THE BOOK OF DANIEL AND ANTIOCHUS IV

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THE BOOK OF DANIEL AND ANTIOCHUS IVS PERSECUTION
OF THE JEWS

• Dr. Benjamin Scolnic

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1 Maccabees 1

• The king wrote to all his kingdom, for all to
  become one people and for each to abandon his own
  customs. Many Israelites accepted his religion
  and sacrificed to idols and violated the Sabbath.
  The king set letters containing orders to
  violate Sabbaths and festivals, to defile temple
  and holy things to leave their sons
  uncircumcised .so as to forget the Torah and
  violate all the commandments. Whoever disobeyed
  the word of the king was put to death.

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The Persecution was Historical

• What provoked the persecution by Epiphanes
  remains an enigma in spite of intense study by
  many scholars, but a persecution there was, and
  the war it provoked is historys first recorded
  struggle for religious liberty. - Shaye Cohen
• As for historicity, there can be no doubt about
  the main claim, that Antiochus issued and
  enforced decrees against the practice of
  Judaism. - Seth Schwartz

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Tcherikover

• It was not the revolt which came as a response to
  the persecution, but the persecution which came
  as a response to the revolt. Only on this
  assumption can we understand Antiochus decrees
  and their political purpose. The Jewish faith was
  faced, not after Antiochus decree, but before
  it, with the alternative of renouncing its
  existence or of fighting for its life.

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Bickerman

• 1 Macc 1 is historically false the impetus for
  the persecution came not from Antiochus IV but
  from the Jewish Hellenists, Menelaus and his
  allies, who wanted to change the very nature of
  Judaism.

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But 2 Maccabees says

• 2 Macc 61 states that Antiochus

sent Geron the Athenian to compel the Jews to
depart from their ancestral laws and to cease
living by the laws of G-d. He was also to defile
the temple in Jerusalem and to proclaim (it)
to be the temple of Zeus Olympius.
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Bringmann

• What caused such a strong reaction from the
  conservative Jews was that the Syrians who lived
  in the Akra dedicated the Temple to Zeus.
• For this reason, the High Priest Menelaus
  instituted a new cult combining the Jewish god,
  Baal Shamem and Zeus Antiochus IV officially
  issued the edict to begin this new cult.
• Some Jews rose in rebellion against what they
  considered to be an outrage.

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Mittag

• The origins of the persecution are to be found
  in the interplay between Seleucid officials and
  Jewish groups Antiochuss role was limited.

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The question remains

• Why would a religious persecution be the response
  to a political uprising?

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Towards a new theory

• Based on
• Daniel 11
• Antiochus IVs biography
• The theory of Jonathan Goldstein
• Seleucid coinage

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The Scorned Prince

• Daniel 1121

There will stand in his place a scorned man who
was not given the splendor of royalty and he will
come and take the kingdom/kingship with schemes.
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What Antiochus Adapted from Rome

• Toga!
• Ran for office
• Sat in an ivory curule chair
• Reviewed the soldiers in triumphal processions
• Gladiators
• Employed Roman architects

13
Goldstein

• Antiochus IV models his persecution on the one
  against the Bacchants in Rome when he was a
  hostage there in the 180s BCE.

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The Persecution in Rome

• 186 BCE to the Senatus consultum de
  Bacchanalibus, by which the Bacchanalia were
  prohibited throughout all Italy (Ab urbe
  condita 39.839.18). Measures conducted over a
  span of five years took the lives of seven
  thousand people, the majority through execution,
  and caused great terror inside and outside of the
  city, numerous suicides, and a mass flight from
  Rome. According to Cicero, the measures even
  included military attacks (De legibus 2.15.37).

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Polytheism and Persecution?

• While Hume and others have claimed a strong
  interrelationship between monotheism and
  religious persecution, is it possible that
  polytheistic societies were capable of systematic
  religious exclusion and persecution?

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So it is fair to conclude

• that Antiochus IV took all of this in. He had
  come to Rome not as a child but as an adult who
  could integrate his experiences in sophisticated
  ways. He was an extremely ambitious man, a smart
  and crafty survivor who was skilled in warfare
  and diplomacy.
• It is at least plausible that he integrated
  aspects of his experience in Rome into his view
  of how the power of a state can be applied.

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Appian

• Afterward, on the death of Antiochus the Great,
  his son succeeded him and gave his son as a
  hostage to the Romans in place of his brother.
  When the latter arrived at Athens on his way
  home, Seleucus was assassinated as the result of
  a conspiracy of a certain Heliodorus, one of the
  court officers.

18
Heliodorus and Seleucus IV in Dan 1120

His place will be taken by one who will dispatch
an officer to exact tribute for royal glory, but
he will be broken in a few days, not by wrath or
by war. 
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2 Maccabees 3

• Heliodoruss supernatural epiphany in 2 Macc 3
  can be read as his culminating realization that
  the rights of Seleucid provinces and of their
  temples and cults must be respected and that they
  should not be taxed oppressively for the desires
  of the kingship. Heliodorus explains this
  position to Seleucus IV, who still continues to
  pursue his policies of financial accumulation at
  the expense of his subjects.

20
Appian

• When Heliodorus sought to possess himself of the
  government he was driven out by Eumenes and
  Attalus, who installed Antiochus therein in order
  to secure his good-will

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The Gradual Rise of Antiochus IV

• While scholars think of Antiochus as attaining
  immediate absolute power right after the
  assassination of his brother Seleucus IV, Dan
  112124 makes it clear that the internal power
  struggle to control the Seleucid kingdom
  continues from 175170.
• We cannot understand the Antiochene
  persecution if we do not understand the career
  and methods of Antiochus IV.

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The Scorned Prince

• Daniel 1121

There will stand in his place a scorned man who
was not given the splendor of royalty and he will
come and take the kingdom/kingship with schemes.
23
1122
The forces of the flood, including the prince
with whom he made a compact, will be overwhelmed
and broken by him.
24
1123
And, from the time an alliance is made with him,
he will practice deceit and he will rise to
power with a small nation.
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Dan 1124
He will invade the richest of provinces unawares,
and will do what his father and forefathers never
did, lavishing on them spoil, booty, and wealth
he will have designs upon strongholds, but only
for a time.
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Dan 1121-24 is correct
Antiochus IV became Regent in 175 shortly after
the assassination of Seleucus IV. Antiochus IV
married the boy kings mother and for several
years, intrigued, plotted and put his friends in
positions of power, Just as Dan 1121-24
states. He may have become co-king in 172 but he
was not sole king until 170/69.
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The Coins of the Boy Antiochus

• We have no less than twelve different coins, from
  no less than four different cities and at least
  nineteen different moneyers (at least fourteen
  from Antioch on the Orontes, two each from Tarsus
  and Antioch in Persis and one from Tyre) that
  represent the kingship and legitimate succession
  of the boy King Antiochus, son of Seleucus IV and
  Laodice IV. He must have been king for several
  years.

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Babylonian Evidence

• The Astronomical Diary entry BM 34036 Sp. 132
  corroborates the idea that Antiochus IV was not
  sole king until 170 or 169.
• The Babylonian King List even differentiates
  between the date of the execution of Antiochus
  son of Seleucus IV in 170 and the sole kingship
  of Antiochus IV in 169.

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Dan 82325
impudent and versed in intrigue who will destroy
the mighty and the people of holy ones. By his
cunning, he will use deceit successfully. He will
make great plans, will destroy many, taking them
unawares.
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The Rise and Fall of Jason

• The gradual rise of Antiochus during those years
  provides the political context for the rise and
  fall of Jason and the rise of Menelaus in Judaea.
  Antiochus IV replaces Onias III with his brother
  Jason as the high priest of Judaea because Jason
  promises the kinds of sums Seleucus IV had
  sought. Antiochus IV gradually replaces
  supporters of Heliodorus and the young king
  Antiochus with those more loyal to him, such as
  several Milesians (Dan 1122), and with those who
  promise him even more money, such as Jason in
  175/74 and Menelaus in 172.

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The Day of Eleusis 168 BCE

• Antiochus IV, now completely in command,
  centralizing power and financial resources better
  than his brother, successfully invades Egypt in
  169 (the Sixth Syrian War). He places his nephew
  Ptolemy VI in power as his puppet. But the young
  man allies himself with his sister and brother
  and rejects Antiochus IV, who then invades again
  in 168. Though successful again, he is repulsed
  by the Romans at the Day of Eleusis (Polybius,
  Livy, etc.). This is a dramatic humiliation that
  threatens the perception of his power in his own
  kingdom.

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Jasons Attempted Coup

• Thinking that Antiochus IV is dead in Egypt, the
  former High Priest Jason attacks Jerusalem in an
  effort to displace Menelaus. Humiliated in Egypt,
  Antiochus needs to make the case that he is still
  in control. In repulsing Jason and punishing what
  at least seemed to be a rebellion, Antiochus uses
  Judaea to make a dramatic case for his power by
  demonstrating that he can control everything
  including the ritual observances of the most
  fervent religious adherents in his world, the
  Judaeans.

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Dan. 1129-30
At the appointed time he will return And he will
come to the south but the second time will not
be like the first time And the ships of Cyprus
will come back with him But he will be driven
out And he will return, raging against the holy
covenant.
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The Roman Model

• In so doing, he uses the model of the
  persecution of the Bacchants that he had
  personally witnessed while a hostage in Rome.

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Conclusion

• Antiochus IV learned in Rome that religious
  persecution can be a weapon in the arsenal of
  political power. Jasons rebellion in 168,
  motivated by rumors of Antiochuss death but
  really at the moment of his political
  humiliation, was a pretext for a demonstration of
  such power.
• For all of the modern theories, the Bible knew
  this thousands of years ago.

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