POLITICS AN DSOCIETY 37cording to Josephus, when John was freed of Seleucid domination by the
death of Antiochus VII in Parthia, in 129B.C.E., he undertoo ka series of
campaigns. Recent excavations suggest, however, that Josephus’s chronology
of these campaigns is incorrect. They all seem to have come toward the end
of his reign.^47 John first conquered territory across the Jordan River that he
apparently failed to retain, probably because the east ban kof the Jordan was
claimed also by the increasingly powerful Nabataean kingdom. He then
marched against the Judaeans’ northern neighbors, the Samaritans, con-
quered their main city, Shechem, and destroyed their temple on Mount Geri-
zim, just outside of Shechem. Evidently, the Samaritans, who were Israelites,
were expected to switch their religious loyalties to the Jerusalem temple, and
in return were regarded by the Judaean authorities as Jews.^48
Also perhaps later than Josephus dates it was John’s conquest of the Judae-
ans’ southern neighbors, the Idumaeans, and their main cities, Marisa and
Adora. These people were descendants of the biblical Edomites, who had
settled in southern Judaea (from Beth-Zur just south of Bethlehem and south
to the Negev Desert) when their traditional homeland south of the Dead Sea
was infiltrated by Arab tribes starting in the sixth centuryB.C.E.^49 Like the
Samaritans, the Edomites/Idumaeans had a centuries-long history of close
relations with the Judaeans, the earliest stages of which are reflected in the
biblical stories about the ambivalent relationship between Jacob, ancestor of
the Israelites, and his twin brother Esau, ancestor of the Edomites. As the
biblical stories suggest, the Idumaeans were not Israelites but shared many
customs with them, including male circumcision (cf. Jeremiah 9:24ff.; Ezek-
iel 32:29).^50 John is said to have demanded that the Idumaeans adopt the
customs and laws of the Judaeans or leave their country. Many of the Idu-
maeans acceded to John’s demand and from that time on began to regard
themselves and to be regarded as Jews. Since circumcision was evidently an
inescapable requirement for entry of males into the community of Israel, the
fact that the Idumaeans perhaps already practiced it obviously facilitated their
(^47) See D. Barag, “New Evidence on the Foreign Policy of John Hyrcanus I,”INJ12 (1992–
1993): 1–12.
(^48) See S. Schwartz, “John Hyrcanus I’s Destruction of the Gerizim Temple and Judaean-Sa-
maritan Relations,”Jewish History7 (1993): 9–25.
(^49) For a survey of the little known about the Idumaeans before their conversion, see A. Kasher,
Edom, Arabia, and Israel(Jerusalem: Yad Ben Zvi, 1988), pp. 9–13; Kasher’s extensive discussion
of the conversion (48–76) is highly problematic.
(^50) See M. Smith in S. Cohen, ed.,Studies in the Cult of Yahweh(Leiden: Brill, 1996), 1:274–
- But R. Steiner, “Incomplete Circumcision in Egypt and Edom: Jeremiah 9.24–25 in the
Light of Josephus and Jonckheere,”JBL118 (1999): 497–505, has suggested that the Edomites
did not practice circumcision in quite the same way as the Jews and so may have required “recir-
cumcision.” On the Hasmonean conversions, see also S. Cohen,The Beginnings of Jewishness,
13–24, 104–39.