Although the issues surrounding the scholarly study of the
Septuagint and the Apocrypha are not identical, many of the issues are closely
related. To be sure, those who oppose the Septuagint ordinarily do so based in
part upon the presence of the Apocrypha within its corpus. What this document
makes clear is that opposition to the Apocrypha itself has not been
historically as uniform as some modern authors would lead one to believe. What
Septuagint opponents need to keep in mind is that the Septuagint contains the
full canonical Old Testament as well as these "less official" books.
A point not mentioned in the document below is that
"official" editions of the King James Version (AKA "Authorized
Version") contained the books of the Apocrypha until they were expunged in
1796.
The word "apocrypha" is used in a variety of ways that
can be confusing to the general reader. Confusion arises partly from the
ambiguity of the ancient usage of the word, and partly from the modern
application of the term to different groups of books. Etymologically the word
means "things that are hidden," but why it was chosen to describe
certain books is not clear. Some have suggested that the books were "hidden"
or withdrawn from common use because they were deemed to contain mysterious or
esoteric lore, too profound to be communicated to any except the initiated
(compare 2 Esd 14.45-46). Others have suggested that the term was employed by
those who held that such books deserved to be "hidden" because they
were spurious or heretical. Thus it appears that in antiquity the term had an
honorable significance as well as a derogatory one, depending upon the point of
view of those who made use of the word.
According to traditional usage "Apocrypha" has been the
designation applied to the fifteen books, or portions of books, listed below.
(in many earlier editions of the Apocrypha, the Letter of Jeremiah is
incorporated as the final chapter of the Book of Baruch; hence in these
editions there are fourteen books.)
Tobit
Judith
The Additions to the Book of Esther (contained in the Greek version of
Esther)
The Wisdom of Solomon
Ecclesiasticus, or the Wisdom of Jesus son of Sirach
Baruch
The Letter of Jeremiah
The Prayer of Azariah and the Song of the Three Jews
Susanna
Bel and the Dragon
1 Maccabees
2 Maccabees
1 Esdras
The Prayer of Manasseh
2 Esdras
In addition, the present expanded edition includes the following
three texts that are of special interest to Eastern Orthodox readers (see p. iv
AP):
3 Maccabees
4 Maccabees
Psalm 151
None of these books is included in the Hebrew canon of Holy
Scripture. All of them, however, with the exception of 2 Esdras, are present in
copies of the Greek version of the Old Testament known as the Septuagint. The
Old Latin translations of the Old Testament, made from the Septuagint, also
include them, along with 2 Esdras. As a consequence, many of the early Church
Fathers quoted most of these books as authoritative Scripture (see p. vi AP).
At the end of the fourth century Pope Damasus commissioned Jerome,
the most learned biblical scholar of his day, to prepare a standard Latin
version of the Scriptures (the Latin Vulgate). In the Old Testament Jerome
followed the Hebrew canon and by means of prefaces called the reader's
attention to the separate category of the apocryphal books. Subsequent copyists
of the Latin Bible, however, were not always careful to transmit Jerome's
prefaces, and during the medieval period the Western Church generally regarded
these books as part of the holy Scriptures. In 1546 the Council of Trent
decreed that the canon of the Old Testament includes them (except the Prayer of
Manasseh and 1 and 2 Esdras). Subsequent editions of the Latin Vulgate text,
officially approved by the Roman Catholic Church, contain these books
incorporated within the sequence of the Old Testament books. Thus Tobit and
Judith stand after Nehemiah; the Wisdom of Solomon and Ecclesiasticus stand
after the Song of Solomon; Baruch (with the Letter of Jeremiah as chapter 6)
stands after Lamentations; and 1 and 2 Maccabees conclude the books of the Old
Testament. An appendix after the New Testament contains the Prayer of Manasseh
and 1 and 2 Esdras, without implying canonical status.
Editions of the Bible prepared by Protestants have followed the
Hebrew canon. The disputed books have generally been placed in a separate
section, usually bound between the Old and New Testaments, but occasionally
placed after the close of the New Testament.
Modern Roman Catholic scholars commonly employ a distinction
introduced by Sixtus of Sienna in 1566 to designate the two groups of books.
The terms "protocanonical" and "deuterocanonical" are used
to signify respectively those books of Scripture that were received by the
entire Church from the beginning as inspired, and those whose inspiration came
to be recognized later, after the matter had been disputed by certain Fathers
and local churches. Thus Roman Catholics accept as fully canonical those books
and parts of books that Protestants call the Apocrypha (except the Prayer of
Manasseh and 1 and 2 Esdras, which both groups regard as apocryphal). In short,
as a popular Roman Catholic Catechism puts it, "Deuterocanonical does not
mean Apocryphal, but simply 'later added to the canon.' "
The Eastern Orthodox Churches recognize several other books as
authoritative. Editions of the Old Testament approved by the Holy Synod of the
Greek Orthodox Church contain, besides the Deuterocanonical books, 1 Esdras,
Psalm 151, the Prayer of Manasseh, and 3 Maccabees, while 4 Maccabees stands in
an appendix. Slavonic Bibles approved by the Russian Orthodox Church contain,
besides the Deuterocanonical books, I and 2 Esdras (called 2 and 3 Esdras),
Psalm 151, and 3 Maccabees.
Besides the books that are included in the present edition, many
other Jewish and Jewish-Christian works have survived from the period between
about 200 B.C. to about A.D. 200. Since most of these profess to have been
written by ancient worthies of Israel, who lived long before the books were
actually composed, they are generally called "pseudepigrapha,"
meaning writings "falsely ascribed." (For a description of several of
the more noteworthy pseudepigrapha, see pp. xi-xii AP.)
The apocryphal/deuterocanonical books represent several different
literary genres, including the historical, novelistic, didactic, devotional,
epistolary, and apocalyptic types. Though several of the books combine material
belonging to more than one of these genres, most of the books can be classified
as predominantly of one type or another. Thus 1 Esdras, 1 Maccabees, and, in a
certain sense, 2 Maccabees belong to the genre of historical writing. Second
Maccabees, which
is characterized by bombastic rhetoric, fiery arguments,
exaggerated numbers, and superabundant use of invectives against the enemies of
Jewish orthodoxy, falls more precisely into the category, then so popular in
the Hellenistic world, known as "pathetic history" -- a type of
literature that uses all possible means to strike the imagination and move the
emotions of the reader.
Ostensibly historical but actually quite imaginative are the books
of Tobit, Judith, Susanna, and Bel and the Dragon, which may be called
moralistic novels. In fact, the last two are noteworthy as ancient examples of
the detective story.
Of a serious and didactic nature are the two treatises on wisdom,
the Wisdom of Solomon and Ecclesiasticus, or the Wisdom of Jesus son of Sirach.
The latter shows particularly close connections with the style and content of
the Old Testament book of Proverbs, from which it is a natural development.
The Prayer of Manasseh takes its place with devotional literature
of a relatively high order. The psalmody of the Prayer of Azariah and the Song
of the Three Jews is of a decidedly liturgical cast.
The Old Testament contains no books that are in the form of a
letter, but twenty-one of the twenty-seven books of the New Testament are in
epistolary form. The Letter of Jeremiah, which dates from inter-testamental
times, may have provided later writers with an example of how this literary
form could be used for religious purposes, a form that offers the possibility
of combining profound theological content with a direct personal approach to
the reader.
Finally, 2 Esdras, a book that purports to reveal the future, is a
specimen of the type of literature called apocalyptic (see "Apocalyptic
Literature," pp. 362-363 NT). An apocalypse is literally "an
unveiling." Like the last six chapters of Daniel in the Old Testament and
the book of Revelation in the New Testament, which also are apocalypses, 2
Esdras includes many symbols involving mysterious numbers, strange beasts, and
the disclosure of hitherto hidden truths through angelic visitants.
Despite the diversities of literary form, most of which are
parallel to, or developments from, similar genres in the Old Testament, the
attentive reader of the Apocrypha will be struck by the absence of the
prophetic element. From first to last these books bear testimony to the
assertion of the Jewish historian Josephus (Against Apion, i. 8), that
"the exact succession of the prophets" had been broken after the
close of the Hebrew canon of the Old Testament. Sometimes there is a direct
confession that the gift of prophecy had departed (1 Macc 9.27); at other times
a hope is expressed that it might one day return (1 Macc 4.46; 14.41). When a
writer imitates the prophetic character, as in the book of Baruch, he repeats
with slight modifications the language of the older prophets. But the
introductory phrase, "Thus says the LORD," which occurs so frequently
in the Old Testament, is conspicuous by its absence from the
apocryphal/deuterocanonical books.
Ecclesiastical opinions concerning the nature and worth of the
books of the Apocrypha have varied with age and place.
None of the authors of the books of the New Testament makes a
direct quotation from any of the fifteen books of the Apocrypha, though
frequent quotations occur from most of the thirty-nine books of the Hebrew
canon of the Old Testament. On the other hand, several New Testament writers
make occasional allusions to one or more apocryphal books. For example, what
seem to be literary echoes from the Wisdom of Solomon are present in Paul's
Letter to the Romans (compare Rom 1.20-29 with Wis 13.5,8; 14.24,27; and Rom
9.20-23 with Wis 12.12,20; 15.7) and in his correspondence with the Corinthians
(compare 2 Cor 5.1,4 with Wis 9.15). The short Letter of James, a typical bit
of "wisdom literature" in the New Testament, contains allusions not
only to the Old Testament book of Proverbs but to gnomic sayings in Sirach as
well (compare Jas 1. 19 with Sir 5. 11; and Jas 1. 13 with Sir 15.11-12).
During the early Christian centuries most Greek and Latin Church
Fathers, such as Irenaeus, Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria, and Cyprian (none
of whom knew any Hebrew), quoted passages from the Greek text of apocryphal /
deuterocanonical books as "Scripture," "divine Scripture,"
"inspired," and the like. In this period only an occasional Father
made an effort to learn the limits of the Palestinian Jewish canon (as Melito
of Sardis) or to distinguish between the Hebrew text of Daniel and the addition
of the story of Susanna in the Greek version (as Africanus).
In the fourth century many Greek Fathers (including Eusebius,
Athanasius, Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory of Nazianzus, Amphilochius, and
Epiphanius) came to recognize a distinction between the books in the Hebrew
canon and the rest, though the latter were still customarily cited as
Scripture. During the following centuries usage fluctuated in the East, but at
the important Synod of Jerusalem in 1672 the books of Tobit, Judith,
Ecclesiasticus, and Wisdom were expressly designated as canonical.
In the Latin Church, on the other hand, though opinion has not
been unanimous, a generally high regard for these books has prevailed. More
than one local synodical council (e.g. Hippo, A.D. 393, and Carthage, 397 and
419) justified and authorized their use as Scripture. The so-called Decretum
Gelasianum, a Latin document handed down most frequently under the name of Pope
Gelasius (A.D. 492-496), but in some manuscripts as the work of Damasus
(366-384) or Hormisdas (514-523), contains, among other material, lists of the
books to be read as divine Scripture and of books to be avoided as apocryphal.
The former list, which is not present in all the manuscripts, includes among
the biblical books Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, and 1 and 2
Maccabees. Irrespective of the problem of its authorship (many scholars today
believe it to be the work of a cleric who lived in south Gaul), the list
without doubt reflects the views of the Roman Church at the beginning of the
sixth century.
There were, however, occasional voices raised to question the
legitimacy of regarding the disputed books as Scripture. At the close of the
fourth century, Jerome spoke out decidedly for the Hebrew canon, declaring
unreservedly that books that were outside that canon should be classed as apocryphal.
When he prepared his celebrated revision of the Latin Bible, the Vulgate, he
scrupulously separated the apocryphal Additions to Daniel and Esther, marking
them with prefatory notes as absent from the original Hebrew. But, as was
remarked above, subsequent scribes were not always careful to transmit Jerome's
explanatory material, and during the Middle Ages most readers of the Latin
Bible made no distinction between the two classes of books. It is noteworthy,
however, that throughout these centuries more than one highly respected
ecclesiastical writer (such as Gregory the Great, Walafrid Strabo, Hugh of St.
Victor, Hugh of St. Cher, and Nicholas of Lyra), being influenced by the great
authority of Jerome, raised theoretical doubts about the disputed books.
Toward the close of the fourteenth century John Wyclif ("the
father of English prose") and his disciples, Nicholas of Hereford and John
Purvey, produced the first English version of the Bible (see "English
Versions of the Bible," pp. 400-406). This translation, having been
rendered from the Latin Vulgate, included all of the disputed books, with the
exception of 2 Esdras. In the Prologue to the Old Testament, however, a
distinction is made between the books of the Hebrew canon, which are thereupon
enumerated, and the others which, the writer says, "shal be set among
apocrifa, that is, with outen autorite of bileue." In the case of the
books of Esther and Daniel, the translators included a rendering of Jerome's
notes calling the reader's attention to the additions.
In the controversies that arose at the time of the Reformation,
Protestant leaders soon recognized the need to distinguish between books that
were authoritative for the establishment of doctrine and those that were not.
Thus, disputes over the doctrines of Purgatory and of the efficacy of prayers
and Masses for the dead inevitably involved discussion concerning the authority
of 2 Maccabees, which contains what was held to be scriptural warrant for them
(12.43-45).
The first extensive discussion of the canon from the Protestant
point of view was a treatise in Latin, De Canonicis Scripturis Libellus,
published at Wittenberg in 1520 by Andreas Bodenstein, who is commonly known as
Carlstadt, the name of his birthplace. Besides distinguishing the canonical
books of the Hebrew Old Testament from the books of the Apocrypha, Carlstadt
classified the latter into two divisions. Of one group, containing Wisdom,
Ecclesiasticus, Judith, Tobit, and 1 and 2 Maccabees, he says, "These are
Apocrypha, that is, are outside the Hebrew canon; yet they are holy
writings" (sect. 114). In explaining his view of the status and worth of
such books as Tobit, Wisdom, and Ecclesiasticus, he writes:
What they contain is not to be despised at once; still it is not
right that Christians should relieve, much less slake, their thirst with
them.... Before all things the best books must be read, that is, those that are
canonical beyond all controversy; afterwards, if one has the time, it is
allowed to peruse the controverted books, provided that you have the set
purpose of comparing and collating the non-canonical books with those which are
truly canonical (sect. 118).
The second group of apocryphal books, namely 1 and 2 Esdras,
Baruch, Prayer of Manasseh, and the Additions to Daniel, Carlstadt declared to
be filled with ridiculous puerilities worthy of the censor's ban, and therefore
to be contemptuously discarded.
The first Bible in a modern vernacular to segregate the apocryphal
books from the others was the Dutch Bible published by Jacob van Liesveldt in
1526 at Antwerp. After Malachi there follows a section embodying the Apocrypha,
which is entitled, "The books which are not in the canon, that is to say,
which one does not find among the Jews in the Hebrew."
The first edition of the Swiss-German Bible, prepared by ministers
of the Church in Zurich, was published in six volumes (Zurich, 1527-29), the
fifth of which contains the Apocrypha. The title page of this volume states,
"These are the books which are not reckoned as biblical by the ancients,
nor are found among the Hebrews." A one-volume edition of the Zurich
Bible, which appeared in 1530, contains the apocryphal books grouped together
after the New Testament. In commenting on the attitude of Protestants
respecting the disputed books, OEcolampadius, perhaps on the whole the best
representative of the Swiss Reformers, declared in a formal statement issued in
1530: "We do not despise Judith, Tobit, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch, the last
two books of Esdras, the three books of Maccabees, the Additions to Daniel; but
we do not allow them divine authority with the others."
In reaction to Protestant criticism of the disputed books, on
April 8, 1546, the Council of Trent gave what is regarded by Roman Catholics as
the first infallible and effectually promulgated declaration on the canon of
the Holy Scriptures. After enumerating the books, which in the Old Testament
include Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch and the two books of
Maccabees, the decree pronounces an anathema upon anyone who "does not
accept as sacred and canonical the aforesaid books in their entirety and with
all their parts, as they have been accustomed to be read in the Catholic Church
and as they are contained in the old Latin Vulgate Edition" (trans. by Father
H. J. Schroeder). The reference to "books in their entirety and with all
their parts" is intended to cover the Letter of Jeremiah as chapter 6 of
Baruch, the Additions to Esther, and the chapters in Daniel concerning the Song
of the Three Jews, Susanna, and Bel and the Dragon. It is noteworthy, however,
that the Prayer of Manasseh and 1 and 2 Esdras, though included in some
manuscripts of the Latin Vulgate, were denied canonical status by the Council.
In the official edition of the Vulgate, published in 1592, these three are
printed as an appendix after the New Testament, "lest they should perish
altogether."
In England, though Protestants were unanimous in declaring that
the apocryphal books were not to be used to establish any doctrine, differences
arose as to the proper use and place of non-canonical books. The milder view
prevailed in the Church of England, and the lectionary attached to the Book of
Common Prayer, from 1549 onward, has always contained prescribed lessons from
the Apocrypha. In reply to those who urged the discontinuance of reading
lessons from apocryphal books, as being inconsistent with the sufficiency of
Scripture, the bishops at the Savoy Conference, held in 1661, replied that the
same objection could be raised against the preaching of sermons, and that it
was much to be desired that all sermons should give as useful instruction as
did the chapters selected from the Apocrypha.
A more strict point of view was taken by the Puritans, who felt
uneasy that there should be any books included within the covers of the Bible
besides those that they regarded as authoritative. In time this aversion to
associating merely human books with those acknowledged as the only sacred and
canonical ones found a natural expression in the publication of editions of the
Bible from which the section devoted to the Apocrypha was omitted. The earliest
copies of the English Bible that excluded the Apocrypha are certain Geneva
Bibles printed in 1599 mainly in the Low Countries. The omission of the sheets
containing the Apocrypha was presumably due to those responsible for binding
the copies, for the titles of the apocryphal books occur in the table of
contents at the beginning of the edition.
It would seem that the practice of issuing copies of the Bible
without the Apocrypha continued, for in 1615 George Abbot, Archbishop of
Canterbury, who had been one of the translators of the King James Version of
1611, directed public notices to be given that no Bibles were to be bound up
and sold without the Apocrypha on pain of a whole year's imprisonment. Despite
the severe penalty, however, not a few printings of the King James Version
appeared in London and Cambridge without the Apocrypha; copies lacking the
disputed books are dated 1616, 1618, 1620, 1622, 1626, 1627, 1629, 1630, and
1633. Like the copies of the Geneva Bible of 1599, these seem to have been the
work of publishers who wished to satisfy a growing demand for less bulky and
less expensive editions of the Bible.
During subsequent centuries the editions of Bibles that lacked the
books of the Apocrypha came to outnumber by far those that included them, and
soon it became difficult to obtain ordinary editions of the King James Version
containing the Apocrypha.
Most readers will probably be surprised to learn how pervasive the
influence of the Apocrypha has been over the centuries. Not only have these
books inspired homilies, meditations, and liturgical forms, but poets,
dramatists, composers, and artists have drawn freely upon them for subject
matter. Common proverbs and familiar names are derived from their pages. Even
the discovery of the New World was due in part to the influence of a passage in
2 Esdras upon Christopher Columbus. In what follows the reader will find a
representative selection of such examples, most of them chosen from An
Introduction to the Apocrypha by B. M. Metzger (Oxford University Press), and
arranged under the headings of (a) English Literature, (b) Music, © Art, and
(d) Miscellaneous.
(a) English Literature. Sometime during the ninth or the tenth
century an unknown poet, using the West-Saxon dialect, turned the story of
Judith into an Old English epic of twelve cantos, transforming at the same time
the heroine into a Christian. It is thought that the poem was written to
celebrate the prowess of AEthelflaed, "The Lady of the Mercians,"
who, like the indomitable Judith, delivered her people from the fury of
invaders, the heathen Northmen.
During the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries a poem called
"The Pistill [i.e. Epistle] of Swete Susan" circulated in Scotland.
Written in stanzas of thirteen lines and characterized by an unusual
combination of alliteration and rhyme, the ancient apocryphal story was adorned
with many imaginative details by the author, thought to have been a certain
Huchown (Hugh) of Ayrshire in western Scotland.
How conversant Shakespeare was with the contents of the Bible is a
question that, like many another concerning the bard of Avon, has been keenly
debated. In any case, it is a fact that two of the poet's daughters bore the
names of two of the chief heroines of the Apocrypha -- Susanna and Judith --
and, what is of greater significance, allusions to about eighty passages from
eleven books of the Apocrypha have been identified in his plays.
Noteworthy among American writers who have drawn upon the
Apocrypha for themes as well as subject matter is Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
His New England Tragedies contains references to 1 and 2 Maccabees, and the
chief episodes of the courageous Maccabean uprising are included in his poetic
dramatization, Judas Maccabaeus.
(b) Music. More than one hymn writer has drawn inspiration, as well as, in
some cases, the words themselves, from the Apocrypha. For example, the exalted
hymn of thanksgiving, "Nun danket alle Gott," written by Pastor
Martin Rinkart about 1636 when the devastating Thirty Years War was nearing its
end, is dependent upon Luther's translation of Sir 50.22-24. Two stanzas of the
hymn, as translated by Catherine Winkworth, will show the amount of borrowing
(here printed in italics):
Now thank we all our God
With heart and hands and voices,
Who wondrous things hath done,
In whom His world rejoices;
Who, from our mother's arms,
Hath blessed us on our way
With countless gifts of love,
And still is ours today.
O may this bounteous God
Through all our life be near us,
With ever joyful hearts
And blessed peace to cheer us;
And keep us in His grace,
And guide us when perplexed,
And free us from all ills
In this world and the next.
Strange though it may seem, ideas included in the Christmas hymn,
"It Came upon the Midnight Clear," are traceable to the Old Testament
Apocrypha. In the New Testament accounts of the Nativity, nothing is said of
the exact time of Jesus' birth. The subsequent identification of the hour of
his birth as midnight is doubtless due to the influence of a remarkable passage
in the Wisdom of Solomon. At an early century in the Christian era the
imagination of more than one Church Father was caught by pseudo-Solomon's vivid
reference to the time when God's "all-powerful word [the Logos] leaped
from heaven, from the royal throne," namely when "night in its swift
course was now half gone" (Wis 18.14-15). Despite the context of the
passage, which speaks of the destruction of the first-born Egyptians at the
time of the Exodus, the words were interpreted as referring to the Incarnation
of the eternal Word of God, Jesus Christ. Thus by a curious, not to say
ironical, twist of fortune, a passage that tells of a stern warrior with a
sharp sword filling a doomed land with death has had a share in fixing popular
traditions concerning the time and circumstances of the birth of the Prince of
Peace.
The influence of the Apocrypha can also be traced in many an
anthem, cantata, oratorio, and opera. Handel's oratorios Susanna and Judas
Maccabaeus, as well as his Alexander Balus, an historical sequel to the latter,
will occur at once to music lovers. At an early date in operatic history the
stirring story of Judith was found to lend itself admirably to dramatic
presentation. Italian and German operas on this theme were written by Andrea
Salvadori, Marco da Gagliano, Martin Opitz, and Joachim Beccau. In the
nineteenth century the noted Russian pianist and composer, Anton Rubenstein,
published The Maccabees, an opera of monumental proportions, the libretto of
which was written by one of his collaborators, Dr. H. S. von Mosenthal.
(c) Art. During the Renaissance and later, many painters chose subjects
from the deuterocanonical books. Almost every large gallery in Europe and
America has one or more works of the old masters depicting Judith, Tobit, or
Susanna, who were the three most popular subjects from these books.
Besides paintings, down through the ages artists in almost every
other medium have chosen themes from the Apocrypha. Were space available here
for an inventory, examples could be cited from such divergent types of objets
d'art as mosaics, frescoes, gems, ivories, sarcophagi, enameled plaques, terra
cottas, stained glass, manuscript illumination, sculpture, and tapestries.
(d) Miscellaneous. The influence of the Apocrypha in everyday life can be
observed in the currency of such names as Edna, Susanna (or one of its many
derivatives, such as Susan, Suzanne, and Sue), Judith (or Judy), Raphael, and
Tobias (or Toby).
The word "macabre," according to the opinion of several
lexicographers, may be derived ultimately from "Maccabee, " alluding
to the grisly and gruesome tortures inflicted upon the Jewish martyrs.
Some of the most common expressions and proverbs have come from
the Apocrypha. The sententious sayings, "A good name endures forever"
and "You can't touch pitch without being defiled," are derived from
Sir 41.13 and 13.1. The noble affirmation in 1 Esd 4.41, "Great is Truth,
and mighty above all things" (King James Version), or its Latin form,
Magna est veritas et praevalet, has been used frequently as a motto or maxim in
a wide variety of contexts.
A passage from the Apocrypha encouraged Christopher Columbus in
the enterprise that resulted in his discovery of the New World. To be sure, the
verse in 2 Esdras is an erroneous comment upon the Genesis narrative of
creation, and Columbus was mistaken in attributing its authority to the "prophet
Ezra" of the Old Testament, but -- for all that -- it played a significant
part in pushing back the earth's horizons, both figuratively and literally. The
words of 2 Esd 6.42 concerning God's work of creation ("On the third day
you commanded the waters to be gathered together in a seventh part of the
earth; six parts you dried up and kept so that some of them might be planted
and cultivated and be of service before you") led Columbus to reason that,
if only one-seventh of the earth's surface is covered with water, the ocean
between the west coast of Europe and the east coast of Asia could be no great
width and might be navigated in a few days with a fair wind. It was partly by
quoting this verse from what was regarded as an authoritative book that Columbus
managed to persuade Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain to provide the necessary
financial support for his voyage.
Besides the fifteen books or parts of books that are traditionally
called the Apocrypha, there are many other Jewish or Jewish-Christian works,
dating from the centuries immediately before and after the beginning of the
Christian era, which for a time were popular among certain groups of Jews and
in early Eastern Churches. It is customary (though not entirely appropriate) to
classify these writings as Palestinian pseudepigrapha (those composed in Hebrew
or Aramaic) and Alexandrian pseudepigrapha (those composed in Greek). Of the
scores of such documents that are known to have circulated more or less widely,
the following have been chosen as representative examples. (For a definition of
pseudepigrapha, see p. iv AP.)
(a) Palestinian pseudepigrapha. The Book of Jubilees is a legendary
expansion of Gen 1.1 - Ex 12.47, written in Hebrew not long before 100 B.C. by
an unknown author of nationalist and rigoristic outlook, who deplored
contemporary laxity. It attempts to show that the Mosaic law, with its
prescriptions about festivals, the Sabbath offerings, abstinence from blood and
from fornication (which for the writer includes intermarriage with Gentiles),
was promulgated in patriarchal times, and indeed existed eternally with God in
heaven. Events recorded in Genesis are dated exactly (but fictitiously)
according to the jubilee (every forty-nine years) and its subdivisions. The
book has been transmitted in its entirety in an Ethiopic translation, and
portions of the text survive in Greek, Latin, and Syriac versions. At about the
middle of the present century five fragmentary manuscripts of Jubilees, written
in a good style of Hebrew, were discovered at Qumran by the Dead Sea. These
manuscripts, which preserve portions of fifteen of the fifty chapters of the
book, show that the Latin and Ethiopic versions are faithful translations of
the original.
In addition to the 150 psalms comprising the Book of Psalms in the
Hebrew Bible, during the inter-testamental period other psalms were composed in
Hebrew and in other languages. One of these, which celebrates the prowess of
young David in slaying Goliath, is appended (as Ps 151) to the Psalter in Greek
manuscripts. Part of this psalm (see pp. 283-284 AP) came to be incorporated in
the Ethiopian coronation ritual.
The Psalms of Solomon is a collection of eighteen songs of
generally exalted sentiments, composed in Hebrew during the last century B.C.
They are extant today in Greek and Syriac. The author, who is usually thought
to reflect Pharisaic polemic against Sadducean dominance in the religious
ceremonial of his day, looked forward to the time when the Messiah would reign
as king at Jerusalem. According to an extended description of the coming
Messiah (chs 17-18), he is to be sinless, strong through the spirit of
holiness, gaining his wisdom from God, shepherding the flock of the Lord with
fidelity and righteousness, and conquering the entire heathen world without
warfare, "by the word of his mouth."
The book of Enoch, also called 1 Enoch or Ethiopic Enoch, is a
heterogeneous collection of apocalypses and other material written by several
authors in Aramaic (or Hebrew) during the last two centuries B.C. It embodies a
series of revelations, of which Enoch is the professed recipient, on such
matters as the origin of evil, the angels and their destinies, the nature of
Gehenna and Paradise, and the pre-existent Messiah. Interspersed throughout the
lengthy and rambling work are sections that have been called "the book of
celestial physics." These sections, which are one of the curiosities of
ancient pseudo-scientific literature, set forth contemporary speculations
concerning such meteorological and astronomical phenomena as lightning, hail,
snow, the twelve winds, the heavenly luminaries, and the like. The entire work
is preserved in an Ethiopic translation, which includes what have been thought
to be Christian interpolations in chs 37-71, where the Messiah is called the
Son of Man. Portions of the book are extant in Greek and Latin; recently eight
manuscripts of part of the work (but not chs 37-71) have turned up in Aramaic
at Qumran. It is of interest that a quotation from the book of Enoch (1.9)
occurs in the New Testament letter of Jude (vv. 14-15).
(b) Alexandrian pseudepigrapha. Third Maccabees is a religious novel
written in Greek by an Alexandrian Jew sometime between 100 B. c. and A.D. 70.
The title is a misnomer, for the book has nothing to do with the Maccabees.
With many legendary embellishments the author recounts three stories of
conflict between Ptolemy IV (221-203 B.C.) and the Jews of Egypt. The most
dramatic section describes how the Jews were herded into the hippodrome near
Alexandria, to be trampled under the feet of intoxicated elephants. After the
king's purpose had been several times providentially delayed, it was finally
foiled by a vision of angels which turned the elephants upon the persecutors.
Fourth Maccabees is a Greek philosophical treatise addressed to
Jews on the supremacy of devout reason over the passions of body and soul. In
the form of a Stoic diatribe, or popular address, the author begins with a
philosophical exposition of his theme, which he then illustrates with examples
drawn from 2 Maccabees. He describes at length the gruesome tortures that
tested the fortitude of Eleazar, the seven brothers, and their mother, all of
whom preferred death to committing apostasy. The book was probably written by a
Hellenistic Jew of Alexandria at some time later than 2 Maccabees and before
A.D. 70. In early Christianity the Maccabean martyrs were eventually canonized
and accorded a yearly festival in the ecclesiastical calendar (August 1).
From what has been said above the reader will be able to form some
opinion of the importance of apocryphal and pseudepigraphical literature, both
for its own sake as well as for the information it supplies concerning the
development of Jewish life and thought just prior to the beginning of the
Christian era. The stirring political fortunes of the Jews in the time of the
Maccabees; the rise of what has been called normative Judaism, and the
emergence of the sects of the Pharisees and the Sadducees; the lush growth of
popular belief in the activities of angels and demons, and the use of
apotropaic magic to avert the malevolent influence of the latter; the growing
preoccupation concerning original sin and its relation to the "evil
inclination" present in every person; the blossoming of apocalyptic hopes
relating to the coming Messiah, the resurrection of the body, and the
vindication of the righteous -- all these and many other topics receive welcome
light from the apocryphal/deuterocanonical books.
[This document is excerpted
from the introduction to the New Revised Standard Version of the Apocrypha
©1991 Oxford University Press, Inc. ]