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...Seleucid soldiers to kill all those who disobeyed. Yet some Jews continued to obey the laws of God over those of the king. Among them was the priest Mattathias, who fled the desecration of Jerusalem to seek refuge in the nearby town of Modi'in.
The king's men came to Modi'in and ordered Mattathias to sacrifice in the Greek manner. He refused. Then Jew came forward to sacrifice as the king commanded. When Mattathias saw this, he was full of righteous rage and killed both the Jew and a Seleucid officer trying to enforce the king's laws. Mattathias then cried out, "Let every one who is zealous for the law and supports the covenant come out with me" (1 Macc. 2:27, RSV). Mattathias and his sons and others seeking justice and righteousness fled to the hills of Judea. Joined by a band of "pious ones," they struck down the sinners and the lawless men. They tore down the unholy altars of the Hellenists. They forcibly circumcised the uncircumcised boys within the boundaries of Israel. "They rescued the law out of the hands of the Gentiles" (1 Macc. 2:48). When Mattathias died, his son Judah the Maccabee--or Judah 'the Hammer' (Yehuda ha-Maccabi)--succeeded him as leader of the rebellion against Hellenism and the Seleucid dynasty. At first, Judah and his men lived in mountain caves like wild animals (2 Macc. 10:6), but he was eventually able to gather an army of pious Jews to attack and burn towns and villages at night. Like a lion, he "pursued the lawless" and "destroyed the ungodly," and "terror fell upon the Gentiles round about them" (1 Macc. 3:3-5, 8, 25). Judah eventually gained control of the temple in Jerusalem and purified it of all traces of the Hellenistic abominations. Jews celebrate this deliverance from oppression every year at Hanukkah.
The first and second books of the Maccabees emphasize the Maccabean insistence on strict conformity to the Torah and the punishment of Hellenistic Jews who renounced God's laws. At the same time, there clearly was a nationalistic and anti-imperialist dimension to the Maccabean revolt. Judah "gladly fought for Israel" and "extended the glory of his people" (1 Macc. 3:2-3). He called upon the Lord to look upon His "oppressed people" as well as His desecrated temple (2 Macc. 8:2). Exhorting his men to prepare for battle, Judah declared, "It is better for us to die in battle than to see the misfortunes of our nation and of the sanctuary" (1 Macc. 3:59).
The Maccabean revolt illustrates several important features of the modern movements commonly called fundamentalist. These movements demand strict conformity to sacred scriptures and to a moral code ostensibly based on these scriptures. They are usually politically assertive, although they sometimes oscillate between periods of militancy and quiescence. They are fueled in large part by moral outrage at what their supporters see as violations of the laws of God. At the same time, such moral outrage is often meshed with nationalistic and social grievances. We see this in the revolt of the Maccabees in the second century B.C.E.--and also in the revolt of Al Qaeda in our own time.
The Islamists of Al Qaeda are, in effect, Muslim Maccabees fighting the American rather than the Seleucid empire, and Westernization rather than Hellenization. Of course, Judah the Maccabee, unlike Osama bin Laden, did not blame his people's problems on Jewish conspiracies. Nor did he ever destroy the tallest building in the economic heartland of the empire he attacked. But in other respects, Judah the Maccabee and his followers can be compared to the militant Islamic revivalists of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.
For millennia, traditional believers have had to confront cultural innovations that violate their basic beliefs and values--Hellenism, after all, embodied modernity in the Judea of the second century B.C.E.
Traditional believers confronted by new, widespread values in conflict with their own have, in principle, three options. They can withdraw from the broader culture, like a turtle under its shell. They can adapt to cultural innovations, as liberal Christians, Jews, and Muslims all have. Or they can fight back, militantly defending their traditional beliefs. These three options are not mutually exclusive. Even those who withdraw from the broader culture are inevitably affected by it. Even those who fight against innovations often end up adapting to them. Mattathias and his sons initially tried to withdraw from what they saw as the violation of God's laws. Then they felt compelled to fight back. But eventually the Maccabees adapted to Hellenistic culture and ruled under the auspices of the very empire they had once fought.
Many scholars have questioned the use of the term 'fundamentalism' as an analytical category in the comparative study of religious movements.(1) Their criticism tends to revolve around the following points:
* the term 'fundamentalist'is both polemical and prejudicial, insofar...
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