Talk:Chapters of 2 Maccabees

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Reviewer: Vaticidalprophet (talk · contribs) 00:13, 13 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Been looking at this one for a while (and it's now one of the oldest in backlog), so I may as well pick it up. I expect to start comments soon. Vaticidalprophet 00:13, 13 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

• • Thanks for taking a look at this one. Don't normally go for GA that often, but another editor suggested it after it was created, so I figured why not. I've interleaved responses below - tell me if you prefer that I keep my comments separate instead. SnowFire (talk) 06:50, 15 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Lead

• May be worthwhile to add some context on how much later the chapter-and-verse division came into being, as currently this is disconnected from the rest of the lead and raises further questions.
  • I actually asked Robert Doran this over email, and he doesn't know. Schwartz never responded to my emails. I've seen the chapters & verses mentioned before, but almost always in reference to the chapter-and-versification of the New Testament. It is very frustrating! That said, it is definitely 100% true - the versification of the New Testament was done by Robert Estienne aka Stephanus in the 16th century, and I'm sure the Old Testament would have had it done even later. The sample manuscript image certainly doesn't have it. Clearly true, but annoyingly unsourced at the moment.
• Is there a reason to have the table of contents set out in such an unorthodox manner?
  • If you look at the article in Vector 2023, then the TOC is always in the "sidebar" anyway so as not to get in the way, for both this article and other ones. I opted for TOCright on Monobook / classic Vector because the intent was something like a bunch of mini-articles, and TOCright or a horizontal TOC sometimes gets used in those cases - some idea of "there isn't exactly a normal Table of Contents, so shove it to the side, but here it is anyway." Gets right into the content that way. You can see this in, say, glossaries as well. That said, it's not a big deal, given per above that this only applies to logged-in users anyway - I slightly prefer it with TOCright, but am flexible if you'd rather it just be standard.
    • So on this -- I agree New Vector makes it a bit tricky to call either way, because yeah, most readers won't see it (and that's pretending 'most readers' are on desktop -- most readers are on mobile, and especially won't see it). However, the current structure on Good Vector pushes the image in the first section down extremely far. Horizontal TOC might be a good compromise? Vaticidalprophet 14:22, 19 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
      • Sure, switched over.

Chapters 1 and 2

• Looking at Schwartz, he gives additional context on why the one-letter idea was dismissed in the appendix. He also mentions some people believed at some point it was three letters -- is this worth mentioning?
  • Hmm. He does mention the possibility of three letters, but does not elaborate and kicks it to a footnote referencing German- and French- language sources. It doesn't sound relevant enough for a Wikipedia-level overview, which is a massive compression and summary of just the key points. More context on Bickerman's argument and why it was so convincing - maybe. I'll check, just don't want to sidetrack TOO hard on scholarship before getting to the meat. (Side note: More didactic guides to 2 Maccabees tend to say something like "students, please don't get discouraged by this boring introduction and go to Chapter 3 where the good stuff starts".)
• The gerusia...we should probably have an article about, given the current bluelink only talks about a completely different council by that name. Is it worthwhile footnoting a little about what's believed to be the context of the term at the time?
  • Good point that a separate article on the Jewish gerusia might be relevant. Mantel, Hugo (1961). Studies in the History of the Sanhedrin, a source I use in the Maccabean Revolt article, talks about what little is known about it, but it's a lot of speculation. That said, I think the gloss of "Council of Elders" gets the main point across - any further details would be off-topic and best for a Gerusia (ancient Judea) type article.
• Your first paragraph regarding the second chapter is a wall of text. It has multiple natural splitting points (one around either The letter describes... or The story continues..., another arguably at The theological intent..., or a little earlier if you take the first splitting point) that could form 2-3 shorter paragraphs that are much easier to read, especially on smaller-screen devices such as mobile.
  • Hmm. I try to set up a pattern where the first paragraph of each section is a top-speed summary of what's going on, and thus tends to be a little long. A fair point that it's pretty long, I'll try to separate it some.
• Is it really strange to a modern reader to see someone talk about how hard they worked writing something? :)
  • :D
• It's not obvious to me that Schwartz is saying the author claimed Antiochus died further east, as opposed to "misunderstood the geography". (It's also non-obvious that Schwartz and Goldstein are disagreeing, rather than saying "a lot of people talk about geography in vague and not-necessarily-accurate terms" in different ways?)
  • I need to come back to this, because I got into a discussion at Antiochus IV Epiphanes which suggested I may have misinterpreted this somewhere - other sources are apparently very confident it was Isfahan where he died. Will rain check this one, as it's something I've been meaning to get to anyway.

Chapter 3

• Heliodorus is spelled "Helidorus" several times in the opening paragraph.
  • The problem of when spell check underlines even the correct spelling....
• discovered in the 2000s decade seems to me an unnatural phrasing. If no precise year/s can be given, I don't think "discovered in the 2000s" will be confusing to any meaningful number of readers.
  • Yeah, you can write "the 1950s" easily but it's very difficult to say "the 2000s (decade version)." The paper was published in 2007, but I have no idea when they discovered it, just when the paper was published. Presumably it was at some point from 2004-2007, but that's just SnowFire's guess, not something a source says. I just looked at the paper again and it doesn't say. :( Maybe somewhere else has the true date it was discovered....
    • If we don't have a date, I think "the 2000s" will be intuitively understood as "the 2000s [decade]" and not "the 2000s [century/millennium]" by most readers. (Even the 1900s -- I don't start intuitively interpreting 'century' rather than 'decade' until '1800s'.) Vaticidalprophet 14:24, 19 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
      • I went and actually deleted the date entirely in an earlier edit. I'm not so sure I agree on this being intuitive - if I see "the 2000s" I would assume the entire century, myself, similar to the 1000s, hence wanting to specify "decade" before.
• a theme seen in earlier Jewish writing as well better as "also seen in earlier Jewish writing"
  • Works for me. SnowFire (talk) 06:50, 15 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Vaticidalprophet 02:57, 13 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Chapter 4

• "Hellenizer" could use a pipe to Hellenization?
  • It could... but.. I'd rather not. Basically, it's a term of art for a faction, and if linked, it should probably be to Maccabean Revolt. Basically... the example is that in the American Revolution, the rebel side was called Patriots, and the pro-British Government side were called loyalists, but linking to patriotism-in-general or loyalty-in-general would be a bit misleading. The vast, vast, vast majority of the "Hellenizers" probably weren't really actively Hellenizing anything, but were just people recruited by the government "side" and called Hellenizers by their opponents. So... it's complicated, but Hellenizer really means "the other faction in Judea in this period" not "Hellenization in general" despite it being the root of the word.
• The redlinked "Ptolemy, son of Dorymenes" is the bluelinked Ptolemy Macron. But maybe you did that on purpose to avoid the public-domain-encyclopedia-rip.
  • I did do that on purpose! If you check the edit history of that article, I think I removed the claim that they were definitely the same person. There's so many tiny related articles I need to update for all the individual people, but I'd rather be specific. There are claims that these two are the same person, yes, but also claims that they're not the same person. (Which is... tough to express on Wikipedia, since a redirect to the other person implicitly suggests that they are indeed the same person.) Hmm, maybe I do need to go add that info in sooner rather than later. Even if it does redirect to an "Identity" section of that article, best for a unique link. SnowFire (talk) 04:10, 21 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    • Yeah, I'd say that probably needs to be worked out on the other article and linked-somehow. As it stands, if you google that name (reasonable upon seeing it redlinked) you're directed to Ptolemy Macron just as confidently as if it were linked. Vaticidalprophet 11:31, 21 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Chapter 5

• While this does cause Jason's downfall—a just reward to the author is...parsable by me, but I don't think it's universally parsable on the first reading. Something like "...which the author considers a just reward..." is arguably better if you want that precise phrasing, though I understand the long-sentence issue. Other phrasings may be available.
  • I removed the comment. I stuck it in there originally to emphasize that the author is simultaneously saying "Yay, Jason sucks and is getting comeuppance!" and also "Oh no look at all this devastation!" which I found interesting, but it is a long sentence.
• headed into the wilderness to avoid defilement -- am I missing what "defilement" is supposed to mean in this context? It's a very broad term. (I understand there might be no more specific one.)
  • Here's the verse:
    • But Judas Maccabeus, with about nine others, got away to the wilderness, and kept himself and his companions alive in the mountains as wild animals do; they continued to live on what grew wild, so that they might not share in the defilement.
  • So it's basically saying in context that it's about keeping kosher (i.e. they are eating where nobody can check their diet), but realistically, it's probably a broader "participating with this government is Evil And I Won't Do It". At least in portrayal. (Again, sources writing decades after the fact, so I doubt they had access to Judas's mental state, but seems a decent enough guess as to what was going on.) I guess I could change it to "go into the wilderness where he could keep Jewish law and avoid defilement", but that might be too wordy? Option to suggestions.
    • I think the clarification of "where he could keep Jewish law" is superior. Vaticidalprophet 11:33, 21 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
      • Done.
• against the intent of the author if so This is a strong statement -- can we say it so strongly? Do sources disagree on whether it's clearly in opposition to authorial intent?
  • I think sources disagree on whether Tcherikover's hypothesis was correct, but if we take Tcherikover's theory as true for a moment... Well, it was at the very least against somebody's authorial intent. Hmm, my ref wasn't quite as expansive as it could have been, I've expanded it. See Schwartz 250-251:
    • Attention should be drawn, however, to a major contribution of this chapter to the history of the period, against its author’s will: as Tcherikover showed, several points in this chapter indicate that there was a Jewish rebellion in Jerusalem against Seleucid rule during Antiochus’ Egyptian campaign, led not by Jason but, apparently, by Jewish traditionalists or nationalists, and that it was this – not some figment born out of misunderstanding – that Antiochus put down. Neither the author of 1 Maccabees (a Hasmonean mouthpiece who had no interest in reporting rebels who preceded his heroes) nor our diasporan author (who abhors the ideas of Jewish rebels in the absence of religious persecution) reported the rebellion...
  • For Goldstein... Ssnce we are in hypothetical territory here, it's possible that omission happened before it got to the epitomist of 2 Maccabees, but there's some author who did it, where the epitomist or Jason of Cyrene or some later compiler messing with the first draft. Goldstein on 250-251 talks about how in his view it was Jason of Cyrene who was portraying Antiochus as instrument of divine judgment and intentionally downplaying the Jewish response:
    • "Jews thwarted Jason's coup, yet Antiochus punished the thwarters as rebels! (...)Here again, we find Jason of Cyrene believing that God made Antiochus misjudge the situation in order to use the king as the rod of His anger against wayward Israel (...). We are not bound to accept the theological assumptions of Jason of Cyrene and the book of Daniel.
  • So Goldstein is at least saying that Jason had a theological slant, and he personally disagrees with said slant, albeit in the world of assuming Jason was indeed "covering something up." SnowFire (talk) 04:10, 21 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Chapter 6

• described as a prominent scribe of advanced age and white hair -- looking at the phrasing in Schwartz, it says he's in his nineties ("nonagenarian"), which is more precise. "Of white hair" feels a little convoluted to me. I think this is probably arguable, but it did stand out on the readthrough.
  • Cut it to just "advanced age." (The text does mention hair color to drive the point in, but overkill here.)
• Apparently a rule had been imposed for public performances of pork-eating, at least for prominent community members such as Eleazar. The Jews enforcing this edict arrange for validly prepared kosher meat to be available for him, so that he might appear to comply while maintaining the law. This first sentence here I'm not sold on the wording of ("apparently" feels informal). I had a little trouble figuring out how the second sentence should be understood before checking Schwartz, who seems to clarify that this means switching out kosher meat for non-kosher meat.

Vaticidalprophet 14:39, 19 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

• • I've expanded this. In "apparently", I was trying to get at that the text doesn't literally say "There was a rule prominent religious officials had to eat pork publicly" but it sure seems to be implying that. Rephrased it, anyway. SnowFire (talk) 04:10, 21 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Chapter 7

• Is excellent work. Have I mentioned this? The article's great, especially considering how poorly religious studies is often served on Wikipedia. And considering how many people object to anything above exactly 9999 words.
  • Thanks. (As noted above, I'm not a super-huge fan of how a lot of religious topics are covered on Wikipedia, and figured I should offer a counterexample to the overly narrowly sliced topics elsewhere.)
• Similar to the epitomist's comment in Chapter 6 that God is showing mercy to Jews by punishing them briefly and sharply for straying, the youngest son says as much directly: that "if our living Lord is angry for a little while, to rebuke and discipline us, he will again be reconciled with his own servants." Does this quote fall into "full-sentence quotes" under
  MOS:LQ
  ? Genuinely not sure, it seems borderline, but I'm not sure it does.
  • Yeah, borderline case. To me, since it sets it off with a colon and is a long quote, it reads better with the period inside the quote because it might be read as if the text continued on otherwise. It could go either way, but I'm inclined to err on the side of considering it a full sentence and putting the period inside.
• Is there a way to restructure the use of cites 62 and 63 in para 4 so it's clearer what information in which corresponds to where in that paragraph? The amount that's from Schwartz seems much smaller than from Goldstein, and it took me looking at Goldstein a couple times before I was sure I had the right pages for that paragraph. It's not fantastic from a verification perspective, and while I'm often skeptical about how many readers will actually look at sources ever, I think more commonly for 1. articles on scholarly topics 2. where there are only a few highly-used sources in the article.[original research?]
  • Done. This is annoyingly spread across several sources... I'm not sure why, but some sources are hesitant about using the term "Deuteronomist" outright. Fell back to da Silva's Oxford Handbook which does say so directly at least. Rephrased the bit on Isaiah a bit more to match Goldstein closer as well (since Goldstein seems to think Isaiah could have at least been winking in the direction of a personal resurrection as well, if perhaps for Israel's leaders).

Chapter 8

• I'm not seeing where Schwartz pp. 323-325 discusses the exaggerated number of combatants. (I may be blind.) Goldstein one cite down in the next sentence does, and explicitly mentions the scope (3k vs 9k) that might be worth mentioning clearly.
  • Fixed the refs, I think they just drifted out of sync with the sentences at some point.
• Lands back at the Ptolemy issue, so per "probably sort that out in that article and work out links from there". (
  WP:DUPLINK
  does allow repeat-linking here after its recent reform, when that's sorted out. I enthusiastically encourage repeat-linking in a 14k-word article.)
  • Believe it or not, I did not know that the cursed REPEATLINK guidance was rolled back. That was truly one of the dumbest rules we had and a significant reason behind me not being eager to nominate some articles for review for fear of having to remove useful links, so fantastic news.
• Any particular reason for the reversed ref orders in the last sentence?
  • Changed.

Chapter 9

• gleefully -- I love this. (No other comments.)

Chapter 10

• Given philoi is linked, adding the literal translation of 'friend' seems...maybe more misleading than accurate. (Keep in mind logged-out desktop readers have a gadget similar to navigation popups turned on by default, and can hover for word definitions.)
  • Hmm. I 100% agree "friends" is misleading, but unfortunately a lot of bible translations DO just translate it literally, meaning I think we're stuck with mentioning it. It makes me want to call out the linked term for what it meant in the era as an explanation. Good point about hover, but I don't think that works on mobile, and I think this particular Greek term is important enough to have both the raw version (to make clear that you shouldn't use English "friends") and the translation (to get a sense across and clarify that if you read "King's Friends", this is what was being talked about.)
• Regardless of whether the account was intended to smear Simon or not, it is consistent with the epitomist's overall view of Judas as an unstoppable commander, and that when setbacks happen, they are due to malfeasance from others. There are a couple different things going on in this sentence, and the 'that' feels like an abrupt way of moving between them. "...whose setbacks are [only?/can only be?] caused by the malfeasance of others" or similar?
  • Rephrased it, take a look.

Chapter 11

• Is there a reason to mention here and only here that the exaggerated numbers are logistically impossible? (I'm not sure the relevant pages of Schwartz mention logistics, but may be missing it.)
  • Schwartz doesn't cite the reason being logistics for why 80K men is exaggerated, but (I believe) Bar-Kochva and Shatzman do, so I guess that part is really coming from them. Added that to the ref.
• evil villain -- pleonasm?
  • Personally, I'm a fan of pleonasm for emphasis, yes. Makes things pop for the reader and matches the tone of the work. And Real Published Authors do it, too! A bit annoying to me when other editors take out words in the name of "concision" that are... no, that was intentional, it's meant to drive the point in, but I recognize it's like fighting against the tide sometimes. (Over at Correspondence of Paul and Seneca, no less than three editors wanted to take out "inauthentic forgeries" until I gave up.)

Chapter 12

• "mid-1630s" probably better in image caption than "1630s", as the cited image description and the description on Commons both agree with "between 1634 and 1636".
  • Added, although the precise date isn't THAT important.
• The chapter closes by noting that prayers for the dead are still useful due to the coming resurrection arguably should be "stating that", given the specific inarguable-statement-of-fact implications of "noted".
  • Changed.
• somehow penetrated the port yet didn't also conquer the town -- "somehow penetrated the port without also conquering the town" is more succinct without having to contract.
  • Great change, that does read better.
• Luther decried the practice and would seek The long sentences here mean this is arguably better following a full stop than a semicolon (I get it, I like semicolons too). The "would seek" here rather than "sought" feels a little convoluted.
  • Changed as you suggested. It was a little convoluted, but I think my thought process was something like... past tense "sought" vaguely implies he failed at this task. But past tense "removed" would make it sound like he even convinced the Catholic Church to remove the book. So leaving it in tension, that Luther would seek in his later life to remove it, doesn't imply anything incorrect, since it would be removed in Protestantism but not elsewhere. That said, yeah, sometimes simpler is better.

Chapter 13

• re. semicolons again, the first sentence should probably have a full stop where one currently is. It's a great/very evocative almost-sentence you've got there, and the semicolon makes each good standalone sentence drag a little rather than the more abstract flow that semicolons are good for.
  • Switched.
• "Beth-zur" isn't capitalized or punctuated that way in its prior uses. Which is 'better'?
  • There is no consistency on this. NRSV & Emil Schurer uses "Beth-zur." Some older sources omit the hyphen and use "Beth Zur". However, all of Doran, Schwartz, & Goldstein use "Beth-Zur," so I'll standardize on that form (well, and "Khirbet Beit Zur" for the actual spot).
• Okay -- logistics again. I see (as I thought might have been the case) that it's specifically who Schwartz is citing who talks about logistics. It may be worthwhile to interleave this more throughout the article rather than suddenly introduce it very near the end (I imagine most readers of this article will be looking for specific chapters at a time), given it's a big moving part of why it's clear the author's numbers are wrong. It's also probably good to make the "Schwartz citing someone else" cite clearer in its prior use, which only cites Schwartz without making it clear his logistical concerns come from someone else, producing some verification issues.
  • Yeah, added that to the earlier cite. And to be clear, it's not just Shatzman, Bar-Kochva also agrees (who did the longest "military" style review book on the revolt - 662 pages!).
• There are again some flipped ref orders here (The mention of scythed chariots is also considered unreliable; if the Seleucids even still maintained any and had brought them, they would probably not have been taken into Judea's hilly interior, as they were a weapon that only functioned on flat lowlands such as the coast where they could get to a high enough speed.[139][133]; Whether the epitomist was simply very uninterested in questions of provisions and cut the account down to a stub, or the epitomist was intentionally clouding what was an overall Jewish defeat by only including positive aspects, is disputed.[141][133]). I know some people intentionally flip ref orders in some cases and I have not yet gotten consensus for their sitebans^[FBDB] -- are these intentional? If so, is there anything that could be done with the text to e.g. clarify what's being cited where?
  • Ref orders totally don't matter although I have not yet gotten consensus for the sitebans of people who notice and complain about them but swapped, sure. (I'm not a fan of looking into this too closely "early" in an article's history because references can move around, be swapped, etc.)

Chapter 14

• The explicit juxtaposition between Jewish views on suicide and Christian views on suicide could be aided by links to those articles. Well, neither of those articles are good. They could theoretically become good, and you'd sure like the links to have been sorted then.
  • Added.

Chapter 15

• Does the writer explicitly say something translated as "loanword"? Goldstein doesn't use the term.
  • That's from the verse itself - "And they all decreed by public vote never to let this day go unobserved, but to celebrate the thirteenth day of the twelfth month—which is called Adar in the Aramaic language—the day before Mordecai's day." Why the author decided to mention that the 12th month's Hebrew name comes from Aramaic (and apparently Babylonian before that), beats me.
• While it is possible the Romans might have missed a few elephants -- love it.
  • :D

Over to you. This is great work, and falls quite clearly into a space I like using GA for -- articles of exceptional quality that get there in part by not following every jot-and-tittle FAC rule. As one last note when I was looking back over, the

• • @Vaticidalprophet: Back to you. I expanded the Ptolemy Macron article since I didn't want to get too much into that topic without double-checking. Increased the size on some of the images as well. Added in some more useful repeat links on the basic people involved (it's a blizzard of names that many people aren't familiar with, so links definitely help). Hopefully should look good now, but happy to address any other concerns. SnowFire (talk) 02:19, 27 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

    Looks great -- happy to pass :) Vaticidalprophet 02:26, 27 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]