The opening chapter of the first book of Maccabees complains of Jewish “transgressors of the law who seduced many” of their fellows. These transgressors “built a gymnasium in Jerusalem according to local custom, and did not circumcise their children, and left the holy covenant for heathen practices, and did wickedly in the eyes of God.” Cole Aronson reflects on this rejection of sports and athleticism on the part of pious Jews of the 2nd century BCE:
Throwing a discus can surely divert you from prayer and Torah study, but other things can do that also, and so I have to think the problem with this Jerusalem athletics center was more basic. Raising physical prowess from a military necessity into a society’s main form of nobility can teach contempt for the small, the fragile, and the sick. If muscles and speed are how your community says you ought to flourish, the frail among us will be absorbed into a spectating mass useful only as an audience for a mighty few.
Which is a shame, because one of the very best things about civilization is that it gives vulnerable people a chance at decent, dignified lives. Without walls, cops, and laws, everyone is a tribal warrior, or beholden to tribal warriors, or a victim of tribal warriors. The pagan Jews wanted to restore the warrior virtues to a softer form of the dominance they enjoy without restraint in savage times.
The Maccabees fought with heroic strength against the total exaltation of heroic strength.
Read more on First Things: https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2022/12/chanukah-and-the-war-on-sports