Sabbath, in the apocrypha; in rabbinic literature; in Jewish thought; the laws and customs of the Sabbath

Originally published in the Encyclopedia Judaica, vol. 14 (1972), pp. 562-7. In the Apocrypha. According to the Book of Maccabees, the Sabbath was at one time observed so strictly that on one occasion during the Maccabean revolt, the Jews allowed themselves to be killed rather than resist on the Sabbath (I Macc. 2: 31-38). Later, it was…