He seems to have admired the philosophical tone of the book enough to do so. Emmet, Cyril. The 3rd and 4th Books of Maccabees. New York: Forgotten Books, DiTommaso, Lorenzo. A Bibliography of Pseudepigrapha Research — Journal for the Study of Pseudepigrapha Supplement Series Sheffield, England: Sheffield Academic Press, Collins, John J.
Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, DeSilva, David. DiTommaso, Lorenzo. A Bibliography of Pseudepigrapha Research, — Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha Supplement Series Bibliography with entries on 3 and 4 Maccabees, listing publications on the various versions of the text, translations and commentaries, as well as general and specific studies.
Classical discussion of the canonical status of all four books in the Greek version of the Old Testament. Fischer, Thomas, and Hugh Anderson. Edited by David N. Freedman, — New York: Doubleday, More elaborate survey than usual for a dictionary article, with good introductions to all four books and bibliographies including references up to c. Karrer, Martin, and Wolfgang Kraus, eds. Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, This German commentary on the books of the Septuagint includes introductions to all four Maccabean books, brief per verse explanations of the content and notes about the social, cultural, and historical context.
Lehnhardt, Andreas. Bibliography with entries on 1—4 Maccabees, listing publications on editions, translations, and commentaries, as well as articles and monographs on specific topics in these books.
Mittmann-Richert, Ulrike. Elaborate introductions to 1, 2, and 3 Maccabees, focusing on introductory issues, composition, and content of these books. Paul was preaching, their forefathers and heroes in the faith had been willing to lay down their lives over these very issues. Even more importantly, however, within the Second Temple Jewish understanding of martyrdom as expressed here in 4 Maccabees we gain important information about how first century Jewish believers would have understood a sacrificial death.
Be merciful to your people, and let our righteousness suffice for them. Make my blood their purification, and take my life in exchange for theirs. When Jewish believers of this period were told of the sacrificial death of the Messiah, 4 Maccabees describes for us the lens through which they would have understood this.
Penal substitutionary atonement in particular is problematic for this reason. In its full-fledged form, it is a Calvinist doctrine, because it only works if you believe in either limited atonement or universalism. This is an overarching problem with Reformed theology. There is no penal substitution in the Passover ritual. There are three main elements: Manumission from slavery, the defeat of powers hostile to God, and the marking out of a people with blood.
These are the three elements focused on throughout the New Testament and the Fathers. Just as the God of Israel defeated the gods of Egypt, including Pharaoh, and freed his people from slavery to them, so also Christ through his death has defeated the evil powers which had held the world and its people in slavery through the power of sin and death.
Slavery in the ancient world was a function of debt. Christ ransoms the lives of humanity from death.
Death has a claim on every human being through sin, and so any given human person can only die for their own sins. Christ owed no such debt and so death had no such claim, so he was able to voluntarily lay down his life to destroy death and grant life to the world.
Specifically, St. Eleazar puts into words the idea that because he is being tortured and killed not for having done evil or committed some crime, but for the sake of righteousness, that he can offer his death as a sacrifice to God for the sake of his people. There is no idea here that God is the one torturing and killing him. Rather, he is offering up his life in the same way that animal sacrifices were offered to the God of Israel, in the hope that they would be a pleasing aroma to him.
When Jesus mentions it in Mt. If so, Jesus speaks as if this will be a future event, when it actually had taken place hundreds of years before. And that Jesus wants us to understand that certain acts — past, present and future — will defile. This, the people, including His disciples, did not understand either. They offered to help him pretend to eat pork just to stop the torture. He, of course, refused that too. Despite his age, he was able to withstand his captors and maintain his loyalty to the end.
He died a noble death. Undaunted, Antiochus renewed his efforts to find more Jews and threatened to torture them unto death if they did not eat pork. Seven brothers were brought before him. He offered the same deal to each brother in turn. Not only did they refuse, but they spent their waning breaths encouraging each other in defiance of the king. Apparently, their elderly mother was watching each of her sons in their final moments.
When they were all gone, Antiochus ordered that she be brought forward. Instead of lamenting the loss of her sons, she, like her children, spoke only of loyalty to God and defiance to the king. At the end, she ended her life before the soldiers could harm her. In this way, the violence of the king was defeated by these noble individuals. They did not succumb to his evil, nor did they compromise their values. In turn, they each demonstrated that "devout reason is sovereign over the emotions.
In choosing these stories, the author is arguing that Judaism is not only a valid choice in a changing world, but it's really the only choice that can achieve the virtues that Greeks and Romans valued. Greco-Romans were interested in all matters of philosophy and in attaining the cardinal virtues. This author claims the best way to do that was to be obedient to the Torah and faithful to their ancient traditions — regardless of societal circumstances.
Because the Greeks and Romans did not worship the true God, they would always fall short in their attempts to attain the highest ideal of virtue. This is a letter, then, of encouragement for his followers to remain loyal even if others should be hostile or contemptuous of their traditions.
There is no room here for accommodation to the Torah. In fact, following the Torah is required for anyone wanting to achieve the highest standards of Hellenistic ethical philosophy — a goal for many in the first century.
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