Victor L. Parker, «Judas Maccabaeus' Campaigns against Timothy», Vol. 87 (2006) 457-476
Both 1 and 2 Maccabees mention various campaigns of Judas Maccabaeus against
an opponent called Timothy. The author argues that although 1 Maccabees in
several instances does provide more accurate detail, 2 Maccabees’ presentation
of these campaigns as chronologically discrete has the greater historical
plausibility. Additionally, 2 Maccabees alone preserves a record of a third,
historically plausible campaign against Timothy. Overall, 2 Maccabees deserves
more esteem as an historical source than it commonly receives.
458 Victor L. Parker
5,21-23 Judas’ brother Simon campaigns in the Galilee
5,24-54 Judas himself campaigns in Gilead — again against
Timothy
5,56-62 Joseph, one of Judas’ lieutenants, campaigns in the coastal
plain
5,65-68 Judas campaigns against the Idumaeans near Hebron, but
then descends to the coastal plain to attack Azotus on the
coast
Immediately after the conclusion of these far-ranging campaigns
against the peoples round about we read of Antiochus IV’s death,
which took place in, roughly, December of the year 164 B.C. (5).
That something is not in order here should make itself apparent
rather rapidly. Either we have erred in our conventional chronology (as
Klaus Bringmann has argued) (6) or 1 Maccabees has departed from
chronological order in placing the description of these campaigns
between the Purification and Antiochus IV’s death. I hope elsewhere to
have shewn that Bringmann does not, in fact, have a case (7); and feel
that we should therefore investigate the possibility that 1 Maccabees
is not setting down events in succession and order in the manner we
moderns think it only just and fitting for an historian to do (8).
An aprioristic consideration may warrant this procedure. First,
chap. 5 in 1 Maccabees gives the impression of a summary of thema-
(5) A.J. SACHS – D.J. WISEMAN, “A Babylonian Kinglist of the Hellenistic
Periodâ€, Iraq 16 (1954) 202-211.
(6) K. BRINGMANN, Hellenistische Reform und Religionsverfolgung in Judäa
(Göttingen 1983) 26. (An earlier study such as that of W. KOLBE, Beiträge zur
syrischen und jüdischen Geschichte [Stuttgart 1926] — see e.g. 47-55 and chart
on 125 — could still escape the problem through a too late death for Antiochus IV
[in Kolbe’s case: April of 163 B.C.] and thus leave some room for Judas’
struggles against neighbouring peoples. All the same Kolbe does concede [133-
134] that the room thus left does not suffice for all the fighting and argues that 1
Maccabees [see below n. 9] has thematically arranged fighting which did begin
then, just continued into the next year[s].)
(7) V. PARKER, “The Campaigns of Lysias in Judaea: A test of the historical
worth of 2 Maccabees†(in press).
(8) The problem bedevils much modern scholarship on ancient historians. For
example, in the case of Thucydides one may refer to many dogmatic statements
that he always gives a strictly diachronic arrangement of events: e.g. B.D. MERITT
et al., The Athenian Tribute Lists (Princeton 1950) III, 160-162. On the problems
with this view see E. BADIAN, “Towards a Chronology of the Pentekontaetia down
to the Peace of Calliasâ€, Échos du Monde Classique 32 (1988) 296-301. The
interpretation of many other historians besides Thucydides has suffered from this
modern need always to see in their works an adherence to exact chronological
order.