The Books of the Maccabees are deuterocanonical books giving the history of the Maccabees, a Jewish family who rebelled against the Seleucid dynasty and founded the Hasmonean Kingdom in Israel in the 2nd and 1st century BC: The deuterocanonical books are the books that Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, and Oriental Orthodoxy include in the Old Testament that were not part of the Jewish Tanakh. ... Wojciech Stattler, Maccabees The Maccabees (Hebrew: ××××× or ××§×××, Makabim) were Jewish rebels who fought against the rule of Antiochus IV Epiphanes of the Hellenistic Seleucid dynasty, who was succeeded by his infant son Antiochus V Eupator. ... The word Jew (Hebrew: יהודי) is used in a wide number of ways, but generally refers to a follower of the Jewish faith, a child of a Jewish mother, or someone of Jewish descent with a connection to Jewish culture or ethnicity and often a combination... After the death of Alexander the Great in the afternoon of 11 June 323 BC, his empire was divided by his generals, the Diadochi(successors). ... The Hasmonean Kingdom (pronunciation) in ancient Judea and its ruling dynasty from 140 BC to 37 BC was established under the leadership of Simon Maccabaeus, two decades after Judah the Maccabee defeated the Seleucid army in 165 BC. Origin of the Hasmonean dynasty The origin of the Hasmonean dynasty is... (2nd millennium BC - 1st millennium BC - 1st millennium) The 2nd century BC started on January 1, 200 BC and ended on December 31, 101 BC. // Coin of Antiochus IV. Reverse shows Apollo seated on an omphalos. ... (2nd millennium BC - 1st millennium BC - 1st millennium) The 1st century BC started on January 1, 100 BC and ended on December 31, 1 BC. An alternative name for this century is the last century BC. The AD/BC notation does not use a year zero. ...
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Mattathias is unknown to II Maccabees, though the latter is supposed by Geiger to be a Pharisaic counterblast to the Sadducean I Maccabees.
Besides this, II Maccabees, written quite independently of I Maccabees, is a strong support of the general truth of the familiar story of the revolt, though II Maccabees is embellished with angelical and miraculous ornament foreign to the first book.
The martyrdoms described in II Maccabees, especially of the mother and her seven sons, have given the book undying value as an inspiration and encouragement to the faithful of all ages and creeds.