Bible Reading: 1 Maccabees 1 {Ecumenical thread}

Douay-Rheims ^ | 175 BC | Maccabee

[Cronos]

1st of August is the feast of the Holy Maccabean Martyrs. Reading this book when I was 12 was the start of my admiration for the Jewish people keeping their faith through such adversity

[narses]

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[johngrace]

I just read it the whole page. Old testament martyrs. Amazing story.

[Vendome]

interesting.
Thanks for the post.

[Cronos]

You’re welcome. The tale of how the Jews kept their religion and culture alive is quite inspiring. As I said, the feast of the Maccabean Marytyrs is celebrated on the 1st of August. I felt like putting this up after I posted something about Janusz Korczak — google him or wikipedia and you can read the story of a very inspiring life

[Salvation]

Catholic Ping!

[CanaGuy]

Can some erudite person explain in simple terms why Maccabees is not in my current Bible, while it actually did appear in the original KJV Bible? Seems to me we’re missing some good stuff.

[Judith Anne]

Thank you for posting, Cronos. The story is inspiring to anyone who takes a principled stand.

None of us knows, in this day and age, when our very lives may be required of us.

[Judith Anne]

Here is a non-denominational source for information on the books:

http://mb-soft.com/believe/txs/maccabee.htm

I can’t vouch for the source, only that it will get you started with some information.

[CanaGuy]

Can some erudite person explain in simple terms why Maccabees is not in my current Bible, while it actually did appear in the original KJV Bible? Seems to me we’re missing some good stuff.

[jjotto]

Not a specific answer, but

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/7610

[Kolokotronis]

The Seven Holy Maccabees, their mother Salome and their techer Eleazar

Synaxarion:

The names of the Holy Maccabees are Abim, Anthony, Guria, Eleazar, Eusebona, Achim, and Marcellus. They were Jews by race and exact keepers of the Laws of the Fathers. They lived during the reign of Antiochus, who was surnamed Epiphanes ("Illustrious"), the King of Syria and an implacable enemy of the Jews. Having subjugated their whole nation and done many evil things to them, not sparing to assail the most sacred matters of their Faith, he constrained them, among other things, to partake of swine's flesh, which was forbidden by the Law. Then these pious youths, on being apprehended together with their mother and their teacher, were constrained to set at nought the Law, and were subjected to unspeakable tortures: wrackings, the breaking of their bones, the flaying of their flesh, fire, dismemberment, and such things as only a tyrant's mind and a bestial soul is able to contrive. But when they had endured all things courageously and showed in deed that the mind is sovereign over the passions and is able to conquer them if it so desires, they gloriously ended their lives in torments, surrendering their life for the sake of the observance of the divine Law. The first to die was their teacher Eleazar, then all the brethren in the order of their age. As for their wondrous mother Solomone, "filled with a courageous spirit, and stirring up her womanish thoughts with a manly wrath" (II Macc. 7:21), she was present at her children's triumph over the tyrant, strengthening them in their struggle for the sake of their Faith, and enduring stout-heartedly their sufferings for the sake of their hope in the Lord. After her last and youngest son had been perfected in martyrdom, when she was about to be seized to be put to death, she cast herself into the fire that they might not touch her, and was thus deemed worthy of a blessed end together with her sons, in the year 168 before Christ.

Kontakion in the Second Tone

The Wisdom of God's own seven pillars are ye all, a seven-branched lamp that shineth with the Light Divine, ye Great Martyrs that were before the Martyrs, O all-wise Maccabees, with them pray ye the God of all that we who now sing your praises may be saved.

[Rashputin]

This is a good, simple, online, starting point:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Development_of_the_Old_Testament_canon

with a link to:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudepigrapha

Basically, Luther agreed with the Jews (who asserted 'cessation of inspiration' because they were used so successfully by Christians to convert Jews) and he dropped them from his translation. His primary initial reasoning was that they supported doctrines, in whole or in part, that he didn't agree with. I personally don't think much of Luther's argument against these OT books due to the wealth of prophesies about Christ in them. It's at least worth noting that Luther also wanted to drop Hebrews, James, Jude, and Revelation, from the NT.

The arguments over whether he was justified in doing so will never end and you can get into as scholarly or as heated a debate (even heated and scholarly debates) over the matter as you like at the drop of a hat. Calvin, like Luther, had his own opinions of what should be included in the Bible and is worth looking into if you're going to pursue why the canon has changed since Christ. Given that He didn't mention anything that needed to be thrown out of the Bible in use while he was on earth, I actually don't understand arguments over the canon. It's too much like rolling your own like a lot of cults do for me to be comfortable with not just sticking to what was in the Septuagint (which I can never spell without checking first).

If you want to do further research it’s tough to find something without an agenda. I think just downloading the following book from the Google thing is a good start because it’s exhaustive enough without much of an agenda (as I recall) and can be very useful for other things as well. Especially for seeing how the usage of words has changed since 1910.

“The popular and critical Bible encyclopædia and Scriptural dictionary” - Herbert Lockwood Willett

http://books.google.com/books?vid=OCLC05742122&id=rl3lcbLkHV0C&pg=PA521&lpg=PA521&dq=luther+%22are+useful+and+good+to+read%22#v=onepage&q=luther%20%22are%20useful%20and%20good%20to%20read%22&f=false

Regards

[Bigg Red]

I fear another time of martyrdom is coming....

[Tax-chick]

Wow, I could read some of the captions in Greek, although the characters are not exactly what we're learning from Hey Andrew, Teach Me Some Greek!.

[Cronos]

Maccabees is incredibly inspiring -- when I read it as a young lad, it was more exciting than any adventure tale. The bravery of the Jews in standing up against overwhelming odds, the gallantry of each of the sons of Maccabee is fascinating.

I also credit it and Jeremiah to a large extent for developing my continuing fascination for history.

Did you know that the Maccabees conquered the Edomites and joined them to the Israelites? And that by the time of Christ, these Edomites were called Idumeans and one of them rose to become King, King Herod? I didn't! And I found it fascinating that when Jerusalem was destroyed by the army of Vespasian in 69AD, the Edomiates/Idumeans were among those fighting and defending Israel! And their nation was destroyed during this fighting for their brother.

[Cronos]

What is funny is that we who are descended partly from their oppressors’ kinfolk now venerate them!

[Uri’el-2012]

The Seven Holy Maccabees, their mother Salome and their techer Eleazar

I find the icon curious.

Holy ? But no depiction of G-d's Holy Word.

Righteous Jews in 175 BCE with "halos" and "christian" crosses ???

It seems as if the Maccabees were misappropriated.

shalom b'SHEM Yah'shua HaMashiach

[Cronos]

Not sure if you have the links to Vatican to America: ‘Social Justice’ is About Relationships, Not Socialism {Catholic caucus} and catholicscomehome.org

[Cronos]

Thank you for that Kolokotronis, As for their wondrous mother Solomone, "filled with a courageous spirit, and stirring up her womanish thoughts with a manly wrath" (II Macc. 7:21), are inspiring words to us all