For one of our recent publications, The Hasmoneans and Their Neighbors: New Historical Reconstructions from the Dead Sea Scrolls and Classical Sources, Dr. Kenneth Atkinson reveals the inspiration and research behind his latest book.
1. How would you describe your book in one sentence?
My book offers a bold new reconstruction of the vital historical period in Palestine from 152 to 63 B.C.E., when the Hasmonean family of Jewish rulers changed the fates of their neighbors, the Roman Republic, the religion of Judaism, and created the foundation for the development of the nascent Christian faith.
2.What drew to you writing about this subject?
I discovered the remarkable story of the family of Jewish rulers known as the Hasmoneans (a.k.a. Maccabees) when I first read the writings of the Jewish-Roman historian Josephus (37 B.C.E.-ca. 98 C.E.). His accounts of how the Hasmoneans forged an independent state, maintained power, fought numerous enemies, and lost their independence to the Romans, is a gripping narrative with many Shakespearian qualities. Josephus’s chronicle of King Judah Aristobulus is perhaps the best example. It is reminiscent of Macbeth with its tales of matricide, sibling strife, and madness. Although Josephus’s descriptions of him and his ruthless brother, Alexander Jannaeus, make compelling reading, I was astonished at his sections about Queen Shelamzion Alexandra. The only legitimate female ruler in Jewish history and the sole woman named in the Dead Sea Scrolls, she emerged during a time of chaos to preserve her family’s kingdom and change her religion. Her reign is one of history’s most fascinating and least known stories. After reading Josephus’s books, I became so interested in the Hasmonean family that I decided someday to document their history in an academic publication accessible to scholars in a variety of disciplines, students, and interested laypersons. It ended up being a much greater project than I had anticipated.
My previous book, The History of the Hasmonean State: Josephus and Beyond (T and T Clark Jewish and Christian Texts in Contexts and Related Studies, 23 [London: Bloomsbury T and T Clark, 2016]), used all extant data to reconstruct the history of the Hasmonean State as documented in Josephus’s works. This was the only book I had planned to publish about the Hasmoneans. However, while writing it, I discovered a vast quantity of unused literary, archaeological, and numismatic sources that document relations between the Hasmoneans and their neighbors, as well as how the family affected the Dead Sea Scrolls community. I also found that these ancient manuscripts discovered along the Dead Sea help us to understand Greek and Latin classical writings about this period. These works, moreover, contain a wealth of untapped resources for reconstructing previously unknown events in Hasmonean history. The Hasmoneans and their Neighbors uses this evidence to reveal how the Hasmonean family changed the fates of their neighbors, the Roman Republic, the religion of Judaism, and created the foundation for the development of the nascent Christian faith. I am confident readers will find it a fascinating book.
3. How long have you been researching it? How did you come to study it?
This book has a rather long history that precedes my academic career. I first encountered the Hasmoneans during the Cold War when I spent four years as a soldier in the U.S. Army (1983-1987). Assigned to the former West Berlin, I transported classified documents through the Berlin Wall across the former East Germany and the Iron Curtain. Because of my military status, I was able to cross through Check Point Charlie—the border between East and West Berlin and the infamous “Berlin Wall”—to see the great historical and archaeological museums in the former Communist sector. I was particularly fascinated with the biblical artifacts there, which led me to visit many of the countries where archaeologists found them. My experiences in the army, coupled with my independent study and travels, stimulated my desire to pursue a career in academia specializing in the period of the Hasmonean state. Before I began my academic training, I wanted to see more in my quest to learn about the Hasmoneans and the ancient world first-hand.
After my military discharge (honorable I am happy to say!), I spent nearly three years traveling full-time to historical and archaeological sites in several Middle Eastern and European countries. Equipped only with a backpack, I retraced portions of Jesus’ travels, Paul’s journeys, Xenophon’s march of the ten thousand, Lucullus’ Armenian campaign, and Crusader routes—a good portion of them by foot! My journeys shaped nearly every chapter of The Hasmoneans and Their Neighbors, especially my reconstructions of historical events based on my visits to numerous archaeological sites. This is perhaps most evident in chapter three, where I use my trip to the ancient kingdom of Commagene and neighboring regions to uncover new information about a possible Hasmonean campaign there. Upon my return home and throughout my graduate school education, I continued my studies of the Hasmoneans. Readers will find much new information throughout The Hasmoneans and Their Neighbors that my varied life experiences allowed me to uncover. Like my previous book, it contains many original historical reconstructions not available anywhere else.
4. What does your book focus on that hasn’t been explored elsewhere?
The Hasmoneans and Their Neighbors shows that Jewish sectarianism and messianism played greater roles in the Hasmonean state than indicated in the writings of Josephus. It also proposes that we cannot understand the history and theological beliefs of Jews during the period of the Hasmonean state without a close investigation of the histories of the Egyptian Ptolemaic and the Syrian Seleucid Empires, as well as the Roman Republic. By bringing together evidence from the Dead Sea Scrolls and classical sources, I offer a new reconstruction of this vital historical period when the Hasmoneans not only shaped Middle Eastern history, but transformed the classical world as well. The Hasmoneans and Their Neighbors also contains many new reconstructions of classical history, including the most detailed examination of Pompey the Great’s assassination in light of Jewish sources. This section on his death reveals new information that explains the discrepancies in the classical accounts of this pivotal event that shaped Middle Eastern and Roman history, and which ended the Roman Republic. The Hasmoneans and Their Neighbors is a truly exciting story that will interest scholars from many fields, as well as anyone interested in learning about one of history’s most amazing, influential, and dysfunctional families.
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