What Is the Third Book of Maccabees?

The third book of Maccabees (3 Maccabees) was composed in Greek sometime between the first century BCE and first century CE by an Alexandrian Jew. Despite its name, it deals not with the Maccabean revolt but with the persecution of Egyptian Jews during the reign of Ptolemy IV Philopater (r. 221–204 BCE) after divine intervention prevents Ptolemy from entering the Temple in Jerusalem. Third Maccabees appears in the Septuagint and the Peshitta but not in the Vulgate. It is included in Eastern Orthodox canons but not in the Catholic canon. While it appears in the Apocrypha in some Bibles, 3 Maccabees is often classified as Pseudepigrapha.