Chapters of 2 Maccabees
Videos
The book 2 Maccabees contains 15 chapters. It is a deuterocanonical book originally written in Koine Greek that is part of the Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Oriental Orthodox Christian biblical cano
Raphael's "The Expulsion of Heliodorus from the Temple", a 1511 work
The citizens of Jerusalem observe an apparition of a golden-clad army in the sky while the Seleucid government invades Ptolemaic Egypt during the Sixth Syrian War.
The martyrdom of Eleazar. 1866 illustration by Gustave Doré.
A medieval statue of Judas Maccabeus as one of the Nine Worthies in Cologne, Germany.
Hanukkah
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Hanukkah is a Jewish holiday that commemorates the Maccabean Revolt against the Seleucid Empire in the 2nd century BCE, when the Maccabees successfully recovered Jerusalem and the Second Temple.
Chapters of 2 Maccabees
…2 Maccabees 1:1 The first letter, from 1:1-1:10a, is an invitation to celebrate the rededication of the Temple in Jerusalem: the festival of Hanukkah. It opens with a salutation and stylized expressions of good will. It then segues into a brief summary of how the troubles began with High Priest Jason…
Dreidels, Hanukkah menorah, and sufganiyot
Hanukkah table
Hanukkah lamp unearthed near Jerusalem about 1900
Section from the Aramaic Scroll of Antiochus in Babylonian supralinear punctuation, with an Arabic translation