Abstract
The importance to Jewish history and identity of the events of the 160s BCE cannot be overstated: the Maccabean Revolt against Seleucid rule laid the political groundwork for the emergence of the independent kingdom of Judea and set its ideological direction. Among the critical episodes of that decade mentioned in narrative sources are two famines said to have been so severe that they altered the course of the rebellion. These have been little examined heretofore; however, recently improved dating of atmospheric aerosol records derived from polar ice cores and geoscientific studies of the impacts of volcanic eruptions on climatic and social conditions provide a new lens through which the consecutive famines can be understood, supporting the contention that volcanic forcing of the environment was a significant contributory factor for both occurrences. In addition, this fresh perspective enables a reassessment of the textual sources concerning these seminal episodes of Judean history.
1 Introduction
The importance to Jewish history and identity of the events of the 160s BCE cannot be overstated: the Maccabean Revolt against Seleucid rule laid the political groundwork for the emergence of the independent kingdom of Judea some twenty years later and set its ideological direction. Among the critical episodes of that decade mentioned in narrative sources1 are two famines said to have been so severe that they altered the course of the rebellion. These famines have been little examined heretofore;2 however, recently improved dating of atmospheric aerosol records derived from polar ice cores3 and ongoing geoscientific studies of the impacts of volcanic eruptions on climatic and social conditions4 provide a new lens through which the consecutive famines can be understood, supporting the contention that volcanic forcing of the environment was a significant contributory factor for both occurrences. In addition, this fresh perspective enables a reassessment of the textual sources concerning these seminal episodes of Judean history.
2 Judea at the Time of the Revolt
At the beginning of the second century BCE the territory of ancient Judea (Fig. 1) came under the control of Seleucid kings, the successors to the Near Eastern portion of Alexander the Greatâs empire. Despite disparities between the Greek and Jewish ways of life,5 the peoples coexisted relatively well. But, when armed conflict broke out between rival claimants to the Jerusalem High Priesthood, the office that controlled Temple assets, the Seleucid king Antiochus IV interpreted the opposition to his appointee as an uprising against himself (2â¯Macc 5:11). He punished the population, notably stationing an occupying garrison in Judea and opening up the Temple of Yahweh to pagan worship. A popular rebellion ensued, called the Maccabean Revolt after its leader Judas Maccabaeus, primarily in response to the repurposing of the Temple and the suppression of some traditional Jewish practices.6 Following negotiations in the autumn of 165â¯BCE, in return for a cessation of hostilities, the king reinstated the right to live according to Jewish ancestral law and the main Seleucid army withdrew from Judea. The Jewish people had regained authority over the Jerusalem Temple: the momentous occasion of its rededication to the service of Yahweh in NovâDec 165â¯BCE is still commemorated in Judaism today by the Festival of Lights (Hanukkah).7
Figure 1
Ancient Judea and environs in the 160s BCE: approximate boundary of Judea reconstructed by the author
Citation: Journal of Ancient Judaism 16, 2 (2025) ; 10.30965/21967954-bja10074
Map courtesy of Francis LudlowTaking advantage of this respite, Judasâs forces moved on to campaign on the Mediterranean coast, in the Transjordan to the east, as well as to the south in Idumea, apparently in aid of Jewish compatriots against local enemies. On the death of Antiochus IV at the close of 164â¯BCE, Judas sought to capitalise on political uncertainty and besieged the Seleucid garrison located at the Jerusalem citadel (the âAkraâ); but, perhaps unexpectedly quickly, the following spring the Seleucid army returned to restore order. They found that food supplies were scant; logically, they laid siege to the southern border fortress of Beth-zur and then to the Jerusalem sanctuary, where the last of the rebels were pinned down.8
3 The Judean Famines and the Narrative Sources
Literary sources blame the first famine of the Revolt period, in the spring of 163â¯BCE, on the coincidence of warfare with a shmittah â a sabbatical year during which the land was left untended for religious reasons. The famine is said in the biblical book of 1â¯Maccabees to have forced the surrender to Seleucid forces of Jewish rebels at the Beth-zur fortress and threatened the loss of the newly recovered Temple of Yahweh in Jerusalem:
(48) The soldiers of the [Seleucid] kingâs army went up to Jerusalem against them [i.e. the Jewish rebels], and the king encamped in Judea and at Mount Zion. (49) He made peace with the people of Beth-zur, and they evacuated the town because they had no provisions there to withstand a siege, since it was a sabbatical year for the land. (50) So the king took Beth-zur and stationed a guard there to hold it. (51) Then he encamped before the [Jerusalem] sanctuary for many days. He set up siege towers, engines of war to throw fire and stones, machines to shoot arrows, and catapults. (52) The Jews also made engines of war to match theirs, and fought for many days. (53) But they had no food in storage, because it was the seventh year; those who had found safety in Judea from the Gentiles had consumed the last of the stores. (54) Only a few men were left in the sanctuary; the rest scattered to their own homes, for the famine9 proved too much for them.
1â¯Macc 6:48â54 NRSV10
No rationalisation at all is offered for the succeeding famine at the end of the decade (161â160â¯BCE), yet its severity was such that it caused mass defections to the Seleucid side and drove Judeaâs rebel leadership into a two-year exile:
(23) After the death of Judas [Maccabaeus], the renegades emerged in all parts of Israel; all the wrong-doers reappeared. (24) In those days a very great famine occurred, and the country went over to their [the impious] side.
1â¯Macc 9:23â24 NRSV11
The explanation offered by 1â¯Maccabees for the first famine is difficult to reconcile with what we know today of the sequence of events in Judea in the 160s BCE.12 From autumn 165 until spring 163â¯BCE Judea actually enjoyed more than a year of freedom from armed conflict with the Seleucid military. According to 2â¯Macc 12:1, âthe Jews went about their farming.â Even if this particular phrase was chosen by the author of 2â¯Macc for poetic or stylistic reasons,13 it seems that the harvest of 164â¯BCE occurred unaffected by warfare; June saw Judas in Jerusalem celebrating the Festival of Weeks (2â¯Macc 12:31â32), i.e. the time of offerings associated with the wheat harvest (Lev 23:15â16). There is no indication in the textual sources of agricultural difficulties arising from, say, extensive damage to orchards or vines in the preceding period of fighting, nor indeed of any hindrance to preparations for the sabbatical, or fallow, year that would begin in September. The storehouses of the capitalâs Temple should have been replete with tithes of grain, wine, and oil sufficient for ceremonial offerings as well as the maintenance of temple workers. Similarly, the grain pits at Beth-zur, an economically diverse and well-provisioned border town, should have been full.14
It was only in the spring of 163â¯BCE that hostilities resumed, when Judasâs men besieged the Seleucid garrison at the Akra, the citadel that overlooked the approach to the Jerusalem Temple.15 The Seleucid army proper returned to restore order, under the command of the general Lysias and probably in the company of his ward, the boy king Antiochus V. By summer, or perhaps early autumn, the rebels were holed up inside the Jerusalem Temple complex and their fortress at Beth-zur, and Judea was suffering cruelly from famine.16
First Maccabees 6:53 (quoted above) attributes the absence of food stores in part to the presence of refugees in Judea seeking escape from the Seleucid threat17 â but there must now be some doubt about the weight of blame placed upon this contingent, given the absence of warfare in the immediately preceding period. Even if Judas and his brother Simonâs recent consolidation activities on the coast (at Joppa and Jamnia: 2â¯Macc 12:5â9), in Galilee and the Transjordan (1â¯Macc 5:23, 45) had encouraged the return of some expatriate Jews to Judea, a sudden influx of people sufficiently numerous to obliterate provisions laid aside for an entire sabbatical year seems unlikely; mass relocation to Jerusalem at the time of the siege of the Akra and the subsequent return of the Seleucid army, and so toward rather than away from a battle zone, is equally improbable. The Josephan accounts of the events make no reference to refugees at all (Ant. 12.375â378; War 1.41â46).18 Factors other than warfare and the connected displacement of people must have at least contributed to the critical dearth of food supplies and rise in numbers making demands. The authors of the Maccabean books and Josephus, too, recognised this implicitly, pointing a finger at the sabbatical year.
4 The Judean Agricultural Calendar and the Sabbatical Year
â¦
Ïá¿Ï δὲ γá¿Ï á¼ÎºÎµá½·Î½á¿³ Ïῳ á¼Ïει μὴ γεÏÏÎ³Î¿Ï Î¼á½³Î½Î·Ï ,á¼Î»Î»á½° διὰ Ïὸ εἶναι Ïὸ á¼Î²Î´Î¿Î¼Î¿Î½ á¼ÏÎ¿Ï ,καθ᾽ á½ Î½á½¹Î¼Î¿Ï á¼¡Î¼á¿Î½ á¼Ïγὴν á¼á¾¶Î½ Ïὴν Ïá½½Ïαν ,á¼ÏÏá½¹ÏÎ¿Ï Î¼ÎµÎ¼ÎµÎ½Î·ÎºÏ á½·Î±Ï .
⦠in that year the land having not been tilled was left unsown because it was the seventh year, the year in which a law requires us to leave the land idle.
Josephus, Ant. 12.378
Second-century BCE Judean agricultural practices are usually reconstructed utilising much earlier and later sources: in particular, an inscription from Gezer of the tenth century BCE giving the sequence of agricultural activity and rabbinic literature originating centuries afterward.19 More reliable are biblical passages that expose how the agricultural year and religious calendar went hand-in-hand. MarchâApril (Nisan) was designated the first month of the year â the beginning of spring. On the tenth day of the month Passover was celebrated, and the next day a sheaf of barley was offered in the Temple, marking the beginning of harvest. Fifty days later in June (on Sivan 6), the Festival of Weeks (Shavuot or Pentecost) occurred with the end of the wheat harvest. Afterwards, processing work such as threshing and winnowing took place, grain was measured for taxation and religious tithes, and stored for future use.20 Then, attention turned to gathering summer fruits â notably grapes and olives (Deut 16:13; Judg 9:27)21 â and their processing and storage. The great Festival of Ingathering (later called Sukkot) was celebrated at the Temple in the seventh month (Tishrei â September), marking the end of the harvesting season. In the autumn grapevines required pruning and orchards tending but the land must have lain fallow until new cultivation was possible.22 Rains were needed to soften the earth for ploughing and sowing the main crops, barley and wheat (predominantly Triticum durum). Wheat especially required high soil moisture for germination, so tilling and sowing must have waited for the wet season (late October to mid-December),23 been followed by the sowing of legumes and vegetables (mid-December to mid-February) and, finally, the cutting of flax and hoeing of weeds and grasses could have occurred (mid-February to mid-March or early April).24
Ideally, every seventh year Jews abstained from agricultural activities and farmland was neither tilled nor sown. The practical value of an agricultural fallow is primarily to increase the mineral resources of the earth through rest and thus improve crop yields in subsequent periods. Naturally occurring species populate the fallow and help to renew the fertility of the soil.25 The life cycle of damaging insects, diseases, and weeds can be interrupted and the build-up in soil of accumulated plant toxins alleviated.26 Some of the agronomic benefits of fallowing were certainly understood in ancient times27 and in Judea observance of the practice was enshrined by religious edict, given in two passages of the Pentateuch, Exodus 23:10â11 and (with more detail) Leviticus:28
(3) Six years you shall sow your field, and six years you shall prune your vineyard, and gather in their yield; (4) but in the seventh year there shall be a sabbath of complete rest for the land, a sabbath for the Lord: you shall not sow your field or prune your vineyard. (5) You shall not reap the aftergrowth of your harvest or gather the grapes of your unpruned vine: it shall be a year of complete rest for the land. (6) You may eat what the land yields during its sabbath â you, your male and female slaves, your hired and your bound laborers who live with you; (7) for your livestock also, and for the wild animals in your land all its yield shall be for food.
Lev 25:3â7 NRSV
The sabbatical year is earmarked explicitly for the ârest for the landâ but justified on theological, rather than agricultural, grounds.29 In sum, cultivation (including planting and pruning) and harvesting is prohibited and the use of produce growing spontaneously in the seventh year is restricted. The command centres on an acknowledgment that the land of Israel belongs to Yahweh and that the people He chose to bring there should live and work in accordance with His wishes. As is indicated by the symbiotic relationship of the agricultural and religious calendars, the occurrence (or non-occurrence) of events affecting Jewish prosperity was thought to depend upon Yahwehâs satisfaction with the obedience of his people. This would be revealed particularly by the level of rainfall in the coming year and its sufficiency for food production (Deut 11:13â17; Lev 26:4â5, 10, 16, 19â20).30 In preparation for the sabbatical year, Jews were required to trust their deity to provide a bumper crop in Year 6 and sufficient resources in the fallow year, such as volunteer crops,31 to see them through to the Year 8 harvest (Lev 25:21â22). While Exodus states explicitly that aftergrowth or volunteer crops are only for the poor to eat, and the leftovers for wild animals, Leviticus permits all those living on the ownerâs land to benefit.32 Perhaps in part because no-one could earn an income from agricultural labour during this time, there were also directions for debt remission (Deut 15:1â6)33 and release from indentured service (Deut 15:12â14). While the sabbatical year was not invariably observed, it seems to have been a living practice about the time with which we are concerned.34 Outside of the testimony in the near-contemporaneous Maccabean books and by Josephus, the Community Rule and War Scroll of the Qumran community in the Judean desert also describe a jubilee âyear of Release.â35
The sabbatical period traditionally began with the end of the harvesting and gathering season in September, i.e. Tishrei, rather than Nisan. This required foods to be preserved and stored in advance, and long-lived goods such as wines and oils36 stockpiled and sealed to mark their vintage. Rabbinic tradition holds that anything resulting from planting before Tishrei might be treated as produce of Year 6 but could not be replanted for the coming year.37 Bread could be baked with flour from wheat grown in Year 6 or from wheat grown in Year 7 by non-Jews. Loaves could be stamped to endorse this provenance (Fig. 2).38 Fruits that began to grow in Year 6 would be ready for the autumn and winter of the shmittah year. Unlike vegetables, fruit trees do not require annual replanting and fruits would of themselves become available a second time in the year, around Passover in spring. These could be eaten without breach of the sabbatical law but not stockpiled or sold. Similarly, grapes were available into the summer of the shmittah year (accounting for their appearance in 1â¯Macc 6:34 in which the Seleucid army âoffered the elephants the juice of grapes and mulberries, to arouse them for battleâ39) but could not be dried, nor the juice vinified. It was also forbidden to consume any grapes that appeared later on an unpruned vine (Lev 25:5, 11).
Figure 2
A bread stamp from excavations at Kafr Samir (Castra), outside Haifa, inscribed with the legend âseventhâ, indicating a loaf baked with wheat of the sabbatical year: on the inscription, see Amit, âJewish Bread Stamps,â 161â63
Citation: Journal of Ancient Judaism 16, 2 (2025) ; 10.30965/21967954-bja10074
Image courtesy of the Israel Antiquities AuthoritySome supplies could be obtained from outside Judea. In emergencies, shortfalls could be bridged in several ways, such as foraging or relying on âalternativeâ foods:40 subsistence on wild foods was not unknown to Judasâs generation, even featuring in 2â¯Macc 5:27. Nonetheless, routinely careful shmittah preparations and familiar deficit coping mechanisms failed in 163â¯BCE and again two years later when there was no fallow year to contend with.41 At least one large-scale emigration is known to have taken place in the 160s BCE when Onias III or IV, the High Priest of Jerusalem or his son, relocated with a sizeable contingent of followers to Heliopolis in the Egyptian Delta. While probably prompted by reversals in the political fortunes of Oniasâs party, famine conditions in Judea and poor access to reliefs may also have been influential.42
To be sure, Judasâs final battles against Seleucid forces in late 162â161â¯BCE (culminating in his death at Elasa in MarchâApril 161â¯BCE) could have caused collateral damage to some orchards and vines, resulting in lengthy recovery times: olive saplings, for example, can take decades to reach maturity. On the other hand, the three or four battles in question seem to have been narrowly confined.43 This suggests that we should consider factors that could have given rise to a more widespread food systems failure.
5 The Triple Volcanic Event of the 160s BCE and Climatic Impacts
Natural sources from which we can derive proxy data about past climate conditions (i.e. climate archives) directly relevant for the ancient Judean climate are surprisingly few: isolated dendrochronological studies and analyses of isotopic ratios in plant matter are insufficient to form a useful sequence for the region and period concerned here.44 Other limitations of such records include low age resolution and dating imprecision. However, recent studies of the effects of volcanic eruptions on climatic conditions and extreme weather events45 are enormously informative and support a new hypothesis for the principal catalysts of the Judean famines of the 160s BCE specifically. Corrections made in 2015 to longstanding errors in the Greenland Ice-Core Chronology 2005 (GICC05) timescale of polar ice-core records (long considered the key reference chronology in paleoenvironmental sciences) now ensure firm dates for major explosive volcanic eruptions of the past 2,500 years that are usually accurate within less than two years. These same records help to establish the mass of sulphur-rich gases emitted by these explosions, thereby enabling reconstructions of associated âradiative forcingâ: that is, their climate-altering potential.46
In essence, the gases injected into the stratosphere by these eruptions oxidise to form aerosols â clouds of submicron droplets of sulphuric acid â that can linger for several years, scattering incoming solar shortwave radiation (sunlight) back into space and resulting in cooler temperatures on the surface of the earth.47 In part because the aerosol clouds resulting from an eruption may be distributed unevenly in space (biased toward one hemisphere or another, depending upon the location and season of the eruption), the resulting cooling can also be distributed unevenly. This unevenness can then influence patterns of hemispheric, regional, and local atmospheric circulation (winds and associated moisture transport) that act to balance out these differences, leading to uncharacteristic dryness for some regions and seasons, and wetness for others. The magnitude and duration of the climatic impacts arising from this âvolcanic forcingâ depend upon many factors, not least the size distribution of the aerosols48 and the duration of their residence in the atmosphere. This is in turn dependent upon the altitude of the injection.
A sample of the atmospheric sulphate associated with an eruption eventually falls, under the influence of gravity, down over the great ice sheets of the earthâs polar regions. The measurement of sulphate presence in annual layers of ice formed in these locations and accessed by deep ice-core drilling thus allows not only the dating of past explosive eruptions but also an estimation of their climate-forcing potential and their hemisphere of origin. The former can be inferred from the mass of sulphates found while the latter can be inferred from the distribution of the sulphate deposition in each polar region: if deposition is restricted to Greenland, an extratropical eruption in the Northern Hemisphere may be supposed, and vice versa for deposition observed only in Antarctica; if deposition is observed in both polar regions, then a low-latitude (e.g. tropical) eruption may typically be inferred.49 These records, in combination with climate modelling, have been instrumental in revealing not just the impact of individual eruptions but of more rare clusters of closely succeeding eruptions, which can lead to sustained cooler temperatures and chronic rainfall anomalies.50
Of the forty largest eruptions of the past 2,500 years, a cluster of three occurred within one decade â in 168, 164, and 161â¯BCE â alongside two of the forty coldest years recorded â in 168â167 and 164â163â¯BCE â demonstrated by strong reduction in tree-ring widths across the Northern Hemisphere within a year of the eruptions.51 The earliest of this trio was a major tropical event whose aftermath was apparently witnessed by Roman soldiers on the eve of the Battle of Pydna, Macedonia. The anomalies they observed were interpreted as lunar eclipse phenomena:52
Now, when night had come, and the soldiers, after supper, were betaking themselves to rest and sleep, on a sudden the moon, which was full and high in the heavens, grew dark, lost its light, took on all sorts of colours in succession, and finally disappeared.
Plutarch, Life of Aemilius 17.7
A total lunar eclipse did take place on 21 June 168â¯BCE that was visible at Pydna, although the moon was only about 20 degrees above the horizon at eclipse midpoint,53 but this alone does not explain the phenomena described. Plutarch seems to have conflated reports of the eclipse (mentioned in Polybius, Histories 29.16, Cicero, On the Republic 1.23, Justin, Epitome [of Trogus] 33.1, Valerius Maximus, Memorable Deeds and Sayings 8.11.1, Quintilian, The Orator's Education 1.10.47, and Livy, The History of Rome 44.37) with additional information about effects observed when the moon was risen âfull and high in the heavens,â presumably at a different location. Other historical observations of the moon seeming to disappear entirely during a total eclipse also coincide with known volcanic eruptions.54 Evidently, the Roman army witnessed the end of a lunar eclipse through a stratosphere heavily occluded as a result of a recent and substantial volcanic explosion.
The cumulative (i.e. time integrated) global âradiative forcingâ â that is, the extent of the alteration to the natural aerosol radiative effect in the climate system, in this case the cooling effect described earlier â of the 168â¯BCE event is estimated at a mean of â7.5 watts per square metre or W mâ2 (approximately 22 teragrams of sulphur dioxide emissions). This was at least the equivalent of the June 1991 Mount Pinatubo eruption in the Philippines, one of the most powerful eruptions of the twentieth century CE, of â5 W mâ2 (~15 Tg SO2 emissions) which resulted in the cooling of the earthâs surface by a mean of ~0.5°C at peak over 1â2 years.55 That explosion also caused changes in atmospheric circulation that amplified the cooling effect on the Middle Eastern climate. In the winter of 1991â1992 (DecemberâFebruary), temperatures dropped by as much as 2°C.56 Israel experienced snowfalls. Studies of mass coral death in the Gulf of Eilat at the northern tip of the Red Sea show air temperature anomalies to have been primarily responsible.57
While the historical evolution of the aerosol clouds from the eruptions of the 160s BCE cannot be known perfectly, the observed distribution of sulphate deposition over the polar ice sheets helps to inform advanced Earth System Modelling of the aerosol cloud development. Recent modelling led by Ram Singh of Columbia University and the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies shows that the latitude of Judea lay within the distribution zone of volcanic aerosols for all three of the 160s BCE events (Fig. 3) and will have experienced both the direct radiative and indirect (dynamical) climatic impacts of these eruptions. The same modelling suggests that air temperatures after the 168â¯BCE eruption fell between 3 and 2 degrees Celsius and did not recover to normal levels in the years before subsequent volcanic events (Fig. 4, top).58 Moreover, winter precipitation spiked by up to 60 per cent and continued above average for several years (Fig. 4, bottom).59 The eruptions of 164 and 161â¯BCE likely occurred in the extra-tropical latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere and were of a lower but still significant magnitude. As modelled, they had the effect of reinforcing subnormal surface temperatures of about â1.5°C for the remainder of the decade,60 whilst also prolonging periods of enhanced precipitation in winter seasons.61
Figure 3
Latitudinal distribution of volcanic aerosols over time, with colours representing increases in atmospheric opacity, measured by total Aerosol Optical Depth. Modelling by Ram Singh and colleagues using the NASA GISS Earth System Model E2.1 (see further Singh et al., âInvestigating Hydroclimatic Impactsâ). Crossed circles denote plausible locations of volcanic eruptions in the period. The horizontal line indicates the latitudes of Jerusalem (31° 46' 19.0524" N) and Beth-zur (31° 34' 60" N).
Citation: Journal of Ancient Judaism 16, 2 (2025) ; 10.30965/21967954-bja10074
Since the Judean narrative sources make no mention of famine following the 168â¯BCE eruption, we may suppose that food systems were sufficiently robust to absorb this initial climatic shock and posit that any shortages were attributed to the disruption of normal agricultural patterns by warfare: soon after his expulsion from Egypt (on the so-called Day of Eleusis â 30 July 168â¯BCE), the Seleucid king Antiochus IV sent forces to quell unrest in Coele-Syria and Judea and occupy Jerusalem (2â¯Macc 5:11), as mentioned above.62 However, after the 164â¯BCE eruption it can be argued that accumulated stress contributed to significant food systems failure. Evidently, additional volcanic forcing hindered the return of regular agrometeorological cycles and the consequent continued unseasonal weather (rain and possibly frost)63 had an appreciable effect on crop growth and yields. Food stores and coping mechanisms were insufficient to compensate for shortfalls so substantial that Judea suffered famine.
Figure 4
Annual temperature anomalies (top) and percentage changes in (agriculturally critical) winter seasonal rainfall (bottom), representing the average response of multiple model runs with climate perturbed by the eruptions of the 160s BCE. Both temperature and precipitation responses are presented as departures from the 100-year average of modelled conditions without volcanic eruptions (represented by the dashed lines at 0.00). Eruption mass estimates are in teragrams of sulphur dioxide (Tg SO2). The shading in the plot represents the +/- 2 * standard deviation around the mean (also known as the 5â95â¯% range around the mean). Modelling courtesy of Ram Singh, adapting that of Singh and colleagues to a region centred upon Judea (utilising a bounding box of lat. 31â35; lon. 32â37)
Citation: Journal of Ancient Judaism 16, 2 (2025) ; 10.30965/21967954-bja10074
The staple Judean grains, wheat and barley, required moderate soil moisture in autumn and winter with relatively high average winter temperatures for development, followed by heavier rains in the early summer for maturation.64 The crops sown in the autumn of 164â¯BCE would have been most heavily impacted by the anomalous cold and rain prevailing during their winter developmental cycle65 followed by a >25â¯% surplus above average summer rainfall,66 stunting development. This combination must have affected crop growth so drastically that yields were insufficient for demand and unequal to the demands of a shmittah hiatus, if indeed a sabbatical year was observed. Such a scenario also helps to explain the influx of refugees into the capital, apparently seeking relief from subsistence shortfalls (rather than shelter from warfare, as assumed in 1â¯Macc 6:53). The continued poor conditions would also have affected the growth of volunteer crops and the regrowth of fruit that under normal circumstances helped to see the Judean population through the sabbatical year and until the next harvest. The alternative food sources mentioned above, too, are likely to have been affected badly by the changes in growth conditions. For instance, the oak forests of the Middle East were once home to a dependable balanoculture, but after a cold year the acorn crop would probably have been smaller and had a higher percentage of pest infestation than usual, and the extended cold period would likely have precluded growth of a fresh supply.67
As noted earlier, a third volcanic eruption in 161â¯BCE and the injection of yet more sulphates into the atmosphere would have had the effect of sustaining recent cooler temperatures and increased levels of precipitation (Figs. 3 and 4). Judean resilience to additional climate shocks must have been by this point severely diminished. The persistence of cold and wet weather can be seen as aggravations to an already impaired ecosystem, likely bringing about further agricultural failure and another famine.
The consecutive famines in Judea of 164â163 and 161â160â¯BCE recorded in the narrative sources are thus plausibly associated with volcanic forcing of temperature and atypical pluvials. Coinciding with the resumption of warfare on home soil and the undoubtedly demoralising death of Judas Maccabeus, a sizeable swathe of the populace turned to the Seleucid occupiers for relief (1â¯Macc 9:23â24 and Josephus, Ant. 13.1 §â¯3). The Seleucids garrisoned Judean settlements on approaches to Jerusalem in all directions, including at Beth-zur, bringing with them âstores of foodâ (1â¯Macc 9:52).68 The leadership of the Maccabean faction withdrew from the country and the Revolt with its nascent independence movement was brought to a standstill of several yearsâ duration.
6 Signs of Economic Sequestration?
A societyâs social and economic ties and interactions with other communities, especially those in neighbouring ecological zones, typically facilitate support and can through exchange provide critical resources in times of adversity. But some circumstances can hinder the development of strong reciprocal relationships, such as cultural or religious differences.69 Although Jewish communities were generally self-sustaining, some goods necessarily had to be brought from elsewhere, such as saltwater fish from the Mediterranean or Red Sea (preserved by drying/salting/smoking). But marine yields, too, may have suffered ill effects caused by volcanic forcing, along the lines of the Red Seaâs post-Pinatubo experience in modern times.70 One obvious response to a looming famine would have been to increase imports of foodstuffs, but normally agricultural surplus was used to pay for this trade,71 an option limited by possibility in the midst of crisis. Notably, Judean wine/oil amphoras are lacking in most coastal areas and north in the Hula valley in the mid-second century BCE,72 signalling the lack of exchange occurring at this time.
Moreover, in the mid-second century BCE a new tendency towards economic segregation emerged, doubtless a product of the recent wars to reassert Jewish ethnic identity and cultural independence. Archaeological assemblages of tablewares are plain and of local manufacture, without any sign of imported goods.73 Investigations at Beth-zur uncovered not one piece of imported pottery in this period.74 Exceptional was Jerusalemâs southeastern hill (the âCity of Davidâ) where the affluent Seleucid settlers and Hellenising locals were concentrated. Already by the Second Temple period ritual purity concerns precluded the use of oil from non-Jewish sources and oil jars were sealed and stamped accordingly.75 An indication that dietary laws had begun to tighten from this time was the narrowing of acceptability of certain foods. Archaeological remains at Jerusalem show a pronounced rejection of fish without fins and scales (such as catfish, sharks, and rays) it would seem on biblical grounds of impurity (Deut 14:9â10; Lev 11:9â12).76 That the segregation of some land, at least, was deliberate rather than circumstantial may be seen clearly in the post-Revolt occupation at Gezer (on the fringes of Judea, in the fertile lowlands), where boundary stones demarcated the four km2 of agricultural ground that belonged to the Jewish settlement. Beyond was land owned by men with Greek names;77 presumably, Jews here preferred to eat food cultivated on their own soil in accordance with their religious laws.78 Scant imported pottery is in evidence.79
Given the climate data presented above, we might expect settlements around Judea also to show evidence of famine in this period. To the contrary, archaeologists have discovered luxury items including decorated tablewares and large quantities of heavy amphoras imported from the Aegean and Mediterranean, signalling âa well-organized supply and market network.â80 According to Andrea Berlin, âarchaeological remains from settlements in the northern central hills (Shechem, Samaria), Transjordan (Heshbon, Pella), and the central valleys (Beth-Shean-Scythopolis, Tell Keisan) show their peaceful maintenance or expansionâ from 200 until 160â¯BCE. Evidence of luxury goods and foreign imports along the coast, where some settlements actually expanded (e.g. Ashdod), and south in Idumea indicate continued prosperity in difficult times, apparently the result of long-standing commercial connections and a diverse economic base.81 Unlike their Judean neighbours, there seems to have been no reluctance to engage with the Seleucid-dominated trade networks, suggesting the importance of this engagement for the avoidance or amelioration of famine in this period.
7 Conclusion
This study contributes to the current trend of the humanities that seeks a fuller understanding of historical events by situating them in their climatic and environmental contexts.82 The famine stories of the Maccabean Revolt period are examined profitably in this way here for the first time, with the aid of recent geoscientific advances. In particular, recent recalibrations of ice-core chronologies have put human history and climate history on a common timeline and revealed the links between historically documented extreme weather-related events and major volcanic eruptions. Improvements, too, in the sensitivities of Earth-system modelling have greatly bridged lacunae in our knowledge arising from the scarcity and other limitations of natural climate archives, such as biases caused by seasonal information, low resolution, or age imprecision.
The additional environmental context provided by ice-core evidence and associated modelling of climate forcing resulting from a rare trio of closely occurring and climatically impactful explosive volcanic eruptions in 168, 164, and 161â¯BCE corroborates literary accounts of famine conditions in Judea in 163 and 161â160â¯BCE, events that had important, detrimental effects on the course of the Maccabean Revolt against Seleucid rule. From this new perspective, we can argue for the reassessment of statements in the Maccabean books and by Josephus that the coincidence of warfare with the sabbatical year (shmittah) was principally to blame for the first of these famines and its consequences at the sieges of Beth-zur and the Jerusalem Temple complex; also, for the first time we can suggest an explanation for the second famine. Moreover, as the impact of climatic shocks on human society is always mediated by the cultural and social context in which it occurs, we might venture the hypothesis that, owing to recent, hard-won struggles to regain the right to live according to traditional Jewish law, a tendency toward greater insularity than previously heightened Judeaâs vulnerability to climatic (and other) shocks to food supplies. This is in contrast to her neighbours, who were more open to outside influences and prepared to rely on those channels to mitigate the effects of food production failures and shortages.
Acknowledgments
The majority of this research was conducted during my Research Fellowship with the Yale Nile Initiative, funded by U.S. National Science Foundation award #1824770, CNH-L: Volcanism, Hydrology and Social Conflict: Lessons from Hellenistic and Roman-Era Egypt and Mesopotamia. The work was completed during my appointment as Associate Research Scholar at Yale University, hosted generously by the MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies, in 2025. Special thanks are owed to my YNI colleagues, especially Prof. Francis Ludlow and Prof. Joe Manning for their guidance; Dr. Ram Singh for the essential climate modelling of the Judean region that appears herein; and Prof. John J. Collins for his helpful advice. I would also like to express my gratitude to the anonymous peer reviewers at the JAJ for their learned comments. An early version of this paper was presented at the European Geosciences Union (EGU) General Assembly in Vienna, Austria, in May 2022.
The books of 1 and 2â¯Macc and the accounts of the historian Josephus, Ant. and War.
Attention has concentrated on the mention of a âsabbatical yearâ and its implications for the Jewish religious calendar and the chronology of the Revolt (e.g. Bar-Kochva, Judas Maccabaeus, 544â45), while translators of the texts in question have been concerned primarily with possible scribal errors. Of the commentators who mention the famines, most take the source accounts at face value but a few speculate about whether they were symbolic tales or inventions to explain the loss of support experienced by the rebel cause at the close of the 160s BCE. For this scholarly history and rare discussion of the famines, see Pastor, The Famine in 1â¯Maccabees. By analogy with Ottoman and more recent rainfall records, Pastor posits that drought resulted in repeated crop failure, famine, and the turn of the Judean populace to the Seleucid government for provisions (38â40). The present study reconstructs the environmental circumstances of the time and demonstrates the plausibility of famine conditions arising not from drought but chiefly from the cumulative effects of volcanic forcing. See further, below.
Sigl et al., âTiming and Climate Forcing.â
Manning et al., âVolcanic Suppressionâ; Singh et al., âInvestigating Hydroclimatic Impacts.â
Hellenismos and Ioudaismos, the latter term first appearing in 2â¯Macc. See Collins, âTemple or Taxes?â, 196â98. For discussion challenging the premise that the two were incompatible, see Gruen, Constructs of Identity, 113â31. For the completion date of 2â¯Macc in the late 140s BCE, see Schwartz, 2â¯Maccabees, 11â14.
For more on the origins of the Revolt and diverging interpretations of source material, see Collins, âTemple or Taxes?â and Grabbe, A History of the Jews: Vol. 3, 248â61. For an account preferring political and fiscal causes for the Revolt, see Honigman, Tales of High Priests.
On the date of the Temple rededication, see especially Grabbe, A History of the Jews: Vol. 3, 21â22, 370â71.
One battle was fought on the approach to Judea, at Beth-zechariah, about six miles from Beth-zur (1â¯Macc 6:32â47). The Maccabean army was outnumbered and scattered. The âfew menâ remaining of the rebel force were then barricaded inside the Jerusalem Temple complex (1â¯Macc 6:54).
The word used in 1â¯Macc on both occasions discussed here is the Greek
My emphasis; see also Josephus, Ant. 12.375â378.
My emphasis; see also Josephus, Ant. 13.3. Note that Schwartz, 1â¯Maccabees, 300, denies that 1â¯Macc 9:24 admits desertion on the part of the rebels. In his view, the author of 1â¯Macc understood the famine as a betrayal by the personified land.
Herein I follow the sequence of events and dating suggested in the recent synthesis and analysis of sources and scholarship by Grabbe, A History of the Jews: Vol. 3, esp. ch. 15, summarised on pp. 374â76.
See Schwartz, 2â¯Maccabees, 76â77, 420, on the use of idyllic episodes to punctuate the struggles narrated in 2â¯Macc.
On Beth-zur in general, see Sellers et al., The 1957 Excavation; and Sellers and Albright, âThe First Campaign.â A decade-old cistern and large grain pit (190â¯cm at its widest diameter, preserved height c. 60â¯cm) on the southeast slope of the hill went out of use after the siege: Lapp, âThe Excavation of Field II,â 30 (the pottery from this stratum dates between 175â165â¯BCE). In the period shortly preceding the siege, the walls of Beth-zur were modified to improve defences and to permit access to the city reservoir from inside the fortress: Funk, âThe History of Beth-zur,â 12. Although no evidence survives, it would have been logical to have encompassed also the cistern and grain storage pit within these new fortifications.
According to Josephus, Ant. 12.252: âthe impious and wicked part of the [Jewish] multitudeâ also lived in the citadel, that is, Judeans who were not opposed to Hellenisation. The precise location of the Akra is much debated but recent archaeological discoveries indicate a site on the western slope of the southeastern hill (the ancient âCity of Davidâ): Ben-Ami and Tchekhanovets, ââ¯âThen They Built Upââ¯â; Zilberstein, âHellenistic Military Architecture.â
It is noted in 1â¯Macc 6:57 and Josephus, War 1.1.5 that the invading army, too, experienced scarcity of food supplies at Jerusalem.
Tilly, 1 Makkabäer, 166â67 suggests that the mention of refugees was intended to connect the rebelsâ defeat with their selfless care of the Diaspora.
If (as it appears from the synoptic comparison of the texts in Sievers, Synopsis of the Greek Sources) Josephus used 1â¯Macc as his source for these events, the absence of refugees may be the result of paraphrasing: see Schwartz, 1â¯Maccabees, 44â45.
See Borowski, Agriculture, 31â44, for a reconstruction based upon the so-called Gezer Calendar. Cf. Wagenaar, Origin and Transformation, 19â20, who argues that the Gezer Calendarâs cycle begins a month later, in September/October; see too Wagenaar on the relationship between Jewish festival legislation and the agricultural seasons.
For details on grain production and storage, albeit with a focus on the Iron Age, see Borowski, Agriculture, 47â83.
See Rubenstein, A History of Sukkot, 13â14, 26. Cf. Wagenaar, Origin and Transformation, 14, who suggests â[late] figsâ instead of âgrapesâ at this point of the Gezer Calendar and puts the beginning of the olive harvest at the end of September or early October; in the case of a looming sabbatical year, this would imply bringing forward olive collection and processing considerably to meet the September deadline.
Dalman, Arbeit und Sitte in Palästina, Vol. II, 136. See pp. 212â14 for possible summer-sown crops. Milgrom, Leviticus 23â27, 2157, places the time of pruning after the harvest but before the month for the picking of summer fruits, i.e. the early summer.
Dalman, Arbeit und Sitte in Palästina, Vol. II, 177; Zohary, Plants of the Bible, 74; Borowski, Agriculture, 88â89, 91.
On the possibility of linseed oil production from flax, see Wagenaar, Origin and Transformation, 15â16. Weeds and grasses were probably collected for use as fodder: Borowski, Agriculture, 35â36.
Modern fallows can be planted with this purpose in mind: Wojtkowski, Agroecological Economics, 100.
Wojtkowski, Agroecological Economics, 98.
Borowski, Agriculture, 144â45.
For the development of the Leviticus passages from Exodus, see Paran, Forms of the Priestly Style (especially viâvii) and Milgrom, Leviticus 23â27, 2154â56, and references. Otherwise, the scriptures mention the sabbatical year only in passing: Deut 31:10â11; 2â¯Chr 36:21; Neh 10:31.
See Milgrom, Leviticus 23â27, 2152â53.
Rubenstein, A History of Sukkot, 47â49. Deut 11:14 promises âearly rainâ (following the dry summer, OctoberâNovember) and âlater rainâ (in spring, MarchâApril) for the good of the harvest (NRSV). Famine, the absence of rainfall, and disease are described both as divine calls to obedience (Amos 4:6â10) and as punishments (Deut 28:15â63). âThe disgrace of famineâ results from the lack of obedience to Yahweh (Ezek 36:27â31). Interestingly, while 1â¯Macc refers to the sabbatical year, it does not directly attribute the famine of that time to divine causation. On the absence of God (theos) and the Lord (kyrios) beyond chapter 4, see Schwartz, 1â¯Maccabees, 25â31.
I.e. plants growing spontaneously, without having been sown.
Including livestock: Milgrom, Leviticus 23â27, 2162.
The NOAB comments: âRemission, the same verb in Ex. 23.11, âlie fallow,â now means cancellation of debts.â
E.g. Lev 26:35 and 2â¯Chr 36:21 imply a lengthy lapse. Even if observance of the sabbatical was a theoretical, even utopian, conception, as Elliger, Leviticus, 349â51, and others suggest â or a literary invention to account for extreme scarcity that led to the defection of the populace to the Seleucid side, or to emphasise the importance of the sabbath in times of warfare â the linking of the proposition with a famine tends to support the existence of a genuine crisis that demanded explanation.
1â¯Macc was originally composed in Hebrew in the Hasmonaean period, ca. 110â¯BCE, likely utilising for its first half an earlier account of the life of Judas: see Schwartz, 1â¯Maccabees, 11, 14â16, 408. Josephus wrote his Antiquities in the first century CE, apparently paraphrasing a Greek text of 1â¯Macc: Sievers, Synopsis. For the Dead Sea Scrolls, see 1QS 10:7â8; 1QM 2:5â14. The author of the War Rule made use of the Book of Daniel, written soon after 164â¯BCE: see Vermes, The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls, 164. Like 1â¯Macc in the previous note above, the role of the fallow year in the War Scroll may have been to emphasise the importance of the sabbath in times of warfare. I have the JAJ anonymous peer reviewer to thank for this suggestion.
Milgrom, Numbers, 364 reports an experiment by Susan Rattray demonstrating that mixing oil with flour extends its longevity to above three and a half years.
Haber, The Kosher Consumerâs Guide, 9, 18.
Amit, âAncient Jewish Bread Stampsâ and âJewish Bread Stamps,â 162 and Fig. 1.
Juice revived the thirsty animals. Fermented fruit (wine) would have made them inebriated and difficult to control: Goldstein, 1â¯Maccabees, 320. The invading army could also have seized local stores of juice from the Judean harvest of 164â¯BCE or carried a supply from a territory along the path of their march.
E.g., wild greens, but note that the consumption of these is closely associated with the availability of olive oil: Hionidou, âWhat Do Starving People Eat?â 122.
Whether the sabbatical year occurred in 164/163 or 163/162â¯BCE, as proposed by Wacholder, âThe Calendar of Sabbatical Cycles,â 160â63, and others, is largely irrelevant to the argument of this paper: that volcanic forcing (persisting over several years) was the primary catalyst of the famines. See below.
The colony may also have been a military defection. Josephus, War 7.420â26 writes that the High Priest Onias III fled from Antiochus IV to Ptolemy VI Philometor and was granted land at Leontopolis in the Heliopolite nome of Lower Egypt to build a fortress and Jewish sanctuary. If so, this likely took place when the Jerusalem Temple came under Seleucid control, i.e. after mid 168â¯BCE: see further Piotrkowski, Priests in Exile. But note that Josephus corrects himself in Ant. 12.387â88 and 13.62â73, stating that this occurred later and that the refugees were led by the High Priestâs son Onias IV after the Seleucid appointment of rival Alcimus as High Priest. This appointment was made either by Antiochus V about summer 163â¯BCE upon the execution of the contentious High Priest Menelaus (Ant. 12.385, 387) or made/confirmed by Demetrius I shortly after he assumed power in autumn 162â¯BCE (1â¯Macc 7:5, 9; 2â¯Macc 14.3, 13). A papyrus mentioning Jews in the land of the sun (âHeliopolisâ) suggests the Jewish settlement there was established by the mid-second century BCE: Bohak, âCPJ III, 520.â
Grabbe, A History of the Jews: Vol. 3, 376â77: Dessau; Kafar Salama (perhaps atop a hill opposite Gibeon: Bar-Kochva, Judas Maccabaeus, 358); Adasa (about 6â¯km from Beth Horon); Elasa (15â¯km from Jerusalem).
Most ancient arboreal evidence is no longer extant and there are other difficulties. For example, olive trees do not form clear annual rings, and the inner and oldest part of olive trees decays so that the centre of origin cannot be determined and the pith cannot be radiocarbon dated (Ehrlich et al., âRadiocarbon Datingâ). Wood from living olive trees has so far only been radiocarbon dated back some 600â700 years (Bernabei, âThe Age of the Olive Treesâ). Some analyses have been undertaken using wood remains from archaeological excavations. For an exercise comparing isotopic ratios of tamarix wood cellulose from late first/early second century and twentieth century CE Masada that indicates change in the aridity of the environment, see Yakir et al., â13C and 18O of Woodâ (n.b. the authorsâ caveat that the isotopic record is not calibrated against climatic factors such as the amount of precipitation or relative humidity: p. 3538). Studies have determined that the woodlands and shrublands of Israel that were once part of Maccabean-era Judea were (and are still) dominated by the evergreen oak Quercus calliprinos and Pistacia palaestina terebinths. See Liphschitz and Biger, âAncient Dominanceâ; Danin, âNear East Ecosystems.â The famous oak(s) at Hebron where Abraham settled, according to Gen 13:18, was in Idumean territory in the Revolt period (Josephus, Ant. 12.353). Carob (Ceratonia siliqua) and mastic (Pistacia lentiscus) trees are also represented in Judean mountain forests and require little water. See Danin, âNear East Ecosystems.â
Shifts in mean climate state are typically associated with shifts in the distribution of extreme weather, e.g. frost occurrences, extreme precipitation. For a study modelling such effects on growing degree days, see van Dijk et al., âClimatic and Societal Impacts in Scandinavia.â
Sigl et al., âTiming and Climate Forcingâ; Toohey and Sigl, âVolcanic Stratospheric Sulfur Injections.â
Robock, âVolcanic Eruptions and Climate.â
A cloud of smaller particles will generally scatter more light as there is more surface area than in a cloud of larger, but fewer, particles.
See Sigl et al., âTiming and Climate Forcingâ on the examination of deposition profiles in ice cores.
Gao et al., âReconcilingâ; Sigl et al., âTiming and Climate Forcing,â 5; Singh et al., âInvestigating Hydroclimatic Impacts.â
The tree-ring records referred to here (based on measurements of ring widths or maximum late-wood density) were collated from locations where temperature was the limiting growth factor, thus reconstructing the northern hemispheric chronology spanning thousands of years. The strong correspondences between tree-growth responses to cold (lagging sulphate deposition dates by one year) and the magnitude of volcanic aerosol forcing are impressive. For further details and methodology, see Sigl et al., âTiming and Climate Forcing,â especially Fig. 3.
On exceptionally dark eclipses and their relationship to stratospheric turbidity, see Keen, âVolcanic Aerosolsâ; Guillet et al., âClimatic and Societal Impacts.â
Huber and De Meis, Babylonian Eclipse Observations, 199. Based on the eclipse timings of Espenak and Meeus, Five Millennium Catalog, A-74, revised to account for accumulated clock error owing to the variable rotation period of Earth, the moon rose in partial eclipse about 18.14 (local time at Pydna; 16.45 UT) when it was not yet night. Once above the horizon and in deepening twilight, the total eclipse between 19.29 and 20.45 (18.00 and 19.16 UT; midpoint 20.07 local time/18.38 UT) would have been visible in its entirety.
Guillet et al., âLunar Eclipses.â The 1991 Pinatubo eruption, used analogously in this article for the 168â¯BCE event, is also associated with an exceptionally dark, total lunar eclipse that owed to the volume of sulphate aerosols in the stratosphere. See Keen, Hennings, and Lynch, âVolcanoes, the Stratosphere, and Eclipses.â
The figures â7.5 and â5 W mâ2 are estimates of the total reduction of incoming solar radiation received at the earthâs surface, measured in watts per square metre: see Singh et al., âInvestigating Hydroclimatic Impacts,â 256; âMount Pinatuboâs Effect.â Further on Pinatubo, see Hansen et al., âA Pinatubo Climate Modeling Investigation.â Between five and six months after the Pinatubo explosion, most of the SO2 gases released into the stratosphere had been converted to sulphate aerosols and it was not until 1996 that the atmospheric anomaly was fully cleared: see Osipov and Stenchikov, âRegional Effects,â 8900, 8909.
Osipov and Stenchikov, âRegional Effects.â Previous studies indicating that significant cold anomalies occur in the Middle East in the winter following tropical eruptions are summarised in Robock, âVolcanic Eruptions,â 205â09.
Genin, Lazar, and Brenner, âVertical Mixing and Coral Death.â
Singh et al., âInvestigating Hydroclimatic Impacts.â
Although the resolution for the GISS ModelE might be thought relatively coarse at 2° à 2.5° (lat à long), it has undergone extensive testing and evaluation for its ability to simulate mesoscale climatic features and responses to various forcings over global and regional scales and is state-of-the-art. See Kelley et al., âGISS-E2.1â; Bauer et al., âHistorical (1850â2014) Aerosol Evolution.â It can be noted too that the physical and geographical features (orography and diversity of vegetation) of Judea were not so different from the wider region such that the modelling results would be affected significantly. Singh and his colleagues are now working to create a model that will estimate the impacts of the 160s BCE eruptions on regional crops, and aim to scale the response at a horizontal resolution of 0.25° à 0.25° (lat à long) and at a higher temporal frequency (private communication). However, atmospheric dynamics are a major component of variability in rainfall over this domain. While limited by the paucity of proxies offering annual resolution for the NAO and ENSO for this early period, additional model runs with different starting scenarios for these climatic modes have the potential to fine-tune our understanding of dynamical responses to volcanic forcing. Future work could address this important issue. For a recent study of volcanic impacts on circulation in the Middle East and North Africa, see Dogar et al., âInvestigating Post-eruption Amplified Winter Cooling.â
Robock, âVolcanic Eruptionsâ; Singh et al., âInvestigating Hydroclimatic Impacts.â On the potential for disproportionately strong radiative forcing from extratropical northern hemispheric eruptions, see Toohey et al., âDisproportionately Strong Climate Forcing.â
The modelling presents some variability, but the general signal for most years is above average wetness in the winter season. Other seasons are also shown to be above average in their wetness. See further Singh et al., âInvestigating Hydroclimatic Impacts.â
For unrest in Coele-Syria, according to Porphyrius of Tyre, see Toye, âPorphyrios of Tyre (260)â (= FGrH 260, F56).
Even when the level of rain has been appropriate, crop growth can be adversely affected by abnormally low temperatures alone. A drop below 0°C can result in frost and the freezing of soil moisture, according to a forthcoming study by Singh et al., âMount Pinatuboâs Effect.â That study concerns higher latitude regions and summer season growth but the findings should be applicable to Judea, where temperatures fell so much more than normally in the winter growing season after the Pinatubo eruption that snowfalls occurred. See also Osipov and Stenchikov, âRegional Effects,â 8894.
Renfrew, Palaeoethnobotany, 65; Borowski, Agriculture, 89: an annual rainfall of 500â760â¯mm is ideal for wheat production, with a minimum of 225â¯mm required for successful cereal cultivation where the growing season extends over ninety days. Barley requires only about 200â¯mm of rain and grows best in well-drained soils: Zohary, Plants of the Bible; Borowski, Agriculture, 91â2. See also Dalman, Arbeit und Sitte in Palästina, Vol. II, 130; Frøseth, âKorn,â 173â74 and table 20.1 for example calculations of heats required for the ripening of varieties of grain and adjustments for excessive rainfall. For the topography of Israel, Jordan, and Sinai, and its influence on rainfall and climate generally, see Danin, âNear East Ecosystems,â 478â81.
Future studies should be able to pinpoint the precise season of an eruption, thus improving climate modelling, and identify with ever more precision the period of maximum volcanic forcing. For a recent success in identifying a seasonal eruption, see Hutchison et al., âThe 1831 CE Mystery Eruption.â
According to modelling for the JJAS season by Ram Singh: private communication.
Bainbridge, âThe Rise of Agriculture,â 150, and references. For the influence of climate on south-eastern Mediterranean oak trees, see Castagneri et al., âXylem Anatomical Traits.â
These must have been substantial. Polybius 6.39.12 writes that about this time a Roman foot-soldier received a corn allowance of two-thirds of an Attic medimnos a month while a cavalry soldier received seven medimnoi of barley and two of wheat. Allied infantry received the same, but their cavalry one and one-third medimnoi of wheat and five of barley. A medimnos of barley weighed ca. 27â¯kg and of wheat 31â¯kg. See Bresson, The Making of the Ancient Greek Economy, 439. The monthly needs of an 80,000 foot and 4,000 horse army (as amassed for the Third Punic War, according to Appian, Lib. 75) are calculated to have been 53,333 medimnoi (320,000 modii) of wheat for foot soldiers and 8,000 medimnoi (48,000 modii) of wheat plus 28,000 medimnoi (168,000 modii) of barley for cavalry. See Garnsey, Gallant, and Rathbone, âThessaly and the Grain Supply of Rome,â 39. An Attic medimnos was the equivalent of six Roman modii (one dry modius measured about 8.75 litres). See Bresson, The Making of the Ancient Greek Economy, 440.
Alternatively, they may become a burden. See Anderson and Johnson, âIntroduction,â 7â8. Future studies of the Maccabean period might explore the degree to which the anthropogenic factors described in this section contributed to the escalation of food crises into famines, as described by Slavin, âClimate and Famines.â
See further, Osipov and Stenchikov, âRegional Effects.â
Borowski, Agriculture, 8.
Berlin, âBetween Large Forces,â 24, and map p. 48.
Berlin, âThe Regions and Material Evidence,â 13â16.
Lapp and Lapp, âIron II â Hellenistic Pottery Groups,â 74â78.
Amit, âJewish Bread Stamps,â 167â68 citing a suggestion of Aḥituv, Echoes from the Past, 103.
On remains from the late Second Temple period until the Byzantine period, see Lernau, âWhat Kinds of Fish?â
See Berlin, âBetween Large Forces,â 29; Kaye, âPurity and Property.â
1â¯Macc 13:47â49 describes the capture of the city from the Seleucids, its ritual cleansing, and resettlement with âthose who observed the law.â
Only Eastern Sigillata A ware from the north Phoenician coast or perhaps Syria appeared sometime between 140â130â¯BCE. See Gitin, Gezer III, 38, 116â17 Tables 2 and 3, with Berlin, âBetween Large Forces,â 25; and Slane et al., âCompositional Analysis of Eastern Sigillata Aâ on the source of ESA.
Berlin, âThe Regions and Material Evidence,â 13â16.
Berlin, âBetween Large Forces,â 22 and âThe Regions and Material Evidence,â 13. The Sidonian community at Jamnia port (Jabneh/Yavneh) also benefitted from a remittance in taxation, granted to them by Antiochus V in exchange for their loyalty to the Seleucid crown and for naval service. See Isaac, âA Seleucid Inscription.â Judas Maccabeus had attacked and burned the fleet harboured at Jamnia in early 164â¯BCE (2â¯Macc 12:8â9). The Seleucid kingâs favourable reply to the Sidonian petition is dated mid-163â¯BCE, at the height of the Judean famine, indicating (restored or continued) Seleucid control there.
E.g. Langgut, Finkelstein, and Litt, âClimate and the Late Bronze Age Collapseâ; Manning et al., âSevere Multi-year Droughtâ; Singh et al., âInvestigating Hydroclimatic Impacts.â
Bibliography
Aḥituv, Shmuel. Echoes from the Past: Hebrew and Cognate Inscriptions from the Biblical Period. Translated by Anson F. Rainey. Jerusalem: Carta, 2008.
Amit, David. âAncient Jewish Bread Stamps.â Pages 188â89 in Bread: Daily and Divine. Edited by N. Ben-Yossef. Jerusalem: The Israel Museum, 2006.
Amit, David. âJewish Bread Stamps and Wine and Oil Seals from the Late Second Temple, Mishnaic, and Talmudic Periods.â Pages 159â74 in âSee, I will Bring a Scroll Recounting What Befell Meâ (Ps 40:8): Epigraphy and Daily Life from the Bible to the Talmud. Edited by E. Eshel and Y. Levin. JAJSup 12. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2014.
Anderson, David M., and Douglas H. Johnson. âIntroduction: Ecology and Society in Northeast African History.â Pages 1â26 in The Ecology of Survival: Case Studies from Northeast African History. Edited by Douglas H. Johnson and David M. Anderson. London: Routledge, 1988.
Bainbridge, David A. âThe Rise of Agriculture: A New Perspective.â Ambio 14 (1985): 148â51.
Bar-Kochva, Bezalel. Judas Maccabaeus: The Jewish Struggle against the Seleucids. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989.
Bauer, Susanne E., Kostas Tsigaridis, et al. âHistorical (1850â2014) Aerosol Evolution and Role on Climate Forcing Using the GISS ModelE2.1 Contribution to CMIP6.â Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems 12 (2020): e2019MS001978. URL: https://doi.org/10.1029/2019MS001978
Ben-Ami, Doron, and Yana Tchekhanovets. ââThen They Built Up the City of David with a High, Strong Wall and Strong Towers, and It Became Their Citadelâ (IMaccabees 1:33).â Pages 19â29 in City of David Studies of Ancient Jerusalem 11. Edited by Eyal Meiron. Jerusalem: The Megalim Institute, 2016.
Berlin, Andrea M. âBetween Large Forces: Palestine in the Hellenistic Period.â Biblical Archaeologist 60 (1997): 2â51.
Berlin, Andrea M. âThe Regions and Material Evidence: Overview.â Pages 11â16 in The Middle Maccabees: Archaeology, History, and the Rise of the Hasmonean Kingdom. Edited by Andrea M. Berlin and Paul J. Kosmin. Atlanta, GA: SBL Press, 2021.
Bernabei, Mauro. âThe Age of the Olive Trees in the Garden of Gethsemane.â Journal of Archaeological Science 53 (2015): 43â48.
Bohak, Gideon. âCPJ III, 520: The Egyptian Reaction to Oniasâ Temple.â JSJ 26 (1995): 32â41.
Borowski, Oded. Agriculture in Iron Age Israel. Boston, MA: American Schools of Oriental Research, 2002.
Bresson, Alain. The Making of the Ancient Greek Economy: Institutions, Markets, and Growth in the City-states. Translated by Steven Rendall. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2016.
Castagneri, Daniele, Lior Regev, Elisabetta Boaretto, and Marco Carrer. âXylem Anatomical Traits Reveal Different Strategies of Two Mediterranean Oaks to Cope with Drought and Warming.â Environmental and Experimental Botany 133 (2017): 128â38.
Collins, John J. âTemple or Taxes? What Sparked the Maccabean Revolt?â Pages 189â201 in Revolt and Resistance in the Ancient Classical World and the Near East. Edited by John J. Collins and J.G. Manning. Leiden: Brill, 2016.
Dalman, Gustaf. Arbeit und Sitte in Palästina. Vol. II: Der Ackerbau. Schriften des Deutschen Palästina-Instituts 5. Gütersloh: G. Bertelsmann, 1932.
Danin, Avinoam. âNear East Ecosystems, Plant Diversity.â Pages 478â87 in Encyclopedia of Biodiversity. Vol. 5. Second edition. Edited by Simon Levin. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 2013.
Dogar, Muhammad M., Masatomo Fujiwara, Masamichi Ohba, and Mansour Almazroui. âInvestigating Post-eruption Amplified Winter Cooling in the Middle East and North Africa â Unraveling ENSO and NAO Dynamics.â Environmental Research Communications 7 (2025): 045012. DOI: 10.1088/2515-7620/adc675
Ehrlich, Yael, Lior Regev, Zohar Kerem, and Elisabetta Boaretto. âRadiocarbon Dating of an Olive Tree Cross-section: New Insights on Growth Patterns and Implications for Age Estimation of Olive Trees.â Frontiers in Plant Science 8 (2017): article 1918. DOI: 10.3389/fpls.2017.01918
Elliger, Karl. Leviticus. HAT 1.4. Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck), 1966.
Espenak, Fred, and Jean Meeus. Five Millennium Catalog of Lunar Eclipses: â1999 to +3000 (2000 BCE to 3000 CE). NASA/TP-2009-214173. Greenbelt MD: National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Goddard Space Flight Center, 2009.
Frøseth, Randi Berland. âKorn.â Pages 173â92 in Ãkologisk Handbok: Matvekster. Edited by G.L. Serikstad. Oslo: GAN Forlag, 2004.
Funk, Robert W. âThe History of Beth-zur with Reference to its Defenses.â In Ovid R. Sellers, Robert W. Funk, John L. McKenzie, Paul Lapp, and Nancy Lapp, âThe 1957 Excavation at Beth-zur.â The Annual of the American Schools of Oriental Research 38 (1968): 4â17.
Gao, Chaochao, Francis Ludlow, Or Amir, and Conor Kostick. âReconciling Multiple Ice-core Volcanic Histories: The Potential of Tree-ring and Documentary Evidence, 670â730CE.â Quarternary International 394 (2016): 180â93.
Garnsey, Peter, Tom Gallant, and Dominic Rathbone. âThessaly and the Grain Supply of Rome During the Second Century B.C.â JRS 74 (1984): 30â44.
Genin, Amatzia, Boaz Lazar, and Stephen Brenner. âVertical Mixing and Coral Death in the Red Sea Following the Eruption of Mount Pinatubo.â Nature 377 (1995): 507â10.
Gitin, Seymour. Gezer III: A Ceramic Typology of the Late Iron II, Persian and Hellenistic Periods at Tell Gezer. 2 vols. Annual of the Nelson Glueck School of Biblical Archaeology. Jerusalem: Hebrew Union College, 1990.
Goldstein, Jonathan A. 1Maccabees: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary. AB Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1976.
Grabbe, Lester L. A History of the Jews and Judaism in the Second Temple Period. Volume 3: The Maccabaean Revolt, Hasmonaean Rule, and Herod the Great (175â4BCE). LSTS 95. London: T&T Clark, 2020.
Gruen, Erich S. Constructs of Identity in Hellenistic Judaism. DCLS 29. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2016.
Guillet, Sébastien, Christophe Corona, Francis Ludlow, Clive Oppenheimer, and Markus Stoffel. âClimatic and Societal Impacts of a âForgottenâ Cluster of Volcanic Eruptions in 1108â1110CE.â Scientific Reports 10 (2020): article 6715. DOI: 10.1038/s41598-020-63339-3
Guillet, Sébastien, Christophe Corona, Clive Oppenheimer, Franck Lavigne, Myriam Khodri, Francis Ludlow, Michael Sigl, Matthew Toohey, Paul S. Atkins, Zhen Yang, Tomoko Muranaka, Nobuko Horikawa, and Markus Stoffel. âLunar Eclipses Illuminate Timing and Climate Impact of Medieval Volcanism.â Nature 616 (2023): 90â95.
Haber, Alan. The Kosher Consumerâs Guide to Shemita. Alon Shvut: Rabbi Alan Haber, 2021.
Hansen, J., M. Sato, et al. âA Pinatubo Climate Modeling Investigation.â Pages 233â72 in The Mount Pinatubo Eruption: Effects on the Atmosphere and Climate. Edited by Giorgio Fiocco, Daniele Fuà , and Guido Visconti. NATO ASI Series I: Global Environmental Change 42. Berlin: Springer and NATO Scientific Affairs Division, 1996.
Hionidou, Violetta. âWhat Do Starving People Eat? The Case of Greece through Oral History.â Continuity and Change 26 (2011): 113â34.
Honigman, Sylvie. Tales of High Priests and Taxes: The Books of the Maccabees and the Judean Rebellion against Antiochos IV. Oakland, CA: University of California Press, 2014.
Huber, Peter J., and Salvo De Meis. Babylonian Eclipse Observations from 750BC to 1BC. Milan: Mimesis, 2004.
Hutchison, William, Patrick Sugden, Andrea Burke, et al. âThe 1831 CE Mystery Eruption Identified as Zavaritskii Caldera, Simushir Island (Kurils).â Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 122 (2024): e2416699122. URL: https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2416699122.
Isaac, Benjamin. âA Seleucid Inscription from Jamnia-on-the-Sea: Antiochus V Eupator and the Sidonians.â IEJ 41 (1991): 132â44.
Kaye, Noah. âPurity and Property at Gezer: The Commons in a Second Temple Town.â JSJ 52 (2021): 159â96.
Keen, Richard A. âVolcanic Aerosols and Lunar Eclipses.â Science 222 (1983): 1011â13.
Keen, Richard A., Juli Hennings, and Harry Lynch. âVolcanoes, the Stratosphere, and Eclipses.â EarthDate.org Fact Sheet ED 088: Bureau of Economic Geology, 2018. URL: https://www.earthdate.org/files/000/001/735/EarthDate_088_C.pdf
Kelley, Maxwell, Gavin A. Schmidt, et al. âGISS-E2.1: Configurations and Climatology.â Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems 12 (2020): e2019MS002025. URL: https://doi.org/10.1029/2019MS002025
Langgut, Dafna, Israel Finkelstein, and Thomas Litt. âClimate and the Late Bronze Age Collapse: New Evidence from the Southern Levant.â Tel Aviv 40 (2013): 149â75.
Lapp, Paul W. âThe Excavation of Field II.â In Ovid R. Sellers, Robert W. Funk, John L. McKenzie, Paul Lapp, and Nancy Lapp, âThe 1957 Excavation at Beth-zur.â The Annual of the American Schools of Oriental Research 38 (1968): 26â34.
Lapp, Paul W., and Nancy Lapp. âIron II â Hellenistic Pottery Groups.â In Ovid R. Sellers, Robert W. Funk, John L. McKenzie, Paul Lapp, and Nancy Lapp, âThe 1957 Excavation at Beth-zur.â The Annual of the American Schools of Oriental Research 38 (1968): 54â79.
Lernau, Omri. âWhat Kinds of Fish Were Eaten in Ancient Jerusalem?â TheTorah.com, 2019. URL: https://thetorah.com/article/what-kinds-of-fish-were-eaten-in-ancient-jerusalem
Liphschitz, Nili, and Gideon Biger. âAncient Dominance of the Quercus calliprinos â Pistacia palaestina Association in [M]editerranean Israel.â Journal of Vegetation Science 1 (1990): 67â70.
Manning, Joseph G., Francis Ludlow, Alexander R. Stine, William R. Boos, Michael Sigl, and Jennifer R. Marlon. âVolcanic Suppression of Nile Summer Flooding Triggers Revolt and Constrains Interstate Conflict in Ancient Egypt.â Nature Communications 8 (2017): 900. DOI: 10.1038/s41467-017-00957-y
Manning, Sturt W., Cindy Kocik, Brita Lorentzen, and Jed P. Sparks. âSevere Multi-year Drought Coincident with Hittite Collapse Around 1198â1196BC.â Nature 614 (2023): 719â24.
Milgrom, Jacob. Numbers. The Traditional Hebrew Text with the New JPS Translation: Commentary by Jacob Milgrom. The JPS Torah Commentary. Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society, 1990.
Milgrom, Jacob. Leviticus 23â27: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary. AB 3B. New York: Doubleday, 2001.
Osipov, Sergey, and Georgiy Stenchikov. âRegional Effects of the Mount Pinatubo Eruption on the Middle East and the Red Sea.â Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans 122 (2017): 8894â8912. DOI: 10.1002/2017JC013182
Paran, Meir. Forms of the Priestly Style in the Pentateuch: Patterns, Linguistic Usages, Syntactic Structures. Magnes Press: Jerusalem, 1989.
Pastor, Jack. âThe Famine in 1Maccabees: History or Apology?â Pages 31â43 in The Books of the Maccabees: History, Theology, Ideology. Papers of the Second International Conference on the Deuterocanonical Books, Pápa, Hungary, 9â11 June, 2005. Edited by Géza G. Xeravits and József Zsengellér. Supplements to the Journal for the Study of Judaism 118. Leiden: Brill, 2007.
Piotrkowski, Meron M. Priests in Exile: The History of the Temple of Onias and Its Community in the Hellenistic Period. Studia Judaica 106, Rethinking Diaspora 4. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2019.
Renfrew, Jane M. Palaeoethnobotany: The Prehistoric Food Plants of the Near East and Europe. New York: Columbia University Press, 1973.
Robock, Alan. âVolcanic Eruptions and Climate.â Reviews of Geophysics 38 (2000): 191â219.
Rubenstein, Jeffrey L. A History of Sukkot in the Second Temple and Rabbinic Periods. Brown Judaic Studies 302. Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 2020.
Schwartz, Daniel R. 1Maccabees: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001.
Schwartz, Daniel R. 2Maccabees. Commentaries on Early Jewish Literature. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2008.
Sellers, O.R., and W.F. Albright. âThe First Campaign of Excavation at Beth-zur.â Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 43 (1931): 2â13.
Sellers, Ovid R., Robert W. Funk, John L. McKenzie, Paul Lapp, and Nancy Lapp. The 1957 Excavation at Beth-zur. The Annual of the American Schools of Oriental Research 38. Cambridge, MA: American Schools of Oriental Research, 1968.
Sievers, Joseph. Synopsis of the Greek Sources for the Hasmonean Period: 1â2Maccabees and Josephus, War 1 and Antiquities 12â14. Rome: Editrice Pontificio Istituto Biblico, 2001.
Sigl, M., M. Winstrup, et al. âTiming and Climate Forcing of Volcanic Eruptions for the Past 2,500 years.â Nature 523 (2015): 543â9.
Singh, Ram, Kostas Tsigaridis, Allegra N. LeGrande, Francis Ludlow, and Joseph G. Manning. âInvestigating Hydroclimatic Impacts of the 168â158BCE Volcanic Quartet and Their Relevance to the Nile River Basin and Egyptian History.â Climate of the Past 19 (2023): 249â75.
Singh, Ram, Kostas Tsigaridis, Diana Bull, Laura P. Swiler, Benjamin M. Wagman, and Kate Marvel. âMount Pinatuboâs Effect on the Moisture-based Drivers of Plant Productivity.â Forthcoming.
Slane, Kathleen W., J. Michael Elam, Michael D. Glascock, and Hector Neff. âCompositional Analysis of Eastern Sigillata A and Related Wares from Tel Anafa (Israel).â Journal of Archaeological Science 21 (1994): 51â64.
Slavin, Philip. âClimate and Famines: A Historical Reassessment.â WIREs Clim Change 7 (2016): 433â47.
Tilly, Michael. 1 Makkabäer. Freiburg: Herder, 2015.
Toohey, Matthew, Kirstin Krüger, Hauke Schmidt, Claudia Timmreck, Michael Sigl, Markus Stoffel, and Rob Wilson. âDisproportionately Strong Climate Forcing from Extratropical Explosive Volcanic Eruptions.â Nature Geoscience 12 (2019): 100â07.
Toohey, Matthew, and Michael Sigl. âVolcanic Stratospheric Sulfur Injections and Aerosol Optical Depth from 500BCE to 1900CE.â Earth System Science Data 9 (2017): 809â31.
Toye, David L. âPorphyrios of Tyre (260).â In Jacoby Online. Brillâs New Jacoby, Part II. Edited by Ian Worthington. Brill: Leiden, 2011. DOI: 10.1163/1873-5363_bnj_a260.
van Dijk, Evelien, Ingar Mørkestøl Gundersen, Anna de Bode, Helge Høeg, Kjetil Loftsgarden, Frode Iversen, Claudia Timmreck, Johann Jungclaus, and Kirstin Krüger. âClimatic and Societal Impacts in Scandinavia Following the 536 and 540CE Volcanic Double Event.â Climate of the Past 19 (2023): 357â98.
Vermes, Geza. The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English. Revised edition. London: Penguin Books, 2004.
Wacholder, Ben Zion. âThe Calendar of Sabbatical Cycles During the Second Temple and the Early Rabbinic Period.â HUCA 44 (1973): 153â96.
Wagenaar, Jan A. Origin and Transformation of the Ancient Israelite Festival Calendar. BZABR 6. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2005.
Wojtkowski, Paul A. Agroecological Economics: Sustainability and Biodiversity. London: Academic Press, 2008.
Yakir, Dan, Arie Issar, Joel Gat, Eilon Adar, Peter Trimborn, and Joseph Lipp. â13C and 18O of Wood from the Roman Siege Rampart in Masada, Israel (AD70â73): Evidence for a Less Arid Climate for the Region.â Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta 58.16 (1994): 3535â9.
Zilberstein, Ayala. âHellenistic Military Architecture from the GivÊ¿ati Parking Lot Excavations, Jerusalem.â Pages 37â52 in The Middle Maccabees: Archaeology, History, and the Rise of the Hasmonean Kingdom. Edited by Andrea M. Berlin and Paul J. Kosmin. Atlanta, GA: SBL Press, 2021.
Zohary, Michael. Plants of the Bible: A Complete Handbook to All the Plants with 200 Full-color Plates Taken in the Natural Habitat. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982.
