The assignment sign up sheet is now available on the blog. Those of you who have not signed up for all three slots should email me and let me know which open slots they can fill.
There was a little bit of confusion last class about the Zenon Archive. Really, all you need to know is certain details from Josephus' Tobaid romance can be verified by archaeological evidence.
It seems as though the Tobaids were in close contact with the Ptolemaic government. We know this because correspondence between a "Toubias" (Greek for Tobiah) and Apollonius (second in command to Ptolemy II) were discovered in Egypt. A fortress discovered in the Trans-Jordan has some features that are similar to Josephus' description of Hyrcanus' (son of Joseph son of Toubias) fortress. An inscription with the name Tobiah was also found on site.
Toubias, Jospeph and Hyrcanus all appear to be descendants of Tobiah the Ammonite from the book of Nehemiah.
As for next class, continue reading Ben Sirach and Koheleth. We will also discuss the excerpt from Josephus' Jewish Antiquities Book 12, a charter granted by the Seleucid king Antiochus III to the Jews.
I suggest that you get started reading I and II Maccabees if you can. At the very least you can use the excerpts from the course packet. For those of you who are more ambitious, try reading all of I and II Macc. There are several good versions of the text as these books are part of the Apocrypha and are preserved in most Christian Old Testaments:
1) The Anchor Bible series volumes 41 and 41a (ed. Jonathan Goldstein) has a good translation but his notes can be a little outlandish at times.
2) The Apochrypha ed. by Goodspeed
3) The NRSV (New Revised Standard Version) Bible
4) The RSV (revised standard version) which can be found online here.
5) For the ambitious, the Hebrew text of I Macc reconstructed by Uriel Rappaport can be useful to look at- ספר מקבים BS1825.53 .R36 2004
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Loen Kate Amer
History 1010
Assignment #1
October 4, 2006
Domestic Discord Amongst the Hasmoneans
The Hasmonean rulers could not have had pleasant home lives. Their dynasty is replete with patricide, family backstabbing, and enough familial intrigue to fill a second Shakespearian history cycle. The cause of all Hasmonean domestic strife is an archetypal one: these family members are competing for absolute power in Judea.
A struggle for power existed in the original Maccabee family before they have fully consolidated power to form a dynasty . Simon was “the first Maccabee to succumb to intrigue from within. His son-in-law Ptolemy, the governor of Jericho, was ambitious for power and has Simon and his two sons, Mattathias and Judas, murdered treacherously” (Schäfer 58).
The dysfunctional nature of the Hasmonean family is typified in the conduct of John Hyrcanus and his sons, told by Josephus in Jewish Antiquities, XIII. 300-323. Hyrcanus was able to prophecy (p. 377), and “once when God appeared to him in his sleep, he asked Him which of his sons was destined to be his successor” (p. 389). When God reveals that Alexander Jannaeus will rule, Hyrcanus is upset, and plots to send Alexander away, because “of all his sons Hyrcanus loved best the two elder ones” (ibid.).
Arisobulus, Hyrcanus’ eldest son, must have learned commitment to family from his father’s treatment of Alexander. After Hyrcanus’ death, Arisobulus became king, and again like his father, he had a favorite: “Of all his brothers he loved only Antigonus…while he kept his other brothers in chains” (p. 379). Arisobulus went so far as to imprison his mother, “and carried his cruelty so far that he caused her to die of starvation in prison” (ibid.). It is doubtful that fraternal love could protect Antigonus from such a despot, particularly when there were “unscrupulous men who were bent on disrupting the harmonious relation between them” plotting his downfall (Josephus 381). Once the “unscrupulous men” plant a seed of doubt in Arisobulus, he decides to test Antigonus, but Arisobulus’ wife Salome Alexandra ensured that he would fail. He did, and “the bodyguards killed him” (Josephus 383).
Upon widening the scope to examine the Hasmonean kingdom as well as their dynasty, it becomes clear that the disharmony of their family life was reflected in their political life. The smaller personal struggles among individuals in the family are echoed in the larger international political conflicts between the Hasmoneans and the Ptolemys or Seleucids, or the local conflicts between pious and Hellenized, or Pharisee, Sadducee, and Essenes. By examining the Hasmonean family dynamic, we can better understand their ruthless political impetus.
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