His severest condemnation goes, not to the Seleucid politicians, but to the lawless apostates among his own people, adversaries of Judas and his brothers, who are models of faith and loyalty. The first and second Books of Maccabees, though regarded by Jews and Protestants as apocryphal, i.
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Ordination of a Bishop, of Priests, and of Deacons. Lectio Divina of Gospels Latest books. It was there that the contents of the canon of the Hebrew Bible may have been discussed and formally accepted. However, this is a scholarly proposition that has lost adherents in recent years.
Be that as it may, some of the debates surrounding these discussions—whenever and wherever they may have taken place—do appear in rabbinic literature, although we have no complete surviving record of these debates. Therefore, we can only speculate on why some materials were excluded from our canon and others included.
In spite of the fact that various non-canonical writings did not make it into the Jewish canon, they nonetheless contain much of value and are worthy of study, even if the rabbis did not consider them to be divinely inspired or as holy as the Bible. Many of these writings appear in a category of documents known as the Apocrypha. The apocryphal writings contain books that existed at the putative time of Jamnia, but for whatever reason were not included in the biblical canon.
It is in this category that we find the books of the Maccabees. There are various theories to explain the exclusion of the apocryphal books. One theory is that only books written originally in Hebrew were considered for inclusion in the canon. However, the Book of Daniel , although included within the canon, is to a large extent written in Aramaic. Even more problematic is the fact that scholars believe that the First Book of Maccabees was indeed written originally in Hebrew, therefore meeting the language criterion for inclusion—and yet it is absent from the biblical canon.
Another theory to explain the omission of the first two Books of Maccabees is based on the dating of these documents. Although it is often assumed that the biblical canon was formalized at Jamnia, there is some speculation that the accepted list of books was in existence long before.
In other words, perhaps the gathering of rabbis at Jamnia inherited a list of documents already unofficially recognized as canonical and simply formalized this list. If this is true, the relatively late date of the Maccabean revolt would preclude its inclusion in an already accepted previous list.
This theory, however, is severely weakened through a comparison with the Book of Daniel, since Daniel is included within the biblical canon in spite of the fact that most scholars date the latter book to the time of the Maccabean revolt around B. 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.
He took to his bed and became sick from grief, because things had not turned out for him as he had planned. Now the men in the citadel kept hemming Israel in around the sanctuary.
They were trying in every way to harm them and strengthen the Gentiles. The king was enraged when he heard this. He assembled all his friends, the commanders of his forces and those in authority. Then Judas marched away from the citadel and encamped at Beth-zechariah, opposite the camp of the king. Now a part of the king's army was spread out on the high hills, and some troops were on the plain, and they advanced steadily and in good order.
The soldiers of the king's army went up to Jerusalem against them, and the king encamped in Judea and at Mount Zion. Then Lysias heard that Philip, whom King Antiochus while still living had appointed to bring up Antiochus his son to be king,. The speech pleased the king and the commanders, and he sent to the Jews an offer of peace, and they accepted it. In the one hundred and fifty-first year Demetrius the son of Seleucus set forth from Rome, sailed with a few men to a city by the sea, and there began to reign.
Then there came to him all the lawless and ungodly men of Israel; they were led by Alcimus, who wanted to be high priest. So the king chose Bacchides, one of the king's friends, governor of the province Beyond the River; he was a great man in the kingdom and was faithful to the king. Then Bacchides departed from Jerusalem and encamped in Beth-zaith. And he sent and seized many of the men who had deserted to him, and some of the people, and killed them and threw them into a great pit.
Then the king sent Nicanor, one of his honored princes, who hated and detested Israel, and he commanded him to destroy the people. After these events Nicanor went up to Mount Zion. Some of the priests came out of the sanctuary, and some of the elders of the people, to greet him peaceably and to show him the burnt offering that was being offered for the king. Now Judas heard of the fame of the Romans, that they were very strong and were well-disposed toward all who made an alliance with them, that they pledged friendship to those who came to them,.
So Judas chose Eupolemus the son of John, son of Accos, and Jason the son of Eleazar, and sent them to Rome to establish friendship and alliance,. When Demetrius heard that Nicanor and his army had fallen in battle, he sent Bacchides and Alcimus into the land of Judah a second time, and with them the right wing of the army.
When Judas saw that his army had slipped away and the battle was imminent, he was crushed in spirit, for he had no time to assemble them. Then the army of Bacchides marched out from the camp and took its stand for the encounter. The cavalry was divided into two companies, and the slingers and the archers went ahead of the army, as did all the chief warriors.
Judas saw that Bacchides and the strength of his army were on the right; then all the stouthearted men went with him,. Then Jonathan and Simon took Judas their brother and buried him in the tomb of their fathers at Modein,. After the death of Judas, the lawless emerged in all parts of Israel; all the doers of injustice appeared. And Jonathan sent his brother as leader of the multitude and begged the Nabateans, who were his friends, for permission to store with them the great amount of baggage which they had.
After these things it was reported to Jonathan and Simon his brother, "The sons of Jambri are celebrating a great wedding, and are conducting the bride, a daughter of one of the great nobles of Canaan, from Nadabath with a large escort. When Bacchides heard of this, he came with a large force on the sabbath day to the banks of the Jordan.
Bacchides then returned to Jerusalem and built strong cities in Judea: the fortress in Jericho, and Emmaus, and Beth-horon, and Bethel, and Timnath, and Pharathon, and Tephon, with high walls and gates and bars.
In the one hundred and fifty-third year, in the second month, Alcimus gave orders to tear down the wall of the inner court of the sanctuary. He tore down the work of the prophets! Then all the lawless plotted and said, "See! Jonathan and his men are living in quiet and confidence. So now let us bring Bacchides back, and he will capture them all in one night. Then Jonathan with his men, and Simon, withdrew to Bethbasi in the wilderness; he rebuilt the parts of it that had been demolished, and they fortified it.
But Jonathan left Simon his brother in the city, while he went out into the country; and he went with only a few men. When Jonathan learned of this, he sent ambassadors to him to make peace with him and obtain release of the captives.
In the one hundred and sixtieth year Alexander Epiphanes, the son of Antiochus, landed and occupied Ptolemais. They welcomed him, and there he began to reign. Then Jonathan came to Jerusalem and read the letter in the hearing of all the people and of the men in the citadel. Now Alexander the king heard of all the promises which Demetrius had sent to Jonathan, and men told him of the battles that Jonathan and his brothers had fought, of the brave deeds that they had done, and of the troubles that they had endured.
So Jonathan put on the holy garments in the seventh month of the one hundred and sixtieth year, at the feast of tabernacles, and he recruited troops and equipped them with arms in abundance. When Jonathan and the people heard these words, they did not believe or accept them, because they remembered the great wrongs which Demetrius had done in Israel and how he had greatly oppressed them.
Ptolemy the king replied and said, "Happy was the day on which you returned to the land of your fathers and took your seat on the throne of their kingdom. So Ptolemy set out from Egypt, he and Cleopatra his daughter, and came to Ptolemais in the one hundred and sixty-second year.
In the one hundred and sixty-fifth year Demetrius the son of Demetrius came from Crete to the land of his fathers. Why do you assume authority against us in the hill country? When Jonathan heard the words of Apollonius, his spirit was aroused.
He chose ten thousand men and set out from Jerusalem, and Simon his brother met him to help him. When Apollonius heard of it, he mustered three thousand cavalry and a large army, and went to Azotus as though he were going farther.
At the same time he advanced into the plain, for he had a large troop of cavalry and put confidence in it.
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