Zechariah 5-6, Mark 14, Psalm 136 OR 4 Maccabees 1-2
No, I haven’t forgotten; it’s just been really busy around here. I’m still reading, there just doesn’t always seem to be much to add to the words already read …
Anyway, for those of us on the Alternative Apocryphal track, we are opening our last book in that series! 4 Maccabees has pretty much nothing to do with the Maccabees; rather, it is a kind of book of Jewish martyrs, dating from sometime around the turn of the calendar from BCE to CE (that’s BC/AD in old money). The trusty old New Oxford Annotated Bible offers that, “While it is unlikely that 4 Maccabees was known to any New Testament authors, the book’s interpretation of martyrdom is representative of the theological milieu in which early Christians attached atoning significance to the suffering and death of Jesus.” (NOAB, 363 Apocrypha)
As such, I thought I’d offer this little poem that I wrote in the lead-up to a sermon entitled, “Who do you say that I am?”
Epiphany's Bible Challenge 