Editing Hasmonean dynasty (section)

==Seleucid rule over Judea==

===Hellenization===
[[File:Stattler-Machabeusze.jpg|thumb|[[Wojciech Stattler]]'s ''Machabeusze'' (Maccabees), 1844]]
The continuing Hellenization of Judea pitted those who eagerly Hellenized against traditionalists,<ref>{{harvnb|Magness|2012|p=93|ps=: the impact of Hellenization caused deep divisions among the Jewish population. Many of Jerusalem's elite families ... eagerly adopted Greek customs.}}</ref> as the former felt that the latter's orthodoxy held them back;<ref>{{harvnb|Schäfer|2003|pp=43–44|ps=: the "determined Jewish reformers" who saw separation from the pagans as the cause of all misfortune}}</ref> additionally the conflict between Ptolemies and Seleucids further divded them over allegiance to either faction.

An example of these divisions is the conflict which broke out between High Priest [[Onias III]] (who opposed Hellenisation and favoured the [[Ptolemies]]) and his brother [[Jason (high priest)|Jason]] (who favoured Hellenisation and the Seleucids) in 175 BC, followed by a period of political intrigue with both Jason and [[Menelaus (High Priest)|Menelaus]] bribing the king to win the High Priesthood, and accusations of murder of competing contenders for the title. The result was a brief civil war. The [[Tobiads]], a philo-Hellenistic party, succeeded in placing Jason into the powerful position of High Priest. He established an arena for public games close by the Temple.<ref>Ginzberg, Lewis. {{cite web|title=The Tobiads and Oniads.|access-date=2007-01-23|url=http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=1589&letter=A}} ''Jewish Encyclopedia.</ref> Author Lee I. Levine notes, "The 'piece de resistance' of Judaean Hellenisation, and the most dramatic of all these developments, occurred in 175 BC, when the high priest Jason converted Jerusalem into a Greek [[polis]] replete with [[Gymnasium (Ancient Greece)|gymnasium]] and ephebeion (2 Maccabees 4). Whether this step represents the culmination of a 150-year process of Hellenisation within Jerusalem in general, or whether it was only the initiative of a small coterie of Jerusalem priests with no wider ramifications, has been debated for decades."<ref>Levine, Lee I. ''Judaism and Hellenism in antiquity: conflict or confluence?'' Hendrickson Publishers, 1998. pp. 38–45. Via "The Impact of Greek Culture on Normative Judaism." [http://www.houseofdavid.ca/maccabee.htm]</ref> [[Hellenistic Judaism|Hellenised Jews]] are known to have engaged in non-surgical [[foreskin restoration]] (epispasm) in order to join the dominant Hellenistic cultural practice of socialising naked in the gymnasium,<ref name="Rubin">{{cite journal |last1=Rubin |first1=Jody P. |title=Celsus' Decircumcision Operation: Medical and Historical Implications |journal=[[Urology (journal)|Urology]] |publisher=[[Elsevier]] |volume=16 |issue=1 |pages=121–124 |date=July 1980 |url=http://www.cirp.org/library/restoration/rubin/ |doi=10.1016/0090-4295(80)90354-4 |pmid=6994325 |access-date=30 January 2019}}</ref><ref name="Hodges JE">[http://jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=514&letter=C&search=circumcision#2 Jewish Encyclopedia: Circumcision: In Apocryphal and Rabbinical Literature]: "Contact with Grecian life, especially at the games of the arena [which involved [[nudity]]], made this distinction obnoxious to the Hellenists, or antinationalists; and the consequence was their attempt to appear like the Greeks by [[epispasm]] ("making themselves foreskins"; I Macc. i. 15; Josephus, "Ant." xii. 5, § 1; Assumptio Mosis, viii.; I Cor. vii. 18; Tosef., Shab. xv. 9; Yeb. 72a, b; Yer. Peah i. 16b; Yeb. viii. 9a). All the more did the law-observing Jews defy the edict of [[Antiochus IV Epiphanes]] prohibiting circumcision (I Macc. i. 48, 60; ii. 46); and the Jewish women showed their loyalty to the Law, even at the risk of their lives, by themselves circumcising their sons."; {{cite journal |last=Hodges |first=Frederick M. |year=2001 |title=The Ideal Prepuce in Ancient Greece and Rome: Male Genital Aesthetics and Their Relation to Lipodermos, Circumcision, Foreskin Restoration, and the Kynodesme |journal=[[Bulletin of the History of Medicine]] |publisher=[[Johns Hopkins University Press]] |volume=75 |issue=Fall 2001 |pages=375–405 |url=http://www.cirp.org/library/history/hodges2/ |doi=10.1353/bhm.2001.0119 |pmid=11568485 |s2cid=29580193 |access-date=30 January 2019}}</ref><ref name="Fredriksen">{{cite book |last=Fredriksen |first=Paula |author-link=Paula Fredriksen |date=2018 |title=When Christians Were Jews: The First Generation |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NW9yDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA10 |location=[[London]] |publisher=[[Yale University Press]] |pages=10–11 |isbn=978-0-300-19051-9}}</ref> where their [[Circumcision in the Bible|circumcision]] would have carried a social stigma;<ref name="Rubin"/><ref name="Hodges JE"/><ref name="Fredriksen"/> [[Classical civilization|Classical]], [[Hellenistic civilization|Hellenistic]], and [[Roman culture]] found circumcision to be a cruel, barbaric and repulsive custom.<ref name="Rubin"/><ref name="Hodges JE"/><ref name="Fredriksen"/>

===Antiochus IV===
[[File:Antiochos IV Epiphanes, Tetradrachm, 175-164 BC, HGC 9-620a.jpg|thumb|Tetradrachm with portrait of [[Antiochus IV]]. Reverse shows Zeus seated on a throne. The Greek inscription reads ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ ΑΝΤΙΟΧΟΥ ΘΕΟΥ ΕΠΙΦΑΝΟΥΣ ΝΙΚΗΦΟΡΟΥ (of King Antiochus, God Manifest, Bringer of Victory).]]
In spring 168 BC, after successfully invading the Ptolemaic kingdom of Egypt, [[Antiochus IV]] was humiliatingly pressured by the Romans to withdraw. According to the Roman historian [[Livy]], the Roman senate dispatched the diplomat [[Gaius Popillius Laenas|Gaius Popilius]] to Egypt who demanded Antiochus to withdraw. When Antiochus requested time to discuss the matter Popilius "drew a circle round the king with the stick he was carrying and said, 'Before you step out of that circle give me a reply to lay before the senate.'"{{sfn|Stuckenbruck|Gurtner|2019|p=100}}

While Antiochus was campaigning in Egypt, a rumor spread in Judah that he had been killed. The deposed high priest Jason{{Clarify|date=May 2025|reason= need more information about the Jason's deposition or rephrasing this to introduce the concept}} took advantage of the situation, attacked Jerusalem, and drove away Menelaus and his followers. Menelaus took refuge in [[Acra (fortress)|Akra]], the Seleucids fortress in Jerusalem. When Antiochus heard of this, he sent an army to Jerusalem who drove out Jason and his followers, and reinstated Menelaus as high priest;{{sfn|Grabbe|2010|p=15}} he then imposed a tax and established a [[Acra (fortress)|fortress]] in Jerusalem.

During this period Antiochus tried to suppress public observance of Jewish laws, apparently in an attempt to secure control over the Jews. His government set up an [[Idolatry|idol]] of [[Zeus]]<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://virtualreligion.net/iho/antiochus_4.html|title=Antiochus IV Epiphanes|website=virtualreligion.net}}</ref> on the [[Temple Mount]], which Jews considered to be desecration of the Mount, outlawed observance of the [[Shabbat|Sabbath]] and the offering of sacrifices at the Jerusalem Temple, required Jewish leaders to sacrifice to idols and forbade both circumcision and possession of Jewish scriptures, on pain of death. Punitive executions were also instituted. 
According to Josephus,<blockquote>"Now Antiochus was not satisfied either with his unexpected taking the city, or with its pillage, or with the great slaughter he had made there; but being overcome with his violent passions, and remembering what he had suffered during the siege, he compelled the Jews to dissolve the laws of their country, and to keep their infants uncircumcised, and to sacrifice swine's flesh upon the altar."<ref name=Whiston>{{Cite web|url=http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0148&redirect=true|title=Flavius Josephus, The Wars of the Jews, Book I, Whiston chapter pr.|website=perseus.tufts.edu}}</ref></blockquote>
The motives of Antiochus are unclear. He may have been incensed at the overthrow of his appointee, Menelaus,<ref name=Oesterley>Oesterley, W.O.E., ''A History of Israel'', Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1939</ref> he may have been responding to a Jewish revolt that had drawn on the Temple and the [[Torah]] for its strength, or he may have been encouraged by a group of radical Hellenisers among the Jews.<ref name=deLange>[[Nicholas de Lange]] (ed.), ''The Illustrated History of the Jewish People'', London, Aurum Press, 1997, {{ISBN|978-1-85410-530-1}}{{rp|needed=y|date=December 2020}}</ref>