The Hanukkah Bible

It is that time of has-Shana for my erstwhile Tribe.

The first book of "Maccabees" wasn't called that in antiquity; it bore a name which Origen's copyists corrupted into "Sarbeth Sarbanaiel". Elsewhere a précis of Jason of Cyrene made it into (Greek) Bibles as the "Maccabicon" or something like that. So a slew of books got into Christian Bibles as "Maccabean" books; "Sarbeth Sarbanaiel" became the "first" one, probably because it was composed first.

1 Maccabees - as a Greek text - seems to owe something to the Greek tragic style, as in the death of the Epimanes (pdf). But Jerome implied that he'd seen this one in "Hebrew". Indeed, the idiom in the Greek is Hebraic not just a Septuagintal pastiche like, say, Luke. I've suspected it was commissioned by John Hyrcanus before the family took the crown; the Encenia ritual and palm-waving which the Johannine Gospel remembered may owe something to it.

There never was a Danielic-era Aramaic version. The Syriac translations (two survive) come from the Lucianic edition of the Greek. The Latin also comes from the Greek as does, directly or not (this post doesn't care), the Grabar. Seckel Isaac Fränkel will use the Greek too, to backtranslate it.

In the tradition into which I've now stumbled, 1 Maccabees was never as popular as actual, "2" Maccabees. 2 Maccabees had more focus on martyrdom, a big Thing for Christians. Besides John our Sermon For The Hebrews cites Greek 1 Macc 2 but, that's about it (unless the timing of Advent counts). In the Jewish tradition... well, not everyone approved what the Hasmonaeans turned into; Qumran refused any of their stuff and the Rabbis didn't want it either.

This blog has often questioned how hard the Palaestinian Jews ever forgot this Hasmonaean propagandum; like, Pesikta de-Rav Kahana starts the calendar at the same time as Catholics do, around Hanukkah. Lately Reuven Kimelman is arguing Al HaNissim was edited to take 1 Maccabees into account. Both events could be from Julian's time; better, from Khusro II's occupation. Looking at the Al HaNissim text this is in Hebrew, not Aramaic.