The Places of 2 Maccabees
2 Maccabees names 45 places; Jerusalem, Judea and Antioch most often. 39 of them can be put on a map, 39 with confidence. They are read from the Septuagint in Brenton’s translation and each is matched to OpenBible.info or Pleiades, or left unlocated when neither knows where it stood.
- Located with confidence
- Location uncertain
- Mountain
Every place in 2 Maccabees
The most often named first. Each place is set where its source puts it, and nowhere else; a place no source locates is listed and not drawn.
| Place | References | Source | Confidence |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jerusalem | 1:1, 1:10, 3:6, 3:9, 3:37, 4:9, 4:19, 4:21, 5:22, 5:25, 6:2, 8:31 and 12 more | OpenBible.info | High |
| Judea (Judea, Jewry) | 1:1, 1:10, 5:11, 10:24, 11:5, 13:1, 13:13, 14:12, 14:14, 15:22 | OpenBible.info | High |
| Antioch (Antioch, Antiochia) | 4:33, 5:21, 8:35, 11:36, 13:23, 13:26, 14:27 | OpenBible.info | High |
| Egypt | 1:1, 1:10, 4:21, 5:1, 5:8, 5:11, 9:29 | OpenBible.info | High |
| Persia | 1:13, 1:19, 1:20, 1:33, 9:1, 9:21 | OpenBible.info | High |
| Phoenicia (Phenice) | 3:5, 3:8, 4:4, 4:22, 8:8, 10:11 | OpenBible.info | High |
| Coele-Syria (Celosyria) | 3:5, 3:8, 4:4, 8:8, 10:11 | Pleiades | Certain |
| Tyre (Tyrus) | 4:18, 4:32, 4:44, 4:49 | OpenBible.info | High |
| Arabia (Arabia, Arabians) | 5:8, 12:10, 12:11 | OpenBible.info | High |
| Beth-zur (Bethsura) | 11:5, 13:19, 13:22 | OpenBible.info | High |
| Jabneel (Jamnites) | 12:8, 12:9, 12:40 | OpenBible.info | High |
| Joppa (Joppe) | 4:21, 12:3, 12:7 | OpenBible.info | High |
| Ammon (Ammonites) | 4:26, 5:7 | OpenBible.info | High |
| Asia'King of Asia' means the Seleucid realm as a whole and 10:24 is too vague to pin to one record. | 3:3, 10:24 | None | Not located |
| AthensBeyond this plate. | 6:1, 9:15 | OpenBible.info | High |
| Beth-shan (Scythopolis, Scythopolitans) | 12:29, 12:30 | OpenBible.info | High |
| Cyprus | 10:13, 12:2 | OpenBible.info | High |
| Karnaim (Carnion) | 12:21, 12:26 | OpenBible.info | High |
| Mount Gerizim (Garizim) | 5:23, 6:2 | OpenBible.info | High |
| Ptolemais | 13:24, 13:25 | OpenBible.info | High |
| Temple of Nanea (Nanea)Temple of the goddess Nanea in Persia (Elymais) is not located in any gazetteer record. | 1:13, 1:15 | None | Not located |
| Adullam (Odollam) | 12:38 | OpenBible.info | High |
| Babylon | 8:20 | OpenBible.info | High |
| Berea | 13:4 | Pleiades | Certain |
| CaspisFortified city of mixed population east of the Jordan; no secure gazetteer record found. | 12:13 | None | Not located |
| CharacaPlace of the Jews called Tubieni; unlocated. | 12:17 | None | Not located |
| Cilicia | 4:36 | OpenBible.info | High |
| CyreneBeyond this plate. | 2:23 | OpenBible.info | High |
| Daphne | 4:33 | Pleiades | Certain |
| DessauTown near which Nicanor camped; unlocated. | 14:16 | None | Not located |
| Ecbatana (Ecbatane) | 9:3 | OpenBible.info | High |
| Ephron | 12:27 | Pleiades | Certain |
| GerrheniansSouthern limit of Maccabeus's governorship; uncertain whether Gerar or Gerrha, no safe match. | 13:24 | None | Not located |
| Gezer (Gazara) | 10:32 | OpenBible.info | High |
| Idumea | 12:32 | OpenBible.info | High |
| Jericho | 12:15 | OpenBible.info | High |
| Mallos | 4:30 | Pleiades | Certain |
| Mareshah (Marisa) | 12:35 | OpenBible.info | High |
| Modin | 13:14 | Pleiades | Certain |
| Persepolis | 9:2 | Pleiades | Certain |
| RomeBeyond this plate. | 4:11 | OpenBible.info | High |
| Samaria | 15:1 | OpenBible.info | High |
| Tarsus | 4:30 | OpenBible.info | High |
| ThraciaBeyond this plate. | 12:35 | Pleiades | Certain |
| Tripolis | 14:1 | Pleiades | Certain |
Places from OpenBible.info’s Bible Geocoding Data, under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence, and from Pleiades, © the Pleiades contributors, under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 licence. Coastlines, lakes and rivers from Natural Earth; relief from SRTM and ETOPO1 elevation data by way of the AWS Terrain Tiles; all public domain. Scripture and the spellings of names from Brenton’s English translation of the Septuagint (1851), public domain.