Mel and the Maccabees

beliefnet ^ | 12/06/04 (received in e-mail) | David Klinghoffer

[Zionist Conspirator]

The Hanukkah story could be the script for Mel Gibson's next biblical epic. Will it cause the religious tensions 'Passion' did?

Anyone who took offense at Mel Gibson’s "The Passion of the Christ", with its depiction of Jewish leaders condemning Jesus, should get ready soon to be offended all over again. Gibson, it is reported, has his heart set on doing a movie version of the story commemorated by Hanukkah. His text will be the novel "My Glorious Brothers" by Howard Fast. Ironically, this book is a sentimental favorite with the older-generation Jewish audience that also tends to be the main financial supporter of Gibson’s primary antagonist, the Anti-Defamation League, which led the drive to condemn "The Passion" as anti-Semitic. The Fast novel tells the story of Jewish heroes, circa 167 B.C.E., who defeat Greek oppressors of the Jewish people, retake the Jerusalem Temple, and relight the great menorah.

So what’s so offensive? If this sounds, on the contrary, like a mollifying gesture to ADL national director Abraham Foxman, you might want to look a little more closely at what Hanukkah is actually about.

Many Jews grew up thinking of Hanukkah (which in 2004 falls on December 8-15) as an innocuous children’s festival. Actually the Maccabean revolt was deadly serious business, and it recalls one of the great tensions in our own modern American society: the conflict was between what today one might call religious fundamentalists and the secular elite.

Here’s what happened. Jewish Palestine had fallen into the clutches of the Greek kingdom of the Seleucids, with their tyrant Antiochus Epiphanes, headquartered in Syria. While the Greeks were not anti-Jewish per se, they had little patience with the perceived particularism and parochialism of Judaism. (I say "perceived" because Judaism’s vision, when properly understood, is in fact highly universal.) The Greek vision was one of mutual theological acceptance. They were relativists, in the sense we know today, believing that not only the God of Israel but all the gods should be worshipped at the Jerusalem Temple--and believing that dissenters from their “tolerance” deserved to be suppressed.

Religiously committed Jews, however, were less troubled by the Greek Syrians themselves than by Jewish “Hellenists” in Palestine, and in the holy city itself, who had thrown in their lot with the Greeks. This was a way of social climbing. By embracing Greek culture, with its aggressive relativism, ambitious Jewish elites hoped to improve their own social standing in Greek eyes. They embraced Greek customs that religious Jews found disturbing – exercising naked in the gymnasium, with an emphasis on discus-throwing in the nude, or (far worse) effacing their circumcisions through a surgical operation involving cutting a flap a skin around the penis and letting it hang by weights. In his standard history of the period, "Alexander to Actium," Professor Peter Green calls this “select club of progressive Hellenizers” a “specially favored cosmopolitan class dedicated to social and political self-advancement,” seeking “sociological privilege and status.”

It all starts to sound like a Tom Wolfe novel. The secular elite were so determined to drive their religious fellow countrymen, whom they regarded as socially inferior, from the capital that finally they took the step of outlawing Jewish practice in Jerusalem itself. The Hellenized Jews burned books of the Torah, made circumcision a capital offense, and sacrificed a pig on the Temple altar.

This drove the religiously faithful--the “fundamentalists,” as the Hellenizers would have called them if they had spoken modern American English--to revolt. Pitting Jew against Jew, the resulting civil war was led by the Maccabee brothers, who whupped the forces of “liberal polytheism,” as Green puts it. The conservatives, he continues, “were stronger, and more numerous, and the more passionate in their beliefs: they stood firm in the face of odds, and were prepared to make sacrifices, indeed to die, for what they held most dear.” Shades of the 2004 presidential election? Maybe so. And this conservative victory is what Jews for 2000 years have celebrated at Hanukkah.

The same conflict reflected in the Hanukkah story is still being enacted down to our own time. Though every Jewish festival has its unique relevance to our contemporary lives, Hanukkah’s relevance is especially provocative and especially political.

When the news of Gibson’s interest in Howard Fast’s novel was picked up in the media, Foxman reportedly told Fast’s widow he would “feel more comfortable putting it in the hands of Mr. [Harvey] Weinstein than Mr. Gibson.” The irony is delicious. Weinstein is the Hollywood producer who co-founded Miramax and made X-rated art movies like "The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover" and "Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!" as well as, more recently, "Fahrenheit 9/11" and "Kill Bill: Vol. 2." If Harvey Weinstein and motion pictures had been around in 167 B.C.E., Weinstein would have been the guy making “controversial” films about naked discus-throwing.

How secular liberals, Jewish and otherwise, will respond to the new Gibson effort is an interesting question. "The Passion" proved to be an embarrassment for the ADL and others who predicted that the film’s supposed anti-Semitism would expose America’s Jewish community to medieval-style perils. Of course, no such thing came to pass. All that the protests succeeded in doing was to ensure that many, many more people would see Gibson’s film than would have done so had there (without the ADL’s efforts) been no controversy to begin with.

For the folks who made such an aggressive and pointless fuss about "The Passion," there would seem to be two choices. The first is, once again, to raise a ruckus about how Gibson again casts Jews (in this case the secular liberal Hellenizers) as bad guys, and accomplish nothing positive. The other is to let Gibson alone. Personally, not myself being a big fan of the overlong, gratuitously violent "Passion," I would like to see him get back to the kind of spiritual thriller that caught his imagination when he starred in M. Night Shyamalan’s fabulously gripping "Signs."

Letting Gibson alone would maximize the chances of our avoiding a whole string of heavy-handed, biblically-inspired historical dramas with contemporary relevance. Undoubtedly the controversy sparked by the release of "The Passion" pumped up ticket sales, with many viewers feeling, not without reason, that Gibson had been persecuted just like Jesus was. Without the aura of martyrdom around the new film, perhaps it will be recognized for what "The Passion" actually was--a kind of film that doesn’t put Gibson’s considerable gifts to their best use. This, all around, seems the best strategy.

[jocon307]

"A film by Mel Gibson picturing the Maccabees as the fundamentalists they were (and their enemies as the liberals of their day) would be a most delicious irony."

Indeed. What a great post!

Let us not forget, Mel already rang that hollywood bell with "Braveheart", a mere fact that has seemed overlooked in all the recent hoopla.

[weenie]

Nope.

[weenie]

Macabees 1 and 2 are good reading. Talk about a battle.

Here is a link to the UVA Bible site (which has a complex search capacity and browse ability). It contains the Maccabbees.

The search capacity on this site has significantly expanded my familiarity with some of the more obscure details of the bible. (I just went there and it is unfortunately down tonight...the first time I have actually every known it to be down).

But here is the link anyway...

UVA Searchable Bible Site

[Theophane]

I think that what many miss here is that the Maccabees are a great source of inspiration for traditionalist Catholics, as they heroically held out against the Hellenizers (read modernists, or...well, whatever) of their day, even those in the clergy. And, of course, they execrated the Abomination of Desolation--to which some would draw modern (e.g. Assisi 1986) parallels. I have the hunch that this is why Mel is so interested in the Maccabees.

I can hardly wait.

[Alouette]

The "Book of Maccabees" is not part of the Hebrew Tanakh. The Masoretic "Old Testament" was closed a couple hundred years earlier at the end of the Babylonian exile.

[Pharmboy]

Author of Spartacus, Citizen Tom Paine, Freedom Road, and The Immigrants, Howard Fast wrote over eighty books in his lifetime. Once a member of the Communist Party, he served three months in federal prison for refusing to give Congress the records of the Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Committee.

After revelations of Stalin's terror in the Soviet Union, Fast left the Communist Party. Fast gradually overcame the blacklisting of the McCarthy era and became one of the most productive American writers of his time.

[Radix]

"Fundamentalism is always bad."

Really? Certain of the orthodox persuasion would likely disagree.

"The Maccabees were not stronger or numerically more powerful. They fought against all odds to defeat the Greeks."

Correct!

"The great unwashed goys might even enjoy movies about secular vs. religious Jews, and then....oy vey! (slapping head). They'll have a take-an orthodox-Jew-to-lunch, and pogroms for the rest"

Bl-w me! ( I do not wish to be banned from FR.com. but you are simply an ass if that post is any indication of your true sentiments.)

The problem with Gibson making a film about Chanukkah, in which the Orthodox Jews are the heroes and the Hellenized Jews are the villians, is that it was Hellenized Jews, such as Matthew, who became the first Christians.

You are simply (it appears) uninformed. Scholars have determined that the Gospel according to Mark is in fact more likely to be of greater antiquity than that of Matthew, despite certain traditional claims. Paul, nee Saul was more Hellenized than any of the known Apostles, and that is exactly why he  was able to make such a profound difference and impact in the first century AD! A citizen of Rome was a title and claim worthy of some respect and reverence back in those days.

[Cicero]

I can't imagine that many Jews are unfamiliar with the story of the Maccabees.

I just reread 1 and 2 Maccabees a couple of months ago. It would be a great story for Mel Gibson, Braveheart on steroids. I don't know how on earth anyone could twist it as being antisemitic.

[hlmencken3]

The story is universally known, but like Purim, it is not in the Hebrew Bible. But Purim has the Scroll of Esther, also in the Apocrypha, but Chanukah does not use a 'Scroll of the Maccabees'.

One explanation for this is that the battle portrayed by Chanukah is still being fought: The story is not over!

[Inyokern]

You are simply (it appears) uninformed. Scholars have determined that the Gospel according to Mark is in fact more likely to be of greater antiquity than that of Matthew,

Probably so but what does that prove? Scholars also believe that the Gospel of Mark was not written in Judea and was not written by Mark.

Paul, nee Saul was more Hellenized than any of the known Apostles, and that is exactly why he was able to make such a profound difference and impact in the first century AD! A citizen of Rome was a title and claim worthy of some respect and reverence back in those days.

It was a title and claim that was respected by Hellenized Jews but not Orthodox Jews.

It was Hellenized Jews, people not learned in Judaism who became Christians.

[Nachum]

The "Patriot" "Band of Brothers", meets the "Passion" prequal, episode III.

[lady lawyer]

When I read the part about the Hellenized Jews slaughtering a pig on the altar in the temple, I thought that the modern day equivalent was gay marriage.

[weenie]

Thx, I did not know that. So much to learn and so little time.

[ROTB]

>The problem with Gibson making a film about Chanukkah, in
>which the Orthodox Jews are the heroes and the Hellenized
>Jews are the villians, is that it was Hellenized Jews, such
>as Matthew, who became the first Christians.

If by "Hellenized" you mean "able to speak and write Greek, then yes, Matthew/Levi was Hellenized.

If by "Hellenized" you mean "not worshipping the God of Israel" then perhaps you are mistaken. When Jesus is majestically pulling miracles, calling himself the "Son of Man", calling God "Father", picking fights with the Rabbis and making them look stupid, it takes someone at least somewhat familiar with the Jewish scriptures to figure out that it is the real McCohen standing before you, and not some imposter.

Funny thing about the Gospel of Matthew, is that some of the early church mentioned it as the gospel written in the tongue of the Jews. Moreover, the Talmud seems to discuss the quandry that faced the Rabbis of the Apostles days, who wondered if scrolls that contained "the divine name" could be burned. (It was originally written in Aramaic, not Greek).

[Robert Drobot]

Do you happen to know when the film production begins?

[Inyokern]

If by "Hellenized" you mean "not worshipping the God of Israel" then perhaps you are mistaken.

As a publican (a tribute enforcer for the Romans), Matthew would have had to swear a pagan oath to Caesar and he would have been banned from the Temple and from synagogues.

it takes someone at least somewhat familiar with the Jewish scriptures to figure out that it is the real McCohen standing before you, and not some imposter.

Matthew may have been born and raised a Jew, so he knew something about Judaism, but he was an apostate.

Funny thing about the Gospel of Matthew, is that some of the early church mentioned it as the gospel written in the tongue of the Jews.

The Gospel of Matthew was largely copied from the Gospel of Mark and the Gospel of Mark was written by someone who knew very little about Judaism, possibly by a gentile. So, if Matthew was once written in Aramaic, it must have been a translation from Greek.

[Hermann the Cherusker]

Maccabees is in the Septuagint Greek version of the Tanakh. The Tanakh was not formalized in its Canon until the start of the Christian Era, because of course, prior to that, there was no need to formalize it. The decision to end things at the end of the exile in part would seem to stem from a desire by the Jews to show that prophecy had ended at that time for Israel, and therefore, Jesus was not and could not be a prophet. Certainly God doesn't say anywhere, at the exile that "this is the end of revelation to my people Israel."

[Zionist Conspirator]

What is Foxman thinking? Weinstein is a modern-day Hellenizer.

That's the point. Foxman doesn't want the Chanukkah story told honestly, and he trusts Weinstein to twist it into the "intolerance vs. religious freedom" theme we hear so much about today.

[Hermann the Cherusker]

The Gospel of Matthew was largely copied from the Gospel of Mark and the Gospel of Mark was written by someone who knew very little about Judaism, possibly by a gentile. So, if Matthew was once written in Aramaic, it must have been a translation from Greek.

And your reliable witness for this assertion is ...? To me, it appears that the Gospel of St. Mark is an abridgement of St. Matthew, with lots of stuff about St. Peter that might be taken as hubris were he preaching it himself taken out, a certain latinizing flavor added, and slight details only St. Peter or St. Mark would have known added in.

Certainly St. Matthew was a tax-collecting apostate, until he met Christ and decided to leave his sins behind. But the rest of the Apostles were more ordinary folks - fishermen mostly. One was St. Simon the Zealot, obviously an epithet concerning his religious beliefs and showing him to be of the Zealot party that would later fight Rome in AD 66-70.

[Alouette]

The decision to end things at the end of the exile in part would seem to stem from a desire by the Jews to show that prophecy had ended at that time for Israel, and therefore, Jesus was not and could not be a prophet.

You learned the Catholic version; I learned the Hebrew version.