Maccabean Revolt

In 167 BC the Seleucid king Antiochus IV Epiphanes, ruling from Antioch over a kingdom that included Judea, banned the practice of the Jewish religion. He outlawed Sabbath observance and circumcision, ordered the destruction of Torah scrolls, and erected an altar to Olympian Zeus in the Jerusalem Temple, sacrificing a pig on the great altar — the "abomination of desolation" of Daniel 11:31. Resistance broke out in the village of Modein when an aged priest named Mattathias killed both a royal officer and a Jew who had come forward to sacrifice on a pagan altar. Mattathias fled to the hills with his five sons; on his death in 166 BC, leadership passed to his third son, Judah, nicknamed Maccabee, "the Hammer." Judah led a guerrilla campaign that defeated four Seleucid armies, drove the Greek garrison out of Jerusalem in 164 BC, and rededicated the cleansed Temple (the origin of Hanukkah). The fighting continued under his brothers Jonathan and Simon for another two decades; by 142 BC the Jews had won effective political independence, which would last under the Hasmonean dynasty until the Roman conquest of 63 BC. The story is told in 1 and 2 Maccabees.