While Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all venerate martyrs, the term means something very different in each religion. Malka Simkovich argues that the two books of Maccabees—considered part of the Old Testament by many Christian denominations, but excluded from the Jewish Bible—introduced the idea to Judaism. In turn, they exerted much influence on early Christian writers, who heavily emphasized martyrdom. By contrast, Simkovich writes, the rabbinic tradition tended to downplay martyrdom.
Take, for instance, the Talmud’s exegesis of the verse, “As for Your sake we are killed all the day long; we are reckoned as sheep for the slaughter” (Psalms 44:23). It first understands these words as referring to those who give their life for God, and then presents other readings:
This entire set of interpretations, which offer an alternative to the martyrdom stories—circumcision, teaching ritual slaughter in a dangerous way, and exhaustion by constant study—downplays the virtue of literal martyrdom. Nevertheless, the rabbis don’t dismiss its value altogether.
Dying for a cause was a Greek ideal, and it is thus not surprising that the Hellenistic 2Maccabees is sympathetic to this concept. . . . For the rabbis, dying for God was theoretically an admirable thing, but in practice, they wished to limit this to the occasional exceptional story, and not encourage their followers to pursue a martyr’s fate.
In short, the rabbinic ideal finds holiness in dying for one’s faith, but something even greater in living for it.
Read more on theTorah.com: https://www.thetorah.com/article/hasmonean-martyrdom-between-christian-and-jewish-tradition