Judas Maccabeus

Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the revolutionary Jewish leader Judas Maccabeus. Born in the second century BC, Judas led his followers, the Maccabees, in a rebellion against the Seleucid Empire, which was attempting to impose the Greek culture and religion on the Jews. After a succession of battles he succeeded and the Seleucid king granted the Jews religious freedom. But even after that freedom was granted the struggle for political independence continued, and it was not until twenty years after Judas’s death that Judaea finally became an independent state. Thanks to an extensive, if often confused, historical record of these events, the story of the Maccabees is well known. Judas Maccabeus has become a celebrated folk hero, and one of his achievements, the restoration and purification of the Temple of Jerusalem after its desecration by the Seleucids, is commemorated every year at the Jewish festival of Hanukkah.

→ Listen on BBC Sounds website

Guests

• Helen Bond 2 episodes
  Senior Lecturer in the New Testament at Edinburgh University
• Tessa Rajak 2 episodes
  Emeritus Professor of Ancient History at the University of Reading
• Philip Alexander 4 episodes
  Emeritus Professor of Jewish Studies at the University of Manchester

Related episodes

• Josephus
  
  21 May, 2015 220 The Bible
• The Cult of Mithras
  
  27 Dec, 2012 290 Other religions
• Judith beheading Holofernes
  
  14 Feb, 2019 700 Arts
• The Talmud
  
  29 May, 2014 290 Other religions
• Moses Mendelssohn
  
  22 Mar, 2012 100 Philosophy
• Maimonides
  
  17 Feb, 2011 100 Philosophy
• The Dead Sea Scrolls
  
  4 May, 2023 220 The Bible
• Spartacus
  
  6 Mar, 2014 930 History of the Ancient World
• The Shimabara Rebellion
  
  11 May, 2023 950 History of Asia
• Redemption
  
  13 Mar, 2003 230 Christianity

Experimental. For more related episodes, visit the visual explorer.

---

Programme ID: b017cjm8

Episode page: bbc.co.uk/programmes/b017cjm8

Auto-category: 933 (History of ancient Palestine)

Hello (First sentence from this episode)

Hello, so he got his people great honour and put on a breastplate as a giant and girt his warlike harness about him and he made battles protecting the host with his sword.