Christians of Iraq
Contact Comments & Feedback Historical articles Historical pictures Photos of Bombed Churches Home Only this link has access to all News articles
|
|
|
Christians of Iraq
Contact Comments & Feedback Historical articles Historical pictures Photos of Bombed Churches Home Only this link has access to all News articles
Don't Blame the Hanukkah on the Assyrians
Dec. 30, 05
William Warda
A search for 'Hanukka Assyrians' on the Yahoo Search Engine provides hundreds of websites that blame the Assyrians for having desecrated the Jewish temple in Jerusalem which led to the celebration of the Jewish holiday.
following is one example
"Also known as the Festival of Lights, Hanukkah celebrates the Jews' victory over the Assyrians in the second century B.C. According to the Book of Maccabee, one of the books in the Jewish canon, the Assyrians tried to force Jews living in modern-day Israel to assimilate into the Assyrians' Hellenistic culture by prohibiting them from observing Jewish religious practices and defiling the holy Jewish temple in Jerusalem."
The fact is Assyrians had nothing to do with Hanukah and the Maccabees did not vanquish the Assyrians because Assyrians were not in Israel and did not have a conquering army in 164 B.C..
It was the Greeks who ruled, Mesopotamia, Syria and Israel after Alexander the Great's defeat of the Persians in 334 B.C. His general Seleucus and his Seleucid dynasty inherited Alexander's empire after his death. They ruled Mesopotamia, Syria and Israel. Assyrians like the Jews were the conquered subjects of the Seleucid and were not involved in the Macedonian's wars of conquest or their Hellenization policies.
When Antiochus Epiphanes* became king the Hellenization of Jerusalem accelerated.. In 168-167 B.C., he forbade Jewish rituals in the Temple and an altar to Zeus was placed on top of where Jews offered sacrifice. A rebellion against the Greeks was organized by the Maccabeans. Jerusalem was finally freed from the Greek rule. "Jews celebrate the rededication of the temple (known as the Feast of Dedication in the New Testament)." This celebration is known as Hanukkah."See: http://emp.byui.edu/SATTERFIELDB/Papers/IntertestamentalPeriod.htm
For more credible information about Hanukka see: http://www.mystae.com/restricted/reflections/messiah/maccabees.html
The readers of the Old Testament have wrongly come to believe that Assyrians were the most cruel persecutors of the Jews and automatically blame them for every calamity real or imagined that may have happened to them and writers keep repeating such claims even if not true.
Unlike the Assyrians who merely transported the 10 tribes of Israel and provided them with land and living accommodations in another region, the Romans responded to a Jewish revolt by destroying the Second Temple of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. , killing the defenders of the city selling its inhabitants into slavery scattering them in all directions. Some claim as much as one million Jews were killed which may be an exaggeration.
The ancient Jews according to the Old Testament like other nations went to war with their neighbors and were just as brutal. Jews have in fact suffered far more persecutions by nations other than the Assyrians. The Roman war resulted in their scattering and the end of their sovereignty.
There were no concentration camps for the Jews in Assyria. By all evidences Jews continued to practice their religion in their new land. When the none Jews Samaritans requested a Jewish priest to teach them how to practice the religion of the land one was sent to them by the Assyrian King. tSeveral communities around the world have been recognized as the descendance of the tribes taken to Assyria. As recently as few months ago A community in India was said to be descended from the Bnei Menashe tribe.
According to Max I. Dimont in "Jews, God and History", Jews in Babylon had prospered and become more educated than those who were in Israel. Most were not willing to return to the mother-land when they were allowed to . In Babylon they had access to the scientific and spiritual knowledge which they previously had not. Those who stood on the shore of the Tigris and damned Babylon by calling it the harlot of the cities were a zealot minority.
At times of wars, during the Christian era, Jews migrated to Mesopotamia in large numbers and lived in harmony with the Assyrians. A common family name among the Jews who migrated to Israel from India during the last few decades is "Ashurai" i.e. from Assyria. Some time in the 16th century their forefathers migrated to Chochin India . Similarly those who had lived in the Assyrian region of Zakho are known as Zakhai. Interestingly the names 'Ashurai' and 'Zakhai' are in Syriac form and not Hebrew.*For more information about Antiochus Epiphanes (ca. 215-164 BCE) visit the following links.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antiochus_IV_Epiphanes
http://www.bibarch.com/Biographs/Ancient/Antiochus%20IV.htm
----