Talk:1 Maccabees

I Maccabees is a member of Category:Old Testament Apocrypha. Category:Old Testament Apocrypha is a member of Category:Jewish texts. There is therefore no need for I Maccabees to be a member of Category:Jewish texts directly. (It's also a document, and a religious text, but it doesn't need to belong to Category:Documents or Category:Religious texts directly either.) Quadell (talk) 14:01, Jun 10, 2004 (UTC)

"Old Testament" not a Not a Jewish name

It is offensive to Jews to refer to those books as the "Old Testament" (that is a category for Christians maybe), to Jews and to many others they are known as the Hebrew Bible or the Torah and Tanakh. Thus they can go DIRECTLY into Jewish texts as well.IZAK 07:58, 11 Jun 2004 (UTC)

IZAK, most readers are unaware of Tanakh but understand Old Testament. At any rate, the whole concept of apocrypha is foreign to Judaism anyway. JFW | T@lk 08:52, 11 Jun 2004 (UTC)

JFW: I realize what you say very well. However, since Wiki itself goes out of its way to point out that Jews prefer Hebrew Bible over "Old anything" why not try to bring the point home. As I see it that for the sake of clarity, all articles will have to be re-created so that they make clear the way different religions see things, the problem of course is that Christianity sits on so much Category:Jewish texts yet nevertheless ways must be found to point to the differences so that people know that we are dealing with different religions completely. IZAK 10:20, 11 Jun 2004 (UTC)

As far as I know, there is no unbiased way to refer to the Old Testament/Tanakh. Christians don't like to use the term "Tanakh", and Jews don't like the term "Old Testament". But it's the same collection of books. There are a couple of different ways of dealing with this problem.

1. We could have a Category:Tanakh books separate from a Category:Old Testament books. Both categories would have the same articles in them, and each book (e.g. Genesis) would belong to both categories. Category:Old Testament books would belong to Category:Biblical books, which would belong to Category:Christian texts. Category:Tanakh books would belong to Category:Jewish texts. The advantage is that it would be accurate and inoffensive. The disadvantage is that it would be redundant.
2. We could have a single category, either called Category:Tanakh books or Category:Old Testament books, and the category itself would explain that the collection can be called by either name. Each book would only belong to that single category. That category would be a member of both Category:Biblical books and Category:Jewish texts. The advantage is that this is simpler and more concise. The disadvantage is that Christians generally aren't familiar with the term Tanakh, and Jews (understandably) don't like the implication that their law is outdated.

This would all be simpler if there were a NPOV way of refering to the collection, but I don't know of one. I would prefer option 2, but I would be okay with option 1. Is this a debate that should be somewhere else? Perhaps Talk:Categorization? Quadell (talk) 13:42, Jun 11, 2004 (UTC)

• Quadell: By the way, with regards to your comment above that "But it's the same collection of books", you should note that, that statement is NOT true. For those Jews who are fluent in the Hebrew language the word Tanakh perfectly describes how they are reading and understanding the texts in the Hebrew original with all its shades and nuances. Whereas the vast majority of Christians are reading a work in translation full of errors and inadequate transmission of the notions and concepts contained within the original Hebrew words of the Bible which cannot be "captured" or "conveyed" and thus lose their true meaning/s for those reading the words in translation. So "the same collection of books" it is NOT. IZAK 09:04, 30 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Its rather irrelevant if Jews find it offensive or not. The Christians believe it to be an "Old Testament" and they are perfectly within their rights to call it that if they wish. In the English language that has typically been the name for these books, therefore the term "Old Testament" is generally more in use. Lastly, that is all beyond the point, since Maccabees is not part of the Tanakh in the first place, so there is no reason to use the term Tanakh in the article. 1 & 2 Maccabees are part of the Catholic and Orthodox Bible; Judaism rejects these books. And your point about translations of the Tanakh are, again, irrelevant; one could probably say the same of any translation of any text, including translations of the Gospels from Greek into other languages. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.184.202.208 (talk) 11:18, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Interlinear translations?

Are there any works in print that reproduce Hebrew text with a literal English translation? If not, what are my options for reading 1 and 2 Maccabees in their entirety in a form as close to the original as possible?--StAkAr Karnak 03:55, 11 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Sadly, the original text of 1 Maccabees hasn't survived till our times, we have only the Septuagint version. 2 Maccabees has been written in Greek. If you don't mind reading Greek rather than Hebrew, there is a number of interlinear translations of the Septuagint available (also online). -- Naive cynic 23:08, Nov 11, 2004 (UTC)

Megillat Antiochus

Hi all. Nice article. Please place a wiki-ref to Megillat Antiochus as you see fit: (subsection, preceding main header, etc...) - I would have done so but was unsure where was best. Fintor 11:22, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Judas?

In Jewish tradition, his name is Judah Maccabee, not Judah. Is it Judas in Christian tradition? -- Avocado (talk) 22:01, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Judas was the standard ancient Greek and Latin rendering of the Hebrew name "Judah" (including Judah the Israelite tribal ancestor). "Judah" didn't start to become commonly used in the English language until ca. 1600, when English Bible translators started going back to the original Hebrew... AnonMoos (talk) 16:58, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Spartans as descendants of Abraham

In Maccabees 12:21 it states that the Spartans are descendants of Abraham. I find this very unusual, is there any background into this claim? Didn't the Spartans consider themselves descendants of Herakles? Did the Spartans ever write such a letter, or is this a fabrication in the book of Maccabees? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.184.202.208 (talk) 11:23, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

All I could find was the footnote to the New Oxford edition of the NRSV, which says "This assertion has no historical basis, but served the interests of diplomacy." So it would seem the Spartans wrote it, but made it up, just to be chummy with the Maccabeeans. Carl.bunderson (talk) 08:43, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

On the other hand, there may be some kind of connection between the names of Japheth and Iapetus... AnonMoos (talk) 15:10, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

"deuterocanonical", "apocrypha", Christian community

I corrected the previous introduction for 3 reasons:

• there are many more Christian communities in the world than just Orthodox, Protestants and Catholics. For instance: Chaldeans (formerly called "Nestorians"), Copts, Armenians, Anglicans. As far as I know, all Christians except the vast majority of Protestants accept the Greek part of the New Testament that the Catholic Church accept, including 1 Mac. Some of them accept more, the largest canon being the Copt one. Dampinograaf seems to think (User_talk:Henri_de_Solages) some Orthodoxes reject 1 Mac, but gives no proof so far.
• Even a few Protestant communities accept the Catholic canon.
• "deuterocanonical" means it's a "second" canon, suggesting it's less important than or posterior to a first canon. I thought it was a Protestant word, though I'm aware it's also used by some Catholics, but rejected by others.
  

Dampinograaf pointed there I'm wrong. This word has been coined by a Catholic converted from judaism, and is recommended by some to be used in academic works in place of "Apocrypha". But, as far as I know, it's not an official Catholic word. I mean I don't think it has ever been used in any official document from the Holy See or an Ecumenical council. And it's not a very good word, except in Luther's perspective where these books would not be part of what he had decided the Word of God should be, but would be worth publishing with the Holy Scripture, as Luther used to do. So I think we should rephrase again this introduction. I'll try something to correct my mistake. But is it so important to write all this in the introduction? --Henri de Solages (talk) 10:41, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

The deuterocanonical/apocrypha issue is very confused. To my understanding the Orthodox use the word apocrypha to describe books of the old testament that are not accepted by the Catholics or the protestants (in a sense, false apocrypha), but also books which claim to be a part of the old testament but are not (some apocrypha are not really apocrypha but some really are). Really orthodox wiki explains this better than I can, however it's up to you if Orthodox wiki is a reliable source though (I haven't yet read the page about reliable/unreliable sources). http://orthodoxwiki.org/Apocrypha Fema5 (talk) 20:37, 29 December 2009 (UTC)