From: heb_roots_chr@mail.geocities.com
To: "Hebraic Heritage Newsgroup"<heb_roots_chr@geocities.com>
Date: Thu, 25 Dec 1997 03:54:53 +0000
Subject: The Book of Maccabees as Scripture
From: MR JAMES J DOWNES
To: heb_roots_chr@geocities.com
Hi Eddie,
Would you please explain to us why the jews have rejected the books of
Maccabees as being inspired text? How accurate is the history in
these books and why were they not included in the Tanakh?
Thank you,
Jim and Cathy Downes
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From: Marvin Ennels
To: <heb_roots_chr@geocities.com>, <heb_roots_chr@geocities.com>
Subject: Re: The Book of Maccabees
Eddie:
Could you also please explain why the Book of Maccabees appears in
the Catholic Bible?
Thanks,
Marvin
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From: Rabbi Yehoshua M. Othniel
To: <heb_roots_chr@geocities.com>
Subject: Re: Books that didn't make it.
Response from Rabbi O.
The Book of Maccabees is a part of the Aprocrypha which belongs to a
collection of 14 books from the Greek translation of the Bible,
(Septuagint). Our ancient sages did not consider this or any of this
collection of works as inspired and therefore did not include them in
the canon of the Mesoretic Text. (Jewish "Old Testament" as we know it
today.)
I might add that the Protestant church doesn't consider these works
to be inspired either. The Catholic Church considers 11 of the 14
inspired, I believe 1st and 2nd Maccabees are part of their Bible.
It's interesting to note that our sages of blessed memory have also
chosen not to make mention of the Maccabeean victories in the Talmud,
a collection of works that are considered, (by some Jewish sects) to
be on equal footing or even above the Tanakh, (Jewish Bible) itself.
This is probably due to the fact that the Hasmoneans who reintroduced
the monarchy in Israel after the Syrian-Greeks were driven out were
not members of the Davidic line.
No matter what religion or sect of a faith you belong to, you can
never get away from politics!
Happy Holidays,
Rabbi O.
__________________________________
Rabbi Yehoshua M. Othniel
Kehilat Ami Echad
P.O. Box 1452
Independence, KS 67301, U.S.A.
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From: Philip Nowland
To: <heb_roots_chr@geocities.com>
Subject: Re: The Book of Maccabees
Shalom
It is not so much a case of the Jews rejecting the books of Maccabees
as being inspired text, it is more a case of them not being accepted
as such. A fine point - you might say.
While these writings are very helpfull as history for the period
between the latest book of the Tanakh and the 1st Century, neither the
Jews nor Protestant Christians have accepted them as inspired, in the
same way that we term the Bible to be so.
Furthermore, the books of Maccabees do not make any aspiration to be
accepted as Scripture. Indeed, the writer(s) even hint at them not
being inspired, but just simple historical records - even possibly
containing error.
See the words of 2 Maccabees 15:37-38
"O I to will here end my story. If it is well told and to the point,
that is what I myself desired; if it is poorly done and mediocre, that
was the best I could do"
Does that sound like Scripture to you?
Not everything written by Jewish writers, before the 1st Century is
inspired.
The Hebrew titles for the books has been lost with the original Hebrew
texts. Rabbinical writers call the Books of Maccabees ciphere
ha-chashmonim, "The Book of the Hasmoneans". There is no serious
evidence that any of the Jewish authorities considered these writings
as part of Scripture in the same light as the Tanakh. They just simply
could not stand up to the test of Scripture and are just never
included with Hebrew Bibles.
There were 5 books of Maccabees.
As far as the Christian Church was concerned, only the first two are
of serious interest. The Latin Vulgate Bible (of Jerome, 390-405 A.D.)
includes only the first two of them, and these are the only ones
pronounced canonical by the Catholic Church. They are also the only
ones included in Protestant versions of the Apocrypha (but note that
they are not accepted as inspired by Protestants).
1st and 2nd Maccabees were used by early Christians, and this point is
proved by the many references made to them in the writings of such
people as:Tertullian (died 220), Clement of Alexandria (died 220),
Hippolytus (died 235), Origen (died 254), etc. However, Origen states
that 1 Maccabees is uncanonical, and it is excluded from the lists of
canonical writings given by Athanasius (died 373), Cyril of Jerusalem
(died 386), and Gregory of Nazianzus (died 390). Early Christian
writers gave less value to 2nd Maccabees. Indeed, none of the books of
the Maccabees was recognized as canonical until the Council of Trent
(1553) gave this rank to the first 2 books, in the Catholic Church.
Protestants continue in their confessions to exclude the whole of the
Apocrypha from the Bible proper.
Yours, in Yeshua's name
Philip Nowland - Huntingdon, England
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