Nahum 2, Mark 3, Psalm 125 OR 2 Maccabees 3-4
According to The New Oxford Annotated Bible, “The title of the book known as 3 Maccabees is a misnomer, for it is not historical account of the Maccabees, but a fictional story about Egyptian Jews under Ptolemy IV Philopater (221-204 BCE), half a century before the Maccabean period.”
Rather than a history, it is, according to the commentator, a narrative along the lines of Daniel and Esther, in which Judaism is threatened with despoilment and destruction, but divine intervention saves the people of God either directly or through the actions of a divinely-appointed hero.
The character of the wicked king is drawn out in the third chapter, wherein even those willing to give shelter to a Jew is subject to death and torture. In the post-twentieth century world, it is impossible not to hear echoes of the genocide of the 1930s and 40s. For faithful Jews, then, this story may have been one of faith and a test of perseverance. For twenty-first century Christians the question is no less sharp: what would we have done? How far would we go out of love for our neighbours? How would we love ourselves if we let them down?
Epiphany's Bible Challenge 