Lego History of Hanukkah

So, I’ve had these pictures sitting in my homeschool history folder for two years. TWO YEARS, but thankfully this year I was organized enough to write all about the history of Hanukkah in LEGOs. Because Lego history is always better than normal history.

ALWAYS better, that’s what my kids keep telling me.

 

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Supplies for our rendition of the History of Hanukkah

LEGOs (I suggest picking up this set, Fairytale and Historic Minifigures Set, for your history needs), LEGO base plates and miscellaneous LEGOs for building the temple, birthday candles, and play dough, Mystery of History 1*

 

Lego History of Hanukkah

So long about  2200 years ago there was this small kingdom called Israel, they were down on their luck because of several things (for more information see Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and minor prophets), but suffice to say, things weren’t going well.

Then this cool guy called Alexander the Great came along and he conquered their entire country, no this turned out well for them, one of their leaders came out and greeted Alexander and said, “We knew you were coming, see you’re right here in our Holy Scriptures.”  Alexander read it, and said, “Okay, I guess I won’t destroy your city and your way of life.  But, you’re Greek now, just don’t do anything too crazy.”

 

And the Jews being the Jews, mostly listened to him, but the Jews (who are so called after the kingdom of Judah, and became known as Jews around this time) don’t do so well under the rule of others.  A few years later Alexander got sick while out fighting and died.  It was very sad, and his generals got together (because who expects a 33 year old man to just fall over and die?) and split his kingdom into 4 parts.  Problem solved.

Only not so much, see a few years or so into this new Seleucid empire a new leader arose, Antiochus Epiphanies, and he says “No more religious freedom, go sacrifice to Zeus on the temple altar.”  The Jews were of course horrified, that would desecrate their temple.  To make it even worse (according to some sources) they were going to sacrifice a PIG (pretend that’s a pig and not a Skylanders Lego piece) on the altar, and that animal was unclean.  Not cool.

So Judas Maccabean stepped forward and said, “No that’s not going to happen,” and led a series of guerilla warfare battles against the Seleucid armies, eventually retaking the temple.

They got into the temple and cleanse and rededicated the temple back to God, and they got to the menorah and found only one small bottle of oil.  Enough to light the temple menorah for ONE night.  They knew it would take seven days to get more oil, but they felt God had called them to light the menorah.

 

And that small bottle of oil stayed lit for EIGHT crazy nights!  At the end of which they had more oil and were able to finish the temple rededication.

This is a story of God working through history and politics.

 

Why did the Jews win the Maccabean Revolt?

 

In reality the Jews never should have won any sort of treaty or war.  They were the underdogs, they were David facing Goliath, and they were the Americans fighting the British.  But, this is where a wider knowledge of history pays off.  Yes Judas Maccabee was an amazing tactician, but part of the way into the war Antiochus Epiphanies died.  Suddenly there was a power vacuum back home, and the generals in the army recognized if they were home they could influence who became the next leader.

They couldn’t get out of there fast enough, but they recognized leaving behind an active war is suicide, so they negotiated a truce.  They gave the Jews nominal control of their country, and more importantly religious freedom again.

This lasted right up until the Romans came in and took the whole shebang and inherited the Israel problem (for a really interesting look on the climate of the last century BC and the first century AD read Bandits, Prophets, and Messiahs* (which appears to be out of print and ridiculously expensive), it’s no wonder the Romans were so nervous about Jesus)

For more ideas for Ancient History check out my pinterest board.  OR  head on over to see some more LEGO history ideas (click on the picture).