Monday, May 1, 2023

Robert Doran on 2 Maccabees 7:28

  

The mother again emphasizes that God is the creator of the cosmos, as can be seen by viewing heaven and earth. The mother states that God fashioned the individual things from previously unformed matter. Note that in LXX Jer 4:23, the Hebrew terms תהו ובהו (the same as in Gen 1:2) are translated by οὐθέν (“nothing”). The Lucianic manuscripts have not οὐκ ἐξ ὄντων but ἐξ οὐκ ὄντων, which could be translated as “from things which do not exist.” A parallel to this phrase is found in Xenophon: “parents made [their children] to be from what did not exist [ἐκ μὲν οὐκ ὄντων)]” (Mem. 2.2.3). (Robert Doran, 2 Maccabees: A Critical Commentary [Hermeneia—A Critical and Historical Commentary on the Bible; Minneapolis, Minn.: Fortress Press, 2012], 161)

 

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