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4 Maccabees: Commentary is unavailable, but you can change that!

This commentary examines 4 Maccabees as a contribution to the ongoing reformulation of Jewish identity and practice in the Greek-speaking Diaspora. It analyzes the Jewish author’s interaction with, and facility in, Greek rhetorical conventions, ethical philosophy, and literary culture, giving attention also to his use and interpretation of texts and traditions from the Jewish Scriptures and other...

a contest of “one-upmanship” between the mother and the patriarch: “You built one altar and did not sacrifice your son, but I built seven altars and sacrificed my sons on them. And for that matter, yours was a trial, but mine was a fact” (Lamentations Rabbah 1.16 N; van Henten and Avemarie, Martyrdom, 150). The influence of 4 Maccabees upon the early church, by contrast, was substantial and long-lasting. Because of the possibility that 4 Maccabees was written later than many of the New Testament
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