Editing History of Israel (section)

===Hellenistic period (333–64 BCE)===
{{Main|Hasmonean dynasty}}
In 332 BCE, [[Alexander the Great]] of [[Macedonia (ancient kingdom)|Macedon]] conquered the region as part of his [[Wars of Alexander the Great|campaign against the Persian Empire]]. After his death in 322 BCE, his generals [[Alexander the Great#Division of the Macedonian Empire|divided the empire]] and [[Judea]] became a frontier region between the [[Seleucid Empire]] and [[Ptolemaic Kingdom]] in Egypt.<ref>Green, p. 499.</ref> Following a century of Ptolemaic rule, Judea was conquered by the Seleucid Empire in 200 BCE at the [[battle of Panium]]. Hellenistic rulers generally respected Jewish culture and protected Jewish institutions.<ref name="Hengel">{{cite book |last=Hengel |first=Martin |title=Judaism and Hellenism : Studies in Their Encounter in Palestine During the Early Hellenistic Period |date=1974 |publisher=SCM Press |isbn=0334007887 |edition=1st English |location=London |orig-date=1973 |authorlink=Martin Hengel}}</ref><ref>Tchrikover, Victor. ''Hellenistic Civilization and the Jews''.</ref> Judea was ruled by the hereditary office of the [[High Priest of Israel]] as a Hellenistic vassal.<ref name="Green">Green, p. 501.</ref> Nevertheless, the region underwent a process of [[Hellenization]], which heightened tensions between Greeks, Hellenized Jews, and observant Jews. These tensions escalated into clashes involving a power struggle for the position of high priest and the character of the holy city of Jerusalem.<ref>Ginzberg, Lewis. {{cite web|title=The Tobiads and Oniads|url=http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=1589&letter=A|access-date=6 March 2023|archive-date=14 May 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200514142533/http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=1589&letter=A|url-status=live}} Jewish Encyclopedia.</ref>

When [[Antiochus IV Epiphanes]] consecrated the temple, forbade Jewish practices, and forcibly imposed Hellenistic norms on the Jews, several centuries of religious tolerance under Hellenistic control came to an end. In 167 BCE, the [[Maccabean Revolt|Maccabean revolt]] erupted after [[Mattathias]], a Jewish priest of the [[Hasmonean dynasty|Hasmonean]] lineage, killed a Hellenized Jew and a Seleucid official who participated in sacrifice to the [[Greek Gods|Greek gods]] in [[Modi'in (ancient city)|Modi'in]]. His son [[Judas Maccabeus]] defeated the Seleucids in several battles, and in 164 BCE, he captured Jerusalem and restored temple worship, an event commemorated by the Jewish festival of [[Hanukkah|Hannukah]].<ref>Jan Assmann: ''Martyrium, Gewalt, Unsterblichkeit. Die Ursprünge eines religiösen Syndroms.'' In: Jan-Heiner Tück (Hrsg.): ''Sterben für Gott – Töten für Gott? Religion, Martyrium und Gewalt.'' [Deutsch]. Herder Verlag, Freiburg i. Br. 2015, 122–147, hier: S. 136.</ref>{{sfn|Morkholm|2008|p=290}}

After Judas' death, his brothers [[Jonathan Apphus]] and [[Simon Thassi]] were able to establish and consolidate a vassal Hasmonean state in Judea, capitalizing on the Seleucid Empire's decline as a result of internal instability and [[Seleucid–Parthian Wars|wars]] with the [[Parthian Empire|Parthians]], and by forging ties with the rising [[Roman Republic]]. Hasmonean leader [[John Hyrcanus]] was able to gain independence, doubling Judea's territories. He took control of [[Idumaea]], where he converted the Edomites to Judaism, and invaded [[Beit She'an|Scythopolis]] and [[Samaria]], where he demolished the Samaritan Temple.<ref>{{Cite web |title=HYRCANUS, JOHN (JOHANAN) I. - JewishEncyclopedia.com |url=https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/7972-hyrcanus-john-johanan-i |website=www.jewishencyclopedia.com |access-date=1 September 2022 |archive-date=4 March 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240304213029/https://jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/7972-hyrcanus-john-johanan-i |url-status=live }}</ref> Hyrcanus was also the first Hasmonean leader to [[Hasmonean coinage|mint coins]]. Under his sons, kings [[Aristobulus I]] and [[Alexander Jannaeus]], Hasmonean Judea became a kingdom, and its territories continued to expand, now also covering the [[Israeli coastal plain|coastal plain]], [[Galilee]] and parts of the [[Transjordan (region)|Transjordan]].<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Helyer |first1=Larry R. |url=http://worldcat.org/oclc/961153992 |title=The World of the New Testament: Cultural, Social, and Historical Contexts |last2=McDonald |first2=Lee Martin |publisher=Baker Academic |year=2013 |isbn=978-0-8010-9861-1 |editor-last=Green |editor-first=Joel B. |pages=45–47 |chapter=The Hasmoneans and the Hasmonean Era |oclc=961153992 |editor-last2=McDonald |editor-first2=Lee Martin |archive-date=11 January 2024 |access-date=23 September 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240111181126/https://search.worldcat.org/title/961153992 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Ben-Sasson |first=H.H. |title=A History of the Jewish People |publisher=Harvard University Press |year=1976 |isbn=0-674-39731-2 |pages=226 |quote=The expansion of Hasmonean Judea took place gradually. Under Jonathan, Judea annexed southern Samaria and began to expand in the direction of the coast plain... The main ethnic changes were the work of John Hyrcanus... it was in his days and those of his son Aristobulus that the annexation of Idumea, Samaria and Galilee and the consolidation of Jewish settlement in Trans-Jordan was completed. Alexander Jannai, continuing the work of his predecessors, expanded Judean rule to the entire coastal plain, from the Carmel to the Egyptian border... and to additional areas in Trans-Jordan, including some of the Greek cities there.}}</ref><ref name="Ben-Eliyahu-2019">{{Cite book |last=Ben-Eliyahu |first=Eyal |url=http://worldcat.org/oclc/1103519319 |title=Identity and Territory: Jewish Perceptions of Space in Antiquity |date=30 April 2019 |isbn=978-0-520-29360-1 |pages=13 |publisher=Univ of California Press |oclc=1103519319 |quote=From the beginning of the Second Temple period until the Muslim conquest—the land was part of imperial space. This was true from the early Persian period, as well as the time of Ptolemy and the Seleucids. The only exception was the Hasmonean Kingdom, with its sovereign Jewish rule—first over Judah and later, in Alexander Jannaeus's prime, extending to the coast, the north, and the eastern banks of the Jordan. |archive-date=17 February 2022 |access-date=23 September 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220217084729/https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1103519319 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Citation |last=Smith |first=Morton |title=The Gentiles in Judaism 125 BCE – 66 CE |date=1999 |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/cambridge-history-of-judaism/gentiles-in-judaism-125-bcece-66/1AC78E99125BFE8E215AC8137DD8FE32 |work=The Cambridge History of Judaism: Volume 3: The Early Roman Period |volume=3 |pages=192–249 |editor-last=Sturdy |editor-first=John |access-date=2023-03-20 |series=The Cambridge History of Judaism |place=Cambridge |publisher=Cambridge University Press |doi=10.1017/chol9780521243773.008 |isbn=978-0-521-24377-3 |quote=These changes accompanied and were partially caused by the great extension of the Judaeans' contacts with the peoples around them. Many historians have chronicled the Hasmonaeans' territorial acquisitions. In sum, it took them twenty-five years to win control of the tiny territory of Judaea and get rid of the Seleucid colony of royalist Jews (with, presumably, gentile officials and garrison) in Jerusalem. [...] However, in the last years before its fall, the Hasmonaeans were already strong enough to acquire, partly by negotiation, partly by conquest, a little territory north and south of Judaea and a corridor on the west to the coast at Jaffa/Joppa. This was briefly taken from them by Antiochus Sidetes, but soon regained, and in the half century from Sidetes' death in 129 to Alexander Jannaeus' death in 76 they overran most of Palestine and much of western and northern Transjordan. First John Hyrcanus took over the hills of southern and central Palestine (Idumaea and the territories of Shechem, Samaria and Scythopolis) in 128–104; then his son, Aristobulus I, took Galilee in 104–103, and Aristobulus' brother and successor, Jannaeus, in about eighteen years of warfare (103–96, 86–76) conquered and reconquered the coastal plain, the northern Negev, and western edge of Transjordan. |editor2-last=Davies |editor2-first=W. D. |editor3-last=Horbury |editor3-first=William |archive-date=12 June 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180612214626/https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/cambridge-history-of-judaism/gentiles-in-judaism-125-bcece-66/1AC78E99125BFE8E215AC8137DD8FE32 |url-status=live }}</ref> Some scholars argue that the Hasmonean dynasty also institutionalized the final [[Development of the Hebrew Bible canon|Jewish biblical canon]].<ref>Philip R. Davies in ''The Canon Debate'', p. 50: "With many other scholars, I conclude that the fixing of a canonical list was almost certainly the achievement of the Hasmonean dynasty."</ref>

Under Hasmonean rule, the [[Pharisees]], [[Sadducees]] and the mystic [[Essenes]] emerged as the principal Jewish social movements. The Pharisee sage [[Simeon ben Shetach]] is credited with establishing the first schools based around [[synagogue|meeting houses]].<ref>[[Paul Johnson (writer)|Paul Johnson]], ''History of the Jews'', p. 106, Harper 1988</ref> This was a key step in the emergence of [[Rabbinical Judaism]]. After Jannaeus' widow, queen [[Salome Alexandra]], died in 67 BCE, her sons [[Hyrcanus II]] and [[Aristobulus II]] engaged in a civil war over succession. The conflicting parties requested [[Pompey]]'s assistance on their behalf, which paved the way for a Roman takeover of the kingdom.<ref>{{cite web |title=John Hyrcanus II |url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/John-Hyrcanus-II |website=Encyclopedia Britannica |access-date=6 March 2023 |archive-date=5 December 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221205122753/https://www.britannica.com/biography/John-Hyrcanus-II |url-status=live }}</ref>