The book may have been designed to legitimate the Hasmonean dynasty in the face of two internal objections rooted in the worldview reported a generation before the revolt by Ben Sira:.
Praise the God who chose the children of Zadok the priest. He uses terms directly analogous to Moses and the Levi tribe at the Golden Calf and Pinchas the zealous priest.
They both attacked public desecrators of Jewish worship. In the Bible both the tribe of Levi and Pinchas himself are rewarded for their zealous action by being granted a special status in the Temple worship. It has also been suggested that the exclusion of the Books of the Maccabees can be traced to the political rivalry that existed during the late Second Temple Period between the Sadducees and the Pharisees.
The Sadducees, a priestly class in charge of the Temple, openly rejected the oral interpretations that the Pharisees, the proto-rabbinic class, openly promoted. The Maccabees were a priestly family, while the rabbis who may have determined the final form of the biblical canon at Jamnia were descended from the Pharisees. Is it possible that the exclusion of the Books of Maccabees was one of the last salvos in the battle between the Pharisees and Sadducees?
Would the rabbis at Jamnia have been inclined to canonize a document that so clearly praised the priestly Hasmonean family? PikiWiki Israel. Perhaps the answer lies more within the realm of pragmatism and politics. A couple of centuries later, Jewish scholars found themselves in Jamnia with the Temple destroyed and Jerusalem lost. Their circumstances were the result of their own failed revolt against the Romans.
Perhaps they felt it unwise to promote a text that heralded the successful outcome of a Jewish revolt. It may have posed a threat both internally and externally. The Romans would certainly not look kindly upon the popularization of such a text, since it might very well reintroduce the concept of revolt to a population desperately trying to survive the devastating outcome of its own failed attempts.
Although the Books of Maccabees were not included within the Hebrew Bible, they are still of value. Jerome and may have been used by learned Jews even later than the fourth century2. We do not know when and how the Hebrew text disappeared. Retransla- tions from Greek or Latin into Hebrew of course exist. The oldest known to me is by an anonymous Jew who apparently translated the text of the Vulgate into Hebrew at Worms or Mainz about This text was discovered by D. The truth soon became obvious3.
Modern translations by S. Fraenkel , A. Kahana ,. Hartom are intended to render the book accessible to Hebrew readers and do not claim to be reconstructions of the original text. The poetic passages are a good example of the questions involved in the convergence of the two historiographie traditions.
Sudden transition from prose to poetry can be found in other biblical texts. The nearest in time is Ecclesiasticus. A recent addition to the Greco-Latin series is Pap. We know very little about the origins and conventions of this mixed form4. Another example of such questions is the introduction of documents. Documents are to be found in both biblical and Greek historiography.
Finally, the excursus about the Romans in ch. The Bible contains implicit or. Thus the attitude to her allies Polyb. Similarly, the treatment of Corinth and Carthage is registered in a comparable tone in Diod. There is, however, no indication of a written source. Indeed the mistakes in the description the Senate meeting every day, the yearly one-man rule, Antiochus III taken prisoner by the Romans, the Romans giving to King Eumenes of Pergamum " the country of India, Media and Lydia and parts of the best lands of King Antiochus " presuppose accounts by badly informed travellers.
The character of the whole chapter is that of a distant acquaintance with the Roman State. Experience the richness of your faith What will you discover? Explore more inspirational selections here. Ordination of a Bishop, of Priests, and of Deacons. Lectio Divina of Gospels Latest books.
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