Maccabees
Sign in to savethumb|The descendants of Mattathias
Key facts
- Saint.name
- The Holy Maccabees
- Saint.birth_date
- 2nd century BCE
- Saint.death_date
- 167–160 BCE
- Saint.feast_day
- August 1
- Saint.venerated_in
- Catholic ChurchEastern Orthodox ChurchesOriental Orthodox Churches
- Saint.image
- Stattler-Machabeusze.jpg
- Saint.imagesize
- 230px
- Saint.caption
- Wojciech Stattler's "Machabeusze" ("The Maccabees"), 1844
- Saint.birth_place
- Judea (modern-day Israel)
- Saint.death_place
- Judea
- Saint.canonized_date
- Pre-Congregation
via Wikipedia infobox
~18 min read
Encyclopedic overview
13 sectionsContents
- Etymology
- Background
- Revolt
- Hasmonean dynasty
- Biblical accounts
- Christian veneration and possible Jewish preceding tradition
- The nine "Holy Maccabean Martyrs" in Christianity
- Theory: Jewish ancient veneration
- Hasmonean rulers
- See also
- References
- Further reading
- External links
thumb|The descendants of Mattathias
The Maccabees (), also spelled Machabees (, or , ; or ; , ), were a group of Jewish rebel warriors who re-took control of Judea, which at the time was occupied by the Seleucid Empire. Its leaders, the Hasmoneans, founded the Hasmonean dynasty, which ruled from 167 BC (after the Maccabean Revolt) to 37 BC, being a fully independent kingdom from 104 to 63 BC. They reasserted the Jewish religion, freed Judea from the Syrian-Greek occupiers, and reduced the influence of Hellenism and Hellenistic Judaism.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Maccabees” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.