Antiochus IV Epiphanesâs Policy towards the Jews

Peter Franz Mittag

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Chapter 6 Antiochus IV Epiphanesâs Policy towards the Jews

In: Intolerance, Polemics, and Debate in Antiquity

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Peter Franz Mittag

Peter Franz Mittag
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Type:: Chapter

Pages:: 186â204

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004411500_008

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Abstract

This contribution studies the confrontation between Greek-Seleucid politics and the ethnicity of the Jews (or Judaeans) in the second century BCE. Antiochus IV is often seen as the initiator of a decree in 167 BCE ordering the full hellenisation of the whole Seleucid Empire, and consequently the forceful prohibition of the Jewish religion and the conversion of the Jerusalem temple into a Hellenistic cultic space. For these reasons, it is deemed to constitute âone of the most prominent examples of religious intolerance in the ancient world.â However, following the revisionist views of Sylvie Honigman and going against the prevailing scholarly consensus, it is argued that Antiochus IVâs decree cannot possibly be authentic. Not only is the decree missing from 2 Maccabees, despite its authorâs inclination to include as many relevant documents as possible, but the initial hellenisation of Jerusalem is voluntary and meets with no significant resistance. Instead, the subsequent crisis is ascribed to a power struggle within the Jewish elite. The assumption of an anti-Jewish decree issued by Antiochus seems to be a misperception, by some Jews, of measures that were taken in the wake of a Jewish insurrection put down by the Seleucids.

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Intolerance, Polemics, and Debate in Antiquity

Politico-Cultural, Philosophical, and Religious Forms of Critical Conversation

Series:Â Themes in Biblical Narrative, Volume: 25

Cover Intolerance, Polemics, and Debate in Antiquity

E-Book ISBN:: 9789004411500

Publisher:: Brill

Print Publication Date:: 24 Sep 2019

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Chapter 6 Antiochus IV Epiphanesâs Policy towards the Jews

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Intolerance, Polemics, and Debate in Antiquity

Politico-Cultural, Philosophical, and Religious Forms of Critical Conversation

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Chapter 6 Antiochus IV Epiphanesâs Policy towards the Jews