Topic 16 of 33 - Your Place in the Learning Journey
The Hasmonean Dynasty
The Hasmonean dynasty - named for Hashmon, an ancestor of the Maccabean family - ruled Judea from the Maccabean victories of the 160s BCE until the Roman conquest of Jerusalem by Pompey in 63 BCE. It is the only period of Jewish political independence between the Babylonian conquest in 586 BCE and the establishment of the modern state of Israel in 1948. The Hasmoneans began as guerrilla fighters defending religious freedom and ended as Hellenized monarchs whose dynastic conflicts brought Rome into Judea. The arc of their history is one of the great tragedies of the ancient world.
The early Hasmoneans consolidated their military victories into political independence. Simon, the last of Mattathias's five sons, achieved recognition from both the Seleucids and the Jewish community as high priest, military commander, and civil ruler - combining the three offices in a single person. The combination of high priesthood and kingship was controversial from the beginning. The high priesthood was supposed to be hereditary within a specific priestly lineage, and the Hasmoneans were not from that lineage. Many Jews regarded the combination as illegitimate, and the Essene community at Qumran appears to have separated from Jerusalem partly over this issue.
Under John Hyrcanus (134-104 BCE) and his successors, the Hasmonean state expanded significantly through military conquest. The Idumeans (Edomites) were conquered and forcibly converted to Judaism - a conversion whose consequences included Herod the Great, who was Idumean by descent and whose claim to the Jewish throne was always contested on ethnic grounds. The Hasmoneans also conquered Samaria and the coastal cities, creating a Jewish state roughly the size of David's kingdom. But the expansion came at the cost of increasing Hellenization - the Hasmonean rulers adopted Greek titles, names, and court customs, becoming increasingly indistinguishable from the Hellenistic monarchs they had originally revolted against.
The dynasty collapsed from within. A succession dispute between two brothers - Hyrcanus II and Aristobulus II - led both to appeal to Rome for support. The Roman general Pompey, who happened to be in Syria reorganizing Rome's eastern provinces, was happy to oblige. In 63 BCE he besieged Jerusalem, breached the walls, and walked into the Temple's Holy of Holies. He appointed Hyrcanus as high priest and client ruler. Judea was now effectively a Roman province, and the Hasmonean dynasty - which had begun as a revolt against foreign rule of the Temple - ended by inviting the Romans in. The world the New Testament opens in is the direct consequence of that decision.