Can someone explain this NABRE footnote from 2 Maccabees please?

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Hi there, welcome to the Church, I’m glad you’re on our team.

Yes, I agree that it says Judas Maccabeus had good character and loved his soldiers.
We don’t know if this was efficacious in the sense of getting the dead soldier to share in the resurrection. That would be up to God, who knows their hearts.

What he did is also understood perhaps as trying to deflect God’s wrath away from his fighting force as a whole, because in the OT, God would frequently punish whole groups of people for the sins of a few, showing that the effects of sin can harm the whole community, not just the individual sinner. In that sense it was efficacious because God didn’t take out his wrath on all the good, non-sinning soldiers.

I’m not really sure how your Saul example relates here? Saul did a lot of bad things. He disobeyed God a lot. He also may have been mentally disturbed. It was not a case of he just engaged in occult practice once. Regarding the “motives weren’t bad”, the OT has many examples where a person had perhaps a good motive but they disobeyed God, and God reacted with anger to the disobedience because the person was basically putting his own judgment ahead of what God told them to do.
 
This is the earliest statement of the doctrine that prayers (v. 42) and sacrifices (v. 43) for the dead are efficacious. Judas probably intended his purification offering to ward off punishment from the living. The author, however, uses the story to demonstrate belief in the resurrection of the just (2 Macc 7:9,14,23,26), and in the possibility of expiation for the sins of otherwise good people who have died. This belief is similar to, but not quite the same as, the Catholic doctrine of purgatory.
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This is the same note on the USCCB website.

It looks like Vatican.va has a 2002 edition. The US bishops spent another 7 years going over their notes and correcting them before approving the NABRE. That version is on the USCCB’s site. That is my best guess as to why they differ.
 
Saint Jerome in his Biblical Commentary offers this information:

“These verses (42-45) contain clear reference to belief in the resurrection of the just (see 7:11; 14:46), a belief which the author attributes to Judas (v 43), although Judas may have wanted simply to ward off punishment from the living, lest they be found guilty by association with the fallen sinners (see Josh 7). The author believes that those who died piously will rise again (v45; 7:9), and who can die more piously than in a battle for God’s law? (see 14:46). Thus, he says, Judas prayed that these men might be delivered from their sin, for which God was angry with them a little while (7:32-33). The author, then, does not share the view expressed in 1 Enoch 22:12-13 that sinned-against sinners are kept in a division of Sheol from which they do not rise, although they are free of the suffering inflicted on other sinners. Instead, he sees Judas’s action as evidence that those who die piously can be delivered from unexpiated sins that impede their attainment of a joyful resurrection. This doctrine, thus vaguely formulated, contains the essence of what would become (with further precisions) the Christian theologian’s teaching on purgatory.”
 
Um… That is not St. Jerome, or not totally him, or a later saint also called Jerome.

Check your edition to see who wrote those notes. (Nothing wrong with them, but they are modern.)
 
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Mintaka said:
Um… That is not St. Jerome, or not totally him, or a later saint also called Jerome.

Check your edition to see who wrote those notes.
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That’s Brown, Fitzmyer, and Murphy’s “St Jerome Biblical Commentary” or their “New Jerome Biblical Commentary”.
 
Tis_Bearself said:
I was reading 2 Maccabees 12:42-46 in the NABRE online at the Vatican website, and got to the well-known section that is always cited to provide support for Jewish and early Christian belief in praying for the dead. I am having trouble understanding the part of Footnote 7 that I bolded below. How, exactly, is Judas Maccabeus’ concept of what happens to his Jewish soldiers who died in a sinful state and thus needed an offering made, different from our later Western Catholic concept of Purgatory?
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Judas Maccabeus’ concept? Can you elaborate?

As for the difference between the Limbo of the Fathers and Purgatory, there are several.

First, Purgatory is for the BAPTIZED. There was no baptism in the OT.
Second, correct me if I’m wrong, but Purgatory does not cleanse Original Sin.
Third, the Limbo of the Fathers had to, otherwise, how would the Hebrew Saints enter heaven.

Fourth, there was also no understanding of the difference between venial and mortal sin. These individuals had, apparently, committed the mortal sin of idolatry. Yet, the honorable Judas Maccabeus still prayed for their salvation:

1 John 5:16If any man see his brother sin a sin which is not unto death, he shall ask, and he shall give him life for them that sin not unto death. There is a sin unto death: I do not say that he shall pray for it.

Fifth, I don’t think there was an understanding of the “temporal punishment due to sin”, although the Prophet Nathan had explained it to King David (2 Sam 12:14).

There may be other differences, as well.
 
Gorgias said:
That’s Brown, Fitzmyer, and Murphy’s “St Jerome Biblical Commentary” or their “New Jerome Biblical Commentary”.
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I’ve been thinking of getting a copy of that. Do you recommend it? I believe the most recent edition, the 3rd, came out in 1999, which might possibly suggest that it has now been superseded by a newer book?
 
The one I have was published in 1990, and it is less than 4-5 years ago. I have found it to be a useful resource.
 
Best to either avoid the NAB/RE footnotes, or read them very circumspectly. They are the result of employing the historical-critical method of scripture exegesis. They tend to drain the supernatural element from the faith.
 
BartholomewB said:
I’ve been thinking of getting a copy of that. Do you recommend it?
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I have a copy. Some like it, and others rail at Brown and the assertions of his with which they disagree. Still, it’s an important scholarly work. I’d never recommend not reading scholarly works, especially if you do so critically and not just without discernment.
 
Tis_Bearself said:
OT has many examples where a person had perhaps a good motive but they disobeyed God, and God reacted with anger to the disobedience because the person was basically putting his own judgment ahead of what God told them to do.
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You made me think of the ark falling off the cart and Moses having forgotten to circumcise his son.
 
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