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2 Maccabees

2 Maccabees is a deuterocanonical book of the Bible which focuses on the Jews' revolt against Antiochus and concludes with the defeat of the Syrian general Nicanor in 161 BC by Judas Maccabeus, the hero of the work.

2 Maccabees was written in Greek, probably in Alexandria, Egypt, c 124 BC. It presents a revised version of the historical events recounted in the first seven chapters of 1 Maccabees, adding material from the Pharisaic tradition, including prayer for the dead and a resurrection on Judgment Day.

Catholics and Orthodox consider the work to be canonical and part of the Bible. Protestants and Jews reject most of the doctrinal innovations present in the work. Some Protestants include 2 Maccabees as part of the Apocrypha, useful for reading in the church. Article VI of the Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England defines it as useful but not the basis of doctrine and not necessary for salvation.

Author

The author of 2 Maccabees is not identified, but he claims to be abridging a 5-volume work by Jason of Cyrene. This longer work is not preserved, and it is uncertain how much of the present text of 2 Maccabees is simply copied from that work. The author wrote in Greek, apparently, as there is no particular evidence of an earlier Hebrew version. A few sections of the book, such as the Preface, Epilogue, and some reflections on morality are generally assumed to come from the author, not from Jason. Jason's work was apparently written sometime around 100 BC and most likely ended with the defeat of Nicanor, as does the abridgement available to us.

The beginning of the book includes two letters sent by Jews in Jerusalem to Jews of the Diaspora in Egypt concerning the feast day set up to celebrate the purification of the temple (see Hanukkah) and the feast to celebrate the defeat of Nicanor. If the author of the book inserted these letters, the book would have to have been written after 124 BC, the date of the second letter. Some commentators hold that these letters were a later addition, while others consider them the basis for the work. Catholic scholars tend toward a dating in the last years of the second century BC, while the consensus among Jewish scholars place it in the second half of the first century BC.

It appears to be written for the benefit of the diaspora Jews in Egypt, primarily to inform them about the restoration of the temple and to encourage them to make the yearly pilgrimage to Jerusalem. It is written not from the point of view of a professional historian, but rather of a religious teacher, who draws his lessons out of history.

Unlike 1 Maccabees, 2 Maccabees does not attempt to provide a complete account of the events of the period, instead covering only the period from the high priest Onias III and King Seleucus IV (180 BC) to the defeat of Nicanor in 161.

In general, the chronology of the book coheres with that of 1 Maccabees, and it has some historical value in supplementing 1 Maccabees, principally in providing a few apparently authentic historical documents. The author seems primarily interested in providing a theological interpretation of the events; in this book God's interventions direct the course of events, punishing the wicked and restoring the Temple to his people. It's possible that some events appear to be presented out of strict chronological order in order to make theological points. Some of the numbers cited for sizes of armies may also appear exaggerated, though not all of the manuscripts of this book agree.

The Greek style of the writer is very educated, and he seems well-informed about Greek customs. The action follows a very simple plan: after the death of Antiochus Epiphanes, the Feast of the Dedication of the Temple is instituted. The newly-dedicated Temple is threatened by Nicanor, and after his death, the festivities for the dedication are concluded.

Doctrine

2 Maccabees is notable for several points of advanced doctrine deriving from Pharisaic Judaism.

Doctrinal issues that are raised in 2 Maccabees include:

Prayer for the dead and sacrificial offerings, both to free the dead from sin
Merits of the martyrs
Intercession of the saints (15:11-17) (at least as seen from a Christian viewpoint)
Resurrection from the dead

In particular, the long descriptions of the martyrdoms of Eleazer and of a mother with her seven sons (2 Macc 6:18–7:42) caught the imagination of medieval Christians. Several churches are dedicated to the "Maccabeean martyrs", and they are among the very few pre-Christian figures to appear on the Catholic calendar of saints' days (that number is considerably higher in the Eastern Orthodox churches' calendars, where they also appear). The book is considered the first model of the medieval stories of the martyrs.

Canonicity

Roman Catholics and the Eastern Orthodox regard 2 Maccabees as canonical. Jews and Protestants do not. 2 Maccabees, along with 1 and 3 Maccabees, appeared in the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible completed in the 1st century BC. In Jamnia c 90, Jewish rabbis endorsed a narrower canon, excluding deuterocanonical works such as 2 Maccabees. This had little immediate impact on Christians, however, since most Christians did not know Hebrew and were familiar with the Hebrew Bible through the Greek Septuagint text of Hellenistic Jews, which included 2 Maccabees and other deuterocanonical works. When the texts were translated into Latin in the early fifth century by Jerome, he noticed that they were absent in the Hebrew but, not wanting to remove them from the canon entirely, coined the term deuterocanon (Greek second canon) for them. In the early 1520s, Martin Luther found much of the contents of the deuterocanon, particularly 2 Maccabees, doctrinally disagreeable and removed them on the grounds that they were absent from the Masoretic text, along with the Epistle of James.

2 Maccabees was condemned in Protestant circles. Many have suggested that this is the primary reason for its rejection—and following from that, the rejection of all the deuterocanonical books—by reformers such as Martin Luther, who said: "I am so great an enemy to the second book of the Maccabees, and to Esther, that I wish they had not come to us at all.