The main sources for reconstructing the course of the battles are I and II Maccabees. The complex questions connected with the identity of the authors, the language and date, the provenance, aims and characteristic features of these two books have often been discussed and reviewed in scholarly literature, so that there remains only to refer the reader to the numerous introductions to and studies of the Books of the Maccabees. In the present survey we shall deal only with those questions that are of decisive importance in reconstructing the course of the battles, or where an analysis of battle accounts contributes to a solution.

The First Book of the Maccabees

I Maccabees, originally written in Hebrew, reached us in Greek translation. It covers the period from the plunder of the Temple by Antiochus Epiphanes in 169 b.c. (1.16ff.) until the murder of Simeon the Hasmonaean by Ptolemy son of Abubus in 135 b.c. (16.11–22). After a short introduction reporting briefly the successes of Alexander the Great, the dissolution of his empire, the accession of Antiochus Epiphanes and the Hellenistic reform in Jerusalem (1.1–15), the book surveys at length the coercive edicts (1.16–64), the start of the Revolt under the leadership of Mattathias the Hasmonaean (2.1–69), the period of Judas Maccabaeus’ leadership until his death in the battle of Elasa (3.1–9.22), the leadership of Judas’ brother Jonathan and the political and military struggle in his time-160 to 143 b.c. (9.23–12.52). It ends with the period of Simeon after the achievement of independence and the start of the Hasmonaean state – 143 to 135 b.c. (13.1–16.16).