Daily Bible Reading: 1 Maccabees 5 and 1 Timothy 6

1 Maccabees 5 - When the nations surrounding Judaea – also under the control of the Seleucids but more compliant - hear that the Temple has been restored, they “determined to destroy the whole race of Jacob living among them; they began murdering and evicting Jewish citizens” (6:2). In response, Judas makes war on a number of these people: the “sons of Esau in Idumaea” (south of Palestine), and the Ammonites. The warfare described here is what people did back then, but it is not easy to read about. They are defeated, plundered, destroyed “under the ban” (6:5). It is pretty clear that the Jews were not the only ones to conduct war in this fashion; they all did.

            

In Gilead, the “pagans” there banded together to fight the Israelites in their territory. The Israelites flee and call upon Judas to help them. They tell him “All our countrymen living among the Tubians have been put to death, their women and children have been taken into captivity, their property has been seized, and a force about a thousand strong has been wiped out there” (6:13). Similarly, the “pagans” of Galilee gather against the Jews living near them. Judas sends his brother Simon and 3000 to aid them; Judas and brother Jonathan go with 8000 men to Gilead. A man named Joseph is left to guard Judea.

Simon defeats the pagans of Galilee, and brings the Jews living there back to Judea with him.

Judas and Jonathan cross the Jordan into Gilead. The Nabateans greet them in peace and tell them what the enemy has been doing. Judas goes to towns in what is today northern Syria where Jews are held up and in danger. He goes from town to town, killing the enemy in these towns. Timotheus, the Seleucid commander opposing him, gathers men and hires Arab mercenaries to fight the Jews. It seems as if Judas’ purpose is not only to defeat the Seleucids but to gather Jews together who are scattered around the region, being attacked in these towns and bring them to Judea. If people en route do not let them pass, they slaughter them (5:48-51).

            

They reach Mount Zion with joy and offer burnt offerings at the newly rededicated Temple. Meanwhile, another Jewish leader named Joseph [not a Maccabaean] orders his men to Jamnia where he meets the high Seleucid commander, Gorgias and his army; but Joseph and his cohort Azariah lose the fight. The defeat is ascribed to Joseph’s failure to do as he was told by Judas. Judas and his brother go and fight the Edomites to the south—Hebron and the lands of the Philistines. Then he returns to Judea.

1 Timothy 6 – Slaves are told they must be respectful to masters so as not to bring the Christian “movement” or church into disrepute. But masters should see them as “brothers.” Paul criticizes those with a mania for “questioning everything and arguing about words” (6:4). The only thing that comes from this is bad feeling and distrust.

“The love of money is the root of all evils” (6:10). Those who are rich should not look down on others and should “not . . .set their hopes on money, which is untrustworthy, but on God who, out of his riches, gives us all that we need for our happiness” (6:17).

Daily Bible Reading: 1 Maccabees 4 and 1 Timothy 5

1 Maccabees 4 – Gorgias, a commander under Lysias, comes against the Jews at Emmaus, but finds no one there. Judas has moved his 3000 to the plain nearby. He is terribly short of armor and supplies but he reminds his men of how God helped their ancestors in the desert.

The Jews advance on the Seleucid army; they fight and the Gentiles are crushed. They pursue those who retreat for a time, but Judas tells them not to be greedy for plunder, for another battle awaits them. Later, when the rest of Gorgias’ men flee from them, they do plunder the camp.

                

When Lysias hears that his army has been defeated, he is shocked and dismayed. The next year, they muster 60,000 infantry and 5000 cavalry, a force that Judas meets with only 10,000. Lysias’ troops again are defeated. He goes off to seek mercenaries for an even larger army.

Judas and his brothers go to cleanse the sanctuary and re-dedicate it. It is a mess and they grieve over it. They must fight men posted at the sanctuary. They cleanse the Temple, tear down the altar of burnt offerings so as not to use one that was defiled. They store the stones of the desecrated altar in a convenient place “until a prophet should come to tell what to do with them” (4:46). They take new, unhewn stones and build a new altar. They also rebuild the sanctuary and interior of the Temple and consecrate its courts.

In 164 BC, they rededicate the Temple with songs and harps, lutes and cymbals. They celebrate for eight days. They decide that they will celebrate this rededication every year for eight days. This is the origin of Hanukkah. They also fortify Mount Zion with high walls and strong towers.

1 Timothy 5 – Paul urges Christians to treat other people as if they were your family members – not strangers. And then he moves on to a lengthier discussion of widows in the church. Apparently, in the early church, widows were treated as if they were a separate “order” of sorts – like the elders, presbyters and deacons. They were to be “enrolled” but only if they were over 60, had only been married once and were known to be good women. Paul thinks women whose husbands die when they are young should probably not be included in this group because they would be happier and more productive marrying again and having children.

    

Elders are important to the church in preaching and teaching. They have authority in the church, so no accusation against them can be effective unless supported by two or three witnesses. The church obviously had a governing role in the lives of members and a growing discipline that was to be observed.

Daily Bible Reading: 1 Maccabees 3 and 1 Timothy 4

1 Maccabees 3 – It is 166-160 BC. Judas, called Maccabaeus, now steps forward to lead the fight for Israel. “He extended the fame of his people. He put on the breatplate like a giant and girded on his war harness; he engaged in battle after battle, protecting the ranks with his sword” (3:3)

Someone named Apollonius, governor of Samaria and commander of the Seleucid army in that region, gathers Gentiles together to fight him, but they are beaten. Apollonius’ sword becomes the one Judas uses for the rest of his life.

            

Seron, commander of the Syrian army, thinks to make a name for himself by fighting Judas. Judas’ men fret about the size of the Syrian army, but Judas tells them, “victory in war does not depend on the size of the fighting force; it is from heaven that strength comes” (3:19-20). And so the Syrians too suffer defeat.

When Antiochus hears these stories, he gathers a huge force. He has some financial problems and wants to go to Persia and collect more money from there, so he leaves Lysias in charge of affairs in the area. He leaves Lysias half his forces and orders him to “crush and destroy” the Israelites, to banish all memory of them from the place. Lysias sends Ptolemy, Nicanor and Gorgias with 40,000 troops and 7,000 cavalry to deal with them. They camp near Emmaus.

           

Seeing the huge force building against them, the Jews gather to be ready and to pray. Jerusalem is occupied, so they gather at Mizpah, opposite Jerusalem. There, “they fasted and put on sackcloth, covering their heads with ashes and tearing their garments” (3:47). Despite their need, the faint-hearted, the newly married and those in process of planting vineyards are told to go home as the law requires. The rest went and encamped south of Emmaus.

1 Timothy 4 – Paul reminds them that “during the last times there will be some who will desert the faith and choose to listen to deceitful spirits and doctrines” (4:1). The note explains that the constant references to “the last times” should not ONLY be seen as an early Christian certainty that history was soon going to end with Christ return. We can see reference to “end times” as “eschatological” and not historical. Eschatology could also be interpreted as having to do with a spiritual dimension of everyone’s life – having to do with the ultimate realities of life and death, judgment and consequence of all our spiritual choices.

Paul is definitely concerned with some who are going around, making up all kinds of strange doctrines – people who will “say marriage is forbidden, and lay down rules about abstaining from foods which God created to be accepted with thanksgiving by all who believe and who know the truth” (4:3). We need to remember that ALL of God’s creation is good; “no food is to be rejected, provided grace is said for it” (4:4).

The faithful should avoid all the myths and “old wives’ tales” (4:7) that people spread. The thing we must all remember is to “put our trust in the living God . . . he is the savior of the whole human race but particularly of all believers” (4:10).

Young people should not accept peoples’ disregard of them and of their ideas. They should “be an example to all the believers in the way [they] speak and behave, and in [their] love, [their] faith and [their] purity” (4:12).

Daily Bible Reading: 1 Maccabees 2 and 1 Timothy 3

1 Maccabees 2 - Mattathias of a priestly family and his five sons—John, Simon, Judas, Eleazar, and Jonathan—are all desolate because of the shame to Israel this desecration of their Temple has brought. The king’s commissioners come to their town, Modein, and approach Mattathias about being the first to comply with what the Jews consider an “apostasy” so as to make a “good example” to others, who are also being asked to conform their religious practices to what the Seleucid rulers demand.

They promise him riches, but Mattathias refuses to comply. “Heaven preserve us from forsaking the Law and its obserances . . . We will not swerve from our own religion either to right or to left” (2:20-22).

Furthermore, when another man does step forward to comply, Mattathias is overcome with righteous fury and “slaughters” him AND the king’s representative. Then he, his sons and other similarly-sentimented go with them into the desert.

A detachment of soldiers goes after them and finds a group. That group decides it is fitting for them to die for the testimony they wish to give, but they do not fight. They say, Let us all die innocent; let heaven and earth bear witness that you are massacring us with no pretense of justice” (2:37).

They are all killed with their wives, children and cattle on the Sabbath.

                

News of this reaches Mattathas. They decide that if they pursue this non-violent resistance policy, they all will be destroyed. So they decide if anyone attacks them on the Sabbath, “whoever he may be, we will resist him; we must not all be killed” (2:41).

They are joined by some Hasidaeans (devout who had resisted Hellenization even before the time of the Maccabees). They organize themselves into an armed force and start to go around forcibly circumcising boys, overthrowing the altars and hunting down “upstarts.”  The time of turmoil is the time when the godly should have a “burning fervour” (2:50) for the Law.

Men must remember their ancestors and try to live up to their example. The heroes are set before them—Abraham, Joseph, Phinehas, Joshua, Caleb, David, Elijah, Hananiah, Azariah and Mishael, Daniel—“Do not fear the threats of the sinner, all his brave show must come to the dunghill and the worms” (2:62). Mattathias, at the end of his time, appoints his son Simeon to lead them and Judas Maccabaeus to be their general. He dies in 166 BC.

1 Timothy 3 – The chief “elder” must be a man of “impeccable character” (3:2). He can’t have been married more than once; he must be “temperate, discreet and courteous, hospitable and a good teacher, not a heavy drinker, nor hot-tempered, but kind and peaceable” (3:3). He must lead his own family well and bring his children up well. He should not be a new convert, and he should have a good reputation outside the church as well.

The requirements for becoming a Deacon are also gone over in some detail. But here women candidates are also mentioned – a little surprising after what was written earlier in the letter. They must be respectable and reliable.

Paul writes that is hoping he will be with them soon, but he wants them to know his thoughts on these matters in case he should be delayed.

Daily Bible Reading: 1 Maccabees 1 and 1 Timothy 2

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Introductory Material on Maccabees from Jerusalem Bible:

These two books are not in the Jewish canon. They are considered deuterocanonical by the Church. They are about Jewish resistance to the Seleucid dynasty of rulers, and about Jewish resistance to secularization in the form of Hellenism. The Jewish community is torn within itself by those who want to follow the dominant culture and those who stand by the traditions. The Maccabeas family leads the traditionalists

-       Judas Maccabaeus (166-160 BC), seeks alliance with Rome

-       Jonathan (160-142 BC) – more political than military also seeks alliance with Rome and Sparta

-       Simon (142-134) – recognized as High Priest, Governor and ethnarch of the Jews

Written originally in Hebrew, only a Greek text remains. The author is a Palestinian Jew writing after 134 but before capture of Jerusalem by Pompey in 63 BC

2 Maccabees is a kind of parallel version of the story, but it ends with the defeat of Nicanor by Judas (covering the material in chapter 1-7 of 1 Maccabees.

The books affirm a number of beliefs Christians hold strongly—resurrection of the dead, sanctions in the afterlife, prayer for the dead, spiritual rewards for martyrdom and intercession of saints.

1 Maccabees 1 - It starts with the story of Alexander the Great, son of Philip. It tells of his conquests: “ . . .he advanced to the ends of the earth, plundering nation after nation; the earth grew silent before him, and his ambitious heart swelled with pride (1: 3-4). Then he died and his heirs divided his empire, “bringing increasing evils on the world” (1:10). The note says he died in 324 BC but that the division was not worked out until 301 Battle of Ipsus.

Antiochus Epiphanes was son of King Antiochus (a Seleucid). He becomes king in 175 BC.  At this time a “set of renegades,” Hebrews wishing to reach accommodation with the reigning Hellenistic culture, start to lead people astray. Winning the approval of the king, they built a gymnasium in Jerusalem, “disguised their circumcision, and abandoned the holy covenant, submitting to the heathen rule as willing slaves of impiety” (1:15).

           

Antiochus is ambitious, and seeks to expand his territory by invading Egypt and winning there. Then he turns on Israel (169 BC). He loots the Temple. The people are left stunned, ashamed and desolate. But there is further war and oppression. The king decides “that all were to become a single people, each renouncing his particular customs” (1:41).

Some Israelites [the renegades] go along with this. Then in 167 BC, the king “erected the abomination of desolation above the altar.” This was the altar of Baal Shamem or the Olympian Zeus. Ten days later, sacrifice was offered to this Baal—“Women who had had their children circumcised were put to death according to the edict with their babies hung round their necks, and the members of their household and those who had performed the circumcision were executed with the” (1:60-61).

           

But some stood firm and were executed. “It was a dreadful wrath that visited Israel” (1:64).

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1 Timothy 2 – Paul advises Timothy to make sure there is “prayer offered for everyone – petitions, intercessions and thanksgiving – and especially for kings and others in authority, so that we may be able to live religious and reverent lives in peace and quiet” (2:2-3). When he makes reference to the truth as he sees it, it is that “there is only one God, and there is only one mediator between God and mankind, himself a man, Christ Jesus, who sacrificed himself as a ransom for them all” (2:5).

Then he addresses then the issue of women and their role in the “assembly” or “community.” His words are very difficult to deal with as a woman of the 21^st century. Clearly there were conflicts over the role of women in the early Christian communities. Some clearly saw it as inappropriate that women should speak and teach, which to me involves an inference that they were in fact doing these things in at least some of the communities Paul traveled to.

Here Paul writes that women should dress modestly, and not see themselves as leaders in the community. And he makes his argument in part from the Genesis story of Adam and Eve. “During instruction, a woman should be quiet and respectful. I am not giving permission for a woman to teach or to tell a man what to do. A woman ought not to speak, because Adam was formed first and Eve afterwards, and it was not Adam who was led astray but the woman who was led astray and fell into sin” (2:11-13).

While there is continual speculation about whether these words accurately reflect what Paul’s teaching was – some always say there is uncertainty as to whether these thoughts about women were added later by others -- we are clearly dealing with two issues that all Christians have to deal with: one is the level of authority to give to the words of scripture that seem to our differently-rooted cultural eyes to be wrong or out-dated; and the other has to do with whether the vision of truth Paul had was flawed in these matters and whether the Spirit of God has opened others to better insight.

Clearly the culture of the day was weighted against women having a leadership role, but over the years that culture has changed [mostly], and Quakers were in the forefront of that change.

George Fox’s insight was that to make arguments from the Adam and Eve story that Eve had been the one at fault and that Adam had been given authority over “woman” as a result meant that we were continuing to live “in the fall” and to ignore the fact that Christ had given us a way to overcome that “fallen state.” Here are two passages from his Journal that deal with the issue:

“Now this death which Adam fell into was a spiritual death; for by one man’s disobedience or offense, namely Adam’s, judgment came upon all men to condemnation.  So all men are under this judgment and condemnation in Adam in the Fall. . .they that do not believe in Christ; the Light, as he commands, (John 12:36); they abide in spiritual death and darkness, and under the judgment and condemnation in Adam in the Fall, in the perishing state.  But he that believes on the Son of God has everlasting Life, and passes from death to Life, shall not perish in darkness and is not condemned, but comes out of condemnation, etc.” (George Fox, Letters, 464).

“[O]thers . . . asked me whether it was not the command of God that a man must rule over his wife . ..  And did not the apostle say, ‘I permit not a woman to teach’? And where did we read of women elders and women disciples?  And it was an abuse to the elders to set up a women’s meeting.  But I told them that he and they were but elders in the Fall, ruling over their wives in the Fall,  . . .and man and woman were meet [suitable, appropriate]-helps (before they fell) and the image of God and righteousness and holiness; and so they are to be again in the restoration by Christ Jesus” (George Fox, Journal, 667).

To understand better how Fox saw the “life in Christ” as post-fall, you have to get into the idea of the fulfillment of Genesis’ “protoevangelium.”  If you are interested, see the “Genesis and John” paper at http://catholicquaker.blogspot.com/.

Daily Bible Reading: Judith 15-16 and 1 Timothy 1

Judith 15 – As the men hear of the situation, there is a complete rout and slaughter. This is not a book pacifists will enjoy at all unless they can see it as an allegory for spiritual faithfulness, courage and ingenuity. The Israelite warriors seize enormous amounts of loot from abandoned camps.

Joakim, the high priest, and all the members of the Council of Elders come to see the riches and bless Judith with a song of praise. “The people looted the camp for thirty days. They gave Judith the tent of Holofernes, all his silver plate, his divans, his drinking bowls and all his furniture” (15:11). The women of Israel “formed choirs of dancers in her honor. Judith distributed branches to the women who accompanied her; she and her companions put on wreaths of olive” (15:12). Then she and all the people of Israel join in a hymn that concludes this book.

Judith 16 – What is interesting about the hymn that concludes the Book of Judith is that it celebrates a God who is the “shatterer of war.” We must remember that while the story involves a plot to kill an attacking general, a gruesome beheading and a slaughter that results in the looting of worldly treasure, it is a fiction. It is an allegory, if you will, of the victory that comes from spiritual faithfulness.

“Praise my God with the tambourine, sing to the Lord with the cymbal, let psalm and canticle mingle for him, extol his name, invoke it! For the Lord is a God who shatters war; he has pitched his camp in the middle of his people to deliver me from the hands of my enemies” (16:1-2).

“[T]he Lord Almighty has thwarted [the Assyrian multitudes] by a woman’s hand” (16:5).

“I will sing a new song to my God. Lord, you are great, you are glorious, wonderfully strong, unconquerable. May your whole creation serve you! For you spoke and things came into being, you sent your breath and they were put together, and no one can resist your voice” (16:13-14). For three months the people “gave themselves up to rejoicings in Jerusalem before the Temple” and Judith remained with them. 

 

When the celebration is over, everyone returns home. Judith is courted by many men but remains faithful to the memory of her deceased husband, Manasseh. She lives to the age of 105.

1 Timothy 1 – Paul addressing this epistle to Timothy, “true child of mine in the faith” (1:2). Paul calls himself an “apostle of Christ Jesus appointed by the command of God” (1:1).

He is concerned about people “teaching strange doctrines” – namely the “taking notice of myths and endless genealogies” (1:4 ) that are probably only going to “raise irrelevant doubts instead of furthering the designs of God which are revealed in faith” (1:4), and he asking Timothy to remain at Ephesus the help deal with this. It isn’t clear what false teachings Paul is concerned about according to Raymond Brown – see his section on 1 Timothy and the other “pastoral letters” in his Introduction to the New Testament, pg. 643.

Paul does not want Christian believers to become wrapped up in “endless speculation” (1:6) about the Law. The Law deals with obvious acts of immorality like murder, sexual predation and people who lie, etc. The Law does not help us to understand the “Good News of the glory of the blessed God, the gospel that was entrusted to me” (1:11) concerning Christ.

He thanks Christ for having changed his life and “called him into his service” (1:12). And he puts forth as fundamental doctrine that “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners” (1:15), and Paul is “the greatest of them” (1:15). And he believes that Christ brought him in “to make me the greatest evidence of his inexhaustible patience for all the other people who would later have to trust in him to come to eternal life” (1:16)

Paul asked Timothy to “fight like a good soldier with faith and a good conscience for your weapons” (1:19) for the gospel truths that are the fundamentals of the gospel. It’s interesting to me that he uses this language in light of the Old Testament book of Judith we've been dealing with.