The Biography of the Bible

of the Hebrews, who passed unmurmuring from subjection to the Persians to subjection to the Greeks. But when that unusually intolerant Greek, King Antiochus Epiphanes, attempted in the middle of the second century to root out the Jewish religion, the nation rose in arms under Simon Maccabeus and his son Judas. The literary fruits of their heroic and ultimately successful rebellion were the three works of patriotic fiction, the partially apocalyptic Book of Daniel, the Book of Esther, and the Book of Judith, together with the last of the Biblical narratives, the two Books of the Maccabees.

Judith, the two Books of the Maccabees, and the earlier mentioned Tobit belong in the collection known as the Apocrypha which also includes two notable works of wisdom literature, the book of Ecclesiasticus, written by Jesus, the son of Sirach, in the second century and translated from Aramaic into Greek by his grandson, and the later Wisdom of Solomon, the only book of the Old Testament to reflect the influence of Greek philosophy and the only one to breathe any strong hope of personal immortality; the charming tale of Susanna and the elders, added at the beginning of the Book of Daniel, and a less worthy addition at the end of the same work, the exaggeratedly fantastic "Destruction

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