II Maccabees renders the compelling details surrounding the events culminating in the revolt of the Israelites led by Judas Maccabeus. Glorified by Dante in the Divine Comedy, Paradiso (18:40-2), Maccabeus surfaces as one of the everlasting heroes of world history, a figure who also merited an oratorio composed by the famed Handel in 1747. Despite the high level of visibility surrounding the historical figure of Judas Maccabeus, the three books of Maccabees have been eliminated from several Christian communities. In 1534 Martin Luther relegated these books to an appendix pronouncing them "not to be equated with Holy Scripture." In contrast, Catholic tradition has authorized their validity since the days of the early Church, still including them as "apocryphal works" determined to be "deutero-canonical" by the Council of Trent in 1546. Whereas Protestants questioned their legitimacy from the beginning, it was not until the 19th century that officials of the Russian Orthodox Church excluded Maccabees from their canons. The debate over the authenticity of the Old Testament Books of Maccabees illuminates the complexity of their archeological, linguistic, and theological hermeneutics.
Examining II Maccabees 12:3 provides a condensed focal point for analysis of the Maccabean question. In The New Jerusalem Bible the passage reads "The people of Joppa committed a particularly wicked crime: they invited the Jews living among them to go aboard some boats they had lying ready, taking their wives and children." Two hundred Jews would plummet to the bottom of the sea victimized by the prejudice and hatred of an ungodly people. Since the unifying image of II Maccabees is the purification of the Temple (10:1-8) where Maccabeus and his companions restore and ritualistically cleanse the sanctuary of the Lord, this passage where the people of Joppa assault the Jews can be read hermeneutically as a reminder that evil still exists and ...