History

2 Maccabees

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Era: c. 124 BC, covering events of 180–161 BC
Location: Composed in Greek, probably at Alexandria or Jerusalem
Discovered: No manuscript of Maccabees has been identified among the Dead Sea Scrolls

Note on contested claims: Canonical in Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Bibles; printed in the Apocrypha by Protestants and absent from the Hebrew canon. Its passage on offerings for the dead (12:43–45) is disputed doctrinal ground between traditions; Berean carries the book as history and background, not as Scripture.

Not a sequel but a rival account of the same revolt — shorter, more dramatic, and openly theological. It contains the clearest pre-Christian Jewish statements of bodily resurrection and creation out of nothing.

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