In 1 Maccabees, we read the following:
And they thought it best to tear it down, so that it would not be a lasting shame to them that the Gentiles had defiled it. So they tore down the altar, and stored the stones in a convenient place on the temple hill until a prophet should come to tell what to do with them. (1 Maccabees 4:45-46, NRSV)
"The Jews and their priests have resolved that Simon should be their leader and high priest forever, until a trustworthy prophet should arise" (1 Maccabees 14:41, NRSV)
So there was great distress in Israel, such as had not been since the time that prophets ceased to appear among them. (1 Maccabees 9:27, NRSV)
Some Protestants have argued such texts are “proof” that prophecy did not exist during the intertestamental period. Furthermore, some have used these as arguments against the canonicity of 1 Maccabees and other volumes in the Catholic canon as defined in 1546 during the Council of Trent. While I disagree with the canonical status of the books of the Deutero-canon/Apocrypha, this is not a good argument for either claims.
Commenting on the texts from 1 Maccabees quoted above, Catholic apologist Gary Michuta, who has perhaps done the most work on the Apocrypha/Deutero-canon than any other modern Catholic apologist, wrote:
The problem is a matter of equivocation. The word prophet is being used in two different senses. The title generally refers to someone who is publically recognized as holding the office of a prophet, such as Samuel, Isaiah, or Jeremiah. Their life’s call is to give divine oracles. Since these people were publically known as prophets, we will call them—for lack of a better term—public prophets. But there is another meaning to the term that is much broader: any person (a wise man, a priest, a scribe, or even a king’s mother) through whom God reveals himself. Although these people were never publically recognized as prophets during their lifetime, they were recognized as such later when their writings were acknowledged as being revelatory (i.e., inspired). We will call these people post facto prophets (after-the-fact prophets) because they were recognized as prophets only after their writings had been accepted as Scripture. Therefore, when it is asserted that “prophets ceased to appear in Israel,” we must ask whether the statement is referring to public prophets or post facto prophets.
If public prophets ceased to appear in Israel, then it does not follow that inspired (prophetic) Scripture could not be written, since we know that Scripture can be written by people who were not known to the prophets or prophetesses (Ezra, Nehemiah, Lemuel’s mother, etc.). If, on the other hand, the statement “prophets ceased to appear in Israel” refers to post facto prophets, then we have a circular argument, since it argues that no post facto prophets existed because there is no Scripture, and there is no Scripture because there were no post facto prophets to write it.
Looking at the three passages from 1 Maccabees, the author is clearly speaking about people who were public prophets. Therefore, 1 Maccabees still can be “prophetic” Scripture like the other texts that were written by post-facto prophets such as Ezra the priest or Nehemiah the cupbearer.
But didn’t 1 Maccabees say that prophets were a thing of the past? Oddly enough, the first two passages quoted above (4:45-46; 14:41) actually imply the opposite. Re-read the passages. Both anticipate that a prophet would soon arrive and set things in order. If prophets permanently ceased, there would be no reason to expect their future arrival.
With this in mind, let’s look at the third passage, 1 Maccabees 9:27. It speaks of a period of “great distress” when “all prophecy had ceased in Israel.” Unfortunately, no further detail is given about this period. Was it a temporary or a permanent condition? We’ve already seen that the Maccabees expected the immediate arrival of a prophet, so we know that this period of distress was only temporary, not permanent. And indeed, we know of examples in Scripture where it is said that God temporarily withheld prophets or prophecy during periods of great distress. For example, Psalm 74:9 says, “We do not see our signs; there is no longer any prophet, and there is none among us who knows how long.” We know that this period was not permanent, since prophets returned and prophesied and more inspired Scripture was written. The same can be said for Lamentations 2:9:
Her gates have sunk into the ground; he has ruined and broken her bars; her king and princes are among the nations; the law is no more, and her prophets obtain no vision from the Lord.
Again, the condition was temporary, since prophets appeared and Scripture was written afterward. Given that the Maccabees expected the arrival of a prophet, the period of “great distress” mentioned in 1 Maccabees 9:27 is analogous to periods described in Psalm 74:9 and Lamentations 2:9 when no prophets prophesied. There is no need to read into this passage 400 years of prophetic silence. (Gary Michuta, Why Catholic Bibles are Bigger [2d ed.; El Cajon, Calif.: Catholic Answers Press, 2017], 20-22)
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