A couple of questions arose in Bible study which were unable to be adequately answered in discussion:

1.  Regarding 2 Mc 7, the 7 brothers and their mom had unwavering faith in God and were able to withstand their tormentors due to their hope (as in certainty in the goodness and fidelity of God, as opposed to wishful thinking) in the Lord.  They knew that God would raise them, and had complete faith in this, and were so able to look beyond the horrible things which were done to them.  Where did they get this faith in the resurrection?  Paragraph 992 of the Catechism states that, “God revealed the resurrection of the dead to his people progressively.”  Okay, how was this progressively revealed to the people such that by the time of this event, the woman and her sons would have such great faith?  The reference in the Catechism begins with this text in Maccabees, and continues to talk of Jesus’s ministry.  So, how was this shown prior to Maccabees?  The only thing that I could think of, and I admit that it’s not a stunning argument, is when Elijah was taken up in the fiery chariot.  But this would only seem to point to a reality outside of that which we concretely know now here on Earth, not necessarily on the resurrection of the dead (since he didn’t “die”).  And, we haven’t gotten to the New Testament quite yet, but isn’t there a part where Jesus goes up to the mountain and sees Elijah and Moses?  *That* would point to a resurrection of the dead, since, I believe, Moses died.  However, if I’m remembering correctly about that story (and it is in the NT and not the OT), it still doesn’t explain the faith of this family during the time of the Maccabean Revolt.  Any ideas?

2.  On a tangent to our discussion (since we were reading one of the deuterocanon books, the conversation drifted to the canon of Scripture), we were noting that the Protestants and the Hebrews use a shorter canon that does not include 7 books of the Old Testament which were in the Greek Septuagint that the Catholic Church has used to define their canon.  Alright, I don’t (at the moment) have a question about the canon; however, if the Hebrew canon doesn’t have Maccabees, how do they preserve the tradition of Hanukkah, seeing as that story is told in Maccabees?  Or is it found elsewhere in Hebrew-accepted Scripture?