The Scroll of Antiochus

The Scroll of Antiochus (Megilat Antiochus) was originally written in Aramaic, but it also survived in Hebrew and Judeo-Arabic translations. It recounts the events commemorated by the festival of Hanukkah and was perhaps the primary source of knowledge about the Hasmonean rebellion against the Greeks for medieval Jews. This text is first quoted in ninth- or tenth-century geonic works and merited a Judeo-Arabic introduction from Se‘adya Ga’on, who considered it authoritative. Isaiah of Trani (1200–1260) reported that some Italian communities would formally recite this text in the synagogue on a Sabbath that falls during Hanukkah, although he noted that there was to be no blessing before it. Many modern scholars consider this work to have been composed specifically to justify the observance of Hanukkah (a postbiblical festival) in the face of Karaite criticism. The excerpt here is from the first part of this work, which narrates the events leading up to the Jewish revolt.