At A pivotal moment in Jewish history the little guy becomes the Big Man.
The point to remember is that the decision was made to EXPAND the Jewish religion into a STATE with political allies by forcing all Jews to worship one and only one way.
The Maccabee family Kings killed Freedom of Worship.
They made a SINGLE way mandatory. Mandatory means: you're not free.
Weren't they fighting for Freedom of Worship at that time?
Sure-for their OWN idea of worship. Not for anybody else's!
No freedom of choice was allowed to survive: My way or the highway.
Background: Alexander the Great had spread Greek culture. His generals ran everything!
The rest of the world became transformed by Greek culture.
Rome included . . .for a while, at least.
The Jewish world shrunk into a fist of persecution of its own people and a flimsy political alliance.
The right to choose what you believe, how you worship and to do so unmolested was DEAD. The spilled blood of fellow Jews attested. 103 years an Independent Kingdom of Jews survived surrounded by fading Greeks and ascending Romans.
Once ROME had reached full power it conquered those who were too independent to exact tribute.
in 63 BCE General Pompey deposed official Jewish worship and entered the Holy of Holies in Jerusalem.
Jews, Jerusalem, the religion and the state were now a ROMAN CLIENT STATE.
HEROD was installed by Mark Antony (of Cleopatra fame) after a brief attempt to join the Parthians against the Romans.
No more Hasmonean dynasty! No more Maccabees!
SOMETHING HAPPENED TO CHANGE THINGS. . .A myth or legend was spoken about, circulated and eventually believed.
What mythical legend could it be? It would haunt the Jewish religion all of its days?
Could it be the idea of MESSIAH?
Remember that Greek general of Alexander's, Ptolemy? He ruled over Judea for a while in competition with Seleucid.
Here is the legend about his part in producing an important document (SEPTUAGINT) that contained 39 instances of THE MESSIAH.
'King Ptolemy once gathered 72 Elders. He placed them in 72 chambers, each of them in a separate one, without revealing to them why they were summoned. He entered each one's room and said: "Write for me the Torah of Moshe, your teacher." God put it in the heart of each one to translate identically as all the others did.'
For the Jews and later Christians THIS WAS THE ONLY BIBLE they ever saw!!
Planted inside, those 39 MESSIAH references!
Combined with Torah and Talmud, the Septuagint ignited a burning desire for JEWISH DOMINATION of all the enemies surrounding them.
This taste of world empire had been ignited by the success of the Maccabees over Greeks and surrounding "enemies".
Belief in the eventual coming of the Messiah...is part of the minimum requirements of Jewish belief. In the Shemoneh Esrei prayer, recited three times daily, Jews pray for all of the elements of the coming of the Messiah: gathering of the exiles; restoration of the religious courts of justice; an end of wickedness, sin, and heresy; reward to the righteous; rebuilding of Jerusalem; restoration of the line of King David; and restoration of Temple service.
Jesus and hundreds of other candidates for Messiah came and went from the scene. The story of Jesus became viral. It survived the destruction of Jerusalem when zealots prodded Rome into retaliation. This legendary MESSIAH became inseparable from JESUS as far as the "CHRISTIANS" were concerned.
The Jesus who was destroyed by the Romans, RETURNED FROM THE DEAD, and sucked the life out of Judaism's claim to True Worship, using blood.
The blood of the Lamb, it was said, to transform the world according to Messianic legend!
Ironically, the same Roman Empire that destroyed Jewish Worship in 66 CE put the Power of Rome behind making Messiah Jesus the official religion!
True Followers walked in the footsteps of this Messiah by imitation. A monolithic institution (Catholic Church) with the power of Roman authority swept across the face of the earth sucking the tributes and allegiance out of all rulers and territories it could command.
The blood of the risen dead (Christ) was all the authority necessary to conquer the world!