Jewish mothers who risked death to circumcise their sons during the Antiochene persecution of the 160s B.C.E. were driven by a profound belief: circumcision determined their children's eternal fate. Through analysis of 1 and 2 Maccabees, the Testament of Moses, Josephus, and particularly the Book of Jubilees, alongside biblical concepts of kareit (being "cut off"), a clear theological framework emerges. Jubilees, written during the Maccabaean period, reinterprets Genesis 17 to establish an "eschatology of circumcision," arguing that uncircumcised males face eternal punishment while the circumcised join sanctified angels in the afterlife. The biblical punishment of kareit encompasses not merely social exclusion but eternal separation from one's ancestors, contrasted with the positive fate of being "gathered to one's kin." Ezekiel 32's vision of Pharaoh among the uncircumcised in Sheol's lowest levels further supports the belief in circumcision-based afterlife stratification. Rabbinic literature confirms the continuity of these beliefs, with traditions depicting Abraham protecting circumcised Jews from hell and circumcision blessings explicitly referencing salvation "from the pit." This evidence reveals that the extreme devotion of Maccabaean-era mothers stemmed from their conviction that circumcision was essential for their children's eternal salvation, representing a theological dimension beyond the commonly recognized religious-nationalist motivations for resistance to Hellenistic assimilation.