In the Ethiopian Tewahedo Church's Old Testament canon, they include three books of Maccabees , which are unrelated to the three Greek books of Maccabees in the Eastern Orthodox OT canon (two of which are in the Catholic canon). I'm curious how this situation came about. Are there ancient or pre-modern sources which note the difference? Wikipedia floats a hypothesis that the Ethiopian Maccabees were composed in the late medieval period. Is there good evidence for this? Why would someone create these books and put them in the canon?

The [Books of the Maccabees](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Books_of_the_Maccabees) recount the history of the [Maccabees](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maccabees) which include historical-theological narratives of the [Maccabean Revolt](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maccabean_Revolt) . The major events and characters within the revolt itself have solid historicity, even by modern standard. While theological narratives are usually biased, the theological elements cannot be disproven by historiography. Instead, I'm looking for a scholarly evaluation of the **historical elements** in [1 Maccabees](https://ebible.org/pdf/eng-web/eng-web_1MA.pdf) , [2 Maccabees](https://ebible.org/pdf/eng-web/eng-web_2MA.pdf) , and [3 Maccabees](https://ebible.org/pdf/eng-web/eng-web_3MA.pdf) that are *more likely* to be fictional than factual, so we can assess the overall historical reliability of the books.

We read in 2 Maccab 12:42-44: > Then, Judas, that great man, urged the people to keep away from sin, because they had seen for themselves what had happened to those men who had sinned. He also took up a collection from all his men, totaling about four pounds of silver, and sent it to Jerusalem to provide for a sin offering. Judas did this noble thing because he believed in the resurrection of the dead. If he had not believed that the dead would be raised, it would have been foolish and useless to pray for them. Denominations like Catholicism that believe in the existence of purgatory quote this OT reference in support of this belief. One would be interested to know how the other denominations interpret these verses.

In 2 Maccabees 5:5, Jason attacks Jerusalem. Why does he do this? There is a false rumor that Antiochus has died, but Antiochus was attacking Egypt. In 2 Maccabees 4, it says he becomes high priest and then loses it, but he does nothing. Is that the reason he attacks Jerusalem?