The meaning of Eupolemus in the Bible
(From International Standard Bible Encyclopedia)
u-pol'-e-mus (Eupolemos): Son of John, the son of Accos = Hakkoz (Akkos; Nehemiah 3:4, Nehemiah 3:21, etc.); was one of the two deputies sent by Judas Maccabeus (1 Macc 8:17; 2 Macc 4:11) to Rome circa 161 BC to ask the help of the Romans against Demetrius. A critical estimate of the narrative (1 Macc 8 and Josephus, Ant, XII, x, 6) of the first meeting of the representatives of the Jewish nation and the Romans will be found in Stanley, Lectures on the History of the Jewish Church, III, 350 ff., where it is admitted that "inaccuracies of detail only confirm the general faithfulness of the impression." Keil (Comm., 14) further remarks on this point: "that the author of 1 Macc wrote from twenty to twenty-five years after the destruction of Corinth (146 BC) by the Romans; and that the Jews of Palestine were not accurately informed concerning the wars of the Romans with the Greeks." Eupolemus has been identified with the historian of the same name quoted by Eusebius (Praep. Ev., IX, 17 ff.); but there is no evidence that the historian was of Jewish origin.
J. Hutchison
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