Eleazar Maccabeus
Encyclopedia
Eleazar Avaran, also known as Eleazar Maccabeus, Eleazar Hachorani/Choran(or Horani) (b. ???BC - d. 162 BC; Hebrew
Hebrew language
Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...

: אלעזר המכבי, אלעזר החורני Eleazar HaMakabi) was the fourth son of Mattathias
Mattathias
Mattathias ben Johanan was a Jewish priest whose role in the Jewish revolt against the Syrian Greeks is related in the Books of the Maccabees...

 and the younger brother of Judas Maccabeus
Judas Maccabeus
Judah Maccabee was a Kohen and a son of the Jewish priest Mattathias...

. He was killed at the Battle of Beth-zechariah
Battle of Beth-zechariah
The Battle of Beth-Zechariah was fought between the Jewish Maccabeans and Greek forces during the Maccabean revolt against the Seleucid Empire.-Background:...

 during the Maccabean revolt. (1 Macc
1 Maccabees
The First book of Maccabees is a book written in Hebrew by a Jewish author after the restoration of an independent Jewish kingdom, about the latter part of the 2nd century BC. The original Hebrew is lost and the most important surviving version is the Greek translation contained in the Septuagint...

. 6:43-46)

Very little is known About Eleazar, except his heroic death as was told. According to the scroll of Antichus, his father saw in him a Zealot among zealots, like Pinhas. In the book of 2 Maccabees
2 Maccabees
2 Maccabees is a deuterocanonical book of the Bible, which focuses on the Jews' revolt against Antiochus IV Epiphanes and concludes with the defeat of the Syrian general Nicanor in 161 BC by Judas Maccabeus, the hero of the work....

 it is told that Eleazar read from the Tanakh
Tanakh
The Tanakh is a name used in Judaism for the canon of the Hebrew Bible. The Tanakh is also known as the Masoretic Text or the Miqra. The name is an acronym formed from the initial Hebrew letters of the Masoretic Text's three traditional subdivisions: The Torah , Nevi'im and Ketuvim —hence...

 in front of the people before going into his last battle.

Death

According to 1 Maccabees, during the Battle of Beth-zechariah, Eleazar identified a war elephant
War elephant
A war elephant was an elephant trained and guided by humans for combat. Their main use was to charge the enemy, trampling them and breaking their ranks. A division of war elephants is known as elephantry....

 that he believed to carry the Seleucid King Antiochus V
Antiochus V
Antiochus V Eupator , was a ruler of the Greek Seleucid Empire who reigned 163-161 BC, ....

, due to the special armor the elephant wore. He decided to endanger his life by attacking the elephant and thrusting a spear into its belly. The dead elephant then collapsed upon Eleazar, killing him as well.
Despite this heroic effort, the smaller Jewish army was defeated in the battle. Josephus
Josephus
Titus Flavius Josephus , also called Joseph ben Matityahu , was a 1st-century Romano-Jewish historian and hagiographer of priestly and royal ancestry who recorded Jewish history, with special emphasis on the 1st century AD and the First Jewish–Roman War, which resulted in the Destruction of...

 wrote that Eleazar, though killing many enemy soldiers, did not gain any real effect besides the name he made for himself. Another version of this story appears on the scroll of Antiochus, in which it is told that Eleazar was stamped on by a horde of elephants.

Avaran

All of the members of the family of Mattathias
Mattathias
Mattathias ben Johanan was a Jewish priest whose role in the Jewish revolt against the Syrian Greeks is related in the Books of the Maccabees...

 were given names aside from their given names in 1 Maccabees
1 Maccabees
The First book of Maccabees is a book written in Hebrew by a Jewish author after the restoration of an independent Jewish kingdom, about the latter part of the 2nd century BC. The original Hebrew is lost and the most important surviving version is the Greek translation contained in the Septuagint...

 2 (For example, Judas
Judas Maccabeus
Judah Maccabee was a Kohen and a son of the Jewish priest Mattathias...

 was given the name 'ha'Makabi', meaning 'the Hammer'.) Eleazar was given the name 'Avaran', which has been taken to mean 'the Piercer' (in reference to his death) or 'to be white' (referring to his light complexion.)

Commemoration

Eleazar's death was a popular subject for art in the Middle Ages
Middle Ages
The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...

, where it was given a typological
Typology (theology)
Typology in Christian theology and Biblical exegesis is a doctrine or theory concerning the relationship between the Old and New Testaments...

 significance as prefiguring Christ's sacrifice of himself for mankind The chance to portray an elephant was also welcomed by artists, although as most had never seen one, the results are often very strange. It is also portrayed in a painting of 19th century French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 artist
Artist
An artist is a person engaged in one or more of any of a broad spectrum of activities related to creating art, practicing the arts and/or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse is a practitioner in the visual arts only...

 Gustave Doré
Gustave Doré
Paul Gustave Doré was a French artist, engraver, illustrator and sculptor. Doré worked primarily with wood engraving and steel engraving.-Biography:...

.

The Israeli settlement
Israeli settlement
An Israeli settlement is a Jewish civilian community built on land that was captured by Israel from Jordan, Egypt, and Syria during the 1967 Six-Day War and is considered occupied territory by the international community. Such settlements currently exist in the West Bank...

 Elazar in Gush Etzion
Gush Etzion
Gush Etzion is a cluster of Israeli settlements located in the Judaean Mountains directly south of Jerusalem and Bethlehem in the West Bank, Palestinian territories. The core group includes four agricultural villages that were founded in 1940-1947 on property purchased in the 1920s and 1930s, and ...

, near the site of the battle of Beth-zechariah
Battle of Beth-zechariah
The Battle of Beth-Zechariah was fought between the Jewish Maccabeans and Greek forces during the Maccabean revolt against the Seleucid Empire.-Background:...

, is named after him. Also there are streets named after him in Jerusalem and in Tel Aviv
Tel Aviv
Tel Aviv , officially Tel Aviv-Yafo , is the second most populous city in Israel, with a population of 404,400 on a land area of . The city is located on the Israeli Mediterranean coastline in west-central Israel. It is the largest and most populous city in the metropolitan area of Gush Dan, with...

.

External links

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