SUBSIDIA BIBLICA - 19

SIEVERS Joseph

Synopsis of the Greek Sources for the Hasmonean Period:
1-2 Maccabees and Josephus War 1 and Antiquities 12-14,

2001, pp. XI - 336.

This is the first published synopsis of 1 and 2 Maccabees. It includes not only all parallel sections of these two books but also Books 12-14 of Josephus' Jewish Antiquities to the extent that they are paralleled in 1 Maccabees or in the Jewish War. Thus the major sources for the history of Palestine from 175 to 37. B.C.E. are made available here together for the first time.
The synopsis aims primarily to serve as a basic tool for the literary and historical analysis and comparison of the texts included. It shows, in most cases unequivocally, how the texts arranged here in parallel columns deal in different fashion with the same events. It also makes transparent where they follow the same or a similar outline, share words and phrases — sometimes even entire sentences. It assists the researcher in identifying and comparing different types of relations between various sections of these texts. Additions and omissions stand out immediately, but also passages rewritten more or less biased fashion are more easily identified than if one had to use each text in a separate edition. Furthermore, the synopsis may be useful as a tool for comparing similarities and differences not only of content but also of style hetween the War andd the Antiquities, especially in passages where the parallels are particularly close.
This synopsis will be a valuable tool for scholars and students working with Books of Maccabees and/or with Josephus, and for those interested in various form of intertextuality.

Born in Germany in 1948, Joseph SIEVERS began his studies at the University of Vienna and at the Hebrew University. He holds a Ph.D. in Ancient History/Jewish Studies from Columbia University (1981) and a Lic. theol. from the Gregorian University (1997). He has taught Ancient History at the City University of New York, Jewish History at Seton Hall University, and New Testament Greek at the Pontificio Ateneo S. Anselmo. Since 1991 he teaches Jewish history and literature of the Hellenistic period at the Pontifical Biblical Institute. Among his publications are Hasmoneans and Their Supporters: From Mattathias to the Death of John Hyrcanus I (1990) and, co-edited with Fausto Parente, Josephus and the History of the Greco-Roman Period: Essays in (1994).