but even the evil souls are held to be immortal. The suffering and martyrdom of the Maccabees is seen by the author to be vicarious for the Jewish nation, and the author portrays martyrdom in general as bringing atonement for the past sins of the Jews. In this it is similar to the Testament of Moses, which was written or updated around the same time period, and similarly praises the virtues of martyrdom and resistance. While the setting of the book is during the Seleucid and Maccabee period of Judea, it is generally believed that the author intended to apply the lessons from this era in his current time. The book thus functions as an endorsement of fidelity to Jewish customs and law and against assimilation to Gentile practice where this conflicted with the Torah. David A. deSilva considers the work's depiction of personal trust and faithfulness toward God as being in line with early Christian theology; notably, he argues that the Jewish Christian Epistle to the Hebrews has a similar viewpoint on the matter of the meaning of faith. The work also seems to have proto-Christian views on the nature of atonement: that the sacrifice of animals at the Temple (impossible in the Maccabean era, as well as for diaspora Jews in the author's era) could be replaced by a sacrifice of "obedience unto death" by faithful humans. While it is difficult to know for sure, deSilva also hypothesizes that the kind of promotion of the value of the Jewish Law for shaping an ethical life might have been used by the Jewish Christians who sought to persuade Gentile Christians also to adopt a Jewish way of life. These Jewish Christians, however, have not left a written legacy of their own; we have access to their arguments only as reflected in Paul's letters angrily denouncing their understanding of Christianity. Canonicity 4 Maccabees enjoyed little influence on later Judaism. Hellenistic Judaism waned with time, and the book was not back-translated to Hebrew in its era. It was not included in the Masoretic canon of Hebrew scriptures, the Tanakh, and thus was not considered canonical by later Jews. Stories of the martyrs did circulate among Jews in rabbinic literature, but likely from independent traditions rather than 4 Maccabees directly. The work was preserved largely among Christians. These early Christians both were interested in stories of martyrdom and generally admired Stoicism. The