HistoricalChristian.Faith

Does Hebrews 11:35's allusion to 2 Maccabees 7 show the New Testament treats the deuterocanon as Scripture?

Type: supporting argument (off-timeline) · Assessment: weak — for the leap from allusion to canonicity; the allusion itself is sound. That Hebrews 11:35 ("others were tortured, not accepting deliverance; that they might obtain a better resurrection") echoes the martyrdom of the seven brothers in 2 Maccabees 7 is granted across confessions, and the proponent's survey claim — that no protocanonical episode matches it — holds up. But the inference built on it, that the apostles thereby reckoned the deuterocanon inspired Scripture, does not hold on its best case: a literary echo is not a citation as Scripture, and the very same roll-call of faith alludes in the next breath to the martyrdom of Isaiah (Hebrews 11:37, "sawn asunder") from a book no tradition canonizes — so the test, run honestly, would canonize a pseudepigraphon too · the mirror image of the "never quoted" silence argument and a companion to the apostolic Septuagint case; the Maccabean martyrs enter the timeline through the Greek Bible the church read

Related arguments: the New Testament's use of Maccabees, Wisdom, and Enoch — see also does Paul's use of the Wisdom of Solomon (≈7 times) show he received it as Scripture? (weak), this argument's exact twin for a different book, and does Jude's quoting 1 Enoch as prophecy show the OT canon was still open? (contested).

Here the sub-claim is the standard Catholic answer to the Protestant "the New Testament never quotes the deuterocanon": that Hebrews 11:35 alludes to the Maccabean martyrs, so the apostolic author knew and drew on 2 Maccabees as Scripture.

The claim

"Women received their dead by resurrection. Some were tortured, refusing to accept release, that they might rise again to a better life" (Heb. 11:35). There is no episode in the protocanonical books of the Old Testament to which this passage might refer, but it has a direct parallel with an account in 2 Maccabees… Notice that [Luther] also removed Hebrews, the book which cites 2 Maccabees, to an appendix as well.

— Jimmy Akin, Defending the Deuterocanonicals, EWTN.1 Two claims are bundled here, and they want weighing apart. The first is a parallel: that Hebrews 11:35b has no protocanonical referent and tracks the seven brothers of 2 Maccabees 6–7, who refuse the king's offer of release under torture in the hope of resurrection. The second is the inference the parallel is enlisted to serve: that an inspired New-Testament writer's drawing on the book shows the apostolic church received 2 Maccabees — and with it the deuterocanon — as Scripture, which is also why (Akin adds) Luther demoted Hebrews along with the Maccabees.

Who advances it

The Hebrews 11:35 / 2 Maccabees 7 parallel is the single most-cited proof of New-Testament acquaintance with the deuterocanon, and the affirmative mirror of the Protestant argument from apostolic silence. Jimmy Akin's Defending the Deuterocanonicals is its best-known popular statement, but the observation is not partisan: it is registered by the critical Greek New Testament's own apparatus, conceded in Protestant reference works (Bible.org notes the Apocrypha is "never quoted as authoritative … although Hebrews 11:35–38 alludes to … 2 Maccabees"), and treated as a textbook case in the commentary literature. What divides the parties is not whether the allusion exists but what it proves — acquaintance and use, or canonical status.2

The evidence for the allusion

The parallel is real, and the survey claim holds. Hebrews 11:35 falls in two halves. The first — "Women received their dead raised to life again" — has a plain protocanonical referent: the widow of Zarephath, whose son Elijah raises (1 Kings 17:22), and the Shunammite, whose son Elisha restores (2 Kings 4:36). The second half — "and others were tortured, not accepting deliverance; that they might obtain a better resurrection" — has none. The combination it names is specific: martyrs tortured, refusing release that they could have had by yielding, in the express hope of a resurrection to life. That is the scene of 2 Maccabees 7, where the seven brothers reject the king's offer of release at the cost of their lives — "Thou like a fury takest us out of this present life, but the King of the world shall raise us up … unto everlasting life" (7:9); "it is good, being put to death by men, to look for hope from God to be raised up again by him" (7:14); "for his laws I … hope to receive them again" (7:11). Commentators add a verbal touch: the Greek of Hebrews 11:35, etympanisthēsan ("were tortured," literally beaten on the tympanon, the rack or wheel), echoes the very instrument of the deuterocanonical martyrdoms, the tympanon to which Eleazar is brought in 2 Maccabees 6:19, 28.3

Akin's survey claim — that no protocanonical episode matches — survives testing. The nearest candidate is the fiery furnace of Daniel 3, where Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego refuse to worship the golden image: "our God … is able to deliver us … But if not, be it known … we will not serve thy gods" (Daniel 3:17–18). But the three are delivered alive from the flame; none is put to death, and no resurrection hope is voiced as the motive — the two features Hebrews 11:35b turns on. The protocanon offers martyrs (the prophets), and it offers resurrection promises (Daniel 12:2; Isaiah 26:19), but it nowhere joins torture refused for the sake of the resurrection in one episode. Only 2 Maccabees 7 (elaborated in 4 Maccabees) does. The allusion is therefore not a Catholic stretch but a sound reading, granted by the critical apparatus and by Protestant scholarship alike.3

Adversarial assessment

What holds. The parallel, and its survey premise. Hebrews 11:35b has no protocanonical referent and draws on the martyrdom of 2 Maccabees 7; the author of Hebrews knew the book, valued the story, and wove its martyrs into his roll-call of faith without apology. As evidence that the New-Testament writers knew and used the deuterocanon, the point is good — and it is the strongest single instance of it. So far Akin is right, and the maximal Protestant counter-claim (that the apostles never even allude to these books) is refuted by this verse.2

What overstates. The leap from the allusion to canonicity, which is where the argument is actually asked to do its work. Three joints give way.

  1. An echo is not a citation as Scripture. Hebrews never introduces the Maccabean martyrs with "it is written," "the Scripture saith," or any formula marking the material as the word of God — the apparatus the same epistle lavishes on the Psalms, Deuteronomy, Jeremiah, and Genesis. It recalls an event and weaves it among the worthies of faith; it does not adduce a text as inspired authority. The minimal scholarly reading grants exactly this and no more: the deuterocanon is demonstrably alluded to, yet never quoted as Scripture anywhere in the New Testament (Timothy Lim). "Known and used" and "received as canonical Scripture" are different claims, and only the first is carried by an allusion.4

  2. The same chapter sinks the inference. Hebrews 11 is a roll-call of the faithful that draws on material no one canonizes. Two verses past the Maccabean allusion it says the martyrs "were sawn asunder" (11:37) — the traditional manner of Isaiah's death, told not in any canonical book but in the pseudepigraphal Martyrdom (Ascension) of Isaiah. If alluding to a martyrdom narrative made its source Scripture, Hebrews 11 would canonize the Martyrdom of Isaiah by the identical logic that is supposed to canonize 2 Maccabees — a result the proponent does not want. The chapter mines the whole Jewish martyrology, canonical and extra-canonical together, precisely as edifying example; that is what a roll-call of faith does.5

  3. The New Testament's allusion-net is wider than anyone's canon. The argument from echo proves too much. The same corpus that alludes to 2 Maccabees quotes 1 Enoch by name and as prophecy (Jude 14–15), draws on the Assumption of Moses (Jude 9), and cites the pagan poets Aratus, Epimenides, and Menander (Acts 17:28; Titus 1:12; 1 Corinthians 15:33). If being drawn upon — even quoted as prophecy — settled canonicity, Enoch and the poets would be in. Since they are not, "the New Testament uses it" cannot, by itself, establish that a book is Scripture. The allusion to 2 Maccabees stands on exactly the footing of the allusion to Enoch: real, and not canon-determining.4

The secondary claim — Luther demoted Hebrews "because it cites 2 Maccabees" — is mistaken. Akin's added flourish, that Luther relocated Hebrews to his appendix on account of its Maccabean borrowing, is contradicted by Luther's own Preface to the Epistle to the Hebrews (1522), which states his reasons plainly and never mentions 2 Maccabees: first, that the author disclaims apostolic standing, describing the gospel as having "come to us" from "those who heard the Lord" (Hebrews 2:3), against an apostle's direct commission (Galatians 1:1); and second, the "hard knot" that chapters 6 and 10 seem to deny repentance after baptism (with the Esau case at 12:17). Hebrews led the four "disputed books" (with James, Jude, Revelation) for those reasons, not for an allusion. And Hebrews alludes to 2 Maccabees — it does not "cite" it; Akin's own word overstates the very datum the page rests on. (Whether Luther "removed" the deuterocanon at all is weighed on the Luther-removed page; weak.)6

Assessment

Weak — for the canonicity inference; the allusion itself is sound. That Hebrews 11:35 alludes to the martyrs of 2 Maccabees 7 is true, granted across confessions, and a real refutation of the stronger Protestant claim that the apostles never so much as echo these books — and the proponent's survey premise, that the protocanon offers no parallel (the fiery furnace ends in deliverance, not martyrdom-for-resurrection), holds up. But the conclusion the allusion is enlisted to carry — that the New Testament thereby treats the deuterocanon as Scripture — does not hold on its best case. A literary echo is not a citation with a Scripture-formula; the same roll-call alludes two verses later to the martyrdom of Isaiah from a book no one canonizes, so the test would canonize a pseudepigraphon; and the New Testament's allusion-net catches Enoch and the pagan poets too, whom no tradition receives as canon. What survives is the true, modest residue this timeline elsewhere traces: the deuterocanon was known, valued, and used by the apostolic writers — strong evidence of reception, not of a closed apostolic canon. The mirror image of the silence argument, landing in the same graded place from the opposite side. (Flag on the proponent the slide from "alluded to" to "cites … as Scripture," and the unfounded claim that the allusion is why Luther demoted Hebrews.)

Sources

  1. Jimmy Akin, Defending the Deuterocanonicals (EWTN Library; orig. This Rock, 1996), quoting Hebrews 11:35 in the RSV ("refusing to accept release, that they might rise again to a better life") and arguing it "has no episode in the protocanonical books … to which this passage might refer, but … a direct parallel" in 2 Maccabees 7, and that Luther "also removed Hebrews, the book which cites 2 Maccabees, to an appendix as well." The same article is mirrored at cin.org. ↩

  2. The allusion is registered well beyond Catholic apologetics: the Nestle–Aland Novum Testamentum Graece prints Hebrews 11:35 ↔ 2 Maccabees 6–7 among the deuterocanonical citations and allusions in its Loci Citati vel Allegati apparatus, and the broadly Protestant Bible.org grants it outright while making the canon argument — the Apocrypha is "never quoted as authoritative as the Old Testament books are. (Although Hebrews 11:35–38 alludes to … 2 Maccabees 6:18–7:42…)" ("Canonicity," Bible.org). The full register of deuterocanonical allusions, and the scholarly debate over whether they rise to scriptural use, is laid out on the companion "never quoted" page. ↩

  3. The parallel texts (KJV unless noted): Hebrews 11:35 ("Women received their dead raised to life again: and others were tortured, not accepting deliverance; that they might obtain a better resurrection") — first half ↔ 1 Kings 17:22 (Zarephath) and 2 Kings 4:36 (the Shunammite); second half ↔ 2 Maccabees 7:9 ("the King of the world shall raise us up … unto everlasting life"), 7:11 ("for his laws I … hope to receive them again"), 7:14 ("to be raised up again by him"). The instrument-word link: Hebrews' verb tympanizō derives from tympanon, the rack/wheel of torture named in 2 Maccabees 6:19 and 6:28 (the martyrdom of Eleazar), a connection noted in the standard commentaries (e.g. F. F. Bruce, The Epistle to the Hebrews, NICNT, and Harold Attridge, Hebrews, Hermeneia, ad loc.). The protocanonical near-miss: in Daniel 3:16–18 the three confessors refuse the golden image ("but if not … we will not serve thy gods") yet are delivered alive from the furnace — neither killed nor voicing resurrection hope as their motive, so the episode lacks the two features (death refused for resurrection) that Hebrews 11:35b turns on; cf. the resurrection promise of Daniel 12:2, which is not joined to a martyrdom scene. The fuller martyr-and-resurrection narrative is elaborated again in 4 Maccabees 9–12. ↩

  4. On the gap between allusion and citation-as-Scripture: Timothy H. Lim, The Formation of the Jewish Canon (Yale, 2013), ch. 9 and App. 4, grants the deuterocanonical allusions (Hebrews 11:35 among them) yet denies that the New Testament ever cites a deuterocanonical book as Scripture. That the New Testament quotes works no tradition canonizes — 1 Enoch 1:9 by name and as prophecy at Jude 14–15, the Assumption of Moses at Jude 9, and the pagan poets Aratus (Acts 17:28), Epimenides (Titus 1:12), and Menander (1 Corinthians 15:33) — is treated in Bruce M. Metzger, The Canon of the New Testament (Oxford, 1987): quotation, even as prophecy, does not entail canonicity, so use cannot by itself confer it. ↩

  5. Hebrews 11:37, "they were sawn asunder," is universally taken to allude to the tradition of Isaiah's martyrdom — the prophet sawn in two under Manasseh — preserved not in any canonical book but in the pseudepigraphal Martyrdom (Ascension) of Isaiah (cf. "Ascension of Isaiah," Wikipedia, and the note in the standard Hebrews commentaries ad loc.). The same roll-call thus alludes to a non-canonical martyrdom narrative in the same span (11:35–37) as the Maccabean allusion, so an "allusion ⇒ canonical" rule applied consistently would receive the Martyrdom of Isaiah too — a reductio the inference cannot survive. ↩

  6. Luther's reasons for placing Hebrews among the four "disputed books" are given in his Preface to the Epistle to the Hebrews (1522): the author writes as a second-generation disciple to whom the gospel "came … through those who had heard it" (Hebrews 2:3), so the book is "not St. Paul's, nor any other apostle's" (against Galatians 1:1); and "there is a hard knot in the fact that in chapters 6 and 10 it flatly denies and forbids to sinners repentance after baptism … and in 12:17 it says that Esau sought repentance and did not find it." 2 Maccabees is nowhere in his reasoning. Text and discussion at "Luther's Antilegomena," bible-researcher.com, and "Luther's canon," Wikipedia. On the wider "Luther removed the books" trope, see the dedicated page (weak). ↩