Analysis[edit]
2 Maccabees makes Nicanor a major focus of moral lessons delivered by the author. While most of the depiction is unobjectionable, some scholars prefer 1 Maccabees where they differ, as they suspect that literary considerations may have overwhelmed historical ones. For example, 2 Maccabees only mentioning Nicanor at Emmaus probably does not mean that the other commanders were not involved such as Gorgias. The view that favors 1 Maccabees would argue that Nicanor's arc in 2 Maccabees was done for literary reasons to portray a downfall.[5] On the other hand, others have defended the historicity of the 2 Maccabees account of friendlier relations between Judas and Nicanor; the Hasmonean-supporting author of 1 Maccabees may have not wished to have portrayed the Hasmoneans as having been "fooled" by the Seleucid authorities given the later breakdown in relations.[7]
2 Maccabees 12:1-2 mentions a person called "Nicanor the Cypriarch" when listing some enemies of the Jews stirring up trouble. Daniel R. Schwartz suggests this is the author using different titles to distinguish different people of the same name, and that the Nicanor referred to in 12:1-2 was the commander of some Cypriot mercenaries described earlier in 2 Maccabees Chapter 5.[8] Others have interpreted the reference to suggest that perhaps the "main" Nicanor described in the work may have served as governor of Cyprus in the past before his actions in Judea, or been otherwise associated with Cyprus, although Seleucid control of Cyprus was very brief.
The historian Josephus's work Jewish Antiquities describes Nicanor and the Battle of Adasa in Book 12, but does not add any detail on Nicanor not already in 1 Maccabees, which seems to have been Josephus's main source.[5]
In later writings of Rabbinical Judaism, Nicanor's Day is mentioned in Megillat Taanit. Nicanor's Day is also discussed in the Ta'anit tractate of the Talmud, although its depiction of Nicanor is rather brief: it describes Nicanor making boastful oaths, being slain in battle, and his thumbs and toes being hung at the gates of Jerusalem.[9]