesarea. And you have the infamous women
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of the Gospels, Erodius, who manipulated the political
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situation to orchestrate the death of John the Baptist, and
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her daughter Salome, whose dance results in the prophet's head
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being delivered on a silver platter.
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The legacy lived on. They were all descendants,
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carrying the dark, violent and complicated legacy of this
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family line. It is a dark legacy,
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undoubtedly, but as we synthesize this history, we must
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be careful not to entirely dismiss the early Hasmoneans.
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Give them their due. Despite the catastrophic moral
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failures, the bloody civil wars and the eventual surrender to
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Roman domination by the later generations, we must acknowledge
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the immense theological and historical legacy of the
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Founders. They did save the faith.
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Without the initial uncompromising rebellion of
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Mattathias and Judas and the Gofna Hills, the Jewish faith
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might have been entirely wiped out.
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Assimilated into the Pagan soup of the Seleucid Empire.
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They preserved monotheism in the Land of Israel at a critical
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juncture in history. That is a fairpoint.
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Furthermore, the stories of early Maccabee and Zeal deeply
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impacted subsequent generations. The horrifying account in Second
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Maccabees of the Jewish mother and her seven sons, who bravely
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chose horrific torture and death rather than violate God's law by
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eating pork, became a foundational text for early
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Christian. It inspired the martyrs.
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Those Jewish martyrs inspired thousands of Christian martyrs
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facing the lions in Roman arenas.
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It is incredibly heavy history to process, but understanding
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this violent, chaotic 130 year period provides a high
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definition brilliant background to the Gospels for you, the
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listener. It explains the tension in every
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interaction Jesus has. It sets the whole scene.
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You can now see precisely why the crowds in Jerusalem during
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Jesus's time we're so intensely desperate for a political,
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military Messiah to overthrow the Roman occupation.
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They were not just dreaming of ancient King David from 1000
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years prior. They were longing for the good
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old days of Hasmonean autonomy. They wanted independence back.
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They remembered a time, just a century before they were born,
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when a zealous Jewish war took up a sword, utilize brilliant
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tactics, defeated a Pagan empire, cleanse the temple, and
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established A sovereign state. When they looked at Jesus, they
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expected him to be the new Judas Maccabeus.
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They desperately wanted a hammer to smash the Romans.
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They expected a military conqueror who would ride in on a
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War Horse. But they got something else.
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Instead, God sent the suffering servant who rode into Jerusalem
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on a donkey. The contrast between the earthly
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Kingdom the Hasemonians tried to build with the sword, which
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eventually collapsed into tyranny and bloodshed, and the
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eternal spiritual Kingdom that Christ inaugurated through the
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sacrifice of the cross is the ultimate lesson of this era.
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Which leaves us with a challenging theological question
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for you to Mull over long after this deep dive ends.
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The Hasemonians began with a pure righteous desire to defend
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God's holy law. They were entirely willing to
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die in caves for it. They had good intentions.
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But within just a few generations, they ended up
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crucifying their own people to maintain their political control
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and wealth. Look at this historical record.
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Look at the devastation of the priest kings, and ask yourself
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what happens to faith when believers decide that wielding
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the earthly, violent sword of state authority is the best way
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to advance the Kingdom of God? Thank you for tuning in to
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Reform Thinking.