63 myths · Page 2 of 3
They went to the king for a license to live like the nations. In Jerusalem they cut away the covenant mark and called the gymnasium ease.
The chests in Antioch were empty. Judas climbed to Zion with the living. In a sabbatical year the barns of Judea held nothing against siege.
Rumor said the Temple held Alexander's gold shields. Antiochus came to strip it, met battle, and left for Babylon with heaviness in his gut.
Judas was still fighting in Gilead. Back home, Joseph and Azarias looked at the road to Jamnia and decided a name was sitting unused.
The Jordan held one flank. Marsh and wood closed the rest. Jonathan's blow missed Bacchides. The river was the only door left.
The Assideans saw a priest of Aaron's house and relaxed. He swore they would not be harmed. The army behind him kept its spears.
Alcimus locked the chiefs' sons in the tower at Jerusalem. He set tools on the inner wall. His mouth stopped while the stone still stood.
War elephants took Antioch for a boy-king. The letter that followed offered Jonathan purple, and he put it on without trusting the seal.
Judas was in the ground. His friends put Jonathan in the war. Then Bacchides locked the sons of leading houses behind the citadel bars.
Athenobius came ready to scold a bandit. He found a cupboard of gold plate and a high priest who did not look like a man about to pay.
Enemy camps lit fires and fled before dawn. Jonathan struck the Zabadeans instead, and elsewhere his men stormed a city with massive slaughter.
Israel put gold on one man and forbade anyone else to wear it. Two thousand chosen soldiers later stood unused at a partner's closed gate.
He told Yonathan he was Saul's son at the Philistine line. He told El'azar he was Pinhas. Four came back through the doorway without Judah.
Apollonius hid a thousand horsemen behind the Judean line at Azotus. Darts fell from morning until evening, and the circle did not break.
While some Jews volunteered for Greek laws and a gymnasium, Simon strengthened the Temple hill, lived there with his men, and made the day a memorial.
Seleucid officers dared Judas to leave the hills for their plain. In Jerusalem the Akra held traitors while Rome wrote Demetrius a threat by sea and land.
The bride came from Nadabatha with drums and gifts. Jonathan and Simon waited under the mountain for John's killers, not for the song.
After idols leave the squares, a new altar rises from gathered stones. Priests fall on their faces until the sacrifice is consumed in smoke.
After the locusts he still wanted the herds left as chains. By midnight every firstborn was dead, and he sent for Moses in the dark.
Judas was dead. His friends put the war on Jonathan. Mud from the Jordan still clung when a foreign king reached for cloth instead of steel.
The siege starved the camp. The stronghold would not fall. An officer chose peace: let them live after their own laws.
The boy slept in an Arab tent and did not know his name was already a crown. Tryphon stayed a long season until the guardian's patience broke.
Officers arrived in Modin with an order to sacrifice. One Jew stepped to the altar. The priest's knife did not wait for a speech.
Judah's men cut off Nicanor's arm and hung it at the Temple gate. Antiochus answered by sending Bagris to outlaw the Sabbath and circumcision.
Judas's friends stood in a circle and named the gap. We have no man like him, they said. Bacchides was already hunting the next name.
He was the first Greek king to offer Judea true peace, and they took it. Within a season his own father-in-law walked into his capital wearing two crowns.
He sent most of his army home for a promised gift of strongholds, then walked a thousand men into a city that slammed its gates.
Simon the Maccabee sent Numenius to Rome with a gold shield of a thousand pounds while Judea asked how to thank its saviors.
Wine ran down the elephants' trunks. Jewish families stood naked in the yard at Alexandria. A concubine had to beg the king to stop.
King Areus of Sparta sent High Priest Onias a letter claiming the Lacedemonians and Jews were brethren from the stock of Abraham.
