[Download] "Mattathias and the Jewish Man of Modein (Essay)" by Journal of Biblical Literature # eBook PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: Mattathias and the Jewish Man of Modein (Essay)
- Author : Journal of Biblical Literature
- Release Date : January 22, 2010
- Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines,Books,Professional & Technical,Education,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 221 KB
Description
According to 1 Maccabees 2, the Maccabean revolution begins with one crucial moment, Mattathias's act of defiance in Modein. When the father of the Hasmonean dynasty kills the Seleucid official and a Jewish man who is willing to participate in a pagan rite, he attempts to rally those of his people who are still faithful to their God and religion to take history into their own hands. This famous story is the subject of a brilliant reading by Shaye J. D. Cohen, who argues that the religious and cultural identity indicated by "Jewishness" was not yet present in 1 Maccabees and that Mattathias's victim was not Jewish but Judean. (1) This interpretation fits with Cohen's overarching theory that the Greek term Ioudaioi had a geographical ("Judean") but not a religious or cultural ("Jewish") dimension before the late second century B.C.E. Since the scholarly consensus is that both 1 and 2 Maccabees were written in that era, these works may provide evidence of this shift. (2) Cohen offers 1 Macc 2:15-26 as a parade example of his theory that there was no "Jewishness" in 1 Maccabees and that it existed only as of the writing of 2 Maccabees; thus it is fair to begin with this case before dealing with the general proposition that there is no "Jewishness" in the book.