1 & 2 Maccabees

[Epistemes]

What is the intended/proper placement in the OT canon for 1 & 2 Maccabees? Some of my Bibles (NAB, NJB) place them before Job, other of my Bibles (DR, RSV-CE) place them as the final books in the canon.

Also, as a subsidary question, what exactly is the history pertaining to the inclusion of these books in the canon while the Protestants had them removed? Were these books intended by Jerome as part of Canon (unlike, say, the additional parts of Esther)?

Thanks, and Happy Christmas!

 

[Verbum]

Hi Epistemes,

There is no set way to list the books of the Bible. Most modern Bibles put Maccabees with the historical books. That would put them after Kings etc.

In old bibles they are at the end, possibly because they were “deuterocanonicals.”

St Jerome had nothing to do with the Canon. He did a job that the Pope asked him to do, translate the Bible as recognized by the authority of the Church. That Canon was the books contained in the Greek translation called the Septuagint, the Bible used by the apostles to preach Christianity to the Roman Empire. Some have called it “the Christian Bible”. Maccabees was part of the Septuagint. It was written in Greek and was not used by Aramaic- or Hebrew speaking Jews.

So St.Jerome used the canon of the Septuagint, but translated from the Hebrew those books extent in Hebrew and from the Greek, the books extent in Greek.

In the 16th Century, the so-called “reformers” decided on their own to go with the Hebrew Bible, expunging all the books extent only in Greek. They turned radically against the Christian tradition. They changed the Bible. We didn’t.

Verbum