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VIRTUAL CHANUKAH
POSTED 05 DECEMBER, 2007
Chanukah for the Two Houses of Israel
by J.K. McKee
editor@tnnonline.net
The subject of what Messianic
Believers are to be doing for the Winter holiday
season can be very controversial. On the one
hand, Messianics cannot, and should not,
celebrate Christmas because it is non-Biblical
and was created to be a replacement for the
Biblical appointments of Leviticus 23. On the
other hand, should Messianic Believers celebrate
Chanukah, or the Feast of Dedication?
Within the emerging Two-House Messianic
community, as it is often described, there is
debate over whether or not we should celebrate
Chanukah. Primarily the debate surrounds
the fact that oftentimes the celebration of
Chanukah can become a replacement for
Christmas, and the fact that Chanukah is
not a Biblically mandated holiday.
If there is anything we must
consider per this debate it is two things: (1)
We must have an attitude that brings glory to
our Heavenly Father, and (2) our actions must
foster unity and understanding between Jewish
and non-Jewish Believers. Sadly, like many of
the issues that we face, the subject of whether
or not we should celebrate Chanukah has
two extremes: there are those who vehemently
oppose its observance, and perhaps might even
consider it a “gross Jewish error.” And, there
are those who go overboard in encouraging its
celebration, in an effort to prove that they are
“better” than Christians who celebrate Christmas
in ignorance. Neither one of these positions is
right.
In this article, we examine the
historical origins of the celebration known as
Chanukah, Chanukah and Yeshua, and
Chanukah as a special time for those who
believe in the end-time restoration of all
Israel.
The Prophecies of Daniel and the
Rise of Antiochus
Before we can examine the issues
pertaining to the celebration of Chanukah,
we must first understand the historical origins
of it, which actually precede the time of the
Maccabees in Second Century B.C.E. Israel, going
back much further to the exile of the Southern
Kingdom to Babylon in the 500’s B.C.E. While in
Babylon, the Prophet Daniel was shown visions of
the future, which included both the immediate
future concerning his time as Babylon would be
overtaken by Persia, as well as the far distant
future. One of these prophecies included the
vision of the four beasts, representative of the
empires of Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome
(and revived Rome in the end-times). The third
kingdom, Greece (Heb. Yavan,
!wy),
would arise and would conquer the Persians:
“The he-goat, the kingdom of
Greece, and the large horn that is between its
eyes is its first king” (Daniel 8:21).
Most expositors are agreed that
this prophecy is a reference to Alexander the
Great, the Macedonian king whose father Philip
II had conquered the Greek Peloponnesus.
Alexander continued his father’s legacy by
extending his military campaign into Asia Minor,
Egypt, Persia, and all the way into India.
Alexander, however, died at the age of 33 in 323
B.C.E. in Babylon. After his death, his empire
was divided among his four generals who took
control of Macedonia, the Greek Peloponnesus,
Egypt, and Syria. It is not surprising to know
that ancient history tells us that these four
kingdoms became rivals and often fought among
themselves:
“As for the broken one, in whose
place four arose, four kingdoms will arise from
one nation, but lacking its strength” (Daniel
8:22).
A notable part of Alexander’s
conquering of the ancient world was not only the
extension of his rule, but also the exposure of
the Greek language and culture into foreign
areas. Macedonia itself, not considered to be
Greek by the Greeks, had been Hellenized during
the childhood of Alexander, who was tutored by
Aristotle. Part of Philip’s, and later
Alexander’s, military campaign, was to spread
the way of life that had made Macedonia the
power that it was. But, not everyone in the
ancient world desired to be Hellenized or forced
to become like the Greeks.
Prior to Alexander the Great, the
Southern Kingdom of Judah returned from their
Babylonian exile to the Land of Israel. Most of
the Northern Kingdom of Israel/Ephraim had been
dispersed into the ancient world, although some
maintained their Israelite heritage and became
assimilated into the Southern Kingdom. Israel
was a vassal state of the Persian Empire, but
later became engulfed in Alexander’s empire and
became a province of Syria. Greek culture was
slowly influencing the Jews, with many Jews
abandoning the Torah and its commandments in
favor of Greek customs and philosophies. It
became increasingly more difficult for the Jews
to maintain a Torah-obedient lifestyle with the
policies of the Syrian Greeks.
Things got out of control when
Antiochus IV of the Selucid dynasty came to
power. He was called Epiphanes or “God
manifest.” Antiochus made it illegal for the
Jews to practice the Torah, perform
circumcision, follow the kosher laws, and
worship in the Temple. He moved his troops into
Jerusalem and desecrated the Temple by
sacrificing a pig and erecting a statue to the
god Zeus in it. This, and the subsequent events
following, are recorded in the Apocrypha in the
Books of 1-4 Maccabees:
“And the king sent letters by
messengers to Jerusalem and the cities of Judah;
he directed them to follow customs strange to
the land, to forbid burnt offerings and
sacrifices and drink offerings in the sanctuary,
to profane sabbaths and feasts, to defile the
sanctuary and the priests, to build altars and
sacred precincts and shrines for idols, to
sacrifice swine and unclean animals, and to
leave their sons uncircumcised. They were to
make themselves abominable by everything unclean
and profane, so that they should forget the law
and change all the ordinances. And whoever does
not obey the command of the king shall die” (1
Maccabees 1:44-50).
Many commentators are generally
agreed that Antiochus was an ambitious man, and
he was making a political power play,
demonstrating that he was more powerful than the
Ptolemic Greeks of Egypt. 1 Maccabees 1:16-20
indicates that after defeating Ptolemy, he
sought to subdue the Land of Israel and
Jerusalem, solidifying his rule:
“When Antiochus saw that his
kingdom was established, he determined to become
king of the land of Egypt, that he might reign
over both kingdoms. So he invaded Egypt with a
strong force, with chariots and elephants and
cavalry and with a large fleet. He engaged
Ptolemy king of Egypt in battle, and Ptolemy
turned and fled before him, and many were
wounded and fell. And they captured the
fortified cities in the land of Egypt, and he
plundered the land of Egypt. After subduing
Egypt, Antiochus returned in the one hundred and
forty-third year. He went up against Israel and
came to Jerusalem with a strong force” (1
Maccabees 1:16-18).
The Maccabbean Era
As you can imagine, the actions
of Antiochus were not well received by the
majority population of the Land of Israel. Lead
by the retired priest Mattathias, many Jews
opposed the oppression of the Syrian Greek
invaders and sought to see them pushed out of
the Land of Israel. Many of the Jews, fearing
for their lives, succumbed to not following the
Torah and would not follow the rite of
circumcision or eat kosher. Many of them adopted
Greek religion and wanted to “blend in.”
As Antiochus’ army entered into
the town of Modin, where Mattathias and his five
sons were living, they tried to persuade them to
forsake the Law of Moses and sacrifice to the
Greek’s gods. Mattathias refused to give into
their demands and proclaimed his loyalty to the
God of Israel and to His Instructions:
“But Mattathias answered and said
in a loud voice: ‘Even if all the nations that
live under the rule of the king obey him, and
have chosen to do his commandments, departing
each one from the religion of his fathers, yet I
and my sons and my brothers will live by the
covenant of our fathers. Far be it from us to
desert the law and the ordinances. We will not
obey the king’s words by turning aside from our
religion to the right hand or to the left’” (1
Maccabees 2:19-22).
Mattathias then declares that any
Jew succumbing to these demands was a traitor to
the covenants and to the God of Israel, and he
calls all to join him in a revolt:
“When he had finished speaking
these words, a Jew came forward in the sight of
all to offer sacrifice upon the altar in Modein,
according to the king's command. When Mattathias
saw it, he burned with zeal and his heart was
stirred. He gave vent to righteous anger; he ran
and killed him upon the altar” (1 Maccabees
2:23-24).
He then began a military revolt
against the Syrian Greeks, killing those who
opposed him. 1 Maccabees 2:26-27 describes his
zeal like that of Phinehas in the wilderness:
“Thus he burned with zeal for the
law, as Phinehas did against Zimri the son of
Salu. Then Mattathias cried out in the city with
a loud voice, saying: ‘Let every one who is
zealous for the law and supports the covenant
come out with me!’”
Mattathias would not live through
his campaign to see the final victory over the
Syrian Greek oppressors. The mantle would pass
onto his son, Judas Maccabeus, who would lead
the Jews in a revolt against the Seleucids that
would take around three years. He was nicknamed
“Maccabee” which means “hammer.” During this
time, a guerilla-type warfare was carried out
against the Syrian Greeks, while the Jews sought
allies in the Egyptian Greeks or Ptolemies, the
Spartans, and the Romans. Their military
challenges and triumphs are discussed in the
Apocryphal Books of 1-4 Maccabees.
The rise of Antiochus Epiphanes
and the events of the Maccabbean Era were
prophesied by Daniel after speaking about the
division of Alexander’s kingdom into four
regions. Daniel rightly prophesied that
Antiochus would arise to expand his own kingdom,
would come against the faithful ones, but would
not die in battle:
“In the latter period of their
rule, when the transgressors have run their
course, a king will arise, insolent and
skilled in intrigue. His power will be mighty,
but not by his own power, and he will
destroy to an extraordinary degree and prosper
and perform his will; he will destroy
mighty men and the holy people. And through his
shrewdness he will cause deceit to succeed by
his influence; and he will magnify himself
in his heart, and he will destroy many while
they are at ease. He will even oppose the
Prince of princes, but he will be broken without
human agency” (Daniel 8:23-25).
Antiochus was unable to stand
against the Jews, many of whom faithfully
resisted any attempt to Hellenize them, namely
getting them to reject the Torah, circumcision,
kosher eating, and the Temple service, and
instead practice Greek religion. Antiochus
believed himself to be a god, but later wasted
away and died not in battle, but from a
flesh-eating disease:
“But the all-seeing Lord, the God
of Israel, struck him an incurable and unseen
blow. As soon as he ceased speaking he was
seized with a pain in his bowels for which there
was no relief and with sharp internal
tortures—and that very justly, for he had
tortured the bowels of others with many and
strange inflictions. Yet he did not in any way
stop his insolence, but was even more filled
with arrogance, breathing fire in his rage
against the Jews, and giving orders to hasten
the journey. And so it came about that he fell
out of his chariot as it was rushing along, and
the fall was so hard as to torture every limb of
his body. Thus he who had just been thinking
that he could command the waves of the sea, in
his superhuman arrogance, and imagining that he
could weigh the high mountains in a balance, was
brought down to earth and carried in a litter,
making the power of God manifest to all. And so
the ungodly man's body swarmed with worms, and
while he was still living in anguish and pain,
his flesh rotted away, and because of his stench
the whole army felt revulsion at his decay” (2
Maccabees 9:5-9).
The Miracle of the Oil
The Maccabees drove the Seleucids
out of the Land of Israel in the month of Kislev
165 B.C.E., which is in about the month of
December. They had the task of cleaning up the
mess that the Seleucids had left, notably in the
city of Jerusalem and in the Temple complex.
Antiochus’ forces had completely ransacked the
Temple and made it into a haven of idolatry. The
Temple needed to be cleansed of its defilement
and restored to its previous position so proper
sacrifices could once again be performed. Of all
of the items of Temple furniture that had to be
cleansed and rededicated, one of the most
important was the great lampstand or menorah
(hrAnm).
The menorah required special consecrated
oil in order to be lit.
As many of you are no doubt
aware, modern observance of Chanukah is
commemorated by the lighting of a chanukia,
or a special nine-branched menorah. This
is different from the menorah that was in
the Temple that had seven branches. It is used
because when the Temple was rededicated there
was only enough oil to be lit for one day.
However, the oil remained lit for eight days,
allowing time for newly consecrated oil to be
produced. Today a ninth candle or servant candle
is used to light the eight candles of the
chanukia to commemorate the eight days the
menorah was lit. Chanukah (hKnx),
meaning “dedication,” became the nation’s
commemoration of this miracle. The miracle of
the eight days of oil is spoken of in the
Talmud:
“What is [the reason of] Hanukkah? For our
Rabbis taught: On the twenty-fifth of Kislew
[commence] the days of Hanukkah, which are eight
on which a lamentation for the dead and fasting
are forbidden. For when the Greeks entered the
Temple, they defiled all the oils therein, and
when the Hasmonean dynasty prevailed against and
defeated them, they made search and found only
one cruse of oil which lay with the seal of the
High Priest, but which contained sufficient for
one day’s lighting only; yet a miracle was
wrought therein and they lit [the lamp]
therewith for eight days. The following year
these [days] were appointed a Festival with [the
recital of] Hallel and thanksgiving” (b.Shabbat
21b).[1]
What would have happened if the
Maccabees had not stood up to Antiochus and his
armies? Not only would they have succeeded in
wiping out the Jewish people, either through
military defeat or cultural assimilation, but
Israel, in any form, would not have
existed to give rise to Messiah Yeshua. We have
ample reasons to celebrate Chanukah as
Believers in Yeshua today, the foremost of which
being that if the miracle of Chanukah had
not taken place, there would be no miracle of
Yeshua!
Chanukah and Yeshua
But what about Yeshua the
Messiah? As Chanukah was established as a
celebration in the mid-Second Century B.C.E.,
did our Lord and Savior celebrate it?
John 10:22 tells us “Then came Hanukkah in
Yerushalayim. It was winter” (CJB). The Greek
source text actually uses the word egkainia
(egkainia),
which in most Bibles is rendered as the “Feast
of Dedication.” BDAG defines it clearly
as “festival of rededication…known
also as Hanukkah and the Feast of Lights, beg.
the 25th of Chislev (roughly=November-December)
to commemorate the purification of the temple by
Judas Maccabaeus on that date in 165 B.C.”[2]
So what was Yeshua doing in Jerusalem during
this time?
“[I]t was winter, and Yeshua was
walking in the temple in the portico of Solomon.
The Jews then gathered around Him, and were
saying to Him, ‘How long will You keep us in
suspense? If You are the Messiah, tell us
plainly.’ Yeshua answered them, ‘I told you, and
you do not believe; the works that I do in My
Father's name, these testify of Me. But you do
not believe because you are not of My sheep. My
sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they
follow Me; and I give eternal life to them, and
they will never perish; and no one will snatch
them out of My hand. My Father, who has given
them to Me, is greater than all; and no one
is able to snatch them out of the
Father's hand. I and the Father are one.’ The
Jews picked up stones again to stone Him’” (John
10:23-31).
Yeshua was present in Jerusalem
during Chanukah. We may assume by His
presence in the holy city that He was
celebrating whatever was commemorated at that
time. Notice that during Chanukah some
Jews ask Him if He was the Messiah. Yeshua tells
them that He has already demonstrated His
Messiahship to them by His actions and that they
do not believe. The quintessential statement
made here is “I and the Father are one.” The
Hebrew word for “one” used frequently in the
Tanach is echad (dxa),
and its Greek equivalent is heis (eiß).
Echad is used in the Shema of
Deuteronomy 6:4: “Hear, O Israel! The
Lord
is our God, the
Lord
is one!” In proclaiming that He and the Father
are one, Yeshua was proclaiming Himself to be
Divine and to be of the same substance as God.
By doing so, the Jews present wanted to stone
Him as they believed He was committing
blasphemy.
Celebrating Chanukah and
understanding that Yeshua was in Jerusalem at
this time is very important. It is especially
important when we understand what Yeshua was
doing and the questions that He was asked
regarding His mission.
Chanukah and Scattered Ephraim
But what about Chanukah
and the scattered House of Israel/Ephraim? The
events surrounding the Maccabees and the
rededication of the Temple in the Second Century
B.C.E. primarily pertain to the Jewish people.
The Northern Kingdom of Israel/Ephraim had been
well scattered into the nations at least 400
years prior to the events of the Maccabees.
Aside from a few Northern Kingdom Israelites who
had joined themselves to the Southern Kingdom of
Judah, there were no Northern Kingdom Israelites
involved with the Maccabbean revolt or any of
these events. Or were there?
The reason that there are no
Northern Kingdom Israelites specifically
mentioned in the account of the Maccabees has
many non-Jewish Believers in the Two-House
community wondering if the celebration of
Chanukah is justified. This is because,
believing themselves to possibly be of scattered
Israel/Ephraim, they feel left out, as the focus
on Chanukah is largely on the Jewish
people. Others, because of Jewish pride that can
possibly evidence itself in some, are offended
at Chanukah and want nothing to do with
it.
Neither attitude is fostering
unity in the Messianic community today. The
Jewish people have been the only faithful
torchbearer of being recognizable Israel
since the dispersion of the Northern Kingdom of
Israel/Ephraim in 722-721 B.C.E. by Assyria. Our
Jewish brethren have experienced several
dispersions, persecutions, excommunications,
forced relocations, pogroms, and a Holocaust.
Yet, because of the tenacity of the Maccabees,
and many other figures in Jewish history, they
have remained faithful to the Torah and to the
oracles of God. Non-Jewish Believers in the
Messianic community today should be very
thankful to rejoice in these Jewish
triumphs—because they are all our
triumphs. Furthermore, if we examine the account
of the Maccabees, we will find that there were
indeed a few scattered Northern Kingdom
Israelites involved in the events.
Consider the fact that in the
Biblical record, it is attested by the Jewish
religious leaders that there were scattered
Israelites among the Greeks: “The Jews then said
to one another, ‘Where does this man intend to
go that we will not find Him? He is not
intending to go to the Dispersion among the
Greeks, and teach the Greeks, is He?’” (John
7:35). Certainly, as we know that the seed of
scattered Israel/Ephraim would be “a multitude
of nations” (Genesis 48:19), we cannot limit
these nations to an exclusive nationality. They
were to become engulfed among the Gentiles and
be indistinguishable from the Gentiles. However,
the Greeks are pointed out by name as
being one of those nationalities. It is only to
be expected, as when the Northern Kingdom was
under siege, many of those people no doubt left
the Land of Israel to avoid capture. One of the
first places they could have escaped to would
have been to territory immediately north, i.e.,
Asia Minor and the Greek Peloponnesus. An
argument could be made that these people,
although mostly rebellious against the Torah and
the ways of the Lord, brought godly wisdom with
them that influenced classical Greece of the
Sixth-Fifth Centuries B.C.E., which emerged
approximately 100 years following the conquering
of the Northern Kingdom.
Another important reference
occurs in 1 Maccabees 12:6, 19-21. The high
priest Jonathan is trying to secure the support
of the Spartans, one of the dominant Greek
city-states and a rival of the Seleucids, the
Syrian Greeks: “Jonathan the high priest, the
senate of the nation, the priests, and the rest
of the Jewish people to their brethren the
Spartans, greeting…This is a copy of the letter
which they sent to Onias: ‘Arius, king of the
Spartans, to Onias the high priest, greeting. It
has been found in writing concerning the
Spartans and the Jews that they are brethren and
are of the family of Abraham’” (cf. 1 Maccabees
14:20). He plainly attests that they were of
“the race of Abraham” (New Jerusalem Bible).
If it is indeed true that there
were members of the scattered tribes of the
Northern Kingdom present in the Greek areas,
then some were indeed involved in the events of
the Maccabees. Sadly, many of them would have
been involved in the suppression of the Jews and
the defilement of the Temple. Consider the
fact that one of the reasons that Jews have a
great disdain of swine and pork is because of
what happened to the Temple.
Alfred J. Kolatch states in The Second Jewish
Book of Why, “scholars have associated the
deep Jewish aversion to the pig with the
Hasmonean period in Jewish history (second
century B.C.E.) when the Syrian-Greeks, led by
Antiochus Ephiphanes, dominated the Palestine
scene and tried to force Jews to sacrifice pigs
in the Temple and to eat of their flesh.”[3]
This is one of the major errors
of Ephraim: “They shall not live in the land of
[the Lord].
But Ephraim shall return to Egypt, and they
shall eat unclean things in Assyria” (Hosea 9:3,
LITV). The House of Israel/Ephraim is said to
have a tendency toward unclean things in the
Scriptures.
If there is anything that
non-Jewish Messianic Believers must understand
in regard to Chanukah is that Chanukah
is the Festival of Dedication. It should not
only be a time for us to rededicate ourselves to
the Lord and to confess sin and cleanse
ourselves of unrighteousness, but it should also
be a time for us to reconcile with our Jewish
brethren and realize that if it had not been for
the steadfastness of Mattathais and his sons,
there would have been no operating Temple during
the time of Yeshua. The Jews might have been
assimilated into the Seleucid Syrian Greek
milieu and there would be no recognizable
remnant of Israel today. We all must rejoice in
the triumph of our Jewish brethren over evil and
pledge ourselves to stand by their side.
Today’s Dilemma: Encountering
Hellenism
One of today’s serious dilemmas
is how Chanukah is handled in the
emerging Two-House Messianic community. Because
Chanukah often occurs in close proximity
to Christmas, many people say Chanukah is
a more Biblical celebration than Christmas, even
though both holidays are not mandated in
Scripture. Many, in wanting to expose the pagan
nature of the Christmas tree, become vehemently
opposed to commemorating the birth of Messiah
Yeshua. Certainly, if Yeshua’s birth is to be
commemorated, it is to be commemorated during
the time of His actual birth, which many
Messianics are agreed was probably during
Sukkot or Tabernacles, making His conception
sometime around Chanukah. But celebration
of Chanukah should not be viewed as a
replacement for Christmas. Celebrating
Chanukah should be an occasion where we
rededicate ourselves to God and to one another,
as the Maccabees did to the Temple some 2,200
years ago.
Another serious problem is that
Chanukah often becomes a time for
unwarranted “Greek bashing,” which oftentimes
manifests itself in criticism and denial of the
inspiration of the Greek Apostolic Scriptures.
Hellenism, or Greek philosophy, is by no means
something that we endorse, but definitions of
Hellenism vary. As it concerns the time of the
Maccabees, there are some very distinct
definitions of Hellenism that must be taken into
account that the Seleucid Greeks forced upon the
Jews:
“And the king sent letters by
messengers to Jerusalem and the cities of Judah;
he directed them to follow customs strange to
the land, to forbid burnt offerings and
sacrifices and drink offerings in the sanctuary,
to profane sabbaths and feasts, to defile the
sanctuary and the priests, to build altars and
sacred precincts and shrines for idols, to
sacrifice swine and unclean animals, and to
leave their sons uncircumcised. They were to
make themselves abominable by everything unclean
and profane, so that they should forget the law
and change all the ordinances. And whoever does
not obey the command of the king shall die” (1
Maccabees 1:44-50).
The Hellenism that the Maccabees
fought against included:
-
Following the Greek religion,
which included the worship of multiple gods
and images, and making sacrifices to them
with unclean animals
-
A prohibition on animal
sacrifices and prescribed offerings
according to the Torah
-
A prohibition on keeping the
seventh-day Sabbath
-
A prohibition on circumcision
-
A prohibition on studying the
Torah and its ordinances, so the people
would forget their covenant status with the
God of Israel
Hellenism, as the Maccabees
understood it, included these things. Are there
Christians, and indeed liberal Messianics, that
adhere to some of these things? Yes. There are
those who believe that the Torah is unimportant,
that the seventh-day Sabbath was done away with,
that eating kosher is unimportant, that
circumcision is unimportant, and that the Temple
service is unimportant. I am not one of those
who believes these things to be unimportant.
These things are being restored to the Body of
Messiah as we rapidly approach His return.
However, in fair balance to First Century
history and the time of Yeshua, Greek language
and Greek philosophy did exist in the world of
the Messiah. Hebrew and Aramaic were the local
languages of the Land of Israel, but Greek
became the standardized language of the Eastern
Mediterranean. NIDB states it correctly
in saying that “The fact that Greek became the
language of literature and commerce throughout
the ‘inhabited world,’ for example, was of
inestimable importance to the spread of the
gospel.”[4]
If it had not been for Alexander the Great, the
Apostles would have had a very difficult time in
going out on missionary journeys, as there would
have been a whole host of local languages they
would have had to learn, rather than one
standardized language. A Greek translation of
the Hebrew Bible, the Septuagint, was widely
disseminated and was helpful in many non-Jews
converting to Judaism prior to the First Coming
of Yeshua.[5]
The use of Greek in the First Century is no
different than how the expansion of the British
Empire in the Nineteenth Century, and American
television in the Twentieth Century, have helped
make English the dominant language of today. We
should be thankful that English has the
widespread usage that it has today; otherwise
the restorations that are being accomplished to
the Body of Messiah may not be taking place as
easily as they are through communication with
Believers worldwide.
Our Chanukah celebrations
should not be a time for “Greek bashing.” Those
who would do so need to understand the history
of the ancient world. Our Chanukah
celebrations need to focus on the unity of all
of Israel, that non-Jewish Messianic Believers
need to repent of sins and rededicate themselves
to the Lord and to their Jewish brethren, and
that individually we need to clean our personal
temples of any defilements that we may have.
Conclusion
As we focus on the Festival of
Lights, we must not forget the Light of the
World, Messiah Yeshua, and we must not forget
the hardships and trials that the Jewish people
have had to endure. We must be inspired by the
dedication of the Maccabees to stand, fight, and
even die for the truth of God. We must not
succumb to the temptations of the popular
culture, but stand for what we know is right,
just, and godly. As all Israel is in the process
of being reunited, non-Jewish Believers must
remember their position, and the potential
involvement of the Northern Kingdom Israelites
in the events of the Maccabees. They must repent
for past sins of persecution of the Jewish
people. Jewish Believers must recognize their
repentance and welcome them into the fold, and
all of us must join together and rejoice in the
miracle that the Lord God performed those many
centuries ago as the menorah was lit for
those eight days.
NOTES
[1]
The Soncino Talmud. Judaic
Classics Library II. MS Windows 3.1.
Brooklyn: Institute for Computers in
Jewish Life, 1996. CD-ROM.
[2]
Frederick William Danker,
ed., et. al.,
A Greek-English Lexicon
of the New Testament and Other Early
Christian Literature,
third edition (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 2000), 272.
[3]
Alfred J. Kolatch, The
Second Jewish Book of Why (Middle
Village, NY: Jonathan David Publishers,
1985), 318.
[4]
Brewster Porcella,
“Alexander the Great,” in Merill C.
Tenney, ed., New International
Dictionary of the Bible (Grand
Rapids: Zondervan, 1987), 33.
[5]
Consult Messianic author
Tim Hegg’s comments on pp 39-42 of his
book The Letter Writer
(Littleton, CO: First Fruits of Zion,
2002). Hegg suggests that the Apostle
Paul, while being a Rabbinical scholar
and student of the Jewish Sage Gamaliel,
likely also studied Greek language and
philosophy at the same Rabbinical
school. If indeed true, this would
correspond with the historical
understanding that Pharisaical Judaism
was an active proselytizing religion (Yeshua
condemned their manner of proselytizing
in Matthew 23:15). Paul would not have
studied Greek language, philosophy, and
culture just for the sake of learning
it, but for the sake of converting
Greek-speakers to the religion of the
God of Israel. The same should be our
goal if any of us is called to the
mission field: we must know about the
people grouping to whom we are called.
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