Talk:Maccabean Revolt

WOW

I went ahead and removed a very racist section which quoted non-existent combatants and a result which is historically inaccurate. Secondly, listed as a result of the "combat" was Jewish sovereignty. What? There was absolutely no such thing. This territory was Seleucid, Ptolemaic and finally Latin. It was refereed to as Palestine until 1948CE. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.104.113.31 (talk) 01:14, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

I'm curious about your argument that the Hasmonean dynasty was never sovereign. Everything I've read has always suggested that the Maccabeean revolt led to an independent kingdom, which maintained that status until Pompey took it in 63BCE. The territory was Macedonian, Ptolemaic, Seleucid, Independent, then Roman. Do you have evidence for your timeline? 2601:85:4500:2F22:5162:51D3:8851:61DC (talk) 02:49, 16 September 2018 (UTC)

Ahistorical Place Terminology

Not correct to use "Israel" as a place name in this period. The kingdom of Israel was destroyed by the Assyrians in 720 BCE and no political entiry of that name existed again until 1948 CE. I have changed place to "Palestine" which is the standard historical/archeological name for the general geographical area, and I have corrected the name of the territory over which the Jews (re)asserted control to "Judaea", which is what it was called. WurzelT (talk) 21:18, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Bias

I put a 'neutral point of view' tag on this article a few days ago, but it was removed without comment by someone calling themselves 'Remember'.

This article really does have a pro-Jewish, anti-Seleucid bias. Consider this sentence:

Heathen altars were set up and unclean animals sacrificed on them.

'Unclean'? They weren't unclean to the Seleucids! What was blasphemy to the Jews was piousness to the Seleucids. The whole tone of the sentence is one of subtle spite towards the Seleucids, which tacitly assumes that the Jewish point of view (on the 'cleanliness' of animals, and so forth - 'Gentile' might be a better term than 'heathen', as well) is more valid that the Hellenic.

This is unacceptable, and it is important that the tag is not removed until the matter is addressed.

Fair enough, I actually thought you were just trying to make a joke and vandalize. But it appears you are sincere so I won't remove the tag. Feel free to try to revise it to be more NPOV. Remember (talk) 23:52, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

I have changed the offending passage to read, "Altars to Greek gods were set up and animals prohibited to Jews were sacrificed on them." Marshall46 (talk) 00:06, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Other sources?

Is the revolt attested to in contemporary sources other than 1 Maccabees and 2 Maccabees? Whether yes or no it should be mentioned in the article. - Rob-R-TOR-3 (talk) 23:13, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Yeah...the article seems to be taken directly from the Bible, which is not a valid historical reference. Is there any reason to trust the books of Maccabees as a source? The last section seems to throw the whole article into question. 65.96.201.130 (talk) 00:54, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Macabees are not part of the Bible and their narrative is corroborated by Josephus. The last section is not about the narrative but its interpretation. Marshall46 (talk) 23:40, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Maccabees are part of the Bible for some Christians, but not all. 2601:85:4500:2F22:5162:51D3:8851:61DC (talk) 02:41, 16 September 2018 (UTC)

Further, it depends on which of the several Book(s) of the Maccabees we are talking about as to their canonicity. Those groups which accept as canonical usually only accept the ones called "1" and "2". Judaism considers all of them, as well the related Book of Judith to be apocryphal rather than canonical. Cf. Books of the Maccabees -- Eliyahu S ^Talk 15:57, 14 November 2019 (UTC)

Aftermath

It can't possibly be correct to use "A History of the Jewish People in the Times of Jesus Christ" as the primary source, especially for that entire paragraph. What is the actual source for this information? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.124.116.101 (talk) 08:05, 4 December 2018 (UTC)

Contradictory Content

This article presents two non reconcilable viewpoints. One is the main body of the article and talks about a foreign oppression that forces Hellenization upon the Jews. Then at the bottom the reader suddenly finds a heavily referenced section "Modern perception" that essentially says that what you just read is incorrect and the events are in fact an intervention in an internal Jewish civil war.

If the second version is indeed the "Modern perception" then it belongs at the top of the article. If it is just another POV (albeit with many more references) then it needs a different title as it's current title implies that the other POV is obsolete. It should also be more integrated into the other POV to highlight where historical facts are undisputed and where the views differ.

This article also blurs the line between Jewish tradition/mythology and actual historical events. A clear distinction must be made between what is historically verified and what is mythology/tradition. Example:

Every year Jews celebrate Hanukkah in commemoration of Judah Maccabee's victory over the Seleucids and subsequent miracles.

Besides stating miracles as factual events it is also unclear which further facts in this article might be sourced only to scripture and to which extent the referenced texts rely on scripture for their factual claims. mbruck (talk) 03:08, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Although Maccabees is in the Bible, it would wrong to dismiss it as unhistorical on that account. Admittedly it is partisan, but it it is more recent and has more historical content than any other book of the Hebrew Bible and the historicity of the events it describes is not in contention. (Compare it, for example, with Esther, whose events are uncorroborated.)

[CORRECTION. Macabees is outside the Jewish canon and apocryphal for Christians, so I was wrong to say it is "in the Bible".]

The "foreign oppression" interpretation of events is widely current, especially among Jews, and so it cannot be dismissed as obsolete. I agree, however, that the view of the events as miraculous ought to be reported as a Jewish view rather than stated as fact.

As far as the "Modern Perceptions" section is concerned, it appears to present a legitimate point of view; if it does, it ought certainly to remain. All the references are secondary sources. Are there any primary sources, i.e. ancient records, other than Maccabees? What view do they present? Marshall46 (talk) 14:45, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

WP articles should be based around credible and reliable secondary sources, not primary or tertiary ones. The later can be used to illustrate specific points however. I would certainly agree to a better integration of the passage in the main body of the article, although my interest in Jewish history is peripheral. I only wanted to present a balanced pov on an issue that touches on Greek history. In essence it is not contradictory, it contextualizes the Seleucid intervention but does not deny that it did take place and that the Jewish faith was in fact suppressed. However it is one thing to say the Greeks tried to destroy their faith and another the Greeks intervened in the civil war between the Hellenizing Jews and the Traditionalists by attacking the faith of the Traditionalists. In addition it should be remarked that not only Jewish but also Christian sources, the Greek Orthodox Church in particular, adopt the "purely foreign oppresion" interpretation. Finally please be WP:BOLD and we can discuss any issues as and if they arise. Thanks and Happy Holidays!--Xenovatis (talk) 15:27, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Merge proposal

I do not know if anyone has noticed that this article is almost the same as the one title Maccabees. Is there a reason for the double posting? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.155.85.207 (talk) 14:33, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Propose merge. Marshall46 (talk) 10:50, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

I have merged them. The Maccabees article now contains everything that was here. Marshall46 (talk) 15:49, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Is there a reason to continue to have this page if all of its information is contained in a much better page? 2601:85:4500:2F22:5162:51D3:8851:61DC (talk) 02:40, 16 September 2018 (UTC)

Essay on Hitchens

I've moved this recent insertion to Talk: for discussion:

Nonetheless, the question has been raised as to whether the Maccabean Revolt was actually a good thing for [[Judaism]], let alone for [[Humanity_(virtue)|humanity]] as a whole. Noted intellectual and writer [[Christopher Hitchens]] (whom, one must bear in mind, was himself [[Judaism|Jewish]]), has stated that the Maccabean Revolt was (in his words) the most unfortunate event in human history, given the reversion from [[Hellenistic philosophy|Hellenistic thought]], [[philosophy]] and [[critical thinking]] to [[messianism]] and [[fundamentalism]] that its success constituted.<ref>{{YouTube | n7IHU28aR2E }}. Approximately 112 minutes in, Hitchens contends, 'The moment where everything went wrong is the moment when the Jewish hellenists were defeated by the Jewish messiahs, the celebration now benignly known as Hanukkah.'</ref><ref>Christopher Hitchens, [http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/fighting_words/2007/12/bah_hanukkah.html "Bah, Hanukkah"], ''[[Slate (magazine)|Slate]]'', 3 December 2007: "As a consequence of the successful Maccabean revolt against Hellenism, so it is said, a puddle of olive oil that should have lasted only for one day managed to burn for eight days. Wow! Certain proof, not just of an Almighty, but of an Almighty with a special fondness for fundamentalists."</ref>

It's sourced to a Youtube video and an opinion piece in Slate magazine. It's written in a decidedly non-encyclopedic/polemic tone (e.g. "whom, one must bear in mind, was himself Jewish"), and it's unclear why Hitchens would be considered a reliable or notable source on the topic of the "Maccabean Revolt". It appears to me that this entry violates WP:UNDUE and is quite weak on WP:RS. A respected historian writing in a history book published by a university press would be vastly better sourcing, and even then we'd have to be careful of WP:UNDUE. Can editors here explain why they think it should be included? Jayjg ^(talk) 13:38, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

Team-B-Vital Improvement Drive

Hello all!

This article has been chosen as this week's effort for WP:Discord's #team-b-vital channel, a collaborate effort to bring Vital articles up to a B class if possible, similar to WP:Articles for Improvement. This effort will run for up to seven days, ending early if the article is felt to be at B-class or impossible to further improve. Articles are chosen by a quick vote among interested chatters, with the goal of working together on interesting Vital articles that need improving.

Thank you! -- ferret (talk) 00:03, 7 October 2021 (UTC)

Names

The article is currently a bit of a mish-mash. There are various sources that just call all of Mattathias's kids "Maccabee" (e.g. Britannica has them under Jonathan Maccabeus and Simon Maccabeus), but that seems a little weird. Also, we use Hebrew "Judah" rather than Greek "Judas", but the Greek Jonathan / Simon rather than Hebrew Yonatan / Simeon. I'm not sure if there's any consistency to be had, but figured I'd mention it as an issue on the talk page... what are the "common" English names for these figures, anyway? Seems like quite a mix is in use, which is probably a tad confusing for first-time readers. Maybe all the people should have their names glossed in all the different variants on first introduction? SnowFire (talk) 23:52, 8 October 2021 (UTC)

I'm also considering switching over "Judah Maccabee" to "Judas Maccabeus". I'm not sure why things got into the wacky state where Wikipedia has the article at Judas Maccabeus but both here & there usually calls him "Judah", probably because it's confusing (Maccabee, Maccabeus, it was all the same thing), but it does seem like most sources uses "Judas". I get the vague impression that modern sources are more likely to use "Judah" but there are plenty of very recent sources that still use "Judas", so it's not entirely a case of old writers being wrong. Plus it has the minor merit of consistency to always use the "translated" style names rather than the Hebrew ones. SnowFire (talk) 03:10, 11 October 2021 (UTC)

End year

Back when the article was first created in 2007 or so, it came up with the 167-160 length. And I suppose this is accurate if the sense of the revolt is "the battles of Judas Maccabeus". However, if the article stopped there, it'd have ended with a result of "Seleucid victory, order restored, cities occupied." Which clearly isn't the whole story of the revolt. The Seleucids were still throwing armies at Judea in 134 BC! Successfully! (the "alliance" between John Hyrcanus and Antiochus VII was clearly understood by Antiochus VII as Hyrcanus agreeing he was just a Seleucid governor serving at Antiochus VII's pleasure, which might have been true had the Seleucids managed to stop their civil wars and Antiochus VII to not get himself killed shortly thereafter.) As a result, I'd be inclined to change the infobox end year to something else - 142 BC if we go with "Demetrius II acknowledges Judea doesn't have to pay taxes", ~141 or 140 BC if we go for "Simon is elected High Priest and starts the Hasmonean kingdom", ~139 if we go for "Roman guarantees independence", ~134 if we mean "last fight with the Seleucids". Probably 140 BC, which sets up a nice contrast to the Hasmonean kingdom? But changing it at all is a bit scary since the 160 date has lasted for so long without comment, despite the sources absolutely not stopping the story of the Maccabees at that year... the souces don't really give us a clear replacement end year, though.

Also, I think it might help to spinoff a detailed timeline article... there's already Timeline_of_Jewish_history#BCE but I'm thinking something much more detailed and in-depth to help keep track of this mess. Timeline of the Maccabees and Hasmoneans ? Timeline of Hellenistic Judaism (if the period under Ptolemies / Seleucids is included)? SnowFire (talk) 16:39, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

Citation style

@Mugtheboss: Didn't want to discuss this further as off-topic when it was an ancient collaboration on the Discord, but to be clear, I was the one who set up basically all of those cites in the current format, and it was an intentional choice not an accidental inconsistency. The Bibliography section was for books cited repeatedly; if a book was only cited once, then I made it directly part of the cite, because there's no need to "separate" the cite into two parts. It also functions as making the Bibliography section a "Further Reading" section since it's the *most relevant* sources rather than merely all of the sources. To be sure, I know that there are FAs that use your style, but I'm personally not a fan - I'd personally rather see the 10 sources most heavily consulted in such a section. However, I also don't want to be a complete sourpuss rejecting any and all help. To your knowledge, there's no problem with using the style I used, correct? I'd kind of like to revert your change, but wanted to discuss first, since usual "don't want to OWN an article" concerns. SnowFire (talk) 15:01, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

I will add that if we switched the plain text cites to harvnb citeref cites, then the "separation" issue is somewhat dulled due to the hover / pop-up showing the cite. (With plain text, someone seeing "Josephus 2017" as a cite has no clue what work of Josephus is being talked about without consulting the Bibliography, and potentially the publication dates as well.) I still prefer just a single unified cite when a book is only cited once, though, which skips even the need for a hover. SnowFire (talk) 15:09, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

If you want to revert my edit, I don’t mind. It was just the first thing I noticed when trying to improve this article, and I know that a GA or FA reviewer may also notice it first. — Mugtheboss (talk) 15:15, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

Well, the question is if it's "accepted" or not. I checked WP:CITESHORT and it doesn't seem to require that it be used uniformly, but doesn't say either way. There's no point in reverting if the reviewer considers this style a problem and can cite policy that says so. Flip side, if my style is fine, I'd prefer to keep it per WP:CITEVAR though. SnowFire (talk) 17:25, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

The problem with CITEVAR is that the definition of an “established citation style” differs from person to person, I tend to believe that a style becomes established when the majority of them follow the same format (usually, one of the formats laid out by WP:CITETYPE), and — if I can be bothered and it isn’t too laborious — I try to unify the citation style to the most common one in the article when improving said article, but each to their own. — Mugtheboss (talk) 20:22, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

Lead section

@Zeex.rice: FYI, I mostly reverted your changes. I don't want to come across as a cranky gateekeeper doing WP:OWNy things, so I certainly don't think my text is perfect or anything (and your editing is welcome!), but I don't really agree with most of the phrasing changes you made, or the links added. For example, linking "Judean rebels" or "Jewish nationalism" to the history of the Jews in Israel seems misleading. It's okay to just not have a link if there isn't one. In the same way, sources agree that much of the revolt was essentially a civil war, so saying "Judean victory" isn't enough information - I'm not tied to the current phrasing necessarily, but it should be clear that it was specifically the rebels that won, not the Judeans-who-supported-the-Seleucids. As another example, many casual readers will have no idea what "Seleucid" means, and the sources often call them "Macedonians" or "Greeks" and some of them ethnically were Greeks, so using the word "Greek" to describe them is useful.

Also, as a general comment, please don't add a "use XYZ language" tag to an article against the style that it has. That's kind of why I felt I had to act immediately, lest bots start updating things the "wrong" way. There isn't a strong tie to Oxford English here, so any style is fine, and as the major contributor (who still hopes to nominate the article for GA some day), I'd rather keep it in the grammar I'm most familiar with. (I can't speak to British English, but "reestablishing" definitely doesn't need a hyphen in American English, for example.) SnowFire (talk) 06:55, 1 December 2022 (UTC)

Judea instead of Palestine

The name Palestine was given to the Land of Judeah (Land of Israel) by the Roman Emperor Hadrian only after the failure of the Bar Kochba rebellion, in order to abolish the land's identity as Jewish - Israeli. Under the rule of Persia, Judeah constituted an independent authonomy. Tthe House of Seleucus gradually denied the religious and national independence of the land and people of Judah. Emgaz (talk) 18:01, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

@Emgaz: Welcome to Wikipedia! First off, it's great you explained yourself here on the talk page and in the edit summary. I hope you have a productive time editing Wikipedia! That said, I've reverted your first edit anyway... sorry about that. The issue is that modern sources *do* use the term "Palestine" to describe the region. Yes, Judea is used quite a bit too for the more specific area around Jerusalem, but in that particular context, it was talking about the wider region. That is usually called either "Palestine" or "Eretz Yisrael"/"Land of Israel." The problem is that the second term is politically contested as well, and is also ahistorical - much of the wider region only had Jewish minorities in the era. So Palestine is the best option, IMO. It's only used once, in that location, precisely due to the controversy over the name, but the Palestine (region) article is a valid one to link, so it's gotta be linked somewhere. SnowFire (talk) 05:57, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

Dear SnowFire hank you for taking the time to respond. No need to mention that I totally disagree with your point of view on that matter. If you are really interested in objective truth I suggest you listen to the following conversation, concerning History: Read the book "From time to immemorial" by JoaN Peters. Emgaz (talk) 16:23, 25 December 2022 (UTC)

@SnowFire also have to disagree, here. There are plenty of articles for regional names here that could be linked, including Canaan, Yehud Medinata, Land of Israel, Syria Palaestina, and Palaestina Prima. That doesn't mean we should include all of them or that all have to be used/linked. The best name to use is that which is most specific and applicable. This article concerns the Maccabean Revolt (and to a minor extent the ensuing Hasmonean Kingdom), which occurred in the region of Judea, in the southwestern Levant. There was no political entity called Palestine at the time, and related toponyms would not enter local usage until two centuries later when Roman rulers renamed the province. Locals might have called it Eretz Yisrael (the Land of Israel), but most likely they just called it Judea or Judah/Yehudah, or maybe Yehud given centuries of Persian rule. "Palestine" is no less politically contested than "Land of Israel" (which is also probably inappropriate for the context of this article), and equally ahistorical for this time period (nobody in the surrounding regions would have considered themselves a Palestinian). Modern sources use a variety of names depending on their background (European/Christian sources tend to use Palestine for "Israel" specifically; the Levant/Southern Levant is more common for the broader region, and Israeli/Jewish sources use Land of Israel, which is much older than 'Palestine'); 'Judea' and 'Levant' (and its derivatives) is fairly common in scholarly literature. I've made a pair of edits to correct this and make the article clearer. Other articles like Canaan preferentially use "Southern Levant" for the region, so this is more consistent. 2607:FEA8:A71D:2A00:38DC:977B:C4A0:E2BA (talk) 03:48, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

Hello IP. I don't know what to say but that modern sources still use Palestine to talk about the region as a whole. On Wikipedia, we follow what the sources say. It does not matter at all that there was no political entity named Palestine at the time, because that isn't what's being claimed - just a geographical region. Incidentally, I agree that "Levant and Palestine" is awkward, but that was added in as a sop for a non-Palestine term to make clear that historical regions were being referred to - it'd be just "Palestine" if I was writing it for a scholarly audience.

Now, you are correct that "Judea" gets used, but that's a different region. Judea is already used all the time in the article, as you can see, but "Judea" is considerably smaller than "Palestine", so sometimes we use Palestine to describe the larger region, e.g. for the area Alexander conquered.

Now, there is an interesting question here, which is if really contemporary sources will continue to use "Palestine." Like, 1800-1947 sources just flat used Palestine, but they also used tons of other Greek terms even when they didn't necessarily make tons of sense - it's not like the region of Syria had been known by the Greek term "Syria" for centuries until World War I came along, but suddenly it's Syria again because that's the era French / British statesmen know about. But the increasing prominence of Palestine-the-state to refer to "modern Palestinians" might cause scholars to be gunshy. Who knows. But the sources currently used in this article just use Palestine all the time, and we're already using the word "Palestine" much less than our sources. We can't remove it entirely without not reflecting the sources, so I think a link to Palestine (region) at least somewhere in the article is required as is. So basically please direct your ire to the sources, not to me - maybe some 2026 book on the Maccabean Revolt will studiously avoid the word "Palestine" and we can have this conversation again. SnowFire (talk) 22:03, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

Image edit war

@Pngeditor and Askhaiz: What is going on here?! I looked at the source website for the stamp and it doesn't really have a ton of details, but it does appear to match the Legacy section. Why the heck is this so controversial? Also, Pngeditor, can you clarify your relationship with banned editor Devilsroseres and the IP address that so vociferously oppose this image?

Also, I personally think the "Faux tomb of the Maccabees" image is awful and would happily replace it with most anything else. I only left it in because it was there before I started editing the article last year. So an argument about the stamp sticking too far into See also has an alternate fix - remove the "Tomb of the Maccabees" image and just use the stamp. (Although finding an even better image with better provenance would be nice, too.) SnowFire (talk) 05:04, 28 December 2022 (UTC)

Its not relevant enough to be in this article.Pngeditor (talk) 10:41, 28 December 2022 (UTC)

@SnowFire: In my opinion the stamp allows to visualize what the subsequent paragraph describes, the influence of the Maccabean Revolt on Jewish nationalism since the 19th century. Or put another way, the use of this historical event by the aforementioned nationalism, a very characteristic resource of all national ideologies. The stamp establishes a parallelism between past and present. Therefore, I am convinced that it fits well in this article as a "legacy" of the Maccabean Revolt. Askhaiz (talk) 20:33, 28 December 2022 (UTC)

Leather armor?

Where is the source of this nonsense? Especially since we know Maccabeans used looted Seleucid equipment Pudiok (talk) 17:34, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

@Pudiok: Wikipedia is about WP:V in WP:RS. If you have better WP:RS, show them here. tgeorgescu (talk) 17:39, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

Palastine as a name and region didn't Exist yet!

The Greeks didn't conquer the Levant and Palastine as it says cuz Palastine wasn't a thing until generations later. The name Palastine came from the name the Romans gave the land (Syria Philistina) after exiling the Jews for not assimilating into Roman culture after being conquered by them. They named the land after the Jew's traditional Greek seafaring invader enamies the Philistines, which have absolutely nothing to do with modern Palastine or Palastinians and their genetics or identity. So no, they didn't conquer Palastine, cuz it didn't exist till hundreds more years later. People editing wiki need ro do better. 146.115.26.198 (talk) 22:01, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

Scholars use "Palestine", therefore Wikipedia says "Palestine". tgeorgescu (talk) 22:17, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

You are correct that it has absolutely nothing to do with "modern" Palestine. It is meant in the sense of Palestine (region), not in the sense of State of Palestine. As for the term being anachronistic, it is true that this period predates Syria Palestina by some time, but I regret to inform you that anachronistic terms for places happens all the time in history writing. In particular classicists, especially 19th and early 20th century classicists before "Palestine" became a big issue, were huge Latin buffs and applied Roman terms both forward and backward in time. It's not any different from Islamic writers calling "Yathrib" "al-Madina" before it really became Medina, or calling Egyptian-era "Wase" Thebes (a Greek term from centuries later!). SnowFire (talk) 22:27, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

The term is Greek, not Roman. It was used by Herodotus in the 5th century BCE, and by most Greek sources since then. See Timeline of the name Palestine. Dimadick (talk) 12:23, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

I'm familiar, but the IP address brought up Rome naming the region "Syria Palestina" which does indeed postdate the Maccabean era. Just... even so, that doesn't necessarily matter. SnowFire (talk) 18:17, 13 December 2024 (UTC)