Introduction
The second book of Maccabees is not a continuation of the first book.
Whereas the first book presents the history of the Jewish people during
those critical years in a comprehensive and balanced way, this other focuses
on a series of facts ¨C and at times, commentaries and legends ¨C allowing the
author to emphasize the hopes and suffering of the persecuted believers.
This second book, less interesting than the first for historians, is,
nevertheless, extremely important in the Bible because of its profound
vision of suffering and death and also of God¡¯s justice. This book (with the
book of Daniel) is the first in the Bible to affirm the resurrection of the
dead, as the Wisdom of Solomon would do also at the next century.