Maccabean Revolt


AKA Maccabaean Revolt, the Revolt of the Maccabees, the Maccabaean war of liberation from the Syrian persecutor Antiochus Epiphanes, מרד החשמונאים

Mattathias Hasmon watched Jerusalem and Modein sacrifice to Zeus. He called the people to uphold the Law and killed the Jews who were sacrificing then the Greek officials. He led the Rebellion of the Maccabbees, Maccabean Revolt, or the Maccabaean war of liberation.

Thousands rise up against the Greek to end the oppression from 167 to 165. They win some internal independence within the Seleucid Empire and later recreate a fully independent Hasmonean kingdom in Judea, the last truly independent Jewish state in the Holy Land until 1948.

(Hillsdale College - Ancient Christianity)

Effect on the Bible Canon

2 Maccabees 2 describes a great crisis in the history of the canon - books were lost on account of the Maccabaean Revolt or the Maccabaean war of liberation from the Syrian persecutor Antiochus Epiphanes, but they were recovered. Antiochus was hostile toward Scripture in 1 Maccabees 1:56.

(The Origin of the Bible: Newly Updated by F. F. Bruce, J. I. Packer, Philip W. Comfort, and Carl F. H. Henry, 2020. The Canon of the Old Testament by R. T. Beckwith. Pages 56-60.)