Guest Blogger: Mitchell First
Chanukkah: A Survey
of the Ancient Sources
The
holiday of Chanukah is mentioned only briefly in the Mishnah and the Talmud. In
fact, the names of the sons of Matityahu are not mentioned. How do we know the background to this
holiday? The purpose of this article is to describe three of the main sources
that we have and to understand the differences between them. These sources are I Maccabees, II Maccabees,
and Megillat Antiochus.
I Maccabees spans the period from
the beginning of the reign of Antiochus IV (the
Antiochus who persecuted the Jews) until the death of Shimon, son of
Matityahu. These are the years 175-134 B.C.E. (The persecution by Antiochus
took place during the years 167-164 B.C.E.)
The author of I Maccabees is unknown,
but it is evident that he was a Jew who was an admirer of Matityahu and his
sons. I Maccabees was probably
composed sometime after the death of John Hyrcanus (son of Shimon) in 104
B.C.E.
The work was originally
composed in Hebrew, but what has survived is only the Greek translation. The church
father Jerome (4th cent.) reports that
he saw the original Hebrew.
Another early church father refers to the First Book of Maccabees
by the title sarbêthsabanaiel. But what does this garbled title mean?
Probably, it is connected to the nickname for the priestly order Yehoyariv, the
order that Matityahu came from. The nickname for this order was something like MSRBYY. See J. Talmud,
Taanit 4:5. Probably, the original title
was something like sefer beit sarbanei el = the book of the dynasty of
God’s resisters.
II Maccabees is an entirely different work. It was composed in
Greek, likely in the Diaspora (perhaps in Alexandria). The unknown author tells
us that his work is an abridgement of the work of Jason of Cyrene. (Cyrene is a
city on the northern coast of Libya.)
Unfortunately, this Jason is unknown. But it is widely agreed that Jason
wrote very close in time to the events he described.
II Maccabees covers a
shorter time period than I Maccabees. It begins in the years before the reign
of Antiochus IV and ends with Judah’s victory over the general Nicanor in 161
B.C.E.
Both I and II Maccabees
were preserved because they were incorporated into the canon of the early
church. Probably, the books were
canonized by the early church because they modeled steadfastness in the defense
of God, and because the persecuted Jews were seen as forerunners of Christian
martyrs.
With regard to why I Maccabees is
not included in Tanakh, probably the Biblical
canon was considered closed by Jewry even before I Maccabees was composed. For
example, Sid Z. Leiman, in his authoritative work, The Canonization of
Hebrew Scripture, takes the position that the Jewish Biblical canon was
already closed in the middle of the 2nd century B.C.E. But even if
this canon was still open at the time I Maccabees was composed (see, e.g.,
L.H. Schiffman, Reclaiming the Dead Sea Scrolls, pp. 162-169), I
Maccabees was probably never a candidate for canonization since it did not
claim to be a book composed before the period of prophecy ended. With regard to
II Maccabees, it would never have been a candidate for canonization since it
was composed in Greek.
The third work that I
mentioned at the outset is Megillat Antiochus. This work is familiar to many in modern times because a Hebrew text
of this work was included in the Birnbaum Siddur. But this work was originally
composed in Aramaic, and the Aramaic text has been recovered. There are several
important contradictions between this work and I and II Maccabees and the work
is generally viewed as very unreliable. See, e.g., Encyclopaedia
Judaica 14:1046-47. Most likely, it was composed in the Geonic period. See
A. Kasher, “The Historical Background of Megillath Antiochus,” PAAJR
(1981), pp. 207-30, and Z. Safrai’s article in The Literature of the Sages,
vol. 2, eds. S. Safrai, et al, pp. 238-241. According to the latter, linguistic
analysis of the Aramaic indicates that the scroll dates from sometime between
the 6th and 8th centuries.
Interestingly, in
some communities in the time of the Rishonim and even later, Megillat
Antiochus was read on Chanukkah. See the article in D. Sperber’s Minhagey Yisrael, vol. 5,
pp. 102-113, for some references. The earliest reference to a practice of
reading Megillat Antiochus on Chanukkah is a statement by R. Saadiah
Gaon (10th century). In his introduction to Megillat Antiochus,
R. Saadiah writes that “most of the nation read it.” R.
Saadiah does not state that it was read as part of a Chanukkah ritual, but that
would be a reasonable interpretation of the passage.
One
interesting example of a difference between I Maccabees, II Maccabees, and Megillat
Antiochus is with regard to their understanding of what motivated Antiochus to issue his decrees against the Jews. According to I
Macc. (1:41-42), Antiochus had a grand plan to unify his empire through
Hellenism and the Jews resisted his plan. But II Macc. does not mention any
such grand plan of Antiochus. Rather, according to this work, the decrees were
merely a response by Antiochus to what he erroneously perceived as a revolt by
the Jews of Judea. See II Macc. 5:11. Finally, according to Megillat
Antiochus, Antiochus announces to his ministers, without any particular
provocation, that the Jews need to be eliminated, and that the rituals of shabbat,
rosh hodesh and milah must be abolished. The king’s complaint was
that the Jews do not sacrifice to his gods or follow his laws, and someday hope
to rule the world. (In my book Esther Unmasked, pp. 94-117, I
extensively discuss the issue of what motivated Antiochus’ decrees. Almost
certainly, the approach taken by II Macc. is the correct one.)
Another
ancient source that discusses the background to Chanukkah is Josephus. But he
is largely relying on I Macc. (It seems that he did not have II Macc.) With
regard to non-Jewish sources, Antiochus’ persecution of the Jews is mentioned
in ancient sources such as Diodorus and Tacitus but the references are very
brief. They are collected in M. Stern, Greek and Latin Authors on Jews and
Judaism.
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