Texts and Languages of 4 Maccabees
Of first consideration of the work known predominantly as 4 Maccabees is its title. In the numerous manuscripts which preserve this work, several alternate titles are found, such as The Fourth Book of the Maccabees and Their Mother, and The Fourth Book of Maccabees and Kindred Documents in Syriac. Though the majority of Greek manuscripts contain no title, and hence suggest an anonymous work, Anderson proposes that the title most appropriate to the content and probably most original in terms of manuscript tradition is On the Supremacy of Reason.1
The manuscripts which preserve 4 Maccabees are those found in the Septuagint, and of those numerous manuscripts, the most important are the fourth century A.D. Sinaiticus and fifth century Alexandrinus. It is absent in Vaticanus, but a portion is retained in the eighth-ninth century Codex Venetus. In 1524, Erasmus published a Latin paraphrase of the work, not being aware of the Greek manuscripts that were available. Since 4 Maccabees is not included in the Latin Vulgate, it consequently is not found in either the Roman Apocrypha or the Protestant Bibles.2
It is clear from the content of 4 Maccabees that the author is a Jew who is devoutly committed to Torah. This may cause one to expect the original language of composition to be Semitic, either Hebrew or Aramaic. But what is also clear is that the author has adopted the posture of Greek philosophy with unquestionable traces of Platonic and Stoic influence. If the date of the book is, as most scholars propose, the early part of the first century A.D., then many Jews were bilingual or even tri-lingual with at least one of the languages being Greek. Also, since there are many points within the work that underscore the importance of preserving Jewish piety and culture and a refrain to resist the sustained temptation of Hellenism, could it be that the author composed his work in Greek? Scholars of the manuscripts admit that the author was "thoroughly at home in the Greek language" with little or no traces of Semitisms and a consistent dependence upon the Septuagint in his citations of the Old Testament. Anderson, in addition to recognizing the abundance of unique and rare Greek terms (some of which the author probably coined himself) in the work, observes that the author's Greek is "free and idiomatic, indicating that he thinks in that language; it is his native tongue."3 In light of the evidence, it is virtually without argument that 4 Maccabees was written in Greek, perhaps in Syrian Antioch.4
Notes
1H. Anderson, "4 Maccabees," in The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha: Apocalyptic Literature & Testaments, Vol. 2, ed. James H. Charlesworth (New York: Doubleday, 1983): 531-32.
2Ibid.
3Ibid., 532.
4George W. E. Nickelsburg, Jewish Literature Between the Bible and the Mishnah: A Historical and Literary Introduction (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1981): 226.
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