Hebrew: Modi'in ("Declarers")
Town in the northwestern lowlands
of Judea just north of the ancient road from Jerusalem
to Joppa,
made famous as the site of the beginning of the Maccabean revolt (165
BCE). Judah
Maccabee's father Mattathias
moved his family there during Antiochus
IV's Hellenization of
Jerusalem, & he and his sons were all buried there. Simon,
the last surviving brother of Judah Maccabee built an
impressive family monument on the summit of the hill consisting
of 7 pyramids linked by colonnades which became a site of Jewish
pilgrimage for more than 7 centuries. Modein was also the
hometown of the conservative tanna Eleazar ha
Modi'i
(2nd c.
CE), who was influential in defining
rabbinic Judaism.
References: Josephus,
Antiquities
12.265-268, 285, 432; 13.210.
_____, War
1.36.
1 Maccabees
2.1-27, 69.
Eusebius, Onimastikon 132:16-17
For further information about archaeological & historical evidence, see:
-
Buttrick, G. A., ed. Interpreter's
Dictionary of the Bible. vol. 3 (NY/Nashville: Abingdon Press,
1962) p. 421.
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