The Ultimate Battle for Religious Freedom

In the second century BCE, a remnant of the army of Alexander the Great had come to dominate the Jews then living in their own land. In an effort to consolidate his power and to impose a cultural uniformity on his subjects, the Syrian-Greek ruler Antiochus Epiphanes insisted that the Jews worship him as the rest of his subjects did and demanded that a statue of himself be erected in the Jews’ Temple in Jerusalem. A family of priests known as the Hasmoneans (who came to call themselves the Maccabees) rebelled against Antiochus. Though they were far outnumbered, this guerilla band fought valiantly and defeated the oppressor’s army…