4 Maccabees

Summary:  

A philosophical exposition (treatise, diatribe, lecture, or panegyric), which attempts to demonstrate the supremacy of divine reason (mind / self-control / religious commitment to the law / faith in God / reverence for God) over emotion (desire / compulsion - see 1:7, 9, 13, 14, 19, 30; 2:6, 21, 24; 5:12, 23, 34; 6:31; 7:16-19; 13:1, 4, 16; 15:1-3, 24; 16:1, 14, 22; 17:15; 18:2). The traditional title is a misleading, for the book is not a narrative about the Maccabean period. It probably arose from the prominent examples cited of the martyrdoms of Eleazar and the seven sons and their mother familiar from 2 Maccabees 6-7. The martyrs refused to renounce their ancestral traditions and adopt Hellenistic ways. They were sustained by their hope in the gift of immortality (7:1; 9:22; 14:6; 16:13; 17:12; 18:23; eternal life - 15:3; 17:18; endless life - 17:12) and the conviction that wrongdoers suffer eternal torment by fire (9:9; 12:12; 18:5). The faithful, like the patriarchs, do not die to God, but live to God (7:19; 13:17; 16:25). The author expresses the conviction that the innocent death of martyrs atones for the sins of the nation (12:17; 16:16; 17:10, 21-22)

Canonical Status:

Among the Old Testament Apocrypha of Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches Influential in the preaching and piety of Eastern Orthodoxy Among the Old Testament Pseudepigrapha of Protestants Included in the Septuagint (Greek) and Syriac translations Not included in the Hebrew Scriptures - Tanak - or the Vulgate (Latin)

Author: 

An anonymous observant Jew, influenced nonetheless by Greek philosophy (Stoic) and rhetoric

Place:

Probably Antioch Perhaps Alexandria (or less likely Jerusalem)

Date: 

perhaps as early as the late 1st century BC (after the Roman conquest in 63 BC) probably 1st century AD (before the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70) perhaps as late as the early 2nd century AD (before Hadrian's persecutions in AD 117)

Original Language: flowery, Asiatic Greek

Notes prepared by George Lyons (Professor of Biblical Literature)

for the  Wesley Center for Applied Theology at Northwest Nazarene University

Copyright 2000 by the Wesley Center for Applied Theology

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