Maccabees, Books of

The Books of the Maccabees are a collection of Jewish historical and devotional writings from the intertestamental period, none of which are found in the Hebrew Bible. First Maccabees is a sober historical account of the Maccabean revolt (175–134 BC), covering the career of Judas Maccabaeus and his brothers. Second Maccabees covers a shorter period (180–161 BC) with greater theological reflection, including the doctrines of bodily resurrection and prayer for the dead (2 Maccabees 12:43–46) and the martyrdom accounts of the seven brothers and their mother. Third Maccabees describes persecution of Jews in Egypt under Ptolemy IV. Fourth Maccabees is a philosophical discourse on the supremacy of reason over passion using the Maccabean martyrs as illustrations.

First and Second Maccabees are accepted as canonical in the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox traditions (as deuterocanonical books) but are placed in the Apocrypha by Protestant traditions and were never part of the Hebrew canon. They are historically valuable for understanding the period between Malachi and the birth of John the Baptist, illuminating the political, religious, and cultural context into which Jesus was born.