Talk:Battle of Elasa

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to Anonymous editor, i've written a new edit, trying to incorporate both your biblical literalist viewpoint & your extreme scepticism viewpoint - of course i've still given space to an attempt to reconstruct the basic events of the battle, based on 1 Maccabees, but people can see that there are others who don't accept that - even though for all i know, you're alone in doing so. the rambling speculation about phalangite stamina seems pretty irrelevant, so i removed it, along with the reference whose only purpose was to back it up. No problem with any of the various summaries either of us have put forward, except to correct some english, though i can't see why any of them needed to be changed, whatever one's viewpoint. don't think it's necessary to give too much hasmonean history in this article, there are links for that. --Grc1 19:07, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

to anon editor again, i put back in the account of the battle, it seems good to have that in, so people can have some idea of what happened. i removed the references that seem irrelevant - surely 1 maccabees is in the babylonian talmud? & if 1 maccabees is the only source, where does josephus come in? of course everyone accepts that 1 maccabees is the only source, the dispute can only be about whether it can be interpreted by taking into account the possible fallibility or bias of its authors. --Grc1 16:58, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

-Response-

1 Maccabees is not part of the bible and therefore not subject to theological "biblical literalism", my question to you is this if 1 Maccabees isnt "literal" then what is it? Allegorical? Your position is that 1 Maccabees is lying when it gives an acount of the battle events, i do not believe that this position is valid. Another thing, if according to you 1 Maccabbees is the ONLY source, and is unreliable, then what source do you have at all in the first place to even attempt a reconsruction? For all you know they could have settled their differences with a rugby game!

If you were truly unbiased you would simply state that the only source is unreliable and therefore no battle reconstruction can be attempted. So in fact you are more biased than 1 Maccabees can ever be accused of being, and therefore just as you attempted to discount 1 Maccabees so too the online community should discount your inventive historical constructions. Bear in mind you get no points for creativity in history.

I changed the battle details because they are fantastic and in my opinion ridiculous, you have been playing "Rome:Total War" too much.

Furthermore your account is written from the wrong point of view, this is about the establishment of the Hasmonean dynasty, and the freedom of the judeans from greek oppression, not some seleucid general. being that these same seluecid greeks perpetuated many attrocities against the judeans i find it rather peculiar, and disturbing, that you would try to paint their position in such a dramatic (heroic) light.

Another thing, you constantly refer to the judeans as rebels, and the battle as being between rebels and the seleucids, judea was an independant kingdom at this point recognised by the roman senate.

Finally there is more to the writings of Flavius Josephus than the jewish war and he writes in detail about the rise and fall of the hasmonean dynasty. and no 1 Maccabees is NOT part of the babylonian talmud.

In closing if you change this entry again i might decide that the account of the sack of rome is biased against people of germanic origin and in reality all historical accounts are biased, and in fact rome was sacked by the barbarous polynesians as a result of their 100 year long religious crusade to reclaim southern europe from the islamic roman hordes.

~~The Mighty Bar Kochba~~ with color commentary from Moses The Scribe.

response to response -

My position is that Bar-Kochva is a respected & published historian, who has written in detail on this subject, so it seems reasonable to present his attempt to interpret events rationally. i happen to agree with him that 1 Maccabees was written by human beings, who were therefore fallible & capable of exagerating or even lying. personally i've never played rome:total war, perhaps Bar-Kochva has, but his book was written in 1976, & it didn't come out until fairly recently. you say that your literalism isn't theological in the case of the apocrypha, but the reason for it doesn't matter, the point is that you can't accept that maccabees might be only partially true, you seem to think that the only other possibility is that it is entirely false.

I don't see that Bar-Kochva portrays the seleucids as heroic, he simply tries to describe the events. it shouldn't be told from any particular point of view, though an account of the battle would naturally start off with the strategic aggressors - in this case bacchides. you seem to think that the article should have a pro maccabean bias.

as for whether they were rebels, well, there's rarely a neutral point of view on such things. were the americans rebels during the revolutionary war? after all, they'd already declared independance, which was recognised by some powers before the war was over. in this period, the maccabeans didn't control jerusalem, which to me makes them rebels in a purely objective sense. the roman senate was not the arbiter of reality. however, it's pretty arbitrary, call them judeans if you like.

thanks for pointing out that maccabees isn't in the talmud, i didn't know that. as for josephus, he wrote about the hasmonean kingdom, but that isn't what the article should be about, just one of the consequences of what it should be about, i.e. the battle.

your views about the sack of rome are really a matter for a different talk page, though the conclusions you draw sound like original research, which is frowned upon on wikipedia. having said that, of course roman accounts of the sack of rome are biased against the sackers, it's just that that doesn't mean the events didn't occur, merely that not all the details can be relied upon, especially if any defy all commonsense & military reality. --Grc1 23:49, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

~~Bar Kochba~~ ok after putting some thought into the matter and doing some more research ive decided to reedit my original entry to incorporate the following views.

first of all, bacchides made a bee line to jerusalem from the galilee and besieged jerusalem. this would prevent Judah from raising more troops than his usual 3000, as you cannot draw troops from other regions when you are besieged, and you do not keep a standing army of 30,000 men in a city. these are aspects of military reality. we are then left with the question how is it possible that a battle even took place at all between an army of 800-1000 (josephus gives the number at 1000, and this is the number present after desertions.) and 20,000? the answer is within 1 maccabees.

Judas launched an all out attack on the right flank of the seleucid army, in response to which bacchides and the rest of the right flank ran for their lives... this wasnt a feigned retreat as they withdrew into unknown and hostile highlands. to retreat into such a situation would fly in the face of all military common sense, make no mistake this was a rout. regrouping in the hills the left flank of cavalry and right flanks converged on the jewish soldiers, and possibly with infantry support surrounded and killed judah the maccabee, resulting in his remaining troops fleeing.

i want you to consider this very carefully now, bezalel bar kochva uses 1 macabees as his only source, but believes that the numbers are wrong... so he commits an act of appalling academic dishonesty and simply ignores the historical account of troop numbers but retains all the other details. His logic fundamentally flawed and that is why i believe we should view his reconstruction very critically. I am asking the question how could the battle have happened if these were the troop numbers? the above is the solution.

another matter, there is NO flat land ideal for phalanx combat anywhere near jerusalem, furthermore 1 macabees states that bacchides fled into the hills with judah chasing him... this is not terrain suited for phalanx combat either. furthermore jews didnt employ phalanx formations, as any other historical account will testify to. if betzalel wants to say they did, he does so only to support his fanciful OPNION as to what happened.

this is a very reasonable way to view the events especially from a tactical standpoint. what do you do when you are heavily outnumbered and facing a massive phalanx spear-wall? you ignore the slow moving and inflexible spearmen and attack the enemy general who is relatively exposed on the right-flank. this is exactly what 1 maccabees records as happening. there is no reason to deviate from it.

unfortunately there are no punitive measures that we can impose upon "historians" and "researchers" who ignore historical documentation and common sense simply because of their own personal bias, but we can all do our part to attempt to ensure that there are voices of disent that will challenge these "experts" for the sake of reaching the truth. this is what i do here.