Chapter 11
Lysias decides to take over the temple and sells the high priest's office to the highest bidder every year. Judas Maccabeus hears about it and raises an army. While they pray, someone appears on horseback dressed in white and gold armour, which does not seem smart, because even though I quit chemistry at the end of high school, I still remember that it's a pretty soft metal and anyone with something harder would just pierce it. In other words, this armour is the equivalent of vanity muscles.
We get the death tolls, and also the information that some of Lysias' forces escape naked. Lysias himself flees and then offers to make peace with the king. Then there's a bunch of letter writing restoring the peace and the ability of the Jews to eat their preferred meats.
Chapter 12
When peace is restored, the city of Joppe convinces its Jews to get on a boat, promising them a pleasure cruise, but really the boat sinks and takes 200 people with it. Judas hears and burns the harbour down at night. He plans to go back and raze the city, but before he can, he hears the Jamnites are planning to pull the same trick on their Jews, which, like, fool me twice, idiots. But really, Judas has just developed a new fetish for burning down harbours. I mean, he's kind of burnt every other structure at this point.
For a bit, Judas can't find any matches, so instead he goes around doing infrastructure projects. But only for a bit. One of them is to build a bridge to the walled city of Caspis. But the people are so confident of their walls that they're rude to Judas and he hears them shouting and blaspheming from outside. So they kill everyone so hard a lake 14 miles away turns red with the blood. This whets his appetite for killing again, so he goes and does that for awhile, supposedly in search of the general Timotheus, but really because he's a mass murderer. He does eventually catch up with Timotheus, and exchanges him for several of his men's parents, but the number of deaths in this chapter is staggering.
At some point they have to stop fighting so they can bury the dead, and as they go to loot their bodies, they discover they were all carrying false idols, so they also get to act smug about the enemies whose gods have failed to protect them.
Chapter 13
This chapter starts with a lovely description of a tower in a town called Berea where they kill all the sinners by throwing them off the top into a giant fire. King Antiochus arrives in Berea intending to do far worse, for some damned reason. Judas hears about the plan and goes to the king's camp one night and kills 4000 of his men and the biggest elephants. Apparently this makes the king think the Jews are manly.
Chapter 14
Now Demetrius is back and he killed king Antiochus and Lysias. He comes to the high priest Alcimus, who has sinned by mixing with gentiles, and gives him some tat for his temple. Demetrius meets with him and asks what the Jews actually want. Alcimus tells him Judas Maccabeus is a bloodthirsty warmonger who doesn't actually want peace and the people are miserable. Seems pretty accurate. So the king appoints someone to kill Judas, but they make peace and the guy buys a nice house in Jerusalem, where Judas frequently comes to tea and he urges him to get married and start a family. Judas does and he does calm down some, but Alcimus the priest is jealous and tells the king his general has appointed Judas the crown prince. This causes a rift between Judas and the general, and the general goes to the temple to make up, but Judas won't see him and the priests won't tell him where he is. So he threatens to pull down the temple and build a pagan one instead. One of the priests is an old man named Razis, speaks out, and the general sends 500 men to take him, but instead he conducts a long, elaborate suicide that ends with him throwing his disemboweled intestines at a crowd. It's worse than torture porn.
Chapter 15
The general pursues Judas into Samaria during the sabbath. He happens to have some Jews in his army who don't want to attack anyone on the day of rest. But the general tells them to fight anyway. And they refuse.
Judas, for his part, is confident nothing will happen and sets about praying. While he's doing that, a man with grey hair appears and gives him a useless gold sword, which he uses to kill the general. Then he desecrates the body. The writer of the book encourages us to read it with a big glass of wine.
Showing posts with label 2 Maccabees. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 2 Maccabees. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 11, 2015
Tuesday, February 10, 2015
2 Maccabees, Chapters 6-10: A treatise on pooping
Chapter 6
During a lull in the fighting, the king sends an old man from Athens to convince the Jews to stop being Jews. His method for doing this is to rename the temple after Jupiter and to let the gentiles hold wild sex parties inside. He also outlaws the sabbath and public declarations of Judaism and forces them to celebrate Bacchus. Anyone who refuses will be put to death, starting with two women who have circumcised their sons, who get thrown off the wall. Other people are found worshiping in caves and burnt to death. The book urges us to see these as punishments befitting a wayward people.
Next Eleazar, a scribe, is forced to eat pork, but spits it out, preferring death to bacon. Some of his friends have succumbed, and they urge him to just bring his own meat to the feast so as to avoid the death penalty, but he'd rather die with his principles intact, so he gets killed.
Chapter 7
The Greeks aren't done trying to force the Jews to eat pork, and now they want to force seven brothers and their mother to try it. But they say they're prepared to die, which enrages the king, who tortures them quite graphically. He starts killing them, and as each is led up to die, he insults the king and tells him he's going to hell. Antiochus starts to believe it a bit, and exhorts the last brother with the promise of riches to convert to Greek paganism. He even gets the mother in on the act. But the mother leans in to whisper in his ear that not even roast suckling pig is worth it (wrong). When the son speaks aloud, he also insults the king, who kills him and his mother.
Chapter 8
Judas Maccabeus goes around looking for the remaining Jews and finds about 6000 of them. They pray to god to remember them, then start attacking the heathen by night. The king puts a man named Nicanor in charge, who attempts to defray the costs of the war by selling Jewish captives as slaves. But Judas reminds them of all the times god helped their forefathers. They defeat the Greeks handily and have a sabbath, then distribute all their war booty to poor women and children.
Chapter 9
Antiochus, who is a king, let's remember, goes on a little temple-robbing tour. While he's looting, he gets word of the defeats in Israel, which makes him angry because he'd bragged that he was going to murder all the Jews.
As he's hopping around and screaming, god suddenly strikes him with irritable bowel syndrome, which is fitting because disemboweling is one of his favourite forms of torture. Still he keeps bragging about how he's going to slay all the Jews, so god makes him fall of his chariot, which hurts a lot. Then he gets worms and starts to smell, and eventually he realises it's god doing all this and becomes a Jew.
God isn't satisfied and says he won't give him mercy until he sets Jerusalem free and makes the Jews citizens of Athens and restores the temple at his own expense and goes around proselytising. Even after he agrees, though, he's still stinky and in pain, so he writes a letter to the Jews asking for forgiveness. But even that isn't enough and so he dies in the mountains.
Chapter 10
The Maccabees clean the temple up and pray to god that nothing like that ever happens again. And of course it does the very same day, but they clean up again. Then they hold an 8-day feast. Next we get a recap of 1 Maccabees again, except that this time in one of the battles, 5 handsome horsemen arrive from the sky and lift Judas up with them and kill all his enemies. Other than that, it's even less interesting than the first version.
During a lull in the fighting, the king sends an old man from Athens to convince the Jews to stop being Jews. His method for doing this is to rename the temple after Jupiter and to let the gentiles hold wild sex parties inside. He also outlaws the sabbath and public declarations of Judaism and forces them to celebrate Bacchus. Anyone who refuses will be put to death, starting with two women who have circumcised their sons, who get thrown off the wall. Other people are found worshiping in caves and burnt to death. The book urges us to see these as punishments befitting a wayward people.
Next Eleazar, a scribe, is forced to eat pork, but spits it out, preferring death to bacon. Some of his friends have succumbed, and they urge him to just bring his own meat to the feast so as to avoid the death penalty, but he'd rather die with his principles intact, so he gets killed.
Chapter 7
The Greeks aren't done trying to force the Jews to eat pork, and now they want to force seven brothers and their mother to try it. But they say they're prepared to die, which enrages the king, who tortures them quite graphically. He starts killing them, and as each is led up to die, he insults the king and tells him he's going to hell. Antiochus starts to believe it a bit, and exhorts the last brother with the promise of riches to convert to Greek paganism. He even gets the mother in on the act. But the mother leans in to whisper in his ear that not even roast suckling pig is worth it (wrong). When the son speaks aloud, he also insults the king, who kills him and his mother.
Chapter 8
Judas Maccabeus goes around looking for the remaining Jews and finds about 6000 of them. They pray to god to remember them, then start attacking the heathen by night. The king puts a man named Nicanor in charge, who attempts to defray the costs of the war by selling Jewish captives as slaves. But Judas reminds them of all the times god helped their forefathers. They defeat the Greeks handily and have a sabbath, then distribute all their war booty to poor women and children.
Chapter 9
Antiochus, who is a king, let's remember, goes on a little temple-robbing tour. While he's looting, he gets word of the defeats in Israel, which makes him angry because he'd bragged that he was going to murder all the Jews.
As he's hopping around and screaming, god suddenly strikes him with irritable bowel syndrome, which is fitting because disemboweling is one of his favourite forms of torture. Still he keeps bragging about how he's going to slay all the Jews, so god makes him fall of his chariot, which hurts a lot. Then he gets worms and starts to smell, and eventually he realises it's god doing all this and becomes a Jew.
God isn't satisfied and says he won't give him mercy until he sets Jerusalem free and makes the Jews citizens of Athens and restores the temple at his own expense and goes around proselytising. Even after he agrees, though, he's still stinky and in pain, so he writes a letter to the Jews asking for forgiveness. But even that isn't enough and so he dies in the mountains.
Chapter 10
The Maccabees clean the temple up and pray to god that nothing like that ever happens again. And of course it does the very same day, but they clean up again. Then they hold an 8-day feast. Next we get a recap of 1 Maccabees again, except that this time in one of the battles, 5 handsome horsemen arrive from the sky and lift Judas up with them and kill all his enemies. Other than that, it's even less interesting than the first version.
Monday, February 9, 2015
2 Maccabees, Chapters 1-5: More of the same
Chapter 1
The Jews in Jerusalem write a letter to the Jews in Egypt reminding them of what happened in 1 Maccabees, but embellishing it so they caught Antiochus in a temple and stoned him to death through a skylight and announcing a new holiday because they recently rediscovered a fire that some priests kept in a pit in Persia that turned into thick water (v. 20) when they went to get it.
Chapter 2
This chapter elaborates on the fire story from the last. Now we find out that Jeremy the prophet got hold of the fire and took it up Moses' mountain along with the tabernacle and the ark. When he gets up there, he finds a cave with a door, where he hides the treasure. He hides it so well his followers can't find it. When they ask him about it, he scolds them that they won't see it again until god forgives his people.
Another prophet, Neemias, made the world's most boring library and filled it with bible scrolls. Judas Maccabeus reclaimed a bunch of temple junk from his enemies, repurified the temple, and fought a bunch of wards. We know all of this thanks to Jason of Cyrene, who wrote five volumes, but mercifully the author here agrees to condense them into one
Chapter 3
For awhile, there is peace, but then a tribal leader, Simon, is put in charge of the temple and falls out with the priest. So he tells the governor of a neighbouring territory that the Israelite treasury is full of gold and silver. The governor reports the story to the king, Apollonius, who sends his accountant to Jerusalem to collect the money. The accountant gets to Jerusalem and just outright asks if the story is true, and the priest confirms it is, but also explains that the money is for widows and orphans. But the accountant has his marching orders, and he takes the money despite the sad faces the priests are making in his direction.
God notices the hubbub and sends an horse with a terrible rider upon him, and adorned with a very fair covering, and he rain fiercely, and smote at Heliodorus with his forefeet, and it seemed that he that sat upon the horse had complete harness of gold. / Moreover two other young men appeared before him, notable in strength, excellent in beauty and comely in apparel, who stood by him on either side, and scourged him continually, and gave him many stripes (v. 25-6) This all causes Heliodorus to faint, and his guards to acknowledge god's power. They convert right there and ask the priest to ask god to restore Heliodorus' health. The priest, fearing he'll get blamed if he sends the accountant back broken, makes a sacrifice and the two young men from the vision reappear and tell Heliodorus to thank the priest for giving him back his health.
Heliodorus does, then goes back to the king and tells him how amazing god is. The king isn't quite ready to give up on the treasure, so he asks who he should send, and Heliodorus says only someone he hates, because no one can penetrate Jerusalem as long as god protects it.
Chapter 4
Simon from the last chapter isn't done spreading rumours about the high priest. This time he says everything that happened to Heliodorus was smoke and mirrors. But then things get out of hand and his men start wantonly murdering people. The priest, Onias, turns to king Apollonius, not to tattle, but for the public good.
Meanwhile, Onias' brother Jason also wants to be high priest, and he's attempting to bribe the king with temple silver so he can get planning permission for a gym, which apparently is a heathen practice. The king, seeing the value of Greek-style exercise, has agreed and some Jews have joined and even started wearing hats, which conservative Jews see as profane.
Furthermore, the priests are leaving because they've fallen in love with the discus, of all things and want to spend all their time practicing. Next, there are some Olympic-style games in Tyrus, and rather like Sochi, Jason sends silver to pay for sacrifices to Hercules, which the messengers disapprove of, so it gets spent on gallies instead.
Jason gets even worse when he welcomes Apollonius to Jerusalem and then takes a trip with him to Phenice. Three years later, Jason sends Simon's brother Menelaus to the king to pay tribute and ask for favours. But instead he wrangles a commission as high priest, even though he's a cruel tyrant with a vicious temper. Jason flees and of course Menelaus doesn't pay the promised tribute.
The king calls him and the local governor to his palace to explain the missing money, and Menelaus puts his brother Lysimachus in charge, which causes rebellion in a territory that has been granted to the king's concubine Antiochis. The king leaves to settle the rebellion down, leaving his deputy Andronicus in charge. Menelaus, left alone with the temple, steals a bunch of gold and gives some to Andronicus and sells the rest on the black market.
The original priest, Onias, tries to retreat into a monastery, but Menelaus persuades him to leave and promptly kills him. When the king gets back, the people bitch about the random killing of priests. The king defrocks Andronicus and kills him. Then the city rebels against Lysimachus and kills him next to the treasury. The whole thing gets blamed on Menelaus, who turns to yet another king Ptolemee and promises to make peace if he'll give him money. He manages to stay in charge even as he's widely hated.
Chapter 5
Antiochus is preparing to go to Egypt, but suddenly a group of horseman appears in the sky dressed in gold and armed with lances and starts having a battle that goes on for 40 days. The people pray this is a good omen, but instead a false rumour spreads that Antiochus is dead. Jason immediately starts assaulting the city and randomly murdering civilians. Eventually he meets resistance and has to go on the lam into Egypt.
The king hears about all this and he thinks Judea is revolting, so he attacks and kills a bunch more people, eventually killing 80 000 people in three days. He also destroys the temple. He leaves bad governors in charge. The only hope is Judas Maccabeus, who hides out in the wilderness, biding his time.
The Jews in Jerusalem write a letter to the Jews in Egypt reminding them of what happened in 1 Maccabees, but embellishing it so they caught Antiochus in a temple and stoned him to death through a skylight and announcing a new holiday because they recently rediscovered a fire that some priests kept in a pit in Persia that turned into thick water (v. 20) when they went to get it.
Chapter 2
This chapter elaborates on the fire story from the last. Now we find out that Jeremy the prophet got hold of the fire and took it up Moses' mountain along with the tabernacle and the ark. When he gets up there, he finds a cave with a door, where he hides the treasure. He hides it so well his followers can't find it. When they ask him about it, he scolds them that they won't see it again until god forgives his people.
Another prophet, Neemias, made the world's most boring library and filled it with bible scrolls. Judas Maccabeus reclaimed a bunch of temple junk from his enemies, repurified the temple, and fought a bunch of wards. We know all of this thanks to Jason of Cyrene, who wrote five volumes, but mercifully the author here agrees to condense them into one
Chapter 3
For awhile, there is peace, but then a tribal leader, Simon, is put in charge of the temple and falls out with the priest. So he tells the governor of a neighbouring territory that the Israelite treasury is full of gold and silver. The governor reports the story to the king, Apollonius, who sends his accountant to Jerusalem to collect the money. The accountant gets to Jerusalem and just outright asks if the story is true, and the priest confirms it is, but also explains that the money is for widows and orphans. But the accountant has his marching orders, and he takes the money despite the sad faces the priests are making in his direction.
God notices the hubbub and sends an horse with a terrible rider upon him, and adorned with a very fair covering, and he rain fiercely, and smote at Heliodorus with his forefeet, and it seemed that he that sat upon the horse had complete harness of gold. / Moreover two other young men appeared before him, notable in strength, excellent in beauty and comely in apparel, who stood by him on either side, and scourged him continually, and gave him many stripes (v. 25-6) This all causes Heliodorus to faint, and his guards to acknowledge god's power. They convert right there and ask the priest to ask god to restore Heliodorus' health. The priest, fearing he'll get blamed if he sends the accountant back broken, makes a sacrifice and the two young men from the vision reappear and tell Heliodorus to thank the priest for giving him back his health.
Heliodorus does, then goes back to the king and tells him how amazing god is. The king isn't quite ready to give up on the treasure, so he asks who he should send, and Heliodorus says only someone he hates, because no one can penetrate Jerusalem as long as god protects it.
Chapter 4
Simon from the last chapter isn't done spreading rumours about the high priest. This time he says everything that happened to Heliodorus was smoke and mirrors. But then things get out of hand and his men start wantonly murdering people. The priest, Onias, turns to king Apollonius, not to tattle, but for the public good.
Meanwhile, Onias' brother Jason also wants to be high priest, and he's attempting to bribe the king with temple silver so he can get planning permission for a gym, which apparently is a heathen practice. The king, seeing the value of Greek-style exercise, has agreed and some Jews have joined and even started wearing hats, which conservative Jews see as profane.
Furthermore, the priests are leaving because they've fallen in love with the discus, of all things and want to spend all their time practicing. Next, there are some Olympic-style games in Tyrus, and rather like Sochi, Jason sends silver to pay for sacrifices to Hercules, which the messengers disapprove of, so it gets spent on gallies instead.
Jason gets even worse when he welcomes Apollonius to Jerusalem and then takes a trip with him to Phenice. Three years later, Jason sends Simon's brother Menelaus to the king to pay tribute and ask for favours. But instead he wrangles a commission as high priest, even though he's a cruel tyrant with a vicious temper. Jason flees and of course Menelaus doesn't pay the promised tribute.
The king calls him and the local governor to his palace to explain the missing money, and Menelaus puts his brother Lysimachus in charge, which causes rebellion in a territory that has been granted to the king's concubine Antiochis. The king leaves to settle the rebellion down, leaving his deputy Andronicus in charge. Menelaus, left alone with the temple, steals a bunch of gold and gives some to Andronicus and sells the rest on the black market.
The original priest, Onias, tries to retreat into a monastery, but Menelaus persuades him to leave and promptly kills him. When the king gets back, the people bitch about the random killing of priests. The king defrocks Andronicus and kills him. Then the city rebels against Lysimachus and kills him next to the treasury. The whole thing gets blamed on Menelaus, who turns to yet another king Ptolemee and promises to make peace if he'll give him money. He manages to stay in charge even as he's widely hated.
Chapter 5
Antiochus is preparing to go to Egypt, but suddenly a group of horseman appears in the sky dressed in gold and armed with lances and starts having a battle that goes on for 40 days. The people pray this is a good omen, but instead a false rumour spreads that Antiochus is dead. Jason immediately starts assaulting the city and randomly murdering civilians. Eventually he meets resistance and has to go on the lam into Egypt.
The king hears about all this and he thinks Judea is revolting, so he attacks and kills a bunch more people, eventually killing 80 000 people in three days. He also destroys the temple. He leaves bad governors in charge. The only hope is Judas Maccabeus, who hides out in the wilderness, biding his time.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)