Book of 2 Maccabees 2 Maccabees, written by Unknown Jewish author, abridging the five books of Jason of Cyrene

It was written in Greek and never belonged to the Hebrew Bible, but it was part of the Greek Old Testament used by the early Church. The Catholic and Orthodox Churches count it as Scripture; the Reformers placed it among the Apocrypha, partly because of its passage on prayer for the dead, and the King James Version printed it in a separate section between the Testaments.

No. It covers roughly the same years, from shortly before Antiochus Epiphanes to the defeat of Nicanor, which is only the first part of 1 Maccabees. It is a separate work, an abridgement of the five books of Jason of Cyrene, more interested in miracles, martyrs and the temple than in the deeds of the whole Maccabean family.

Chapter 10 tells how Judas cleansed the temple on the twenty-fifth of Casleu, the same day it had been profaned, and kept eight days of rejoicing like the feast of tabernacles, ordaining them for every year. The opening letters urge the Jews of Egypt to keep the same feast. This is the Dedication that Jesus attends in John 10.

The second letter in chapter 1 says Antiochus was stoned by the priests of Nanea in Persia, while chapter 9 has Antiochus Epiphanes die of a disease in the mountains after a failed raid on Persepolis. The letter was attached to the abridgement from another source and may reflect early rumours or another king of the same name; the book keeps both accounts side by side.

The King James Version and the Crampon Bible do not divide every verse in the same place: 2 Maccabees has 555 verses in the English text here and 557 in the French, with an extra verse in chapters 2 and 12, so the prayer for the dead ends at 12:45 in English and 12:46 in French. A few names and readings also differ, such as Gawra for the French Gazara, or Auranus, the leader of Lysimachus's men, whom the French calls Tyran.