Did They Actually Tear Up and Burn Copies of the Turah?
Direct answer: Yes. According to the surviving ancient witnesses, 1 Maccabees 1:56 and Josephus (Antiquities, Book 12), during the Seleucid persecution under Antiochus, around 167 BCE, discovered scrolls of the Turah were torn to pieces and burned, and anyone found keeping them was put to death. "The books of the law which they found, they tore to pieces and burned." (1 Maccabees 1:56) It is not a legend. Two separate ancient witnesses, the record of 1 Maccabees and the historian Josephus, describe the same thing: the deliberate destruction of the scrolls of the Turah during the Seleucid persecution. What the surviving ancient record says 1 Maccabees 1:54-64 describes the decree of Antiochus against the people and their Scriptures. The scrolls of the Turah that were found were torn to pieces and burned, and anyone found keeping a scroll, or living by it, was put to death. Two witnesses: 1 Maccabees and Josephus The account in 1 Maccabees 1:56 is matched by the historia...