Victor L. Parker, «Judas Maccabaeus' Campaigns against Timothy», Vol. 87 (2006) 457-476
Both 1 and 2 Maccabees mention various campaigns of Judas Maccabaeus against
an opponent called Timothy. The author argues that although 1 Maccabees in
several instances does provide more accurate detail, 2 Maccabees’ presentation
of these campaigns as chronologically discrete has the greater historical
plausibility. Additionally, 2 Maccabees alone preserves a record of a third,
historically plausible campaign against Timothy. Overall, 2 Maccabees deserves
more esteem as an historical source than it commonly receives.
Judas Maccabaeus’ Campaigns against Timothy 465
Nothwithstanding, I believe that we need to consider a fourth
solution, one which takes into account what we have noted above and
which kills the two problematic birds (Timothy’s narratologically
premature death; the location of the campaign in the coastal plain) if
not with a single stone, then at least with only two. The Epitomator I
feel I have shewn elsewhere had a keen eye for contradictions and
removed them. If he did not remove the apparent contradiction in
regard to Timothy’s death, it was because he did not reckon it one:
uidelicet, he thought that it was a different Timothy in 2 Macc 10,24-
38 from the one at 12,10-31.
We now come to the toponym “Gazara.†Time and again modern
scholars, grappling with the same basic problem as, in our opinion, the
Epitomator himself, have suggested emending “Gazara†to “Iazer†(35).
This would, granted, remove an inconsistency between 1 Macc 5,6-8
and 2 Macc 10,24-38; but it still does not help us with Timothy’s
narratologically premature death: indeed, the emendation blocks off
the last possible path around the contradiction, namely the argument
that there were two opponents of Judas called Timothy. Furthermore,
all our manuscripts of 2 Maccabees (and all the manuscripts of the
early translations, insofar as we can ascertain, support this) with but
one exception write Gazara (36). Proper method compels the
assumption that the author of the text of 2 Maccabees — and by
“author†we mean here the Epitomator — set nothing other than
Gazara (37).
Discussion has always turned on the assumption that the
Epitomator accidentally made a mistake: whether the result of a lapsus
calami (accidentally writing Gazara for Iazhr) (38) or that of a
(35) J. WELLHAUSEN, “Über den geschichtlichen Wert des zweiten
Makkabäerbuchs im Verhältnis zum erstenâ€, NGAW (1905) Heft 2, 141; ABEL,
Livres, 415 (who, however, considers the possibility of correcting to Gadora or
Gadara — which latter possibility appears as certain on 416); GOLDSTEIN, II, 393-
394; BAR-KOCHVA, Judas, 512-513; SIEVERS, Hasmoneans, 54. A handful of
scholars have, however, argued for retaining Gazara in 2 Macc 10,32: KUGLER,
Moses, 373-374; BEVENOT, Makkabäerbücher, 221; SCHUNK, Quellen, 112 n.1.
(36) R. HANHART, Maccabaeorum Liber II (Göttingen 1976) 92, books but one
variant reading, namely Gadara (probably just a minor miswriting of all the other
manuscripts’ Gazara).
(37) Cf. GOLDSTEIN, 2 Maccabees, 394.
(38) Since 2 Maccabees was originally composed in Greek we should
probably try to explain any alleged miswriting in Greek terms – though see
GOLDSTEIN, 2 Maccabees, 393.