Jonathan Apphus

Jonathan Apphus (Hebrew: Yōnāṯān ʾApfūs; Ancient Greek: Ἰωνάθαν Ἀπφοῦς, Iōnáthan Apphoûs) was one of the sons of Mattathias and the leader of the Hasmonean dynasty of Judea from 161 to 143 BCE. Name H J Wolf notes that all of Mattathias' sons listed in had double names: John is said to have been called Gaddis; Simon, Thassi; Judas, Maccabeus; Eleazar, Avaran and Jonathan, Apphus. Jewish historian Uriel Rappaport asserts that "we do not have an explanation for the nicknames of Mattathias' sons". Wolf suggests that the name was given to him by Mattathias and that the common explanation of the word "Apphus" relates it to the Syriac choppus, "the dissembler". The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia's article on the Maccabees suggests the meaning is "the wary", but Torrey (in the Encyclopedia Biblica article, "Maccabees") points out that we have no means of ascertaining with what guttural consonant the word began, or what Semitic consonant the Greek "s" represents, and so "both the form and meaning of the name are, therefore, still to be explained". Leader of the Jews According to the narrative in 1 Maccabees, Jonathan Apphus was the youngest of the five sons of Mattathias. His father was a priest credited as the founding figure of the rebellion of the Maccabees against Antiochus IV Epiphanes of the Seleucid Empire. However Mattathias died in 167 BCE while the rebellion was only beginning.