okay now that we've had a quick look at the tremendous maccabean revolt i'd just like to take
a couple of minutes it'll be a very short mini video uh to look at the dynasty of the khashoggi
that is the the kings and high priests that followed the maccabean revolt and this is a
period of tremendous consequence in many ways but i'm just going to treat it very lightly
today because we're going to be coming back to it repeatedly over the next coming videos basically
the period that we're discussing now is from the maccabean revolt which happened in the mid
160s before the common era up until the entry of pompeii a roman general in jerusalem in the
year 68 before the common era so about a hundred years now the truth is the maccabean dynasty known
as the hashmonaem continue particularly through the line of mariamne a great-great-granddaughter
who married herod but the herodian dynasty is quite distinct in many ways and that
extends from the the middle of the first century before the common era
up until the great revolt uh which results in the destruction of the temple in the year 70.
so we're going to look at the first hundred years from about 167 to about 68 before the common era
and bear in mind that we've got another 100 odd years that are quite distinct we'll spend a lot of
time on them from about 68 before the common era to 70 of the common era okay let's look at this
first hundred years i think the most significant thing to say about the maccabean dynasty is the
remarkable territorial expansion that took place under their watch have a look at this map here
which shows you the uh the center of the maccabean revolt was essentially in judea right in the
region around jerusalem in the judean hills and so on it was fairly landlocked it it had some access
to the dead sea and of course the jordan river but otherwise it was efficiently blocked from
the mediterranean and from significant population centers to the north as well under the successive
maccabean kings however under the brothers of yehuda macabee and then under his nephews you
begin to see significant expansion in particular under the reign of yochanan kohingodo also known
as john hirkiness you see very significant extension to the north throughout samaria
expansion to the coast as well and most significantly for historical purposes
the expansion to the south into idimaya this will become extremely important because this
is the region from which herod will descend and the idumeans uh and their conquest by john hirknes
is one of the more controversial periods in jewish history because this was the first and only time
that we have in recorded jewish history of a forcible conversion of a non-jewish people the
idomians were accepted into the maccabean kingdom and they were also forced to accept judaism now
what exactly that judaism was that they accepted is something we're going to explore in the next
three lectures of this series to some degree but this was something that the rabbis later severely
criticized they viewed the negative implications of herod's rule in particular as a consequence of
this forced conversion and as a result uh judaism put essentially a ban on any type
of state behavior like this or any even communal behavior like this um forced conversion is simply
not a thing in judaism as a result you will also see significant expansion under alexander yanai
one of the maccabean kings who was definitely not favored by the rabbis his wife shlomsi anamalka
will discuss in a moment she had a very major impact however on the promotion of the rabbis
the sages who again we're going to discuss in the subsequent lecture the maccabean kingdom
which we might even say was a small empire actually expanded dramatically in all areas
of activity not only geographically and militarily but also in terms of its political reach in terms
of its cultural activity in terms of its economic activity we have an amazing series of coins coming
from the maccabean kingdom uh here you have a beautiful coin which is actually in my possession
this is a pruta the smallest unit of currency that uh was circulating in the maccabean era this comes
from the era of uh yochanan coin guddal or john hercules and you can see on this coin there is a
double cornucopia you can see how primitive the coin is it's it's stamped off center and it's
it's lumpy and so on the double cornucorpia symbolizes uh prosperity and wealth and so on
and on the other side of the coin this is very difficult to make out but you can see lots of
examples on on the web and it's an interesting kind of take in which uh jochran coin gadol refers
to himself as being part of the commonwealth of the jewish people this is one of the significant
areas in which the rabbis were critical of the because historically the office of king and the
office of the high priest were separate the office of the king was assigned to the tribe
of judah ever since david and the office of the high priest is specifically among the kohanim
obviously which are the descendants of aaron who was of the tribe of levy but among the maccabees
they took both of those offices to themselves which the rabbis felt was an inappropriate
arrogation of additional authority and some of the kings kind of like you know tried to soften
this by saying they rule with the consent of the commonwealth of jews others were less hesitant
about proclaiming themselves both high priest and king this is also an exceptionally important
period because we see the rise of a new class of authority figures within the jewish body politic
quite possibly following a much earlier trend but only now perhaps with state authority
do we really see these individuals beginning to rise to authority i'm talking specifically about
the sages also known as the pharisees primarily in christian readings um these are essentially
the rabbis who would become the great leaders of the jewish people uh inspire them shape the way
in which we understand judaism today and things like this there's a lot more to say about this
but you'll have to wait till the next lecture but for now let's just look briefly at schlum sean
hamalka which was an unusual woman she was the widow of alexander yanai she was known in much
of the greek literature as salome but beware there are several salomes this is not the salome that
is associated with john the baptist this is salome alexandra schlemtion america means simply peace
unto jerusalem the queen her name shalom seon means peace unto jerusalem at any rate she
was unlike her husband a great fan of the rabbis her brother was very highly placed among them and
when her husband died she was allowed the freedom now as sole ruler of the maccabean kingdom to
institute a new reign which was very religious friendly i know it sounds
strange because just uh you know a hundred odd years earlier they had fought this battle
for religious liberty but under the success of maccabean kings this religious freedom was
strangely curtailed and slumped in many ways revived it by giving the popular rabbis
whose base of support was really among the wider population not specifically from the temple ritual
not specifically from the sacrificial cult and so on so shlomsiya namalka in many ways
actually restored this period of religious freedom of expression and her reign was regarded as a
period of unrivaled prosperity both materially and spiritually unfortunately this all came to
an end uh we will recall that when yehuda macabee was engaged in his struggles at the beginning of
the maccabean period he actually appealed to the romans for the possibility of intervention
they did not intervene at that time but it helped to stay some of the ambitions of the
assyrian greeks in israel at the time but with the death of shlomzion hamalka in the year 67
her sons engaged in a brutal conflict over who would control israel who would be the next king
who would be the next high priest and so on uh they both independently appealed to the romans
specifically in the figure of pompeii shown here a general uh who ultimately ended up intervening in
that fraternal conflict by invading the region and taking jerusalem in the year 63. hard to imagine
a fraternal conflict like this with an appeal to an outside source turning out any differently but
at any rate that's what happened pompeii enters in the year 63 and effectively
establishes roman dominion over the land of israel the hashmonaem continue the dynasty goes on and
ultimately it will become the herodian dynasty herod marries one of the last daughters of the
maccabean kingdom and but that's something that we'll have to explore in a further video for now
though we've had a quick look at the the brief rise and tremendous expansion and the tremendous
potential demonstrated by the dynasty of the maccabees and we'll have to continue with the
discussion of the internal religious developments in the next video thank you very much for watching