Before the Church · c. 110–100 BC
First Maccabees
Anonymous
What it is
Forty years of revolt told soberly and in order: the desolating sacrilege in the temple, the old priest Mattathias killing a man at the altar, Judas and his brothers, the rededication that became Hanukkah, and the treaty with Rome that would outlast them all.
Why it lasted
The best historical source for the period and the only account of how Jewish independence was won and then handed to the dynasty the Qumran sectarians and the Pharisees would both come to hate. God is never named in it.
Scripture it works from
Where to read it
Public domain and free to read in full, though not held here. The archives below have it.
These open a search on each archive rather than a direct link, which is the honest way to point at an edition nobody here has checked line by line.
Read next