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I don't think anything in there contradicts Catholic teaching. 3 Maccabees is an account of Ptolemy Philopator's attempt to destroy the Jews along the lines of the attempt in Esther, but it includes drunk elephants and other oddities. 4 Maccabees starts as a Stoic or Platonic text on the nature of desire and will and the ability of God-given wisdom to conquer pain and desire, and then goes on to recount in graphic detail the sufferings of the seven sons and their mother and Eleazar, all of whom suffered for their faith as described in 2 Maccabees. The author retells their stories with more detail and a particular emphasis on the tortures and their responses. I find the early parts very interesting, and the later parts somewhat tedious.
I don't think anything in there contradicts Catholic teaching. 3 Maccabees is an account of Ptolemy Philopator's attempt to destroy the Jews along the lines of the attempt in Esther, but it includes drunk elephants and other oddities. 4 Maccabees starts as a Stoic or Platonic text on the nature of desire and will and the ability of God-given wisdom to conquer pain and desire, and then goes on to recount in graphic detail the sufferings of the seven sons and their mother and Eleazar, all of whom suffered for their faith as described in 2 Maccabees. The author retells their stories with more detail and a particular emphasis on the tortures and their responses. I find the early parts very interesting, and the later parts somewhat tedious.
Regarding the Vulgate, I'd just get the German version (the Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft version). They're inexpensive for what you get and have the proper critical apparatus.
I'll have to look those texts up in translation, then.
Just ordered the edition you suggested. Not that I'd call $50 cheap in most other cases, but in this case, it should be worth the cost. I can use it to improve my Latin later as well.
Illusions fall like the husk of a fruit, one after another, and the fruit is experience. - Narrator, Sylvie
Je suis méchant.
Je suis méchant.
The Septuagint
- 02/02/2014 07:54:58 PM
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Indeed
- 02/02/2014 08:19:49 PM
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