The Original Maccabees Bible With Psalm 151 [Paperback]

Roderick Michael McLean (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 20, 2000 | ISBN-10: 0948390468 | ISBN-13: 978-0948390463

This is a classical religious text of which four books have been excommunicated from the standard Biblical text. The four books published here are very descriptive of early Jewish history. It outlines early Jewish heroes in the form of the Maccabean brothers who fought religiously against injustice, and on the side of God's people. This edition also reveals the 151 Psalm, which has also been left out of the Psalms of David, in the BOOK OF PSALMS. A must read, especially since at one time in colonial British societies the possession of the Maccabees Bible was considered seditious. The text for this edition was reset from an original text from the British Museum Library.

Editorial Reviews

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

And it came to pass, after that Alexander the Macedonian, the son of Phillip, who came out of the land of Chittim, and smote Darius king of the Persians and Medes, it came to pass, after he had smitten him, that he reigned in his stead, in former time, over Greece. And he fought many battles, and won many strongholds, and slew the kings of the earth, and went through to the ends of the earth, and took spoils of a multitude of nations. And the earth was quite before him, and he was exalted, and his heart was lifted up, and he gathered together an exceeding strong host, and ruled over countries and nations and principalities, and they became tributary unto him.

Product Details

• Paperback: 248 pages
• Publisher: Research Associates School Times Publications (April 20, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0948390468
• ISBN-13: 978-0948390463
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.6 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #415,645 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Plagiarism Is Alive and Well, August 12, 2008

By 

David E. Blair (Columbia, PA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Original Maccabees Bible With Psalm 151 (Paperback)

I have spent far too much time investigating where the contents of this book come from. It is plagiarized from previous scholarship where I have been able to track back the sources. The publisher did not even have the courtesy to reset the type professionally. They scanned most of the original material and used an extremely crude computer program to reset the type based on their desired page size. The sections on III and IV Maccabees, including the translated text of the documents, the explanatory introductions, and even the attribution of the translator, H. Anderson, are directly lifted from "The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha..., Vol 2" edited by James H. Charlesworth and published in 1983. The sections on I and II Maccabees are attributed to the same translator and are in this book each titled, "A New Translation and Introduction." The explanatory introductions are missing, and the verse numbers omitted. I assume the translation date is circa 1983. This hardly constitutes the promise of "A New Translation..." in the early twenty-first century.

As to Psalm 151, the translation is credited to J. A. Sanders with no further information provided. The translation from the Hebrew was done by James A. Sanders, Professor emeritus at the Claremont Institute, in 1963. It derives from his first ever translation of the Psalms' scroll found at Qumran. The translation from the Greek Septuagint is also by Sanders and occurs in parallel with the Hebrew version in his study. This "borrowing" of his work appears in this book without proper attribution. The book's title, "The Maccabees (sic) Bible" is a misnomer in and of itself. With the exception of the Pentateuch and the Prophets, what was and what was not part of the canonical Hebrew Bible during the era of the Maccabees is an open question. There never has been any document known as the Macabean Bible. Also, any contact between the sectarian texts of the Qumran community with Hasmonean ruled Israel and Temple cult is tenuous at best. The preface/introduction to this book is dated as "First Published Unknown" by the purveyors of this work. This is the long and the short of the theft of the intellectual property of others perpetrated by the producers of this book as I have been able to verify it. There are far better critical resources for and translations of the four books of the Maccabees as well as the Qumran Psalms. Considering that reality and the plagiarism involved in this work, I urge any potential purchaser of this work to look elsewhere.

1.0 out of 5 stars Just go buy a Bible with the Apocrypha!, November 29, 2011

By 

David deSilva (Ashland, OH USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Original Maccabees Bible With Psalm 151 (Paperback)

I would enthusiastically recommend that all readers, Jew or Christian, read the five texts included in this collection. 1 and 2 Maccabees are our best sources for understanding the Hellenizing Crisis of 167-164 BCE and the Maccabean Revolt that restored religious freedom and, eventually, political independence to Judea (if only for 80 years). 3 Maccabees is a tale from the Egyptian Diaspora that gives an important window into Jew-Gentile tensions in the ancient world, tensions within the Jewish community, and to the nearness of the God of Israel, wherever God's people find themselves. 4 Maccabees is my favorite (I wrote a commentary on it! :) ) -- a work that engages the Greco-Roman philosophical topic of the mastery of the passions showing that the Jewish Torah is the best training program to achieve such mastery and to live a life of uninterrupted virtue. Psalm 151, OK, I can take or leave.

But ALL of these texts are already available for you in many modern translations of the Bible undertaken by teams of scholars, and generally with better annotations and other helps. For example, the ESV, RSV, NRSV, and CEB all include these books in their editions of the "Bible with Apocrypha/Deuterocanonicals." The New Oxford Annotated Apocrypha, 4th ed., costs the same as this book, giving you 18 texts (not five) in a well-bound hardcover, introductions and notes for every book, maps, and the scholarly standard translation of these texts (the NRSV). That's a MUCH better value, and, in the end, a much broader collection of Jewish texts from the intertestamental period.

2 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Truth Seekers ! Seek and You will Find ( LOST BOOKS OF THE BIBLE ! ), April 6, 2008

By 

Yolanda Allison "Yemonja" (NEW YORK CITY , NY) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Original Maccabees Bible With Psalm 151 (Paperback)

This is a very Deep Part of the Missing Bible. Now I can Understand why..... there is a lot of truth to be told in this Book. This is not the Entire Maccabees Bible either , but it is something to help set you in the right Directions !