Talk:Antiochus IV Epiphanes

Old talk

Translation seems faulty; "Image of God"? In a polytheistic society?

It was very common to use "theos" as a generic form describing divine things as a whole; also see syncretism. Stan 20:11, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

Can the opinion of religion about this king not be included?

You'd have to give some source; that is, say which important churchman advanced this interpretation.--Aldux 22:38, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Right, I quite agree

In reference to the Jews calling Antiochus "the madman" (Epimanes, as a play on Epiphanes), I spent some time looking into the subject about 15 years ago or so and was not able to find any authority for it. Every student of the period "knows" it, but I was not able to find any direct evidence. On the other hand, a contemporary historian (Polybius of Megalopolis, I believe) indicates that Antiochus was called Epimanes by some of his friends because of his "wild and crazy" behavior. Another writer (Livy perhaps, but I am not at all certain) makes the epithet derogatory and puts it in the mouths of his (political) enemies, but not the Jews. It is my opinion that the story as regards the Jews was originated by some religious writer, probably of the 19th century. I'd be happy to see anyone's case on either side of this issue.Opaanderson 17:25, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

His attack upon the Hebrews occurred during the Macabeen revolt, documented in I Macabbees and clearly written before the 19th century. -- 14:51, 15 March 2010 162.115.108.104

Spirit of Revenge

Revenge for what? it is never made clear. It appears that he sacks jeruslame in revenge against rome, but thats just a guess. Larklight 22:03, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Yeah this statement is not helpful in the slightest, if anything the pillaging of the temple was done out of the need of money not "the spirit of revenge". El Chimpo 13:22, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

It was not actually because out of any need for money (although this was a result of sacking the temple). Since his intended attack upon Egypt was thwarted by Rome, he decided that the next best thing was to take his frustrations out on the Hebrews. -- 14:51, 15 March 2010 162.115.108.104

Book of Daniel

Can there be no mention of the belief that Epiphanes was predicted in the Book of Daniel?CharlesRobertCountofNesselrode 11:41, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm amazed by the Wikipedia editors offended by all things Religious being mentioned.

The Biblical Significance of Antiochus IV Epiphanies is the ONLY reason anyone really cares about him, by Secular standards he was a very unaccomplished pathetic ruler who clearly did nothing more then fail to live up to his Father's Reputation. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.131.23.208 (talk) 05:14, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

Absolutely correct, except contrary to the above opinion of Charles, Antiochus, as a ruthless leader, was correctly predicted Daniel....This cannot be denied even by those who are not believers.... -- 14:51, 15 March 2010 162.115.108.104

Daniel was written in the 1st Century BC, so it doesn't predict anything. It talks about things that happened in the past. This section should be deleted or at least rewritten to stress the real date of Daniel. —Preceding unsigned comment added by PublickStews (talk • contribs) 00:57, 23 October 2010 (UTC) Amazed to see the belief that Daniel was written in the 1st Century BC. Please read Josephus Antiquities of the Jews, book 11, chapter 8, where it is made obvious that the book of Daniel was shown to Alexander as he approached Jerusalem 332 B.C.PeriCH (talk) 15:24, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

2022

Why is the Book of Daniel not mentioned even a single time in the current version of this article, in light of the fact that the consensus of most modern scholars is that Daniel (from the Book of Daniel) is not a historical figure, and that the book is a cryptic allusion to the reign of the 2nd century BCE Hellenistic king Antiochus IV Epiphanes? That's not very encyclopedic. 173.88.246.138 (talk) 01:17, 18 June 2022 (UTC)

Historicist vs Preterist View

There is compelling evidence to suggest that Antiochus Epiphanes is NOT the little horn of Daniel 8. I am of the opinion that any discussion of him being the little horn should also present the evidence that he is not. It's only fair. The fact that anyone cares about him is most likely purely in view of his potential for fulfilling that part of the prophecy. If there is evidence to suggest that he doesn't fulfill the prophecy then it should, in all fairness, be presented. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.16.197.252 (talk) 12:26, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

People who view the Prophecy as being ultimately about the person we commonly call "The Antichrist" don't deny Antiochus as being relevant, we believe Antiochus was a precursor of the finale "Antichrist" as OT figures like David and Solomon where precursors of Christ. And the above commenter, the date of Daniel is not universally agreed on. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.144.34.210 (talk) 13:29, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

source for accents

ænˈtɑi̯əkəs.ɛˈpɪfəniːz I would like to know where the accents for this pronunciation come from. I would have accneted his name, in English, as either An ti' o chus E pi' pha nes or An ti o' chus E pi pha' nes —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.224.220.52 (talk) 14:05, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

• In Greek, the accent goes to "ti" of Antiochus, and in the final syllable of Epiphanes. Greeks actually use punctuation marks to show the correct accent and the name goes like this: "Αντίοχος Επιφανής".

• • Yup, but I think ή was pronounced ɛ not iː. tgeorgescu (talk) 23:51, 18 June 2022 (UTC)

Tone and style

Antiochus' humilation at Egypt was followed by the most well-remembered aspect of his policy, namely his confrontation with the Jews, which ignited their uprising under the Maccabean leaders. Aside from their interest for Jewish and Seleucid history, these events are of interest as among the first instances in world history of religious persecution, a hitherto nearly unknown phemomenon which would in coming centuries assume an important role in human affairs.

The tone and style is wrong. Facts first, then perhaps a comment on their significance. "Confrontantion" is too vague. The claim this is "among the first..." requires a citation. To whom does the "their" in "their interest for..." refer to? patsw 03:10, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

Their="Jews". For the specific historical events see the various Maccabees article. AnonMoos (talk) 11:12, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Name

Epiphanes does not really mean "Shining one" as a Greek word. AnonMoos (talk) 11:12, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

• Actually in Greek, it means "the one that can be seen easily", or "the glorious one" metaphorically speaking.

"ordering the worship of Zeus as the supreme god"

I commented out the reference here because it doesn't provide a source, only linking to an unrelated page. If anyone can provide a source, please add it in.--Reahad (talk) 06:47, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Category:Hanukkah

I've removed Category:Hanukkah per WP:CAT: Articles should be categorized by essential, "defining" features of article subjects, and it should be clear from verifiable information in the article why it was placed in each of its categories. This article doesn't even mention Hanukkah, and while Antiochus IV Epiphanes was important to the Maccabean Revolt, that revolt (and the subsequent celebrations in memory of the Temple re-dedication) are hardly defining features of Antiochus IV Epiphanes. Huon (talk) 11:59, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

Christian interpretations (Sub-)Section

This section is rather confusing. I wonder if this could be summarized somehow? I reverted an edit by IP 68.28.83.115, but I do in part agree with his edit summary comment that the statement there isn't any "evidence to the contrary" present. My impression is that this article would be much improved if this section would be much abbreviated by replacing it with a clean summary of the different interpretations without all the detail. The detailed discussion belongs on a page about the Book of Daniel, not here. --AnnekeBart (talk) 11:04, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

You're probably right -- and anyway, those are the interpretations of some particular individual Christians, not really any kind of established Christian doctrine... AnonMoos (talk) 23:19, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

Non-Jewish sources

Is there actually any non-Jewish evidence for the persecutions of Antiochus? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.43.227.18 (talk) 03:23, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

I'm no expert, but I would expect Seleucid and Greek sources to cover Antiochus' edicts, possibly Egyptian or even Roman ones. Have you had a look at Polybius? Huon (talk) 11:19, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

Era

On November 4 User:67.52.192.26 changed "BC" dates to "BCE" dates with edit summary = "wiki style; minor clarif; ref req". Later User:74.51.84.10 changed back to "BC" with edit summaries saying things like "... BCE is a new designation to take Jesus out of history and should never be used". On December 3 User:Doug Weller changed back to BCE with no reason given in the edit summary. I have now changed back to BC with edit summary = "WP:ERA. See Talk page = Era". Peter Gulutzan (talk) 15:17, 12 December 2015 (UTC)

• Sorry, careless of me. As I recall that was an IP hopper and I, quite unusually, didn't leave an edit summary (you can see some in my last 250 contributions) and assumed it was the same issue. This was someone editing both from an account[1] and logged out. I made an assumption that I normally don't make, as I usually check. Consider me trouted. Doug Weller (talk) 16:38, 12 December 2015 (UTC)

You can't be expected to examine every article's history before reverting dubious-looking edits, but thanks for that reply. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 23:19, 12 December 2015 (UTC)

POV and sourcing problem

The section "Sacking of Jerusalem and persecution of Jews" first hints at the existence of a Hellenized faction of Judaism, but then goes on to take the side of the authors of the Books of Maccabees, which present Antiochus as a persecutor of all Jews. Here (around 14:00) is a modern scholar who presents a much more nuanced view: he presents Hellenization as a dispute within Judaism, and Zeus worship as a syncretistic compromise where Yahweh was reinterpreted as Zeus to appease Greeks and Jews alike. QVVERTYVS (hm?) 16:57, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

One solution would be to preface the text with 'According to the authors of the Books of Maccabees', or 'According to Josephus' as appropriate. Other material can then be added and referenced to the author, unless it has an RS that states it as an accepted academic view. PS Many academics see Zeus as representing Baal, which is why it would be anathema to Yahwists.Johnmcintyre1959 (talk) 17:05, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

Thanks. I think we should merge the section with the one after it; that presents a modern view. An introduction discussing the situation would be nice, but I know too little of this history to write one... QVVERTYVS (hm?) 21:51, 17 December 2015 (UTC)

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Chronology

The chronology of Antiochus's attack on Jerusalem is confused. In one paragraph it says he took Jerusalem by storm in 167 BC, with the loss of 40,000 lives, and in the next it says he destroyed the city with the loss of many lives in 168 BC. Presumably these two refer to the same event. Could an expert please correct this. Kanjuzi (talk) 19:19, 4 November 2017 (UTC)

It seems there's not universal agreement - it might better to say that it happened in 168/67.PiCo (talk) 22:51, 6 November 2017 (UTC)

Thanks. I will change it. Kanjuzi (talk) 04:14, 7 November 2017 (UTC)

Death

@Kansas Bear: Great that you're looking at this article. Do you have a source more recent than 1938 on the location of Antiochus IV's death, though? The sources I've read are very skeptical he want to Persepolis at all - it's only mentioned in 2 Maccabees, it's far from the other places he was said to visit, it was a smoking ruin in the period - and the weight of the sources generally say he died somewhere in Elymais to my knowledge. Also, I have Land of the Elephant Kings as an e-book, and the page numbering there says it's page 37 that the line about Antiochus IV's eastern journey and Armenia, not page 22. What edition are you using? Just checking in case it was a typo or something. (Kosmin also leaves it as "Iran" where he died, no more specific than that.) SnowFire (talk) 23:57, 2 February 2023 (UTC)

For the location of his death, I would have to do some digging.

Did some digging:

The Cambridge History of Iran, Volume 3, Issue 1, appendix I, states Antiochus IV died at Isfahan.

The Persian Empire: A Historical Encyclopedia, page 298, states Antiochus IV died at Isfahan.

Reign of Arrows: The Rise of the Parthian Empire in the Hellenistic Middle East, page 161, Antiochus suddenly died, likely from disease, near Gabae(modern Isfahan, Iran).

The Kosmin source is partially viewable via Amazon and page 21 mentions "reconquering Armenia" and google books mentions "reconquering Armenia" on page 21. Do e-books have a different numbering? --Kansas Bear (talk) 00:18, 3 February 2023 (UTC)

Sorry for the slow response, wanted to look around some myself. The context was that I was recently reading a source that was talking about how most sources have Antiochus IV dying in Elymais, which is about to the south & west of Isfahan. I'll keep looking, but it may make sense to potentially add a footnote here on where historians are getting this from.

The bit about page numbering is concerning - I'm now worried I've introduced some "garbage" page number cites to Wikipedia when using the Google Play e-book editions if the page numbers there don't line up with the page numbers in the physical books. I had thought that they did line up - or at least I seem to recall them lining up in a different e-book. Additionally, Google Play says 440 pages, and other sources also say 448 pages total - which sounds right if some front material is removed. Concerning, maybe there needs to be a per-book check to see how page numbers line up. SnowFire (talk) 19:14, 10 February 2023 (UTC)

I have no problem with adding a note detailing a different place of death(with a reference).

I am not sure you should think you "introduced" garbage page number(s). We are all volunteers and if you are trying to cite something especially with a page number, we should assume good faith. Is there a way to check pagination on Amazon of the sources you have used? --Kansas Bear (talk) 21:50, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

No proof

There is no proof that the book of Daniel was re-written to align with times of the Maccabees—quite correct: in ancient history and archaeology there are no proofs like in mathematics and physics. But the unanimous verdict of historians and Bible scholars from the Ivy League is that the Book of Daniel was written in the 160s BCE.

Stated otherwise: proof is for math and whisky. tgeorgescu (talk) 21:28, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

Attribution & "some scholars"

@Wikishovel: I get that in certain contentious topics, there is a need to super-precisely document who said what. But there's a reverse threat; it's not good to set an implication that a particular belief is only made by one person by writing "John Doe claims the capital of France is Paris" when in fact lots of people believe that, and it's not in any way unique to Doe. Anyway, for less contentious issues, it's understood that the reference is where a reader can find out who precisely is saying it, and writing "Some scholars" or "Most scholars" is both accurate, and about as much information as 99% of readers will be willing to digest.

Unfortunately, I don't have access to Grabbe 2008 at the moment. But he's providing a historiographical overview with lots of references to sources, bibliographies, "see this for more" even to the scholars he disagrees with. I think that going into that level of detail in a Wikipedia article might be undue, though, and it's fine to expect the reader to consult the source for more. I've usually hidden historiographical discussions in footnotes before (See 2 Maccabees#Authorship and composition date, footnote 3 after "Scholars suggest 2 Maccabees was composed at some point from 150–100 BC", for example) and if we had to expand with an exhaustive list of which scholars think what, I'd probably recommend a style like that of a footnote listing things. That is a valid way to improve the article, but the existing state is not so bad as to require a cleanup tag.

That said, I don't recall Grabbe going into that much detail on traditionalist scholars. That bit is mostly a sop to very old literature and modern fundamentalist type stuff. These writers certainly exist but I don't think there's some "leader" to pick from them. If you want to go research some examples, though, and cite them, that would be a fair way to improve the article. Just... you're part of this too, adding the information directly is probably more helpful than tagging it. SnowFire (talk) 19:05, 25 February 2024 (UTC)

Understood, but perhaps the solution for now is to trim the vaguely worded footnote. Wikishovel (talk) 19:21, 25 February 2024 (UTC)

The extended footnote was added because people kept constantly editing the main text to say that Daniel wasn't written / compiled in the Maccabean era. So the footnote is mostly there to acknowledge that yes, there exist some people who say other things, but the consensus is that modern-Daniel was compiled in the Maccabean era, possibly rearranging pre-existing stories (especially for the first six chapters). SnowFire (talk) 05:51, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

How about naming some of the notable scholars in those consensuses? Wikishovel (talk) 05:55, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

Basically anyone who is a mainstream Bible scholar agrees that the Book of Daniel was written c. 165 BCE. tgeorgescu (talk) 07:34, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

Agreed, and the footnote should concisely reflect that scholarly consensus. My sole concern here is MOS:WEASEL. Wikishovel (talk) 09:17, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

I will expand the footnote when I get a chance, but I disagree that the existing wording is WEASAL. It's not always a problem to write "Some scholars", "most scholars", etc., especially when referencing what's explicitly a historiographical overview - Grabbe's book is organized by him, but it's really also a bibliography discussing which scholars say what in which papers. In other words, it's talking about the state of the field, and is thus the perfect source to reference when saying what the scholarly consensus is or isn't. You're welcome to go look up Grabbe's book yourself if you'd like (Grabbe himself thinks the first six chapters predate the Maccabean era, as already noted in the article). SnowFire (talk) 15:36, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

I'd be delighted to help but, alas, I have no access to a decent library at present, nor can I afford £20 - £25 of food/heating money for an ebook. But I'd be grateful for any expansion of that footnote that you and User:tgeorgescu can manage. Wikishovel (talk) 16:01, 28 February 2024 (UTC)