Antiochus IV Epiphanes - Maccabean Revolt

Maccabean Revolt

The First and Second Book of Macabees painted the Maccabean Revolt as a national resistance of a foreign political and cultural oppression. Modern scholars argue that the king was intervening in a civil war between the traditionalist Jews in the country and the Hellenized Jews in Jerusalem. According to Joseph P. Schultz:

Modern scholarship on the other hand considers the Maccabean revolt less as an uprising against foreign oppression than as a civil war between the orthodox and reformist parties in the Jewish camp.

It seems that the traditionalists, with Hebrew/Aramaic names like Onias, contested with the Hellenizers with Greek names like Jason and Menelaus over who would be the High Priest. Other authors point to possible socio/economic motives in addition to the religious motives behind the civil war.

What began in many respects as a civil war escalated when the Hellenistic kingdom of Syria sided with the Hellenizing Jews in their conflict with the traditionalists. As the conflict escalated, Antiochus took the side of the Hellenizers by prohibiting the religious practices that the traditionalists had rallied around. This may explain why the king, in a total departure from Seleucid practice in all other places and times, banned the traditional religion of a whole people.