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Polyglot Bible: 2 Macabees: 2 Macabees 2

Book of ActsGreek New TestamentPolyglot Bible

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This is the opening of 2 Maccabees, a deuterocanonical/apocryphal Jewish historical text, presented here in three parallel versions: an English translation (in the style of the King James Apocrypha), the Greek Septuagint, and the Latin Vulgate. The passage covers two distinct sections: first, a letter citing records of Jeremiah hiding the Ark of the Covenant, the tabernacle, and the altar of incense in a sealed cave on the mountain where Moses died, with the location to remain hidden until God regathers his people — alongside notes about Nehemiah's library and Judas Maccabaeus collecting scriptures scattered by war. Second, the text transitions to a formal preface in which the unnamed author explains that he is condensing Jason of Cyrene's five-volume history of Judas Maccabaeus, the purification of the Temple, and the wars against Antiochus Epiphanes into a single, accessible volume. The author's stated rationale — to give readers delight, aid memorization, and provide profit — is distinctively self-aware about the craft of abridgment, comparing the epitomizer to a decorator rather than an architect. The trilingual presentation makes this particularly useful for textual critics or scholars comparing manuscript traditions of the Septuagint, Vulgate, and early modern English translations.

Polyglot Bible: 2 Macabees: 2 Macabees 2

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