"[Ivar's] self-importance had crumbled while he talked, until he could not admit he had ever seen himself as a Maccabee." (4, p. 106)
Is this another Andersonian use of the Bible?
On the one hand yes but on the other hand no:
The Maccabean story is preserved in the books of the First and Second Maccabees, which describe in detail the re-dedication of the Temple in Jerusalem and the lighting of the menorah. These books are not part of the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible) which came from the Jewish canon; however, they were part of the Alexandrian canon which is also called the Septuagint (sometimes abbreviated LXX).[33] Both books are included in the Old Testament used by the Catholic and Orthodox Churches,[34] since those churches consider the books deuterocanonical. They are not included in the Old Testament books in most Protestant Bibles since most Protestants consider the books apocryphal.
-copied from here.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
Just a technical point, but deuterocanonical books like 1 and 2 Maccabees are considered by Catholics and Orthodox to be as fully canonical as the books whose canonicity were never disputed. All that "deuterocanonical" means in this context was that some books were considered only disputably part of the canon before they were officially accepted as canonical.
So, yes, Ivar Frederiksen's rueful comparison of himself as NOT like one of the Maccabees was a Biblical allusion.
Ad astra and Merry Christmas! Sean
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