From The Maccabees to The Maccabi: Tracing the Hasmonean Story from I Maccabees to the Modern Day

This paper traces the story of the Hasmonean Revolt from the versions in the Books of Maccabees I and II to present day versions preserved by modern historians and the Zionist movement. Specifically, this paper examines the version of the Hasmonean story told in Maccabees I and II, the treatment of the Hasmoneans by the rabbinic authors of the Mishnah, Tosefta, and Talmud, the writings of sixteenth-century European Jews, and on the work of nineteenth-century and twentieth-century historians.