First Maccabees: A Greek Septuagint Reader

Book 40 in Septuagint Readers

This is a Greek Septuagint reader for First Maccabees. 1 Maccabees, or First Maccabees, describes the Maccabean Revolt (167-160 BCE) of the Jews against the Seleucid Empire. The Revolt lead to the creation of an indepedent state in Israel and the founding of Hasmonean dysnasty. The central event of the rededication of the temple is still commemorated today in the festival of Hanukkah. It is designed as a useful cost-efficient tool for two groups of people. First, for students learning Koine Greek after a year’s worth of study this book and its series provide the material to grow in reading ability from primary texts. Second, this book is designed for those studying or curious about the Septuagint.

The book immerses the reader in the Septuagint text in order to build confidence reading it as quickly as possible. To achieve this, all uncommon words that occur 90 times or fewer in the Septuagint are glossed as footnotes. This enables the reader to continue reading every passage unhindered. Therefore, the book complements traditional language grammars and is especially ideal for beginner and intermediate students learning to read Koine Greek. However, even advanced readers will appreciate the glossing of the rare words, since it saves time reading the text.

Other features include:

• Parallel aligned Greek and English books to read together
• Glossary of all the words not glossed below the text
• Wide margins
• Biblical maps in Greek

The Greek base text is Codex Alexandrinus, since Codex Vaticanus lacks the books of the Maccabees.