How does the Bible present this typical ideology of dying for the state, where do we find that? I'm going to start with a non biblical text, but one that's related to the Bible, it's the first book of Maccabees. In the first book of Maccabees, as you know, was not embraced within the Rabbinic tradition of biblical literature. It is found in the Catholic canon. But it's not within the Rabbinic or Jewish tradition as well as not in the Prot, Protestant tradition that picked up where where the Rabbinic tradition left off. So in a passage from First Maccabees begins with the Commander of the Syrian Army, Saran is his name, and he decides to wage war on Judas Maccabees and his forces. And his real intention is, according to this First Maccabees, is to win honor in the kingdom. He says I will make a name for myself if I conquer these guys. However he achieves the opposite, as he approaches Bate Hormone, Judas Maccabees delivers a stirring pre-battle to his small band of troops that inspires them to fight valiantly and effectively route the Syrians. The Syrians being the enemies. The glory that had impelled Saran to go to war is in the end won by his enemies, by the name of Judas. Quote, the name of Judas became known to the king, and the nation spoke of his battles. This is from 3:25 to 26. Later the fame of Judas arouses jealousy among his compatriots. Two commanders, Joseph and Azariah, decide to go to battle against their neighbors so that they can make a name for themselves. But because they fight merely for renown and fail to heed the advice of Judas and his brothers, they suffer a great defeat, causing the loss of 2000 lives. In the next chapter, we hear of a certain Eleazar or Avaran, as he's also called, who in the midst of the battle at Bate Zaharia, notices an elephant, the Syrians have elephants that they fight with, and he's decked in royal armor and, and among and this elephant must have the king in it. Supposing the elephant bore the king he courageously fights his way to the animal and stabs it from the underside. And as the massive beast, the elephant, falls it crushes Eleazar underneath it and the fearless fighter undertakes this suicidal mission, the author of the First Maccabees declares, in order to save his people and win for himself, an everlasting name. First Maccabees thus presents men often being driven to war by aspiration of name and fame. While on, while not altogether disparaging, disparaging these ambitions, looking down upon them, it betrays true glory being awarded to those who are modified, motivated by higher, or at least, collective concerns. That is the survival of the people and their laws. Fame seeking, or name making is otherwise presented as vainglorious and reckless. Nevertheless, First Maccabees glorifies heroic death and presents mortal sacrifice as we just saw with Avaran in battle as a legitimate means of name making of making an eternal name. Thus when [UNKNOWN] and [UNKNOWN] march with 20,000 foot soldiers and 2,000 calvary against Jerusalem. The majority of Judas, Judas' Maccabees 3,000 men flee in fear. Judas, however commands his army of 800 soldiers to attack. In response, they attempt to dissuade Judas. We lack the strength, let's us run and save our lives. Judas, in turn, proclaims, far be it from us to do such a thing as to flee from them. If our time has come, let us die bravely for our kindred and leave no cause to question our honor. In the end, Judas falls in battle and his army is vanquished, later at his, at his funeral all Israel extolled this warriors name lamenting, how has the mighty fallen, fallen, the savior of Israel. It's a quote also from Second Samuel I, where David says how the mighty have fallen after the death of Saul and Jonathan. Now while similar in many ways to what we find in the material from Mesopotamia and Greece and Egypt, the portrayal of heroic death in First Maccabees lacks a parallel in transmitted biblical, in Rabbinic literature, the bib-, the normative biblical literature that we find. Not the related type of Biblical literature, First Maccabees, that was not transmitted. The Biblical authors leave out First Maccabees in their canon, and that really raises the question, why? What's in it that's problematic? And one of the problematic aspects is this glorification of heroic death. And this fact bears exceptional significance and offers us an insight into the ethos and concerns of the authors who shaped this literature. They do have great stories of name making. David making a name for himself in battle against Goliath, for example. But there's nothing about name making through death in battle. There's nothing of that sort. Now while the Biblical authors sanction name making through martial valor and after recontextualizing it, they leave no room, as I've just mentioned for name making through heroic death. This fact is remarkable given that commemoration of the war dead occupies such a central place, in public ritual and space, in cultures from antiquity to the present as I've pointed out several times. We'd also expect to find in the Bible, scenes of Israel coming together to commemorate the war dead. Those who fell on the behalf of the nation. Such as in the wars of conquest. Thinking of the book of Joshua, where is the time where after the wars of conquest had been completed that Joshua then holds a funeral service and creates monuments for those who died in battle. Nothing of the sort exists. Why? Because those who die in battles, in the Bible, die because of sin. And it's no, there's no heroic, glorified warred deaths. There's no martyrdom. There's no national kinds of commemoration of the war dead. And that really goes to the heart of what the Bible's about and we're going to pick up there.
