The Jewish community and the Hellenistic culture in the light of the Books of the Maccabees (original) (raw)
Related papers
2010
In the Second Century B.C.E. the Jews rebelled against their Seleucid overlords achieving, for a while at least, some sort of limited independence. The events that occurred are, in the main, recorded by two works: First and Second Maccabees. The latter of these is a much neglected text. It is maligned as tragic or pathetic history and generally only used by scholars on an ad hoc basis to support particular arguments. Second Maccabees is, however, still a product of a particular time and place, and therefore can give insights into the society from which it evolved. This thesis makes use of this premise to analyse Second Maccabees. Our intention is to uncover some of the author's perceptions and beliefs in order to explain aspects of Jewishness and Jewish society. To do this we approach the text in a fresh way, paying close attention to repeated uses of particular words and any patterns in context that can be associated with these words - this includes associations that are made t...
The Books of the Maccabees: History, Theology, Ideology
BRILL eBooks, 2007
The present volume contains papers read at the Second International Conference on the Deuterocanonical Books, organised by the Shime'on Centre for the Study of Hellenistic and Roman Age Judaism and Christianity of the Reformed Theological Academy, Papa, Hungary. The topic of the conference was the Books of the Maccabees-important witnesses to the thinking of a particular strand of early Judaism-which nicely mirror the theological and ideological interpretation of history by their authors. Within a certain frame, consisting of three papers treating either general, introductory questions of the Deuterocanonical corpus as a whole, or some relevant topics of cognate literature, the contributions in this volume intend to work with the interrelated questions of history, theology and ideology. In doing this, they seek to find the place of the Maccabaean literature within the thinking of the circles that authored them, and to contextualise these works in the contemporary literature. The editors express their deep gratitude to John Kampen, professor of the Methodist Theological School in Ohio, who kindly offered his invaluable help in correcting the English of the volume, and to the series editor, John J. Collins, who kindly accepted this book-as its predecessor on Tobit-for publication in the series of JSJ Supplements.
Portrayals of figures of the Israelite narrative are used in 4 Maccabees 1:1-3:18 to discuss the philosophical nature of Judaism. To illustrate the intellectual cultural milieu of the composition, we analyse the notion of (a) ancient philosophy as a way of life and (b) commentary as an intellectual exercise which are part of the author’s lifestyle. He introduces skills of life management into the lives of past figures to promote his notion of virtue. The author (re)casts familiar stories as descriptions of situations in which characters are challenged both rationally and emotionally; thus, he provides the audience with an opportunity for spiritual exercise by means of identification with these characters. This mélange of philosophical and scriptural practice shows that the principles of 4 Maccabees cannot be reduced to either Greek philosophy or Jewish law. Rather, they constitute a philosophical lifestyle which is aligned with both divine law and lived experience.
The Third Book of Maccabees: Literature, History and Ideology
Hebrew; Ph. D. diss., The Hebrew University of …, 2002
The Third Book of Maccabees is not considered to have great historical or literary value and, therefore, has not frequently been discussed in the literature. Moreover, even despite the growing academic preoccupation with Jewish Hellenistic literature, this book has remained marginal. The purpose of this study is to examine the historical significance of III Maccabees, that is to determine its place from the point of view of the Weltanschauungen prevalent in Hellenistic Jewry and the historical context in which it was composed. The basic assumption of the study is that the preliminary stage in a historical discussion of any written source, be it historiographic or fictional, is the examination of its nature and its goals. Hence, literary analysis of III Maccabees must proceed before any historical conclusions may be reached.
Greek Influence on the Composition of 2 Maccabees
This paper is comprised of three parts. First, I compare festival motifs in 1 and 2 Maccabees to demonstrate that unlike 1 Maccabees, 2 Maccabees is holidaycentered and that it seems to equate holiday observance with religious piety. Because the abridger and audience of 2 Maccabees are familiar with the festivalcentered Greek calendar, the observance of Jewish holidays is offered as an alternative to Hellenism. Second, I examine why prayer plays a more significant role in 2 Maccabees than 1 Maccabees. Although the prominence of prayer in 2 Maccabees might suggest a borrowing from biblical precedent, prayer passages in 2 Maccabees are more likely influenced by Greek drama and the genre of mimos. Finally, I attempt to demonstrate that, unlike 1 Maccabees, 2 Maccabees is temple-centered but not Judea-centered. This stems from the authors' and audience's unfamiliarity with the land of Israel but appreciation of temple-centralized worship. I conclude that 2 Maccabees is not necessarily intended as a refutation of the "Hasmonean propagandist's" 1 Maccabees, but is a retelling of Hasmonean history which emphasizes religious themes familiar to a diasporan audience.