| Abstract
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The aim of this study is to experiment with a prominent feature in religious texts, namely prayers, and aims to look at the political function of prayer. As an example one religious text from the Septuagint (LXX) is taken, namely the Second Book of the Maccabees, and the experiment is conducted with reference to this text. First, a cultural-systems model of Second Temple Judaism is given, and second, the literary accounts of prayers and prayer-narratives are examined. It is shown that the prayers in 2 Maccabees had two distinct functions. It firstly promoted group cohesion between Palestinian and Diaspora Jews and, second, it promoted an anti-Hellenistic sentiment and positive temple propaganda. The aim of this study is to experiment with a prominent feature in religious texts, namely prayers, and aims to look at the political function of prayer. As an example one religious text from the Septuagint (LXX) is taken, namely the Second Book of the Maccabees, and the experiment is conducted with reference to this text. First, a cultural-systems model of Second Temple Judaism is given, and second, the literary accounts of prayers and prayer-narratives are examined. It is shown that the prayers in 2 Maccabees had two distinct functions. It firstly promoted group cohesion between Palestinian and Diaspora Jews and, second, it promoted an anti-Hellenistic sentiment and positive temple propaganda.
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