A clash of the deities in 2 Maccabees 1:10b–17 in terms of space, body and narrative

Abstract

The text of 2 Macc 1:10b-17 has been approached in different ways during the past century. Recent developments within linguistic theo-ry were applied to the text. These theories concern, inter alia, space, body and narratives within texts. All of this brought quite different insights for the traditional understanding of the text but for some reason the crucial aspect of space has been largely overlooked. Exploring different spaces in the text helps to highlight the war between the deities in their respective domains. In addition, the investigation of “head” in terms of body theory reveals that a blas-phemous head was nearly always decapitated. Lastly, dominant and challenging narratives were constructed showing that Yahweh is depicted as the conqueror with unlimited space