Not long after this, the king sent an Athenian senator: If it is not clear what Not long after this (Good News Bible “Not long after that”) at the beginning of this new section refers to, it may be rendered “A short time after Judas and his followers went to the mountains.” It may also be helpful to translate the king as “King Antiochus” (Contemporary English Version). As indicated by the footnotes in Revised Standard Version and Good News Bible, the phrase an Athenian senator can be interpreted several different ways. This is not a textual problem, but only a matter of dealing with two ambiguous words in Greek. There is little to help make the decision, and translators may feel free to choose from the possibilities in the Good News Bible footnote. However, the Greek word for senator (Good News Bible “elderly”) is not the usual word for an elder. We agree with New Jerusalem Bible, Traduction œcuménique de la Bible, Abel, and Goldstein to say “an Athenian [or, a man from Athens] named Geron,” since the writer usually gives the names of the people involved.

To compel the Jews to forsake the laws of their fathers and cease to live by the laws of God: The laws of their fathers and the laws of God are the same laws: the Law of Moses, the Torah, the Jewish Law, the Jewish way of life. We may combine these phrases by saying “the laws that God had given their ancestors.”

Alternative models for this verse are:

• Not long after that [or, after Judas and his followers went into the mountains], King Antiochus sent an Athenian named Geron [or, Geron of Athens] to Jerusalem to force the Jews to stop living by the laws that God had given their ancestors.

• … to Jerusalem. He said to him, “Force the Jews to stop living by the laws that God has given to their ancestors.”

Quoted with permission from Bullard, Roger A. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on 1-2 Maccabees. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2011. For this and other handbooks for translators see here.