The books of the Maccabees tell of zeal for Israel’s God, zeal for God’s Torah, zeal for the purity of Israel, and all of it rooted in the story that stretched back to Abraham and included Phinehas and Elijah among its key moments.7 If this was Israel’s story, this is how a loyal Israelite should now behave when faced with the same problem. Judas Maccabaeus and his brothers went to work, a little revolutionary group against the powerful pagan empire. Against all probability, they succeeded. They beat off the Syrians, reconsecrated the Temple, and established, for a century or so, an
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This story if violence is the context for zeal. Many recoil at the violence in the bIble. Understandably so. But here we can see that a story of violence can disclose God's action.
