Maccabean Revolt

Jewish uprising against the Seleucid Empire sparked by Antiochus IV Epiphanes’ brutal persecution of Judaism. Antiochus outlawed Jewish practices, desecrated the Jerusalem Temple by erecting a statue of Zeus and offering pigs on the altar—the “abomination of desolation” prophesied in Daniel.

The revolt began in 167 BCE when the priest Mattathias refused to offer pagan sacrifice in his village of Modein. After killing a Jew who complied and the king’s official, Mattathias fled to the hills with his five sons, launching guerrilla warfare. Upon his death, leadership passed to his son Judas Maccabeus (“the Hammer”), a brilliant military tactician who won stunning victories against superior Seleucid forces.

In 164 BCE, Judas recaptured Jerusalem and cleansed and rededicated the Temple—an event commemorated in the Jewish festival of Hanukkah. The revolt eventually secured Jewish independence under the Hasmonean dynasty, which ruled until the Roman conquest in 63 BCE. The Maccabean period demonstrated extraordinary Jewish resistance to forced Hellenization and established a precedent of martyrdom for faith that would profoundly influence both Judaism and early Christianity.