רעיון מדיני הלניסטי בספר מקבים ב'

The article assumes a pagan reading publicum alongside a Jewish-Hellenistic one. In contradistinction with the Jewish audience, this publicum could easily read 2 Maccabees as a standard narrative of life in a Greek polis under foreign rule, where the “ancestral constitution” played a significant role typical of Greek poleis from the classical period through the Hellenistic era. Reading the book, as a Greek would have read it, can provide insights concerning its socio-political and theological message (independent of the Jewish one). In fact, the book can be read as a reflection, or rather a microcosmos of the Greek sphere in the second century BCE, during the Hellenistic period. The overall message emerging from the book differs from that broadcasted to the Hellenistic Jews and constitutes a rich mine of theoretical information on the relationship between a subject city and an empire. Accordingly, the article enhances the different meanings of liberty (ἐλευθερία), a key-term in such a relationship.