The first letter, 1:1-9, clearly portrays itself as a letter from the Jews of Judea to the Jews living in Egypt. It begins with some well-wishes, briefly refers to deliverance of the Jews of Judea from persecution, and encourages the Jews of Egypt to celebrate a festival in the month of Kislev. But a major part of how one might understand the letter hinges on how one construes a few key phrases and dates.

Consider the version of events found in the KJV^[1] (bracketed parts my own parapharse to avoid some distracting features of the language and explain a few things). Note that the authors of 2 Maccabees use a method of counting years from 312 or 311 BC.

(1) The brethren, the Jews that be at Jerusalem and in the land of Judea, wish unto the brethren, the Jews that are throughout Egypt health and peace ... [various pleasantries and introductory comments] ...

(7) What time as Demetrius reigned, in the [169]th year [i.e., 143 BC], we the Jews wrote unto you in the extremity of trouble ... [a description of the troubled times]\ ... (8) ... then we prayed to the Lord, and were heard; we offered also sacrifices and fine flour, and lighted the lamps, and set forth the loaves. (9) And now see that ye keep the feast of tabernacles in the month [Chislev].

10 In the [188]th year [i.e., 124 BC], the people that were at Jerusalem and in Judea ... sent greetings ... to Aristobolus ...

At least at first glance, it would look like, according to the KJV's telling of the story, the first letter is written some time after 143 BC, and references an earlier letter written in 143. Then verse 10 begins a description of a second letter, written in 124 BC.

However, look at what the NRSV does:

(1) The Jews in Jerusalem and those in the land of Judea,
To their Jewish kindred in Egypt,
Greetings and true peace ... [the aforementioned pleasantries] ...

(7) In the reign of Demetrius, in the one hundred sixty-ninth year, we Jews wrote to you, in the critical distress ... (9) And now see that you keep the festival of booths in the month of Chislev, in the [188]th year [i.e. 124 BC].

10 The people of Jerusalem and of Judea ... To Aristobulus ...

The moving of the phrase "in the 188th year" changes things. In the KJV, the first letter was written at some unknown time after 143 BC, and then the second letter is written in 124 BC (the 188th year). But in the NRSV, 124 BC is when the first letter is written.

Yet another interpretation is also possible. Consider Daniel Schwartz's (2008) translation of and commentary on 2 Maccabees.

(1) To their brethren the Jews in Egypt (from) the Jews in Jerusalem and in the country of Judaea: greetings (and) good peace. ....

(7) In the reign of Demetrius, year 169 [i.e. 143 BC], we Judaeans have written you concerning the oppression and the crisis ... (9) And now (we have written to you) so that you shall celebrate the days of (the festival of) Tabernacles of the month of Kislev (10) of year 148 [i.e. 164 BC].

Following a textual variant, Schwartz reads "148" instead of "188". The year 148, then, becomes a reference to the time of the initial Maccabean revolt, so that the festival of Hannukah is being referred to here as the "days of Tabernacles of the month of Kislev of year 148". The letter, on this reading, is written in 143 BC.

The second letter, like the first, is written from Jews in Jerusalem to Aristobulus, evidently a prominent Jewish priest with connections to the royal court of Ptolemy VI Philometer, the ruler of Egypt. The letter tells a version of the story of the death of Antiochus IV Epiphanes, crediting God's intervention with the death of Antiochus at the hands of priests of the goddess Nanea.

The letter then moves on to tell the story of how the sacred fire that lit the first temple was, through a divine transmutation into petroleum, preserved in such a way as to underline the legitimacy first of Nehemiah's rededication of the temple, and that of the later Maccabees.^[2]

The two letters, both of which urge diaspora Jews to celebrate Hannukah (and thereby to legitimize the Hasmonean state) are in their own way a foreward to the book, but at 2:19 a more explicit prologue begins.

(19) Now as concerning Judas Maccabeus, and his brethren, and the purification of the great temple, and the dedication of the altar, (20) And the wars against Antiochus Epiphanes, and Eupator his son, (21) And the manifest signs that came from heaven unto those that behaved themselves manfully to their honour for Judaism: so that, being but a few, they overcame the whole country, and chased barbarous multitudes, (22) And recovered again the temple renowned all the world over, and freed the city, and upheld the laws which were going down, the Lord being gracious to them with all favour:

(23) All these things, I say, being declared by Jason of Cyrene in five books, we will assay to abridge in one volume. ...

The main body of the book starts at 3:1, by painting a picture of Jerusalem in the first quarter of the second century BC, "when all the holy city was inhabited with all peace, and the laws were kept very well, because of the godliness of Onias the high priest". We read that the temple enjoyed the patronage of the Seleucid Empire (3:3).

However, one Simon of the tribe of Benjamin, who has a leadership role with regard to the temple, has a falling out with Onias, and recruits local governor Apollonius into a scheme to get ahold of the temple's treasures. Apollonius gains the consent of the emperor, and a treasurer named Heliodorus is sent to sieze the monies. By means of a divine apparition involving a gold-wearing horseman, God terrifies Heliodorus, nearly killing him, preventing the seizure from taking place. Onias intervenes and prays to God to save the life of Heliodorus, and after his prayers are granted, Heliodorus offers a sacrifice to God himself, and leaves with a great respect for the temple in Jerusalem.

(4) Simon and Apollonius continue to oppose Onias, and one of Simon's allies commits murders, and so for the good of the country Onias is forced to report their actions to the emperor Seleucus, who is treated as a friend of the Jews by the author of 2 Maccabees. However, Seleucus dies, and is succeeded by Antiochus, providing an opening for the enemies of Onias.

Onias's brother Jason, offering a considerable bribe to Antiochus, manages to take the position of high priest from Onias, and the Seleucid Empire begins Hellenizing Judea and -- from the viewpoint of 2 Maccabees -- replacing its good laws with evil customs, including the game of discus. As a result of further bribery and intrigue, Jason is betrayed by Menelaus, the brother of the evil Simon, and Menelaus takes the priesthood. Menelaus diverts some of the temple treasures for his own use, and is rebuked by Onias. In revenge, Menelaus has Onias killed, a matter which saddens many Jews and non-Jews, including even Antiochus himself.

Disorder follows, and Manelaus brother Lysimachus, who had been involved in robbing the temple as well, is killed by an angry mob. Menelaus, for his part, is convicted of serious offenses, but manages to have a ally intervene and preserve his power.

As chapter 5 opens, horsemen wearing gold are appearing in the sky as Antiochus prepares his second attack on Egypt. During a confusion over a rumor that Antiochus has died, Jason launches an assault on Jerusalem, wishing to regain the city, but Menelaus prevails and Jason flees again, first to the east, and later to Egypt, where he died a shameful death.

King Antiochus, hearing about the disorder in Judea, mistakenly thinks that it is revolting against him, and pulls out of Egypt to return to Judea, where he massacres tens of thousands of Judeans, and sells at least as many into slavery. Even worse, from the perspective of 2 Maccabees, Antiochus plunders the temple. Even after Antiochus leaves, his subordinates, including the evil Jason, continue slaying innocent Judeans.

It is at the end of chapter five that our hero, Judas Maccabeus, makes his first appearance, running into the wilderness with perhaps nine other people, and lives in poverty off the land in the mountains to avoid the ritual pollution being forced on the Jews of Jerusalem, where the temple is being defiled and dedicated to Jupiter Olympius, and the inhabitants were forbidden from following the sabbath regulations and forced to eat ritually impure food. Babies are thrown headlong from walls, sabbath-keepers are born in caves, and the whole description is so dark that the author feels a need to step back and justify for a few verses that the punishments of God are meant for the good of his people.

An aged man, Eleazar, spits out the pork that people are attempting to force-feed him, and gloriously chooses death over capitulation (6:18ff). In fact, friends took him aside, and suggested that perhaps Eleazar could bring his own kosher meat to the public festival and eating there, thus giving off at least the appearance of cooperation. But Eleazar, at ninety years old, felt that even appearing to change his religion would be worse than death, and giving an inspiring speech, submitted to the death penalty.

Chapter seven tells the story of seven brothers and their mother, required to eat swine's flesh and tortured by Antiochus, who defy him to the end and preach about the superior rewards they will receive in the resurrection of the righteous. This is an interesting spot in the development of Jewish religious thought, and the Hebrew Bible itself knows nothing about a future resurrection, with the exception of Daniel, which is Maccabean literature of its own sort.

We turn our attention back to Judas Maccabeus, who has begun a secret campaign of recruiting traditionalist Jews, and has gathered about six thousand of them, and begins engaging in what sounds like guerrilla operations against the Seleucid empire (8). Philip, the Seleucid empire's local governor, assembled a force of 20,000 men "to root out the whole generation of the Jews". With the aid of God and the scriptural readings of the priest Eleazar, the forces of Judas are encouraged and achieve a resounding success against their foes. As a model Jewish army, they refrain from fighting on the Sabbath and give some of the spoils to the crippled, to widows, and to orphans.

While Antiochus' underlings are being beaten in Judea, Antiochus himself is humiliated while attempting to rob another temple, this one at Persepolis. Returning enraged, Antiochus boasts that he will soon turn Jerusalem into a graveyard, but God strikes him with some sort of internal ailment, leading eventually to worms crawling out of his gangrenous body. Antiochus sees the error of his ways, promising to liberate Israel and convert to Judaism himself, but God will not cure him.

Antiochus then writes a strangely friendly letter to the Jews, appointing his son as his successor. Philip, being afraid of Antiochus's son, goes to Egypt to meet Ptolemy Philometor. Maccabee & Co. seize control of Jerusalem and its temple, and set to destroying the shrines and altars "which the heathen had built".

The reestablishment of sacrifice in the temple is the point to which the book, and both the epistles attached to its beginning, have been aiming towards. We might now rememeber how the second letter dwelt so long on the sacred fire of the temple. First, Moses called down fire from heaven in the time of the tabernacle, and at the establishment of the temple Solomon did likewise. When the time came for this exile, the prophet Jeremiah had taken the fire and climbed up the sacred mountain, where he hid the altar in a cave, and where some priests hid the fire itself -- somehow -- in the bottom of a dry pit. At the end of the exile, Nehemiah sent the descendants of those priests to retrieve the fire, but they found only a thick liquid, which Nehemiah ordered them to sprinkle on the wood for the sacrifice. This liquid, as it turned out, was highly flammable, and helped to light the sacrifices, so that in the appearance of the unexpected petroleum Nehemiah's generation had something like a sign of the legitimacy of their worship and its position as a natural successor to that of Moses and Solmon. As a curious aside, 2:31 informed us that the remaining liquid was to be poured out on stones.

Then, it 10:3, to quote the translation by Schwartz, the Maccabees who would rededicate the temple "ignited rocks and extracted fire from them" (p. 528). According to Schwartz, this odd wording is designed to cast back the readers mind to the liquid fire poured out upon rocks in the time of Nehemiah -- the Maccabees have now somehow "extracted" this fire from the rocks and thus continued the sacred fire-tradition of Israel.

(10:5) Now upon the same day that the strangers profaned the temple, on the very same day it was cleansed again, even the five and twentieth day of the same month, which is [Chislev]. (6) And they kept the eight days with gladness, as in the feast of tabernacles, remembering that not long afore they had held the feast of the tabernacles, when as they wandered in the mountains and dens like beasts. (7) Therefore they bare branches, and fair boughs, and palms also, and sang psalms unto him that had given them good success in cleansing his place. (8) They ordained also by a common statute and decree, That every year those days should be kept of the whole nation of the Jews.

This is the holiday now known as Hannukah ("dedication"), though 2 Maccabees identifies it more by its date (25 Chislev) and an association with Sukkot.

Antiochus Epiphanes being dead, his son Antiochus Eupator comes to the throne, and fighting breaks out between the Judeans and the neighboring Idumeans. Despite some infighting on the Judean side, Maccabeus leads them to victory. Next, he must face the army of the Ammonite general Timothy. The Judeans pray before the battle, and at the peak of the battle, five men on horses appear from the sky, shooting arrows that blind their enemies, so that 25,600 of the Judeans' enemies die. Timothy flees, but is hunted down and killed. (Don't worry too much about Timothy, as he'll be back.)

Next, the Seleucid official Lysias brings 80,000 soldiers and horsemen against the Judeans, with the aim of removing Jews from Jerusalem, replacing them with Gentiles, and to turn the temple into a profitable business by selling the high-priesthood on an annual basis. The Judeans, relying upon God's help, kill 27,000 of Lysias's troops, and the rest flee. Lysias decides to come to terms with the Jews, and an exchange of letters follows, in which Antiochus Eupator offers to let the Jews live according to their customary law and resume eating their traditional diets.

At the opening of chapter twelve, we find that the governor Timothy, despite being killed in chapter ten, is one of several local rulers who has it in for the Judeans. When the people of Joppa trick and drown two hundred Jews, Judas Maccabeus takes revenge. He then learns that a similar plot against the Jews is afoot in Yavne, and doles out some preemptive justice against their port and navy. Next, he defeats an army of Arabian nomades, after which they come to terms of peace, after which Judas turns his attention to other cities and commits "unspeakable slaughters", filling a lake with blood.

In all this, they fail to catch Timothy, who is very fleet of foot for someone killed two chapters ago, and manages to get away. Judas Maccabee continues on his bloody rampage through there area, killing 25,000 here and 25,000 there.

Judas & Co. show themselves model soldiers also in the way they bury their dead. (12)

Regrettably, I have not yet finished this thing, and it remains one of theincomplete-posts.

This page is released under the CC0 1.0 license.