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 467
To conclude this section: 2 Macc 10,24-38 corresponds to 1 Macc
5,6-8. The latter account, as to detail, is far more accurate in that it
makes no mention of Timothy’s death and identifies the town which
Judas sacked as Iazer. However, we have reason to believe that Jason
of Cyrene did thus identify the town; though Jason’s eagerness to
finish Timothy off caused his Epitomator to alter the name of the town
in a desire to make the Timothy involved seem a different man. In any
case the Epitomator included a phrase at 2 Macc 10,24 which clearly
identifies the Timothy involved as the same as the one in 2 Macc 8,30-
32. No such phrase stands in chap. 12 — as though the Epitomator
were certain that this time it was a different Timothy (42).
3. The Campaign at 2 Macc 8,30-32.(33)
We come now to the final campaign against Timothy in 2
Maccabees; the one which stands in chap. 8,30-32. This campaign
finds no clear correspondence in 1 Maccabees: Timothy acts in concert
with a Seleucid officer named Bacchides. 1 Maccabees knows of a
Bacchides, but in a completely different context and certainly never in
connexion with Timothy (43). 2 Maccabees recounts the story of this
campaign immediately before the Purification of the Temple (44); and 1
Maccabees knows of no such campaign at all during that period.
Scholars have, however, suggested that this campaign against
Timothy stands in the wrong place (45). Given that the account of this
(42) Thus — especially — BÜCHLER, Tobiaden, 321, n. 24; See KOLBE,
Beiträge, 129-130, for a discussion of the ways in which the Maccabaean books
distinguish between homonymous men.
(43) 1 Macc 7,8. (Josephus, Bellum, I 1,2-3, mentions yet another Bacchides
as a Seleucid official whom Mattathias, Judas’ father, slew.)
(44) N.b. that originally 2 Macc 9 stood after 10,8 (see above n. 9), so that the
account of the Purification followed directly on chap. 8.
(45) BAR-KOCHVA, Judas, 508-515 (the passage summarises much later
campaigns in Gilead); KOLBE, Beiträge, 32 (the passage is a doublet to 10,24-38;
cf. BÃœCHLER, Tobiaden, 324; J.G. BUNGE, Untersuchungen zum zweiten
Makkabäerbuch [Bonn 1971] 283-284); ABEL, Livres, 393, calls it a “fragment
déplacéâ€; BEVENOT, Makkabäerbücher, 210-211, argues for identity with 1 Macc
5,6-8, but does not explain which book has the correct chronology. Cf.
WELLHAUSEN, Wert, 137-138. MEYER, Ursprung, 208 with n. 3, views this
campaign of Timothy’s and Bacchides’ as identical to Lysias’ campaign in 1
Macc 4,28-36 (whereby he seems to fail to see that these last verses clearly
correspond to 2 Macc 11,1-15). (The commonly noted similarity [not identity] of
the number of the slain at 2 Macc 8,30 and that at 2 Macc 10,31 does not appear
to the current author to hold much significance in the debate whether 8,30-32 and