Hellenistic Judea · 167-140 BC

The Maccabees: a small people against a Greek king

When the Seleucid king Antiochus IV banned Jewish worship and put a pagan altar in the Temple, a priest's family in a village started a revolt. Students follow Judah Maccabee from the hills to the rededication of the Temple, remembered every year at Hanukkah.

Teach it live New Open on the map
Length
50 minutes
Ages
12–15
On the map
3 steps, 167 BC to 164 BC
Live lesson
7 rounds, 3 on the map
Worksheet
Two A4 pages, with Classroom
You need
A projector; phones for live

Live lesson · new in Classroom

Teach it live. The class answers on their phones.

Put the board on the projector. Students join with a six-digit code, no account needed, and tap the map: where was the frontier, where did the grain come from. Their pins drop in together when you reveal, and the closest student takes the round.

€19 per month: every lesson live, every worksheet, cancel anytime. Rome at its height runs live for free.

A live lesson on the projector: the class's pins on the map around Alexandria, the closest students listed beside it A student's phone: the question and a map to tap
7 rounds
3 places to find on the map, quiz questions, a class vote and a one-line answer.
About 15 minutes
Run it as the map step, or to open the discussion. You move on with the space bar.
A report
Every answer, per student and per round, to read back or print after the lesson.
1

Introduction

5 min

Read aloud

When the Seleucid king Antiochus IV banned Jewish worship and put a pagan altar in the Temple, a priest's family in a village started a revolt. Students follow Judah Maccabee from the hills to the rededication of the Temple, remembered every year at Hanukkah.

By the end of the lesson, students can

  • Explain what Antiochus IV did in Jerusalem in 167 BC and why Jews revolted.
  • Locate Modiin, Jerusalem and Antioch and describe how a small force fought a large kingdom.
  • Explain how the revolt led to an independent Jewish state under the Hasmoneans.
2

Explore the map

15 min

Project the map, or let students follow on their own devices. Each step opens the map at the right year and place.

a

167 BC

A province between kingdoms

Open the map in 167 BC. Judea, around Jerusalem, had passed from the Ptolemies to the Seleucids in 200 BC; the map's borders here are rough. Turn on the Cities layer, find Jerusalem, then zoom out to Antioch, the Seleucid capital 500 km north. How far was the king from the people he gave orders to?

Open this view on the map
b

167 BC

The revolt begins

Zoom in on the hills west of Jerusalem in 167 BC. At Modiin a priest named Mattathias refused to sacrifice to the Greek gods and fled to the hills with his five sons. His son Judah, called Maccabee ("the hammer"), led the fighters. Why are hills the right place for a small army?

Open this view on the map
c

164 BC

The Temple rededicated

Jump to 164 BC and look at Jerusalem. In December that year Judah's forces retook the Temple, cleansed it and lit its lamps again: the origin of Hanukkah. The fighting went on for twenty more years before Judea was independent. Find Jerusalem and the road to the coast that the Seleucid armies used.

Open this view on the map
3

Class discussion

15 min

Pick two or three. They run from what happened to why it mattered.

  1. Some Jews in Jerusalem had welcomed Greek customs, built a gymnasium and taken Greek names. Others saw this as betrayal. Why did the arrival of a new culture split the people before the king ever acted?
  2. Antiochus IV banned the Sabbath, circumcision and the Torah, something no earlier Greek or Persian ruler had done. Why would a king attack a people's religion when his predecessors had left it alone?
  3. The Maccabees fought in hills they knew, attacked at night and avoided open battle at first. What advantages does a small force have against a big army?
  4. The books of Maccabees say the victory was God's; a historian sees the Seleucids distracted by Parthia and civil war. Can both be true for the people who lived it?
  5. Hanukkah is still celebrated 2,200 years later. Why do some events become festivals while most are forgotten?
4

Game round

10 min

Rule History has no Seleucid king. Play one round as Saladin, who ruled Jerusalem a thousand years later and allowed Jews and Christians to keep their worship, then ask: Antiochus IV did the opposite and lost Judea. Is tolerance a kindness or the smartest policy?

Open Rule History
5

Worksheet

5 min

This worksheet comes with Classroom

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