2 Maccabees - Canonicity

Canonicity

Catholics and the Eastern Orthodox regard 2 Maccabees as canonical. Jews and Protestants do not. 2 Maccabees, along with 1 and 3 Maccabees, appeared in the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible completed in the 1st century BC. In Jamnia c 90, according to one theory now largely discredited, rabbis endorsed a narrower canon, excluding deuterocanonical works such as 2 Maccabees. This had little immediate impact on Christians, however, since most Christians did not know Hebrew and were familiar with the Hebrew Bible through the Greek Septuagint text of Hellenistic Jews, which included 2 Maccabees and other deuterocanonical works. 2 Maccabees was condemned in Protestant circles. Martin Luther said: "I am so great an enemy to the second book of the Maccabees, and to Esther, that I wish they had not come to us at all, for they have too many heathen unnaturalities." Other evangelical writers have been more positive towards the book: James B. Jordan, for example, argues that while 1 Maccabees "was written to try and show the Maccabean usurpers as true heirs of David and as true High Priests" and is a "wicked book," a "far more accurate picture of the situation is given in 2 Maccabees."