3 Maccabees
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.
Synopsis
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. However, he was miraculously prevented from entering the building. This led him to hate the Jews, and upon his return to Alexandria he rounded up the Jewish community there to put them to death in his hippodrome.
Egyptian law, however, required that the names of all those put to death be written down. God caused all the paper of Ptolemy's scribes to be used up in attempting to do this, so that the Jews were temporarily able to escape. Ptolemy then order that the Jews by brought to a huge area, where they would be killed by a force of 500 of ravaging war elephants. However, due to various interventions by God in which the king is made to look both insane and extremely foolish, the Jews escaped this fate. Finally, the king was converted and bestowed favor upon the Jews, allowing them also to take violent revenge on those Jews who had formerly collaborated with the Egyptians. The date of their miraculous deliverance was then established as a holiday for all the Jews living in Egypt.
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.
ReferencesISBN links support NWE through referral fees
- 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
- 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 |
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