A Life of Integrity: The Maccabean Story
Date
2023
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
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Publisher
Religions
Abstract
The experience of ontological and epistemological dominations made Africans lose their
self-consciousness and become unfulfilled in life. Every human being has a life of integrity that
must be lived. The Maccabees in the Bible were dominated by Antiochus IV, the King of Syria.
He desecrated the Temple, changed their religion, politics, economy, and social life and above all
made himself a god to be worshipped. He deprived the Jews of their identity and dominated them
ontologically, but they had a life of integrity to live. Some of the Jews accepted the new way of life
by Antiochus and helped to betray those few Jews who stood against this new system of Antiochus.
Many of the pious Jews lost their lives, but with hope in Yahweh and persistent endurance they
regained their identity and life of integrity. The plague of coloniality made Africans invariably lose
their identity, and consequently their integrity as others determined their pace of life. The African
story is like the Maccabean story; this article studies selected texts in Maccabees (1 Maccabees 2 and
3; 2 Maccabees 6 and 7) and suggests their regaining of identity and life of integrity to the African
situation. The paper uses biblical exegesis and intercultural interpretations to unearth the buried
African treasures for an integrity of life.
Description
Research Article
Keywords
African identity and integrity, African culture;, African hermeneutics, Maccabean revolt
Citation
Citation: Salakpi, Alexander G. K. 2023. A Life of Integrity: The Maccabean Story. Religions 14: 1428. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel14111428