The Bible in a Year (with Fr. Mike Schmitz) - Introduction to the Maccabean Revolt (with Jeff Cavins) - 2023

Episode Date: October 9, 2023

Welcome to the Maccabean Revolt period! Jeff Cavins joins Fr. Mike to introduce the tenth biblical period in our journey, which begins with the Greek oppression of the Jews under Antiochus Epiphanes, and ends with Herodian rule of the Holy Land. Jeff and Fr. Mike walk us through the key events of this period, highlighting the zealous response of the Maccabean family, the celebration of Hanukkah, and the heroic martyrdom of Jews who would not betray their religious identity in the midst of persecution. For the complete reading plan, visit ascensionpress.com/bibleinayear. Please note: The Bible contains adult themes that may not be suitable for children - parental discretion is advised.

Hi, my name is Father Mike Schmitz, and you're listening to the Bible in a Year podcast, where we encounter God's voice and live life through the lens of Scripture. The Bible in a Year podcast is brought to you by Ascension. Using the Great Adventure Bible Timeline, we'll read all the way from Genesis to Revelation, discovering how the story of salvation unfolds and how we fit into that story today. It is the introduction to the Maccabean Revolt. And we have with us, once again, it's super grateful, Jeff Cavins, once again, to give us some context when it comes to the Maccabean Revolt. We've just left the return after the exile, and now the people of Israel

are back in the land of Judah. And there is a number of books that are during this time period, the Maccabean Revolt, that not a lot of the people who are in this Bible in your community are familiar with. And so, Jeff, welcome, and man, what do we do now? Well, we're actually entering, I think, one of the most underrated periods and one of the most important periods in setting the table for the Messiah, for Jesus to come onto the scene, and for our wonderful Protestant friends who have been joining us on this excellent adventure. They're running into a book now that might seem a little bit foreign, and I think it would be good to take just a couple of minutes to explain that book and where did it come from, what's it talking about, and this whole issue of being inspired or deuterocanonical or apocrypha.

No, exactly. In fact, we have four books during this time period. We have not only First and Second Maccabees, we also have Sirach and the Book of Wisdom that are going to be not necessarily familiar with everyone who's part of this community. And so I really am grateful. You know, we've talked about some of those other deuterocanonical books in the past when we read through Judith and we read through those parts of Esther and Daniel and Tobit and Baruch. This is really, I'm really grateful that we have this opportunity for you to introduce not only the time period, but also these books, because yeah, they can be, it can be one of those like, wait, do I, how do I listen to this one? I mean, do I listen to this in the same way that I listen to all the rest of the Bible, or is it a different kind of an ear, or is this,

what's the story even with how we got these books and how some people don't have these books? Sure. Well, you know, when I first created the Great Adventure Bible Study in the timeline chart, I was just a young 25-year-old pastor. And when I came to this period of salvation history, I had what was called 400 silent years. And that was it. I mean, it's silent, you know. And of course, when I came back to the Catholic Church, I was blessed by getting seven more books, which were not new, but they were actually quite old. But lo and behold, it filled in that

400-year gap, and that is the Maccabees, and specifically some of the events in 2 Maccabees. And I think it is worth noting that there are two different canons out there in Christianity today. You have the Protestant canon, which has 66 books, and you have the Catholic canon, which has 73 books, one of which is the book of Maccabees, first and second, in fact, those two books. And so we have to ask ourselves the question which comes up so often, did we as Catholics add seven books or did Protestants take away seven books? And the answer is neither. Neither one, in that the early church, the church that the Catholic Church springs from, the early church used what was called the Septuagint, and the Septuagint is the Greek Old Testament, Septuagint is the Greek Old Testament, and that's the book that the early church used. In fact, the church used all of that, which had Maccabees and some of these others that we were talking about in there. It had them in there all the way till the Reformation, when in the Reformation,

the Reformers decided not to go with that Greek Old Testament, the Septuagint, but they decided to go to a different canon, which was the Jewish canon, and that did not have those seven books. And so, it's not fair to say Catholics added, and it's not fair to say that Protestants took away. But what is fair is to say that the Bible we've been using for the great adventure and Bible in a year is the Bible that the early church used. And so I would encourage my Protestant friends not to get upset, but to be open and say, well, you know what? If this helps me understand salvation history and the early church used this as the inspired word of God, I'm at least open to what God wants to do to help me become more like Jesus. Yeah. And what's so interesting, you're saying that

too, because as I mentioned, we already have encountered some of the Deuterocanonical books, and I've gotten messages from folks who have been journeying with us who are not Catholic, messages from folks who have been journeying with us who are not Catholic. They've been saying, like, I find Tobit to be so fascinating. And in fact, there's another woman who has a very popular podcast, and she had reached out and she said, this is incredible to be able to go through this story of the book of Tobit and getting so much out of these books that I'd never encountered before. And I think not only are the Catholics who maybe they've never read these books before, but also all of us, that I think there is something when it comes to opening ourselves, like you said, just being open to whatever God has for me in this. I think one of the temptations,

one of the battles that a lot of folks might have to face in the next 30 or so days when we're reading, journeying through this Maccabean revolt time period is suspicion. And I find that, you know, we've already addressed that years ago, weeks or months ago, when it came to, okay, here's God acting in the lives of broken people. Here's God acting in the lives of people who are coming in to conquer, you know, the land of Canaan. And we can have this kind of suspicion about God and God's motives in scripture. But I think one of the battles or one of the temptations, one of the things we have to

be aware of and face is the temptation towards suspicion in our own hearts towards, if I don't understand one of these books of the Bible, maybe I'll be suspect towards it as opposed to, you know, in the past it was I was suspect towards the Lord himself. Now it's maybe I'm suspect toward the Lord's word. And so I think like your, your invitation to just be open, God has something he wants to say to all of us in these words. And so to not immediately discount them, even though, um, they're kind of a different style. It's, it's very much, uh, history and very much, uh, we're getting to the place of theology, obviously it's theology too, but they seem different. Yeah, but I think you're right. It is history. And when you begin to listen to 1 and 2 Maccabees, you're going to be reading along with a type of history that is

more familiar than, say, Judith, you know, or that type of history, in that you're going to run into some famous events and some famous people that are in history as we know it. And so, for example, you have Alexander the Great, you have Antiochus Epiphanes, you have the Maccabean Revolt, and even though the Jewish community doesn't consider 1 and 2 Maccabees to be inspired, what is happening in 1 and 2 Maccabees, namely Hanukkah, is quite at the center of Jewish celebration today. And so, I think one way to really help everybody to situate themselves in the book of Maccabees is to go back and to remember all of the enemies of Israel. And we have that little pithy saying, eat a big purple

grape, right? So we go way back and we have Egypt, and then the next big enemy of Israel is Assyria, then big, Babylon, purple, Persia, and then grape is the G and the R, and that is Greece, which we're going to run into now, which we'll go eventually into at the end of this into Rome. So that's a wonderful way to not get lost and to remember where you're at. We are now entering the rise of the Greek culture, Hellenization, and the star is Alexander the Great. And most of us are familiar with him. In fact, a poll was taken not too long ago in Greece, who's the greatest Greek ever to live? And it was like 100% or 98% Alexander the Great, you know. Wow, yeah. Even now.

Yeah, yeah. He really was. And so Alexander the Great, his goal was really to Hellenize the world, which means he wanted the whole world to speak Greek and to worship Greek gods and Greek customs and so forth. And he actually was quite successful. And he was a real military leader. He didn't just sit back and say, guys, go to the left, go to the right. He said, follow me. So he was injured quite a bit. And he really took most of the modern world and he stopped just short of India because his leaders and his soldiers were just worn out. And the Maccabees

records how he came to Jerusalem and there were people who were so afraid, of course, they even did something that is hard to think about, and that's a reverse circumcision to blend into the crowd. They didn't want to be known as the people who are marked as different. Well, Alexander the Great was actually quite impressed with the Jews in Jerusalem and allowed them to maintain their life. But then everything went south when Alexander died suddenly. And historians have said that that was due to some kind of viral infection. And just in the last 20 years or so, historians are saying, no, we think he was assassinated. But that left his- Really? I guess it's new. Yeah. He left his entire kingdom, if you will, to two generals, the Ptolemies and the Seleucids.

And the Ptolemies took over in this area of the world, and they continued to allow this in this area of the world. And they continued to allow this doctrine of tolerance that Alexander had. And then the Seleucids took over. And this is the character Antiochus Epiphanes. He is like the devil on wheels, you know? Right. He's kind of like a modern or more recent Jezebel Ahab kind of a- All in one. Those older kings of just like did horrible things. Yes. Horrible things. Yes.

Naughty things. I guess epiphanies. Naughty things. Yes. And so he decided what he was going to do was he's going to strike at the heart of the Jewish people. And he goes to a little city northwest of Jerusalem called Modin. And Modin is very close to the place where the

early Christians would walk and they would fellowship with one another. And so anyway, back to the story. He goes to Modine and he starts to pick on the really Orthodox families and he tries to get them to eat pork. Now, you and I know, and all of our listeners know by this point, that pulled pork is not on the menu, okay? And he's trying to get them to do that. And what do they do? They resist. And Antiochus Epiphanes even desecrates the temple in Jerusalem. And this brings about a tremendous revolt against the Greek leader Antiochus Epiphanes.

And this is the setting now that we have in Maccabees where a number of really amazing stories take place. And probably the most well-known is Hanukkah, Hanukkah, which means that when the Jews resisted the Greeks and took back Jerusalem and the temple. What happened? They rededicated the temple and lo and behold, a miracle took place. And they didn't have enough oil to rededicate the temple, but the oil that they had lasted and the temple was rededicated. And they had the Hanukkah today, of course, is observed for eight nights and days, starting on the 25th day of Kislev, according to the Hebrew calendar. And when they finally realized that they had Jerusalem back, they wanted to rededicate it, and they wanted the lights to

shine again. And so while in the New Testament, we don't call it Hanukkah, we do celebrate it, and Jesus does. It's called the Feast of Lights, the Feast of Lights. And of course, Jesus is the light of the world. And so this great holiday of Hanukkah, which our older brothers and sisters, the Jewish people celebrate every single year, we also celebrate with them as well in the rededicating of the temple. Yeah, and you mentioned not only here is the rise of the Seleucids and Antiochus Epiphanes, but then how in Modin there was a family that ended up resisting and how successful they were. It just blows my mind how Judas Maccabeus, his brothers, and the Jewish people, how they're able to wage a war against this massive, massive army and fight back for their, essentially for their sovereignty.

Right. And one of the great stories is in 2 Maccabees chapter 7, and that's the story of a woman who is going to go down in history as being one of the greatest ever in the entire Bible. It's a woman who has seven sons, and she's a Jewish martyr. Her seven sons are Jewish martyrs, and they were arrested along with her by Antiochus Epiphanes and forced them to prove their respect to him by consuming pig meat. But they refused, and he tortured and killed the sons one by one in front of this this powerful woman. And that is so heroic, so heroic. And what I get out of that, Father, is that I see the Blessed Virgin Mary, who she stood and she watched her son, who was crucified, who died for the sins of the world, who said, I will not bow. I will be the faithful

son. And so we see a perfect picture there of the blessed Virgin Mary and Jesus. And it's very, very powerful. Not too long ago, our friend, Dr. Scott Hahn, both of us are friends with him and Kimberly, they had a son, Jeremiah, who became a priest. And I talked to Kimberly just a couple of weeks before he was ordained. And she said, oh, Jeff, she said, I just went and I prayed and I asked the Blessed Virgin Mary in the times that we're living in now, oh, please don't let my son suffer. Don't let my son suffer as a priest. I beg you, please don't. And she said, she felt like the Lord spoke back to her. Mary spoke back to her and said, you're talking to me?

And that, I've watched my son suffer just like this heroic Jewish martyr in 2 Maccabees 7. just like this heroic Jewish martyr in second Maccabees seven, you know, she watched her seven sons die in front of her. It's, it's probably that, that story that you're recounting that we're going to get to, um, you know, maybe 20 some days from now, uh, of these sons and this faithfulness, you know, it's so remarkable. And I prayed with that story so many times because of not only because of the brotherhood amongst these brothers and not only because of the motherhood of this mom, but the faithfulness of just this refusal to compromise has been this theme, particularly when it comes to the, I guess what you'd say is the leverage that the Greeks would have tried to use in this particular case over the Jews, that sense of like, just even pretend, pretend to eat some of this

meat and then you'll be fine. And as opposed to, and like, no, I can't even pretend to violate this because what kind of scandal I would give. And it's really remarkable because as I said, on so many different levels, not only have the brotherhood of these brothers like, hey, be a man, and the mom saying, be a man to my sons, but also that sense of a refusal to compromise, which is just, I know that it's not just a modern thing, but in our hearts, there is the often like, well, the Lord wouldn't want me to suffer. The Lord wouldn't really want this. And he doesn't necessarily want us to suffer, but he does want us to be faithful. And that's a high call that we experience. That's one of the stories that just highlights in 1 and 2 Maccabees. Are there any other things that you want people, as they're listening to the Bible, to be able to hone in on and not miss?

Well, I think that in 2 Maccabees chapter 12, specifically verses 38 through 46, you do have an example of the faithful on earth praying, sacrificing, having a relationship with those who have gone before us. And I do know that oftentimes our Protestant brothers and sisters might flinch at that and say, whoa, whoa, you know. But what we see here in 2 Maccabees 12 is that in the kingdom of God, and certainly after Jesus' sacrifice, we do have this body of Christ that simply cannot be separated by death. And so when people say, well, why do you guys pray to dead people? Our answer is we do not talk to dead people. We talk to alive people. We talk to people who are alive in Christ and in some ways probably more alive than we are today. And just like we ask one another for

prayers and intercession, we do that with our older brothers and sisters who have gone on before us. And so when you come along and you read 2 Maccabees 12, I would encourage everyone to be open. Listen to this economy, if you will, in the Old Testament. I think it's very, very powerful. There's also another great story, and that is in 2 Maccabees 2, verses 4 through 8. Let me just set the stage real kind of simply here, because when you hear Father Mike reading this, it's going to come alive. We know that in the Old Testament, there was an Ark of the Covenant. When they came out of Egypt, Moses built a tabernacle, which had a holy place, and in

the back was a square called the Holy of Holies. And inside of that Holy of Holies was the Ark of the Covenant, the most prized, precious, holy piece of furniture. And in the Ark was a copy of the Ten Commandments, a bowl of manna, and Aaron's rod, his staff that was blossoming with almond blossoms. So you have three things that are attached to that Ark of the Covenant. Well, we've already been there, but the Babylonians came and destroyed Jerusalem in 587. But Jeremiah said, we got to take the Ark of the Covenant out of there. We got to hide this before the Babylonians come. So they did. And in 2 Maccabees 2, we have the description of this, where they took the ark,

the most precious of all furniture, and they hid it in a cave. They hid it in a cave. And then one of the guys said, we're going to cover this up. And after 70 years of exile, we'll come back here. Let's put a little marker on it, you know, and we'll see that little flag or that green flag or whatever it is. We'll know it's here. And Jeremiah said, no, no, no, no, no, we're not going to do that. He said, this place will remain a mystery until God has gathered all of his people back together and revealed his mercy.

So we have to ask ourselves the question, when is the next time that God is going to bring all of his people back together and reveal his mercy? That's in the birth of Jesus. And so we see here, and I would encourage people to meditate on it, that Mary is the new Ark of the Covenant because out of her womb comes the Word of God, the manna from heaven, the Eucharist, and he is the great high priest. And so we have, again, another connection to Mary here, just like we did with the mother with the seven sons here in 2 Maccabees 2, the the new arc of the covenant. And that really brings us to more of a political transition now to Jesus the Messiah. Right, which is just, this is this massive bridge, as you said, while you're away from the church and without these

books, there was 400 years of silence and that sense of, okay, just all there is is waiting and promise. But what's the action happening here? What is God doing with his people in the meantime? And how this, as you're describing, this is all setting up. What's the grape thing again? Eat a big giant grape? Eat a big purple grape. Big purple grape. That's it. So we're getting past the Greeks to the Romans and you're just following along. This is how God is walking with his people and how he's keeping them, inviting them back into covenant faithfulness

all through this time and setting the stage, as you said, setting the stage for the Messiah, for Jesus himself to fulfill those promises that we've been hearing for 200 and how many days. Well, this history of the Greeks moving into the Romans, Father, I think is one of the most powerful and eye-opening transitions that we've ever gone through so far in the Bible, because it is a transition that sets the table for the Messiah, Yeshua, Hamashiach, Jesus, the Messiah. And here's how it goes. And my friends, if you can get this and keep this in your thinking, then not only will Maccabees be powerful, but the Gospels will just

blow up with meaning for you. So here's how it goes. We know that after Alexander the Great, after the Ptolemies, after the Seleucids, right? We are going to have a change in power, which is going to be to the Romans, from the Greeks to the Romans. And the very famous leader, Julius Caesar, Julius Caesar was a part of what was called the first triumvirate, which is three leaders, okay, in the Roman Republic. Then after Julius Caesar, we see that Julius Caesar adopts a young man by the name of Octavian. And you might forget the name Octavian, but you won't forget what his name became. His name was Octavian, and he was a part of the second triumvirate of the Roman Republic. And that was literally a country that is led by three people, by three people. And Octavian, the son of Julius Caesar, was a part of that

second one. Now, Julius Caesar, he proclaimed himself to be God, right? But we know what happened to him on the Ides of March. He was assassinated in the Senate. But before he was assassinated, he adopted Octavian. Then Octavian, one member of the three of the triumvirate, he wanted to be the leader. But he had to go against another guy in the triumvirate called Mark Anthony. That's not J-Lo's husband. This is a different Mark Anthony completely, okay? He had to go against Mark Anthony, and so he ended up going out to sea

and defeating Mark Anthony in the Battle of Actium. Now watch this. He comes back and he enters Rome as the sole leader. This is Octavian. And the Senate gives him the honorary name Caesar Augustus. And he ruled and reigned in the Roman Empire for a long, long time. Now, here's the kicker. In Corinth, the city of Corinth, there was some archaeological finds that said that never before, during, or after will anybody eclipse the glory and the power of Caesar Augustus, who is the Prince of Peace. He is the one who ushered in peace. He is the Son

of God, the Son of Julius Caesar, and he has ushered in the euangelion, which is the good news for the world. Now, think about that. Caesar Augustus is known as the Son of God, the Prince of Peace, and the one who ushered in the good news for the world. Have we heard this before? Those sound familiar, those terms. What is happening? This is the stage father that is set now for a baby to be born in Bethlehem, who is the son of God, who is the prince of peace, and who is going to usher in the good news for the world. And this is where we're at right now. This is the transition, and this is why Maccabees is very, very important. That's so amazing. And that's, again,

that connecting, not only connecting the far apart dots, but connecting the close together dots and be able to say that here is, you know, that we open up the entire New Testament is you've already set the stage or the Lord has set the stage by giving us these books of first and second Maccabees to be able to say, okay, this is the context now in which God himself breaks into the world in this completely new way. That's phenomenal. And as well as just those terms, too, which can be for us, well, of course, Jesus is the King of Kings. Jesus is the Prince of Peace. Jesus is the Son of God, and he brings the good news. Well, now those terms had a context when they were immediately written,

when they were first written. And you recognize that here is not only one of the ways in which Christianity could be seen as a threat, because you are saying that those terms now no longer apply to your Roman emperor, but they've applied to the God you're following. But also that sense of this has come to change the world in a remarkable way, that the world in which Jesus has entered has been prepared for him, but in some ways not ready for him. I mean, all of our hearts have to be transformed for that to happen, which is just phenomenal. You know, and I guess I would leave you with this. We're living in difficult times right now. And there's two things that people are really

desiring. And I know you're listening to this podcast right now because you're hungry. You want to know God. You want to know the answers to life. You want to know the big story and how you fit into it. And it can be very confusing. People are looking for a brighter future and someone to trust. That's hard to come by today. But I want to encourage all of our listeners, Father, that, yeah, we might see difficult things going on in politics as they did back then and with the Greeks and the Romans. And it didn't look like this story was really going anywhere. But the truth is, we were just on the edge of it going everywhere. And I want to encourage people today, don't lose hope. Even though politics might not

look like what you want it to be, and social issues might not be exactly where you would want them, know this, God has a plan of sheer goodness, the catechism paragraph one. And if we stay with that plan and his faithfulness, we're going to see that God will prevail. Don't give up. Yeah, amen to that. I just want to end it right there because you're absolutely right. That sense of here are the people wandering in darkness. They've seen a great light.

But before that, they're wandering in darkness and just clinging on to the promises of God all through this time. I mean, without seeing the fruit necessarily of their faithfulness, without seeing the fruit of what they're fighting for. Just knowing that God himself had chosen them, entered into a relationship with them, and had made a promise. And yeah, how is he going to do it? No one could have predicted.

I don't know. I don't think anyone, even with all the prophecies that we've been hearing and we've been exposing ourselves to, I don't know if anyone could have predicted the way in which God would make right all that had gone wrong. And I think that's probably, as you're saying, is something so true for our lives too. We look at our lives and say, oh my gosh, what can he do with this? And we can never predict the way in which God can make right all the stuff that's gone wrong with us too. So I'm so grateful for this time period. And it's essentially the final time period before we launch into the period of the church and the last gospel that we've, the one gospel we haven't yet been exposed to, which is Luke's gospel. But Jeff, before we launch into this day one of

that could be a revolt, any last words or last thoughts to kind of give some people some direction or things to pay attention to, or even just reiterating what you might have said already? Sure. I think I would say two things. One is that if this book is foreign to you, approach it with an open heart and ask God to illuminate the truth here and what and ask God to illuminate the truth here and what is happening in terms of the entire plan of salvation history. Just say, Lord, give me an open heart to understand what is happening here. And second of all, I would say during this reading of Maccabees, keep in mind what's going on in the world today, And just keep also this in mind. Father Mike and I have both read the end of the Bible. And I'm going to give you a little spoiler. We win. We win. Okay? That's what I want to share with you.

That's good. That's a good place to continue because we're not ending. We're still working our way. We're still walking with the Lord. We're still allowing him to shape our hearts, shape our vision, shape our worldview so that we can recognize, as you said, our place in our story, in the bigger story, his story. So, so grateful for you, Jeff, and so grateful for everyone who's joined us with this maybe second to last or third to last introduction to a new time period. We do have the Messianic Fulfillment, the last Gospel of Luke together, as well as the introduction to the church. And so, so grateful to Jeff and to everyone who's been walking with us through the Bible in a year. We're not home yet, but we're so far from where we started, which is just phenomenal. If you've

reached this day, you have a lot to be proud of. We have so much to be grateful for, and we need each other. So please know that I'm praying for you. I know Jeff's praying for you. Please, please pray for us. My name is Father Mike. I cannot wait to see you tomorrow. God bless.