3 Maccabees

3 Maccabees describes how the Jews of Alexandria were rescued by God from being trampled by 500 rampaging war elephants.

The book of 3 Maccabees is found in most Orthodox Bibles as a part of the deuterocanonical books, but Protestants, Catholics, and Jews regard it as apocryphal. It tells the story of persecution of the Jews under Ptolemy IV Philopator (222-205 B.C.E.).

Despite its title, the book has almost nothing to do with the Maccabees or their revolt against the Greek Empire, as described in 1 Maccabees and 2 Maccabees. The name of the book apparently comes from the similarities between this work and the stories of the tyranny of Greek rulers in Jerusalem, the martyrdom of Eleazar and the Maccabean youths in 2 Maccabees, and the heroic resistance of the pious Jews. Unlike the other "Maccabean" works, however, it takes place in Africa. It also concludes with a spectacular miraculous intervention by God to save his people from mass martyrdom, while the other books of the Maccabees, deliverance comes through God's support of the Maccabean military revolt. The other books of Maccabees also devote considerable attention to cases in which the Jews who are being persecuted are not delivered, but die as martyrs at the hands of Antiochus IV Epiphanes.

Background

The Jews of Alexandria, Egypt, like other Jews of the Greek Empire in the second century B.C.E., faced pressure to adopt Greek customs. It is in this context that 3 Maccabees sets its story. The book is perhaps best understood not so much as a literal history of events, but a polemic against the cruelty of Greek and possibly later Roman rulers who pressured Jews to adopt Gentile ways. At the same time, it is also an tale designed to denigrate any compromise with Hellenistic culture, holding that God will not only deliver pious Jew, but also harshly punish those who give in the Gentiles, even to the point of death.

Synopsis

Ptolemy IV of Egypt, the villain of 3 Maccabees

Apart from its abrupt commencement, the references in i. 2 to " the plot " as something already specified, and in ii. 25 to the king's " before-mentioned " companions, of whom, however, nothing is said in the previous section of the book, point to the loss of at least an introductory chapter.

6 The statements with reference to the war between Antiochus the Great and Ptolemy Philopator are in general agreement with those of the classical historians, and to this extent the tale may be said to have an historical setting. By Grimm (Einl. § 3), the observance of the two yearly festivals (vi. 26; vii. 19), and the existence of the synagogue at Ptolemais when the book was written, are viewed as the witness of tradition to the fact of some great deliverance. Fritzsche has well pointed out, however (art. " Makkabaer " in Schenkel's Bibel-Lexicon) that in the hands of Jewish writers of the period nearly every event of consequence has a festival attached to it.

commands executed, things had reached a crisis. The Jews prayed to the Lord for mercy, and two angels appeared from heaven, to the confusion of the royal troops, who were trampled down by the elephants. Ptolemy now vented his wrath upon his counsellors, liberated the Jews, and feasted them for seven days. They determined that these should be kept as festal days henceforth in commemoration of their deliverance. The provincial governors were enjoined to take the Jews under their protection, and leave was given to the latter to slay those of their kinsmen who had deserted the faith. They further celebrated their deliverance at Ptolemais, where they built a synagogue, and they reached their various abodes to find themselves not only reinstated in their possessions, but raised in the esteem of the Egyptians.

The contents of the book have a legendary character, which scholars have not been able to tie to proven historical events, and it has all the appearances of a romance. It begins by describing how, after Ptolemy IV's defeat of Antiochus III in 217 B.C.E. at the battle of Raphia, he visited Jerusalem and the Second Temple. Called "Philopator" in the text, he insists on entering the the Temple of Jerusalem, which is forbidden to Gentiles, but is struck down by God's power in answer to the prayers of the horrified Jews. On his return to Egypt he takes revenge on the Alexandrian Jews, depriving the civic rights any who refuse to worship the Greek god Dionysus. Exasperated by their loyalty to their religion, he then orders all the Jews in Egypt to be imprisoned in the hippodrome of Alexandria. Clerks begin to prepare a list of the prisoners' names, but after 40 days of constant toil they end up exhausting their writing materials.

Ptolemy then commands that 500 elephants should be intoxicated and let loose on the Jews in order to trample them to death. However, the king oversleeps and fails to give the final order need for this to occur. The next day he miraculously forgets all about the supposed disloyalty of the Jews and grows angry with his counselors who plan to kill them. The same evening, however, he reiterates to his bewildered staff his order that the Jews be killed. commands executed.

The Jews pray to the Lord for mercy, and two angels appear from heaven. The elephants then turn on the royal troops and trample them instead of the Jews. Ptolemy blames his counselors for the entire affair, liberates the Jews, and feasts with them for seven days. The Jews institute a yearly festival to celebrate the events, and provincial governors are enjoined to take the Jews under their protection.

The king then authorizes the Jews to kill any of their those kinsmen who had deserted the faith by cooperating with the former royal decree to worship a pagan deity.

Authorship and historicity

Critics agree that the author of this book was an Alexandrian Jew who wrote in Greek. In style, the author is prone to rhetorical constructs and a somewhat bombastic style, and the themes of the book are very similar to those of the pseudepigraphal Epistle of Aristeas. The work begins somewhat abruptly, leading many to think that it is actually a fragment of a (now-lost) longer work.

Although some parts of the story, such as the names of the Jews taking up all the paper in Egypt, are clearly fictional, parts of the story cannot be definitively proven or disproven. Some scholars are willing to accept the first section, which tells of the actions of Ptolemy Philopator in being kept of the Temple of Jerusalem and later persecuting the Alexandrian Jews, as having a historical basis. Josephus notes that many Jews were put to death in Alexandria under the reign of Ptolemy VIII Physcon (146-117 B.C.E.) due to their support for Cleopatra II, and this execution was indeed carried out by intoxicated elephants. Some believe that the author of 3 Maccabees has transferred the historical incident to an earlier time period and added an fictitious connection to Jerusalem.

Another theory about the historical basis of the book was advanced by Adolf Büchler in 1899. He held that the book describes the persecution of the Jews in the Fayum region of Egypt. It is certain that the Jews abruptly changed allegiance from Egypt to Syria in 200 B.C.E. This author presumes that the change must have been due to persecution in Egypt. One theory holds that the book represents a polemic against the persecution of Jews by the Roman emperor Caligula, thus dating from around 40 C.E., but this theory has been rejected by more recent authors, on the grounds that in the book, Ptolemy does not claim divine honors as Caligula did.

The book was written at some point after 2 Maccabees, on which 3 Maccabees apparently relies. This sets the date of composition to the end of the first century B.C.E. and its use in the Orthodox Church also speaks for its composition before the first century CE.

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Bakhos, Carol. Ancient Judaism in Its Hellenistic Context. Supplements to the Journal for the study of Judaism, v. 95. Leiden: Brill, 2005. ISBN 9789004138711
• Brant, Jo-Ann A., Charles W. Hedrick, and Chris Shea. Ancient Fiction: The Matrix of Early Christian and Jewish Narrative. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2005. ISBN 9781589831667
• Croy, N. Clayton. 3 Maccabees. Septuagint commentary series. Leiden: Brill, 2006. ISBN 9789004147751
• International Conference on the Deuterocanonical Books, Géza G. Xeravits, and József Zsengellér. The books of the Maccabees: history, theology, ideology : papers of the Second International Conference on the Deuteronomical Books, Pápa, Hungary, 9-11 June, 2005. Supplements to the Journal for the study of Judaism, v. 118. Leiden: Brill, 2007. ISBN 9789004157002
• Thompson, J. David. A critical concordance to the Apocrypha. 3 Maccabees. The Computer Bible, v. 100. Lewiston [N.Y.]: Edwin Mellen Press, 2002. ISBN 9780773439986

External links

• Greek text from Septuaginta: Id est Vetus Testamentum graece iuxta LXX interpretes (Stuttgart: Privilegierte württembergische Biblelanstalt, 1935).
• English text from The Apocrypha, New Revised Standard Version (NRSV).
• Jewish Encyclopedia: III Maccabees
• Early Jewish Writings: 3 Maccabees

Preceded by: 2 Maccabees

Books of the Bible

Succeeded by: 4 Maccabees

Credits

New World Encyclopedia writers and editors rewrote and completed the Wikipedia article in accordance with New World Encyclopedia standards. This article abides by terms of the Creative Commons CC-by-sa 3.0 License (CC-by-sa), which may be used and disseminated with proper attribution. Credit is due under the terms of this license that can reference both the New World Encyclopedia contributors and the selfless volunteer contributors of the Wikimedia Foundation. To cite this article click here for a list of acceptable citing formats.The history of earlier contributions by wikipedians is accessible to researchers here:

• 3 Maccabees  ^history

The history of this article since it was imported to New World Encyclopedia:

• History of "3 Maccabees"

Note: Some restrictions may apply to use of individual images which are separately licensed.