Discourse of Resistance versus Dynastic Legitimizing in First Maccabees

1 Maccabees was written to justify the rise to power of a family of usurpers. The primary target of the work is the domestic rivals, who are portrayed as lawless men, while the Maccabean brothers are presented as leaders of the whole people. In contrast, 1 Maccabees is not hostile to the foreign imperial kings per se. On the contrary, the kings are a primary source of legitimacy alongside biblical models, and the ideology shaping the discourse of the work combines Hellenistic elements and adapted biblical narratives. Reading 1 Maccabees as a work of resistance literature is a modern projection of an ideology typical of the nation- state and the nationalism associated with it.