Playlist: Judas Maccabees (topic)
Matthew (Part Twenty-Six)
Sermon/Bible Study by John W. RitenbaughJudas Maccabeus is presented as a precedent that Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem repeated, though Jesus' entry was the real fulfillment. About 150 years earlier, after Antiochus Epiphanes, a type of the beast, desecrated the Temple in 168 BC by sacrificing a pig on the altar and using it as a brothel, the Hasmonean family …
The Book of Daniel (Part Eight)
Sermon by Martin G. CollinsJudas Maccabaeus was the leader of the Jewish rebellion provoked by Antiochus IV Epiphanes. After Rome humiliated Antiochus in Egypt, he vented his fury on Jerusalem, abolishing temple worship and desecrating the altar with swine's flesh, the "abomination of desolation" of Daniel 11:31. These acts made him a symbol of everything …
John (Part Seventeen)
Sermon/Bible Study by John W. RitenbaughJudas Maccabeus appears as part of the background to the Feast of Dedication (Hanukkah) mentioned in John 10:22. After Antiochus Epiphanes was humiliated in Egypt around 168-165 BC, he took out his anger on the Jews, who had resisted his long effort to Hellenize them. He killed many, including circumcised infants, and desecrated …
Approaching God Through Christ (Part Five)
Sermon by Richard T. RitenbaughJudas Maccabeus appears only as background to Chanukah, the Feast of Dedication mentioned in John 10:22. The festival's early name comes from the rededication of the temple after Judas Maccabeus and the Jews, persecuted by the Greek Seleucids, rebelled and drove them out of Jerusalem in 164 BC, roughly 190 years before Christ's …
Acts (Part Six)
Sermon/Bible Study by John W. RitenbaughJudas Maccabees comes up only in connection with the Sadducees, who were the main opposition to the church in Acts. The Sadducees traced their roots to the Maccabees, or Hasmonean family, whose nickname means "hammer" because their guerrilla tactics kept hammering away at the enemy. The Sadducees viewed the Maccabean revolt, its …
A Son Is Given
Sermon by Richard T. RitenbaughJudas Maccabeus is an example of the kind of deliverer the Jews of Jesus' day expected. Because the name Jesus (like Joshua) means Savior or Deliverer, and was understood mostly as physical deliverance from enemies, they assumed the Messiah would be a conquering king and hero who would drive out the Romans and establish another …
The Purpose of Israel
Sermon by Richard T. RitenbaughAfter the exile, the small remnant that returned to Judea, heavily priestly and very dedicated, built a religious state centered at Jerusalem. That fervor lasted about 500 years, through the Maccabees and the reigns of the Maccabean kings, and even into the time of Herod, at the end of whose reign Jesus was born. Though there …