Chapters of 2 Maccabees

It is still considered an important source on the Maccabean Revolt by Jews, Protestants, and secular historians of the period who do not necessarily hold the book as part of a scriptural canon.

While 2 Maccabees was originally written for an audience of Hellenistic Jews, verses in its chapters have been used in some branches of Christianity as scriptural backing for indulgences, prayers for the dead, and the intercession of saints.

[11] The people of Jerusalem and of Judea and the Council of Elders and Judas, To Aristobulus, who is of the family of the anointed priests, teacher of King Ptolemy, and to the Jews in Egypt, Greetings and good health.

The priest Nehemiah (5th century BCE) is said to have found a special liquid used to kindle the altar's holy fire called nephthar or nephthai (perhaps related to naphtha or petroleum).

[22] .. all this, which has been set forth by Jason of Cyrene in five volumes, we shall attempt to condense into a single book.In 2:19-32, the anonymous writer, referred to variously as the epitomist, the epitomator, the author, and the abridger, introduces himself and his work to the readers.

Jonathan A. Goldstein argues the reference to him was added later by a follower of Onias IV; Robert Doran suggests it might be original, and the author was attempting to emphasize the unity of all Jews despite the known animosity against the Tobiads.

[28] After receiving the king’s orders he [Menelaus] returned, possessing no qualification for the high-priesthood, but having the hot temper of a cruel tyrant and the rage of a savage wild beast.Chapter 4 is where the main history begins.

[36][37] The depiction in Chapter 4 of the internal temple politics is found nowhere else in ancient sources; while 1 Maccabees and Josephus vaguely allude to disputes over the High Priesthood, they are bare-bones mentions.

However, Josephus seems to indicate Onias III was still active in Egypt at a later date in his The Jewish War; and Diodorus Siculus gives a different reason for Andronicus's execution: that he had murdered a young son of Seleucus IV.

Similar to Chapter 3, it directly calls out the potential support from righteous Gentiles in its story of how Andronicus was considered a murderer even by the Seleucids, and how the inhabitants of Tyre fund a proper funeral for the Jews who accused Menelaus.

After hearing a rumor that Antiochus IV had perished in his second expedition to Egypt (part of the Sixth Syrian War), he attempts to overthrow Menelaus and retake his position as High Priest.

Another occupying army of Mysians, led by a commander named Apollonius, instigates a slaughter of Jews on the Sabbath when they are abstaining from labor (and presumably combat) via trickery.

The scholar Victor Tcherikover is generally credited with raising this idea, on the basis that a mere dispute over which official held the position of High Priest would be unlikely to lead to the havoc described.

The Jews enforcing this edict arrange for validly prepared kosher meat to be available for him to eat instead, so that he might appear to comply and avoid punishment, while actually maintaining Jewish law.

As part of mainland Greece, it would have had legitimacy and prestige in the eyes of the ethnically Greek aristocrats of the Seleucid Empire, so sending an Athenian to oversee religious reforms is plausible.

Monthly celebrations of the king's birthday were indeed a Ptolemaic custom, but are less well-attested in the wider Hellenistic world outside the mention here in 2 Maccabees; it is disputed whether this is merely due to evidence being lost or the epitomist erring.

[55] Martyrs are clearly revered by the author of 2 Maccabees, as befitting diaspora Judaism and later early Christianity where martyrdom was the highest display of devotion and loyalty possible.

[59] Similar to the epitomist's comment in Chapter 6 that God is showing mercy to Jews by punishing them briefly and sharply for straying, the youngest son says as much directly: that "if our living Lord is angry for a little while, to rebuke and discipline us, he will again be reconciled with his own servants.

[62] 2 Maccabees as well as the Book of Daniel reframe resurrection on a more personal level: the righteous, even if they suffer during the persecution, will be brought back by God, and their unjust deaths reversed.

[67] The claim of 9,000 soldiers being defeated is presumed to be an exaggeration, a technique that the author repeatedly uses throughout the military history portion of the story, which routinely feature much larger enemy casualty counts than 1 Maccabees.

Further calamities befall him: he falls out of a chariot and suffers massive injuries; worms crawl out of his eyes; and his flesh disintegrates while he is still alive, creating an awful stench.

Governor Ptolemy Macron (a former Ptolemaic official who defected and handed over Cyprus to the Seleucids in the Sixth Syrian War) tries to mend relationships with the Jews, but he is accused and undermined by the king's philoi ("friends"), and forced to commit suicide.

The passage is somewhat unclear, with a literal reading being of "igniting rocks", but seems to hint at sparks flying from stones to re-light the fire to add the expected miraculous element.

[122] It seems that a theological difference in the era was whether the fates of the dead were entirely sealed or could be modified after their death; 2 Maccabees, as well as 1 Corinthians 15 and The Passion of Saints Perpetua and Felicity, believe they can be, while the Book of Enoch and the Gospel of Luke suggest that they cannot be.

Lysias launches an expedition in Judea on behalf of the young King Antiochus V Eupator, backed by a gigantic force of 110,000 infantry, 5,300 cavalry, 22 war elephants, and 300 scythed chariots.

The mention of Modein is also considered unreliable;[134] it is a famous location as where the Hasmoneans were living at the start of the revolt, but it is on the northwestern side of Jerusalem, while the rest of the account as well as 1 Maccabees suggests that the Seleucids approached from the southern route.

The mention of scythed chariots is also considered unreliable; if the Seleucids even still maintained any and had brought them, they would probably not have been taken into Judea's hilly interior, as they were a weapon that only functioned on flat lowlands such as the coast where they could get to a high enough speed.

Polybius, who personally knew Demetrius and was directly involved in the plot to smuggle him back to the Seleucid Empire, reports he chartered a normal, commercial ship to better lie low, hardly a fleet.

Demetrius would presumably have concentrated most of his forces to oppose Timarchus during this time period, and the narrative itself already recounts that Nicanor was reduced to conscripting local Jews, suggesting that there were not even close to 35,000 Seleucid soldiers at the battle, let alone casualties.

[178] Jean Calvin was unimpressed with the epilogue's casual tone in apologizing if the reader disliked the work, and used it to argue in favor of the de-canonicalization of the book during the Protestant Reformation.