Publisher's Synopsis
Four books of Maccabees were ultimately added to the Septuagint, three in the 1st-century BC, and the 4th as an appendix in the 1st-century AD. No trace of these books have been found among the Dead Sea Scrolls, and they are generally thought to have been written in Greek. 1st and 2nd Maccabees do include several Aramaic loanwords that support an Aramaic source text. A different book of Maccabees has survived in the Arabic language, either called Arabic Maccabees, or 5th Maccabees. Three additional books of Maccabees have survived in the Ge'ez language in Ethiopia and are generally considered translations from either Syriac or Arabian sources. Additionally, several books of Maccabees are known to exist in Syriac, which are not the same as any of the above versions of Maccabees. One Yiddish book of the Maccabee surfaced in Europe during the Middle Ages which appears to have been translated from an Aramaic or Hebrew source.
1st Maccabees tells the story of the Maccabean Revolt against the rule of the Seleucid Empire in the 2nd century BC. The content of 1st Maccabees appears to be a Sadducee text, as it clearly gives all credit to the self-declared high-priests that led the rebellion against the Greeks, and barely mentioned the sky-god Shamayim, or the earth-goddess Eretz. It also omits the names of the other gods that 2nd Maccabees and 3rd Maccabees mentions the Judeans worshiping, such as Dionysus, which supports its authorship in the Hasmonean Dynasty, when the other gods were no longer tolerated.
2nd Maccabees claims to be an abridged version of Jason of Cyrene's now lost five-volume version of Maccabees. Jason's books of the Maccabees were likely composed earlier than 1st Maccabees, as the story ends decades earlier, and contains many references to Sabaoth, translated into Greek as Dionysus, which are missing from the 1st Maccabees. While 1st Maccabees is a very secular version of the events that led to the creation of the Hasmonean kingdom, and was, therefore, almost certainly composed by a Sadducee, 2nd Maccabees claims that Judas the Hammer, the protagonist of both 1st and 2nd Maccabees was a Hasidean, suggesting that either Jason of Cyrene, or whoever abridged his work, was a Hasidean. 1st Maccabees mentioned the Hasideans joining Judas' forces, but did not claim he was one.
4th Maccabees is a philosophical interpretation of 2nd Maccabees. It was added to the Septuagint in the 1st-century AD, however, it could have been written anywhere between circa 100 BC and 100 AD. This text includes more details regarding the torture of the Hebrew youths from 2nd Maccabees, which may have come from Jason of Cyrene's original five-volume version of Maccabees. The author of 4th Maccabees accepts the flying horsemen of 2nd Maccabees as sky messengers, which implies the Phrygian imagery was widely accepted by Jews at the time and supports the Greek and Roman records that indicate the Phrygians and Hebrews worshiped the same god. Unlike 2nd and 3rd Maccabees, 4th Maccabees does not mention the god Dionysus/Sabaoth, indicating that the book was written in Hasmonean Dynasty or later. 4th Maccabees also does not have any Aramaic loanwords, indicating it was almost certainly written in Greek.
