Editing Maccabees (section)

===Theory: Jewish ancient veneration===
{{Clear}}
While studying a floor mosaic discovered during the 2012-2016 campaigns at the [[Huqoq]] synagogue near the [[Sea of Galilee]] and dating to the 4th–5th centuries, Russian researcher Nina V. Braginskaya comes to a different conclusion from that of the dig director, [[Jodi Magness]].<ref name=NVB>{{cite web |author= Braginskaya, Nina V. |title= Нина Брагинская о загадочной мозаике из библейской деревни |trans-title= Nina Braginskaya about the mysterious mosaic from the biblical village |date= 19 December 2017 |publisher=[[Higher School of Economics]] (HSE), Institute of Classical Orient and Antiquity |location= Moscow |lang= ru |url= https://iocs.hse.ru/news/213162968.html |access-date= 2 February 2024}}</ref> Braginskaya puts forward that the mosaic reflects the ancient Jewish veneration of the nine Maccabee martyrs from the books of the Maccabees, which is later perpetuated just in Christianity, while Jewish tradition preserves only the rite of lighting a nine-branched [[candelabrum]] during [[Hanukkah]].<ref name=NVB/> In her opinion, there is a direct relationship between the Jewish symbolic object and the Christian symbolic story, with the [[Hanukkah menorah]] undergoing a one-and-a-half-millennium long secondary symbolic interpretation in Judaism, while the Christian tradition kept the original meaning, that of a martyrdom-for-the-faith tradition.<ref name=NVB/> This interpretation would help to explain the unique [[iconography]] of this particular mosaic carpet, which is the only one found so far in synagogues of its period depicting scenes [[Jewish apocrypha|not found]] in the [[Hebrew Bible]].<ref name=NVB/> Only due to the discovery of the Huqoq mosaic could the connection between the Jewish and Christian traditions be noticed and proposed for discussion, to Braginskaya.<ref name=NVB/>