posted by Hannah Cornwell
John Ma: Documents about the Maccabees (and documents about documents about the Maccabees)
In what was perhaps a first for the Epigraphy Workshop, John Ma’s presentation on Monday 30th January drew such a large audience that the workshop had to relocate to the lecture theatre on the Ioannou centre!
Ma (Corpus Christi, Oxford) looked at the ancient documents that survive on paper, rather than on stone and papyri for the purposes of examining the status and interactions between Jerusalem and Antiocheia during the years 167-164 B.C. He focused on the issue of control of local shrines and rights in the Hellenistic world, and the grants of the Seleucid kings which allow local self-government (which does not mean autonomy). Ma also examined effect of the foundation of the polis of Antiocheia on the Temple state of Jerusalem.
Whilst Maccabees presents a picture of enforced hellenization and an interdiction on the Jewish faith, Ma demonstrated that there is no such parallel to be found in the epigraphy. What is clear is that the Jews lost control of the Temple to Antiocheia, and the right to self-government. Ma examined the letters of restoration in II Macc. 11.16-38 which illustrate that Jerusalem did not have rights or laws in 167 B.C.: the Jews are addressed first as plethos (letter 1) which implies no state or council for self-government. Likewise in letter two they are termed an ethnos. If is only after the restoration of their rights by the king in letter 2, that Antiochus refers to the the gerousia of the Jews (letter 3), since their rights have been restored. Ma argued that the documents suggest the recovery and rededication of the temple was the responsibility of hellenized Jews, gained through negotiation.