3 Maccabees, also called the Third Book of Maccabees, is a book written in Koine Greek, likely in the 1st century BC in Roman Egypt. Despite the title, the book has nothing to do with the Maccabean Revolt against the Seleucid Empire described in 1 Maccabees and 2 Maccabees. Instead it tells the story of persecution of the Jews under Pharaoh Ptolemy IV Philopator (222–205 BC) in Ptolemaic Egypt, some decades before the Maccabee uprising in Judea. The story purports to explain the origin of a Purim-like festival celebrated in Egypt. 3 Maccabees is somewhat similar to the Book of Esther, another book which describes how a king is advised to annihilate the Diaspora Jews in his territory, yet is thwarted by God. In 3 Maccabees, King Ptolemy IV Philopator attempts to enter the Second Temple in Jerusalem, but is rebuffed by divine power. He grows to hate Jews, and orders the Jews of Egypt assembled in his hippodrome to be executed by elephants. However, God protects the Jews, and Ptolemy's elephants trample his own men instead. Ptolemy experiences a change of heart and lets the Jews go free; the Jews establish a festival in celebration. 3 Maccabees is considered part of the Biblical Anagignoskomena (deuterocanon) in the Eastern Orthodox Church and some Oriental Orthodox Churches: the Armenian Apostolic Church, the Syriac Orthodox Church, and the Assyrian Church of the East. Jews, Catholics, and Protestants do not regard it as canonical, though some (the Moravian Brethren as an example) include it in the apocrypha section of their bibles. The split dates back to the Apostolic Canons approved by the Eastern Church's Council in Trullo in 692 AD but rejected by the Western Church's Pope Sergius I. Trullo established that the first three books of Maccabees were canonical in the Chalcedonian Eastern Church. Contents According to the book, after Ptolemy IV Philopator's victory against Antiochus III in 217 BC at the Battle of Raphia, he visited Jerusalem and the Second Temple. However, he is miraculously prevented from entering the building. This leads him to hate the Jews. Upon his return to the capital of Alexandria, he orders that all the Jews in the kingdom are to be rounded up and put to death in his hippodrome. Those Jews who agree to abandon their faith are to be spared. An attempt to register all the Jews before their execution is thwarted by