by
Damien F. Mackey
“Simon built a monument over the tomb of his father and his brothers.
He made it high so that all might see it. It had polished stone at the front
and back. He also set up seven pyramids, opposite each other, for his father
and mother and four brothers. He devised an elaborate site for the pyramids, setting up great columns around them. On the columns, he put suits of armor
for a permanent memorial. Beside the suits of armor, he carved ships
so that all who sail the sea might see them”.
I Maccabees 13:27-29
Modein, the ancestral home of the Maccabees,
could not have been situated in central Israel
The quote above from I Maccabees 13 tells me immediately that the presently favoured site location of the Maccabean ancestral home of Modein, at Modi'in-Maccabim-Re'ut in central Israel, could by no means be the Modein of the Maccabees.
Why?
Because, as we shall read below, “all who sail the sea” would not possibly have been able to have viewed the elaborate designs carved on a tomb which would have been some 27 km distant from the Mediterranean Sea - and much further away from the Sea of Galilee.
Steve Fine has noted this fact when he wrote in (pp. 6-7 of):
The Hasmonean Royal Tombs at Modi‘in Art and Identity In Latter Second Temple Period Judaea:
(6) The Hasmonean Royal Tombs at Modi‘in Art and Identity In Latter Second Temple Period Judaea: | Steven Fine - Academia.edu
It seems that the armor and ships at the Hasmonean tombs were meant to project Hasmonean power by sea and land. Located in the home territory of the Hasmoneans at Modi‘in, on this boundary between the Judaean heartland and the conquered (or soon to be conquered) coastal plain and the somewhat distant Mediterranean Sea (approximately twenty-seven kilometers to the west as the crow flies) … this typically Hellenistic monument presents Hasmonean military accomplishments and objectives in a concrete form that was easily understood by Jew and Greek alike. From such a distance, it is most likely that the monument could not be seen at sea. ….
[End of quote. My emphasis]
The archaeologists who have been getting excited in relatively recent times about a potential discovery of the Maccabean tomb in that central region, at Horbat Ha-Gardi, will seriously need to re-consider (my opinion) just what they are uncovering there:
https://news.artnet.com/art-world/archaeologists-may-found-lost-tomb-maccabees-334463
Archaeologists May Have Found the
Lost Tomb of the Maccabees
Experts are taking a closer look at the site.
Sarah Cascone, September 23, 2015
Archaeologists may have finally uncovered the lost tomb of the Maccabees, Jewish warriors who led a successful rebellion against Greek rule in the second century BC.
Experts are taking a second look at a tomb at Horbat Ha-Gardi, near the ancient city of Madi’in. Over a hundred years after it was first discovered, the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) has resumed long-abandoned excavations at the site.
First discovered in the late 1800s, the site’s similarities to historical descriptions of the Maccabees’ final resting place were immediately recognized. Researchers at the time even went so far as to claim “there is no room for doubt. I found the Tomb of the Maccabees.”
In Antiquities of the Jews, a 2,000-year-old manuscript by Josephus Flavius, “the tomb was described as a tall, impressive structure surrounded by columns; it was said to overlook the sea and was built of fine stones and was covered with pyramid-like roofs,” according to a statement by the IAA.
Early assumptions about the tomb were quickly challenged when Charles Clermont-Ganneau, a French scholar of the time, found a mosaic floor decorated with a Byzantine cross, indicating that the site had been built by Christians.
However, Clermont-Ganneau maintained that the site could still hold the fabled Tomb of the Maccabees, writing that “it is possible that this structure was built by the Christians, so as to commemorate the burial place of the Holy Maccabees, since they were exalted saints in the eyes of Christianity.” Nevertheless, excavations were soon abandoned.
Amit Re’em, an excavation director on the Authority’s new project, suspects the tomb was discovered by ancient Christians, who added the cross to identify the site as the burial place of important figures—namely the Maccabees. “What other important figures would be here?” he asked the AP.
Re’em and excavation director Dan Shahar admitted in a statement that their efforts had yet to yield conclusive evidence: “An excavation and a lot of hard work are still required in order to confirm that assumption unequivocally, and the riddle remains unsolved—the search for the elusive Tomb of the Maccabees continues.”
[End of article]
If the Maccabean town of Modein was not situated in central Israel, then where should we look for it?
Searching for the town of Modein in Galilee
Why, Galilee?
Because of my having re-dated the Maccabean revolt against the Seleucids to the era of the Infancy of Jesus Christ, with Judas Maccabeus being identified as Gamaliel’s rebel, “Judas the Galilean”:
Judas the Galilean vitally links Maccabean era to Daniel 2’s “rock cut out of a mountain”
(2) Judas the Galilean vitally links Maccabean era to Daniel 2’s “rock cut out of a mountain”
This historical revision now enables for a serendipitous meeting of Rabbi Gamaliel’s “in the days of the census” (Acts 5:37) with Luke 2:1’s “decree that a census should be taken”.
Same census, same emperor, same era, same revolt.
We can now take all this a geographical step further.
If the Maccabean ancestral home of Modein was in, not central Israel, but Galilee - as I believe it to have been - then it must have been very close to the only Sea in that region, the Sea of Galilee, in order that, regarding those splendid carvings of the tomb, “all who sail the sea might see them”.
Tiberias has a famous cemetery facing the Sea of Galilee.
There, for instance, we find a tomb dedicated to Moses Maimonides (Rambam).
