Antiochus IV’s Persecution: Overreading The Book of Daniel

Antiochus IV in Daniel 11

The book of Daniel consists of two parts: the stories about Daniel in chapters 1–6, which tell of the fate of Daniel and his three friends at the Babylonian and Medo-Persian court, and the visions of Daniel in chapters 7–12, which offer predictions of the future, extending into the Hellenistic period under the two empires of the Ptolemies and the Seleucids,^[1] leading up to Antiochus IV as the last and cruelest king of the Seleucid kings.

Both the narratives and the visions grew over an extended time period, and chapter 11 is the oldest of the Hebrew visions in the latter part of the book following the Aramaic vision in chapter 7.^[2] It describes the end of the Persian Empire to the end of Antiochus IV Epiphanes,^[3] and is written as prophecy-after-the-fact. The reign of Antiochus IV is described in is vv. 21–45 and consists of four sections:

Preface: vv. 21–24—Antiochus IV is introduced, not by name (of course!),^[4] as a contemptible person and his entire reign is completely evil: וְעָשָׂה אֲשֶׁר לֹא־עָשׂוּ אֲבֹתָיו וַאֲבוֹת אֲבֹתָיו, “he did what none of his fathers and forefathers had ever done.”^[5] The following sections elaborate on this general characterization.

First Egyptian Campaign: vv. 25–28—During his return home, Antiochus turns his mind against the Holy Covenant (וּלְבָבוֹ עַל־בְּרִית קֹדֶשׁ) for the first time. The use of this term instead of “Jerusalem” certainly does not reflect either Antiochus’ point of view or the general self-image of the Judeans of his time, but that of the Torah-oriented group behind the book of Daniel. From their perspective, Antiochus, as a foreign ruler, is not only Judah’s political enemy, but also an enemy of God who directly opposes the “holy covenant,” of which he himself, in fact, knew nothing.

Second Egyptian Campaign, vv. 29–39—Antiochus loses the war with Ptolemaic Egypt, after which he acts against Jerusalem (vv. 29–35) and then against “all gods” (vv. 36–39), a polemical claim. This is the key section for understanding how Antiochus IV is portrayed in later Jewish sources (1 and 2 Maccabees and Josephus).

The implication that Antiochus attacked Jerusalem out of anger or frustration at his defeat in Egypt is in line with the polemical presentation found in Polybius’ (ca. 200–118 B.C.E.) Histories, according to which, Rome insisted that Antiochus back off, and this show of force, on the so-called “Day of Eleusis,” was the decisive moment when Roman power took the place of Greek power as the dominant world force. This gives the distorted image of an irascible, overconfident king. Historically, however, the precipitant cause of the attack on Jerusalem was a military intervention in the face of ongoing unrest in Judah, which Antiochus did not want to lose following his defeat in Egypt.

Indeed, we now know, especially thanks to the work of Victor Tcherikover (1894–1958) of Hebrew University,^[6] that Antiochus IV’s intervention in Jerusalem did not provoke a revolt, but was in response to political unrest after his defeat in the second Egyptian campaign; ancient sources report similar revolts elsewhere in the empire.

Nevertheless, Daniel ignores this fact and again portrays the military intervention as an action “against the holy covenant” and carried out with the support of those Judeans who had abandoned this covenant:

^{דניאל יא:ל} וּבָאוּ בוֹ צִיִּים כִּתִּים וְנִכְאָה וְשָׁב וְזָעַם עַל בְּרִית קוֹדֶשׁ וְעָשָׂה וְשָׁב וְיָבֵן עַל עֹזְבֵי בְּרִית קֹדֶשׁ.

^{Dan 11:30} For ships of Kittim shall come against him, and he shall lose heart and withdraw. He shall be enraged and take action against the holy covenant. He shall turn back and come to an understanding with those who forsake the holy covenant.

Historically, several Judean factions sought dominance and—depending on the political direction—were either supported or opposed by Antiochus. In Daniel, this becomes the struggle of the two groups of the pious and the wicked: יֹדְעֵי אֱלֹהָיו those who know their God and hold fast to the holy covenant, also called מַשְׂכִּילֵי עָם or הַמַּשְׂכִּילִים, “those who bring many to insight,” against the עֹזְבֵי בְּרִית קֹדֶשׁ “those who forsake the holy covenant” or מַרְשִׁיעֵי בְרִית “those who violate the covenant.”

Regarding the latter group, verse 32 states that Antiochus יַחֲנִיף בַּחֲלַקּוֹת “seduces them with intrigue” or “smooth words.” The text does not explicitly clarify whether they have become apostates through the “intrigue” of Antiochus or of their own accord:

^{דניאל יא:לב} וּמַרְשִׁיעֵי בְרִית יַחֲנִיף בַּחֲלַקּוֹת וְעַם יֹדְעֵי אֱלֹהָיו יַחֲזִקוּ וְעָשׂוּ.

^{Dan 11:32} He will seduce them with intrigue those who violate the covenant, but the people who are loyal to their God shall stand firm and take action.

This “intrigue” or “smooth words” is the same characteristic with which, according to v. 21, Antiochus came to power: בַּחֲלַקְלַקּוֹת. This quality is also ascribed to those who are called a עֵזֶר מְעָט “a little help,” but who are said to have joined the Holy Covenant only “insincerely,” again בַּחֲלַקְלַקּוֹת:

^{דניאל יא:לד} וּבְהִכָּשְׁלָם יֵעָזְרוּ עֵזֶר מְעָט וְנִלְווּ עֲלֵיהֶם רַבִּים בַּחֲלַקְלַקּוֹת.

^{Dan 11:34} When they fall, they shall receive a little help, and many shall join them insincerely.

The term בַּחֲלַקּוֹת or בַּחֲלַקְלַקּוֹת is quite revealing. It was likely inspired by a verse in Isaiah, which refers to the Jerusalem elites:

^{ישעיה ל:ט} כִּי עַם מְרִי הוּא בָּנִים כֶּחָשִׁים בָּנִים לֹא אָבוּ שְׁמוֹעַ תּוֹרַת יְ־הוָה. ^ל:י אֲשֶׁר אָמְרוּ לָרֹאִים לֹא תִרְאוּ וְלַחֹזִים לֹא תֶחֱזוּ לָנוּ נְכֹחוֹת דַּבְּרוּ לָנוּ חֲלָקוֹת חֲזוּ מַהֲתַלּוֹת.

^{Isa 30:9} For they are a rebellious people, faithless children, children who will not hear the instruction of YHWH ^30:10 who say to the seers, “Do not see,” and to the prophets, “Do not prophesy to us what is right; speak to us smooth things; prophesy illusions.

The juxtaposition of the pious and the wicked are found in the Dead Sea Scrolls, where דורש התורה “the one who seeks the Torah” and holds fast to the covenant is contrasted with דורשי החלקות “those who seek smooth things.”^[7]

Behind this division lies the conflict between the Yachad, the community of Qumran, and the Jerusalem elites, namely the Hasmoneans, Pharisees, and Sadducees, under foreign—Hellenistic and then Roman—rulers. The Qumran texts depict this conflict as an eschatological battle of God's enemies inside and outside the people against “the covenant” of God. The depiction in the Scrolls is highly polemical; historical facts are transformed into biblical clichés.

This transformation is also reflected in Daniel 11. This chapter stylizes Antiochus IV’s military reaction to Jerusalem’s politically-motivated unrest as a religiously-motivated eschatological war against God and his “holy covenant.” Only from this perspective does the Seleucid military action become a persecution of Jewish religion and way of life, as is portrayed in the later Jewish sources.

Antiochus IV’s Fate, vv. 40–45—In the final section, Antiochus fights a fictitious war with Egypt and other countries, in which he also takes action against the “land of beauty,” but is ultimately killed. Here the book of Daniel is grossly inaccurate. Historically, Antiochus IV died in Babylon, after a failed campaign of plunder in Elam. Therefore, scholars usually assume that the author, who was living through the Antiochian persecution, was not speaking of the past but of the future. It is quite possible, however, that the scribe—here as in the previous and following sections—deliberately portrayed past historical reality differently for ideological (theological) reasons.

Antiochus IV in the Temple: The Four Accusations of Daniel 11:31 

What specifically does Daniel accuse Antiochus of doing in Jerusalem? The key verse states:

^{דניאל יא:לא} וּזְרֹעִים מִמֶּנּוּ יַעֲמֹדוּ וְחִלְּלוּ הַמִּקְדָּשׁ הַמָּעוֹז וְהֵסִירוּ הַתָּמִיד וְנָתְנוּ הַשִּׁקּוּץ מְשׁוֹמֵם.

^{Dan 11:31} Forces sent by him shall occupy and profane the temple, the fortress. They shall abolish the regular burnt offering and set up the abomination that makes desolate.^[8]

The verse makes four accusations:

1. וּזְרֹעִים מִמֶּנּוּ יַעֲמֹדוּ “Forces sent by him shall occupy”—As noted, there had been unrest in Judah for some time and it was in danger of falling out of the Seleucid orbit when the Judeans heard Antiochus IV was defeated in his second Egyptian campaign; in such cases, the deployment of troops in response to political unrest is expected.

2. וְחִלְּלוּ הַמִּקְדָּשׁ הַמָּעוֹז “and profane the temple, the fortress”—This statement looks like a reference to some kind of active profanation of the Temple but does not say what exactly it is. Only the later Jewish sources fill the gap and specify the cultic atrocities committed by Antiochus and his troops, including in particular the sacrifice of pigs. However, the original meaning of the statement may have been different.

In light of the preceding accusation, it seems quite possible that the very presence of foreign troops in the fortress next to the Temple is being called “profanation,” reflecting the perspective of the Holy Covenant group responsible for this part of the book of Daniel. As noted, this was hardly a unique offense of Antiochus IV, even if the Holy Covenant group experienced it this way.

The phrase הַמִּקְדָּשׁ הַמָּעוֹז “the Temple the fortress” is ambiguous. What is the relationship between these two words? The Greek Septuagint (LXX) reads a genitive construction here, “the sanctuary of fear” (τὸ ἅγιον τοῦ φόβου), and some commentators use this to interpret the Masoretic Text (MT) accordingly, translating “the sanctuary of the fortress.”^[9] This is not grammatically correct, however, since הַמִּקְדָּשׁ has the definite article and הַמָּעוֹז “the fortress” is rather an apposition to הַמִּקְדָּשׁ.^[10]

The expression probably refers not just to the sanctuary structure, but to the larger area of the temple, the Acropolis or Akra as it is called in Greek, where Ptolemaic or Seleucid troops were always stationed (Ant 12:138; 1 Macc 1:33; 2 Macc 4:12, 28; 5:5).

3. וְהֵסִירוּ הַתָּמִיד “They shall abolish the regular burnt offering”—As the verb is in plural, the subject is not Antiochus, but the troops stationed at the temple.^[11] The depiction sounds less like they are carrying out a official decree of Antiochus IV (as in 1 Maccabees 1) and more like the arbitrary and harsh behavior of soldiers given free reign over a population whose rebellion they just put down.

It is difficult, however, to evaluate the historicity of this claim. No other historical source claims that the Seleucids in general, or Antiochus IV in particular, forbade the cult of a subjugated ethnic group. Indeed, this seems implausible according to what we know from the politics of the Seleucids, especially since such a measure would have deprived the king himself of an important source of income.

Thus, it seems likely to me that the cause and effect here needs to be understood differently. Assuming the priests also considered the Temple and its altar to have been defiled, as the Holy Covenant group writes here, then they would naturally refuse to offer the tamid on such an altar. Indeed, the Greek soldiers end up, ipso facto, cancelling the tamid indirectly, and not by a royal prohibition or decree.^[12] The priests may have also refused to offer the tamid out of anti-Seleucid sentiment, angry at Antiochus IV for occupying their city.

Alternatively, the possibility should be considered that the statement is a gross exaggeration and pure polemic by the author of Daniel 11, which is related to the following accusation.

4. וְנָתְנוּ הַשִּׁקּוּץ מְשׁוֹמֵם “and set up the abomination that makes desolate”—This accusation is especially mysterious.^[13] Since the time of the German text-critic Eberhard Nestle (1851–1913), the expression shiqutz meshomem has been interpreted as a polemical distortion of the name baʿal-shamem “Lord of Heaven,” the Syrian equivalent of YHWH as “God of Heaven” and of the Greek god Zeus Olympios, which 2 Maccabees claims was the god to whom Antiochus dedicated the Jerusalem Temple.

^{2 Macc 6:2} also to pollute the shrine in Jerusalem and to call it the shrine of Olympian Zeus and to call the one on Gerizim the shrine of Zeus–The-Friend–Of-Strangers, as the people who lived in that place had petitioned.

Thus, many commentators suggest it is a reference to a cultic item connected to Zeus:^[14] maybe a cult image, or an altarpiece, an additional altar, or—following the neoplatonic philosopher Porphyry of Tyre (234–305 C.E.) in his writing against the Christians, quoted and disputed by Jerome of Stridon (342/7–420) in his commentary on Daniel—a statue of the king or statues of both Zeus and Antiochus. In fact, the idea of a cult prop also goes back to the translation of the Septuagint and is found in later Jewish sources.^[15]

Since the interpretation of this difficult phrase is highly hypothetical and disputed, I would propose an alternative reading and suggest that the phrase in question and the suspension of the tamid express one act: the abomination is the daily sacrifice offered by the Judean priests according to their traditional cultic practice but under the presence of foreign troops and in agreement with the Hellenistic, Seleucid rule, maybe as a sacrifice for Adonai (YHWH)=Zeus (baʿal-shamem). In the eyes of the Torah-oriented authors of the book of Daniel, this offering abolishes or replaces the acceptable tamid and is unacceptable to the Holy Covenant group, though it was apparently acceptable to the priests active in the Temple.

The next chapter seems to combine the two phrases this way:

^{דניאל יב:יא} וּמֵעֵת הוּסַר הַתָּמִיד וְלָתֵת שִׁקּוּץ שֹׁמֵם...

^{Dan 12:11} From the time that the tamid is taken away in order to give (it as) an abomination of desolation….

Taking the vav “and” in chapter 11 as an explanatory conjunction (“namely”), we can similarly understand the two phrases here to mean that the troops of Antiochus took the tamid away and thus “gave the abomination for a desolation,” i.e. they made the tamid an unclean sacrifice and thus abolished or replaced it.

If this reading is correct, then the “abomination of desolation” is nothing other than the traditional tamid sacrifice, which in the eyes of the authors of Daniel 11 is defiled and thus “suspended,” and does not take place because it was not carried out in the right way—namely according to the Law of Moses. Its offering to YHWH as the Baalshamem/Zeus Olympios “Lord of Heaven,” was seen as a cult offense by the Holy Covenant group and their Torah-centered Judaism.^[16]

Antiochus as the Ultimate Enemy of God

In sum, the main accusation against Antiochus IV and his army is that by desecrating the Temple, they turned the daily burnt offering into an abomination. With this claim, Daniel 11 wishes to discredit the cult practiced by the Judean priests in Jerusalem under Seleucid rule. As part of this depiction, the text goes on to accuse Antiochus of the grossest arrogance, painting him as someone who abandons even his own religious principles to establish himself as the enemy of God:

^{דניאל יא:לו} וְעָשָׂה כִרְצוֹנוֹ הַמֶּלֶךְ וְיִתְרוֹמֵם וְיִתְגַּדֵּל עַל כָּל אֵל וְעַל אֵל אֵלִים יְדַבֵּר נִפְלָאוֹת וְהִצְלִיחַ עַד כָּלָה זַעַם כִּי נֶחֱרָצָה נֶעֱשָׂתָה. ^יא:לז וְעַל אֱלֹהֵי אֲבֹתָיו לֹא יָבִין וְעַל חֶמְדַּת נָשִׁים וְעַל כָּל אֱלוֹהַּ לֹא יָבִין כִּי עַל כֹּל יִתְגַּדָּל.

^{Dan 11:36} The king shall act as he pleases. He shall exalt himself and consider himself greater than any god and shall speak horrendous things against the God of gods. He shall prosper until the period of wrath is completed, for what is determined shall be done. ^11:37 He shall pay no respect to the gods of his ancestors or to the one beloved by women; he shall pay no respect to any other god, for he shall consider himself greater than all.

This is similar to the accusation of the Marduk priests of Babylonia made against King Nabonidus, the final king of Babylon before it was conquered by Cyrus. They claimed that he had abolished the cult of the god Marduk in Babylon and installed a new, foreign cult, that of the moon god Sin.

While Nabonidus was partial to Sin, the claim that he abolished the cult is false as we know from his own inscriptions. Instead, it was the priests of Marduk in Babylon who refused to perform the Akitu New Year’s festival during Nabonidus’ absence which was defamed as a blasphemous treatment of Marduk and his temple cult.^[17]

The tradition of this polemical Nabonid propaganda has also left its mark in Daniel 4 (Nebuchadnezzar's hubris) and 5 (defilement of the temple vessels by Belzazar, son of Nanonidus) as well as in the so-called Prayer of Nabonidus (4Q242 or 4QOrNab).

In light of this analogy, the interpretation approach proves to be correct which was already proposed by Jürgen Lebram in his groundbreaking essay on king Antiochus as the typos of the blasphemous tyrant, a study that unfortunately has received far too little attention.^[18]

The Antiochian Persecution in Later Sources

As we can see from the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Book of Daniel experienced a broad reception within a very short time after it was completed in the midst of the second century B.C.E., both in terms of the number of copies of the Book of Daniel and its citation in other parabiblical writings and, last but not least, the composition of so-called “pseudo-Daniel” or “Daniel-like” texts of the rewritten scripture type.^[19]

Thus, it is not surprising that, despite the limited extent of Antiochus IV’s defilement of the Temple, the rhetorical presentation in Daniel led later historical works, dependent upon it, to understand that he literally forbade the bringing of the Tamid by decree and built an abomination in the Temple.

1 Maccabees, a work from the time of John Hyrcanus (r. 134–104 B.C.E.) or later, reports how Antiochus IV stopped the Judeans from offering sacrifices, and built profane altars upon which pigs were offered, ostensibly outside the Temple:

^{1 Macc 1:44} And the king sent documents carried by the hand of messengers to Jerusalem and the cities of Judea for them to follow precepts foreign to the land ^1:45 and to withhold whole burnt offerings and sacrifice and libation from the holy precinct and to profane sabbaths and feasts ^1:46 and to defile holy precinct and holy ones, ^1:47 to build altars and sacred precincts and houses to idols and to sacrifice swine and common animals…^[20]

A few verses later, we hear about how Antiochus builds an “abomination of desolation”, i.e. an altar that stood atop the altar of burnt offering and on which illegitimate sacrifices were offered starting ten days later:

^{1 Macc 1:54} And on the fifteenth day of Kislev in the one hundred and forty–fifth year,^[21] he (Antiochus IV) constructed an abomination of desolation on the altar … ^1:59 On the twenty–fifth of the month they were sacrificing on the altar that was on top of the sacrificial altar.

The two atrocities—the suspension of the daily sacrifices (tamid) and the building of an altar (the “abomination of desolation”) on the main altar—belong in the wider context of the narrative of religious prohibition and persecution under Antiochus IV, which 1 Maccabees declares to have been the cause of what scholars typically call “the Maccabean Revolt.”

Similarly, the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus (37 C.E.– ca. 100 C.E.), in his Judean War (Bellum Iudaicum), reports that the “continuous” daily sacrifice (tamid) comes to a standstill for three years and six months,^[22] after Antiochus IV pillages the Temple:

^{War 1:32} Setting out at the head of a huge army, he (Antiochus IV) took the city by assault… gave his soldiers unrestricted license to pillage, and himself plundered the temple and interrupted, for a period of three years and six months, the regular course of the daily sacrifice.^[23]

In his later Judean Antiquities, he adds that Antiochus IV prohibited the Judeans (or Jews) to perform the daily sacrifice:

^{Ant. 12:251} Moreover he forbade them to offer the daily sacrifices which they used to offer to God in accordance with their law.[24]

Josephus further claims that Antiochus IV built another altar “upon” the Temple altar, and offered a pig sacrifice upon it:

^{Ant 12:253} The king also built a pagan altar upon the temple-altar, and slaughtered swine thereon, thereby practicing a form of sacrifice neither lawful nor native to the religion of the Jews.^[25]

Many modern historians regard the details found in 1 Maccabees and Josephus as established facts.^[26] In light of the forgoing analysis of Daniel, however, I suggest that these details are an interpretation or specification, and further exaggeration of the vague information that the book of Daniel provides, a development which, in fact, already begins in the Book of Daniel itself (Dan 7–9) and its Greek version (Septuagint). These later authors took the polemical rhetoric of the Holy Covenant authors very literally and expressed what they imagine it to mean.

Missing from 2 Maccabees

Notably, both the cancellation of the tamid and the establishment of an alternative altar atop the Judean altar are absent from 2 Maccabees, an abridgment of an earlier five-volume work by Jason of Cyrene (Libya), who lived around 100 B.C.E., and thus, at its core, is perhaps a bit older than or contemporaneous with 1 Maccabees. In its depiction of Antiochus’ crimes (2 Macc 6:1–11), it describes a literal defilement of the Temple and the sacrificial cult in Jerusalem and the surrounding area, and notes that the altar was filled with unclean sacrifices:

^{2 Macc 6:1} the king sent an Athenian senator to compel the Judeans to forsake their ancestral laws and no longer to live by the laws of God ^6:2 also to pollute the shrine in Jerusalem and to call it the shrine of Olympian Zeus… ^6:4 For the Temple was filled with debauchery and revelling by the nations, who dallied with prostitutes and had intercourse with women within the sacred precincts, and besides brought in things for sacrifice that were unfit. ^6:5 The altar was covered with abominable offerings that were forbidden by the laws.

Even its report of the rededication of the Temple (2 Macc 10:1–5), which many scholars see as a later redaction,[27] mentions only other altars built by the foreigners in the marketplace and sacred precincts, but nothing about the suspension of the daily sacrifices or the “abomination of desolation.”[28] This supports the claim that these specific offence are later developments in the story of Antiochus IV’s persecutions, taken from an interpretation of Daniel. They do not reflect historical memory or archives.

Rethinking Antiochus IV’s Motives

The claim that Antiochus IV forbade the bringing of the tamid and built a pagan altar on top of the Temple altar are two major anchors in the standard presentation of his ostensibly large-scale Hellenization project which both the Jewish sources and scholarship attribute to him. Without these anchors, Antiochus IV’s intervention in Judean society turns out to have been much more limited and within the usual framework of Seleucid politics, which was far less offensive to the Judeans in Hellenistic times than the Book of Daniel and the later Jewish sources suggest.

Since the seminal study of Elias Bickermann,^[29] the Jewish sources have been repeatedly examined and have been recently more and more called into question by modern historians such as Sylvie Honigman,^[30] Johannes Bernhardt,^[31] and others.^[32] The main reasons for the critique are the one-sided, anti-Seleucid tendency, and the fact that Seleucid documents themselves speak a completely different language and reveal nothing about a large-scale Hellenization project in general, and the atrocities in particular, that the Jewish sources accuse Antiochus of having committed.

The Holy Covenant authors of Daniel present the Seleucids as ruining the Temple service, and this view is repeated in later ancient biblical and parabiblical Jewish sources, which apply the standards of the Torah of Moses to the events of the second century B.C.E. The majority of the Judeans in the land and the diaspora of the Hellenistic age, however, likely experienced and saw the historical events differently. Nevertheless, it was the Book of Daniel and later Jewish sources that had a significant historical impact becoming the founding legend of Chanukkah, the Festival of Lights.^[33]