ABSTRACT
The book of 3 Maccabees is misnamed because it does not concern the Maccabees at all, but rather the period of Ptolemaic rule in the late third century bce some fifty years before the desecration of the Jerusalem Temple by Antiochus IV Epiphanes and the rise of the Hasmoneans. The book combines two reworked legends. The first (chapters 1–2) takes place largely in Palestine and describes the supposed threat to the Jerusalem Temple by Ptolemy IV Philopater (221–203 bce) The setting for the second (chapters 3–7) is Egypt during a time in which the Jews are being persecuted by the king for their refusal to abandon the Torah and its dictates. Each of the two parts of the book contains a long prayer coming at a climax of the narrative action.
