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simplynoone
Guest
Sure it was. He was opposed to idolatry and I haven’t claimed otherwise. But it’s no accident that the major documents we have describing the activities of the Maccabees are written in Greek (although I know that there are Hebrew accounts as well which have been traditionally better known among Jews than the Greek texts). IV Maccabees in particular is deeply Hellenistic. The point Cohen is making is that “Hellenism” went beyond just worshiping the Greek gods. (Which obviously Paul didn’t do.) You couldn’t live in that era and be completely immune from Greek culture.
Everything I know of Judah, his brothers, and those that banded with them, I have learned through secular history. I have read little of the books that are in the Catholic Bible, the Maccabees. I will do so… I have been able to read some of it, but not enough to form an opinion.
What Judah and those who were with him were trying to do was to keep the Hellenism out of the Temple and out of Judaism.
Of course, I agree… it was becoming a losing battle given that the Romans, who absorbed the Greek way of thinking, were answering the call of these Converted Jews to take out the Jewish “rebels.” God forbid they keep their own land pure of the hellenistic mindset, right?
What’s your evidence for this? Have you stopped to think how similar it is to the accusations the Spaniards made against the Jewish conversos? Is this a road you want to travel? Paranoid ultra-nationalism looks very similar no matter who engages in it.
Edwin
Herod the Great… whose family converted to Judaism; he helped with the restorations to the temple and strangely enough, some of the priests who belonged in the temple died around Herod… thus, Herod took it upon himself to appoint priests more of the Greek persuasion.
Menelaus, another who “supposedly” was of the tribe of Benjamin (which only is verification that his father was a Jew, but still not sure on the mother of this hellenistic priest), was a priest who brought hellenistic ways into the temple. He was the succesor to Jason who bribed his way into priesthood. On and on I could go of these men who claimed to be Jewish but were anything but in practice… these were the ones that Judah and those of like mind were fighting against.
You can enlighten me to what you have regarding the spaniards… about the only thing I know of the Spaniards is that they were content having the Jewish living among them… the claims is that they (the Jewish) were different (lifestyles,etc), but very peaceful. The trouble between the Jewish and the Spaniards was only aroused when Christianity spread to that region and many turned on the Jews… most likely due to the christian accusations that have come forth via the NT… still, I admit my research in that area has been quite minimal and I will welcome your views so as to have something new to verify in regards to what is truth and what is not. I do love researching these things… the more I do… the more I see the Jewish in a beautiful light than the one most would like to present them in.
