Texts in Conversation
In 2 Maccabees God strikes down Heliodorus, a Greek official sent to seize the temple treasury, leaving him speechless on the ground. 3 Maccabees has God strike the Egyptian king Philopator the same way as he tries to enter the sanctuary.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
2 Maccabees 3:29
Deuterocanon
28 and carried him—this man who had just now entered with a great retinue and all his guard into that treasury, himself now brought to utter helplessness, manifestly made to recognize the sovereignty of God. 29 So, while he, through the working of God, speechless and bereft of all hope and deliverance, lay prostrate, 30 they blessed the Lord who acted marvelously for his own place. The temple, which a little before was full of terror and alarm, was filled with joy and gladness after the Almighty Lord appeared.
Date: 160–63 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
3 Maccabees 2:22
Deuterocanon
21 At that time God, who sees all things, who is beyond all Holy among the holy, heard that prayer, so suitable, and scourged the man who was greatly uplifted with scorn and insolence. 22 Shaking him back and forth as a reed is shaken with the wind, he threw him down on the pavement, powerless, with limbs paralyzed, and by a righteous judgment deprived of the ability to speak. 23 His friends and bodyguards, seeing the swift recompense which had suddenly overtaken him, struck with exceeding terror, and fearing that he would die, speedily removed him.
Date: 100 BCE – 70 CE (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
... The verb used to describe the divine affliction of the intruder shares the same basic stem (2 Maccabees 3:26, 34, 38 – μαστιγόω || 3 Maccabees 2:21 – μαστίζω), and similar expressions are used to characterize the resulting silence of each antagonist (2 Maccabees 3:29 – ἄφωνος || 3 Maccabees 2:22 – μηδὲ φωνῆσαι δύνασθαι). There are also parallel descriptions of the swift response of the each man's companions (2 Maccabees 3:31 – ταχύ || 3 Maccabees 2:23 – ταχέως), even though the specific actions associated with this haste are different. ...
Jonathan Robert Trotter, The Jerusalem Temple in Diaspora: Jewish Practice and Thought during the Second Temple Period, JSJSup 192 (Leiden: Brill, 2019), 185.
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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