When you mention the “swine’s flesh” are you talking about the reference to when they are being asked to eat pork? What translation reads “swine’s flesh” and where. Doing a search through this weeks readings, I didn’t see “swine’s flesh” in any of them so I just want to know what part you are having trouble with.
I agree with you. In following the directive to not eat pork, a believing Jew was showing his total obedience and love for God. It was the king and his followers who were trying to force them to give their homage to the king, luring them with gold and fine things to abandon their faith, eat pork, and offer incense to the pagan gods.
You’re not very clear on what you are uncomfortable with.
The swine’s flesh he is talking about is from wednesdays readings about the 7 brothers who died for not eating pork. Then on Thursday we read about how Mattathias resisted the officers of the king who were forcing them to violate their conscience. On Tuesday, we read about Eleazar who would not eat meat sacrificed to idols and was killed for it. All these readings have in common the portrayal of the righteous man who is willing to die for what he believes in. They were willing to die rather than to offend God. In the martyrs we see this as well. They would rather die than deny Christ.
He killed men that were forcing Jews to violate their commandments and sacrifice to idols. He did this out of zeal for God. In other words, he did not want to break God’s commandments. He did not want Jews to be forced to commit idolatry. Why would you have a problem with that? By doing so he made himself a target risking his own life. He was the start of the Jewish resistance. And, eventually because of him the Jewish temple was restored through his son Judas Maccabee who led an army of Jewish dissidents to victory over the Seleucid dynasty in guerrilla warfare. The Jewish festival of Hanukkah celebrates the re-dedication of the Temple following Judah Maccabee’s victory over the Seleucids.
Building on this important post by Carl, it is important to understand the history around the whole story of Judas Maccabeus and the rebellion.
If you think it being cooked (which it probably was, because it was a sacrifice) makes it less disturbing, then you haven’t gotten the point of the story
.Depends on what you mean by “understandable.” I find it very understandable that a zealous Jew would kill an apostate, as well as the royal official who was forcing Jews to commit idolatry. But perhaps we mean different things by the word.
For me, there is no doubt that reading certain books or passages of the OT can be disturbing.If you think it being cooked (which it probably was, because it was a sacrifice) makes it less disturbing, then you haven’t gotten the point of the story
Depends on what you mean by “understandable.” I find it very understandable that a zealous Jew would kill an apostate, as well as the royal official who was forcing Jews to commit idolatry. But perhaps we mean different things by the word.
Was it wrong in an absolute sense–contrary to natural law? I’m not sure it was. It is certainly not the way that followers of Jesus ought to respond to persecution. And obviously when Muslims today kill those they consider to be apostates (not that all Muslims condone this, but it’s mostly Muslims who practice it–Christians and Jews have pretty much abandoned the practice), we are horrified. But is it objectively wrong to kill an apostate? In practice, I certainly oppose it, because many “apostates” may be sincerely following their consciences, and the person in Maccabees was coerced by fear and not fully responsible for his actions.
But is deliberately abandoning the true God for idols intrinsically worthy of death? Yes, I think it probably is. We don’t advocate carrying out such a penalty today because we recognize that this crime, unlike others such as murder, depends in a peculiar manner on one’s intention, which cannot be discerned, and also because it has proven a horrible mistake in many ways for the Church to avail itself of the “temporal sword” to back up its spiritual discipline. But I wouldn’t describe either of these killings as the killings of innocent people, which is intrinsically wrong.
I am far more bothered by the wholesale slaughter of men, women and children described in Joshua and 1 Samuel than I am by the violence of the Maccabees in response to brutal persecution by a pagan empire.
Edwin
Yes, and while I don’t think Christians should imitate either of these responses to oppression, I do think these actions are in a completely different category from murdering innocent people, and I don’t find them particularly “disturbing” as OT stories.
That would be my opinion of Mattathias as well.