The first-century AD work known as 4 Maccabees was based more or less entirely on 2 Maccabees, and a good deal of 4 Maccabees (chapters 8–17) is taken up with the retelling and expansion of the chapter we have just studied. Yet, in keeping with the aim of the later book, which is the glorification of Reason by historical examples of those who were prepared to suffer rather than abandon this virtuous faculty, the mention of bodily resurrection has been toned down almost completely, in favour of a much more Hellenistic approach.
