[Inyokern]

I don’t know how you could read 1 and 2 Maccabees and not know this. But Christmas has often been twisted, too, I suppose.

Ironically, 1 and 2 Maccabees are not part of the canon of the Jewish Bible (Tanakh).

As we know, Christianity uses books that were preserved by Jews but, in the case of Chanukah, Jews have made use of knowledge in books that were preserved by Christians.

[Optimist]

>Ironically, 1 and 2 Maccabees are not part of the canon of the Jewish Bible (Tanakh).

>As we know, Christianity uses books that were preserved by Jews but, in the case of Chanukah, Jews have made use of knowledge in books that were preserved by Christians.

Which raises the question (which I am sure has been answered in Jewish intellectual circles) “Does the absence of Maccabees in the Jewish Bible reflect tha,t although historical, it does not rise to the level of ‘inspired by God’?” And if so, why then does it reach that level in the Christian Bible?

just wondering

[Verginius Rufus]

There is also some material on the Maccabees in Josephus (I don't have his text handy to check it at the moment)--but I think Josephus survives mainly because Christians were interested in reading him.

There is mention of the feast of the rededication of the temple in the New Testament at John 10.22 (where it is called enkainia or renewal--immediately followed by the information that "it was winter").

[Biggirl]

In Roman Catholic Bibles, for example, the New American, you have both 1 and 2 Maccabees in that Bible. With 5 other books, it makes for 72 books altogether. The Protestant Bibles only have 64 books.

[Cicero]

Yes. Nor are they part of the King James Bible or the Bible according to Luther. But they are part of the Catholic Bible.

Although Jews don’t give them canonical status, they are among the books that have a good deal of historical authority for them. All that stuff really happened.