Public Forum: Did the Maccabees Intend to Conquer the Promised Land?

  • Starts: 6:30 pm on Monday, November 30, 2015
  • Ends: 9:30 pm on Monday, November 30, 2015

Archaeologists and biblical scholars raise new questions about the Maccabean Heroes of Hanukkah

The public is invited to join Professors Berlin and Gillihan, along with Professor Katell Berthelot of the National Center for Scientific Research in France, for a public dialogue exploring the historical veracity of the Maccabean victories and the question of whether the Maccabees planned and carried out a re-conquest of the biblical land of Israel.

The first in a series of public discussions, the November 30 event is free and open to the public but seating is limited. To reserve seating, please RSVP by November 23 to sarah@bu.edu.

Lighting the Hanukkah menorah has always been accompanied by tales of Judah Maccabee and his rebel fighters, who are said to have re-captured the Temple in Jerusalem after defeating the Syrian armies of the tyrant Antiochus. This story of iconic Jewish heroes has also inspired nationalist movements from antiquity to the present, serving especially as a model of Jewish identity for the modern state of Israel. Now new scholarship on the Maccabees’ historical era and on the texts recounting their victories is challenging long-accepted interpretations and raising questions about the veracity of the Maccabean story.

Through “The Maccabees Project,” Archaeology Professor Andrea Berlin of Boston University’s Elie Wiesel Center and Biblical Studies Professor Yonder Gillihan of Boston College have brought together an international, inter-disciplinary group of scholars to closely examine the physical and textual evidence and identify historical data on the Maccabean conquests.

“Putting together all of the evidence that we have uncovered at Tel Kedesh in Israel with recent close study of the books of 1 and 2 Maccabees has revealed a number of inconsistencies. So there is almost no positive evidence to support the sagas recounted in those two books. That leads us to question their status as historical sources,” Berlin says.

Location:
Congregation Kehillath Israel, 384 Harvard St, Brookline, MA 02446

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