Apocrypha

Giants in the Earth

Quodlibet: Ask Pastor Anything

What About the Apocrypha?

Dear X—

Thanks for dropping me a note in the quodlibet box. I believe that you’re the first to actually use it, and I hope that others follow your lead.

I always find the Apocrypha to be an interesting topic, and the story of why we have differing canons of Scripture—as you touch upon in your questions—is really all about translations of the Bible.

By the time of Jesus, the canon of the Hebrew Scriptures was largely set. The oldest and most authoritative section was the Torah (also known as the Law, the Books of Moses, or the Pentateuch); then came the Prophets; and finally the Writings.

But most Jews of Jesus’ day, especially those living outside of the Holy Land, didn’t speak much if any Hebrew anymore. The language of learning and commerce had long since become Greek, and most synagogues read the Scriptures in Greek.

The problem was that the Greek version of the Scriptures contained chapters and books that weren’t found in the Hebrew. Sometimes this was because there was no Hebrew original; the book in question appears to have been written originally in Greek. But in other cases, it appears that the Greek version is a translation of a Hebrew original that no longer exists.

After the Jewish Wars and the destruction of the Temple, Judaism reaffirmed Hebrew over Greek as the sacred language of the Scriptures. Any books or versions not found in Hebrew were excluded. Meanwhile, the Early Church—at least in the Roman Empire—used the Greek Scriptures (called the Septuagint) as their Old Testament.

Translators were aware of the difference. The Greek Church happily stuck with the Greek Scriptures. But when the Latin Church sought to translate the Scriptures, St Jerome noted that there were books found in the Greek Old Testament that could not be found in the Hebrew Old Testament. He wasn’t quite sure what to do with these, so he included them in the Latin, but with a caveat.

At this point in the Latin West, the status of these Greek Old Testament books was left somewhat ambiguous.

Come the Reformation, Martin Luther seeks to translate the Bible into German. But he doesn’t want to have his German based on Latin based on Greek based on Hebrew. No, he wants to go ad fontes, back to the source. He learns Hebrew in his forties. And he discovers, like Jerome, the discrepancy.

Luther decides that these Greek Old Testament books should be read and studied, but not given the same authority and weight as the Hebrew Scriptures. He includes the Greek books in his German Bible in their own special section, bridging the gap between the end of the Hebrew Scriptures and the beginning of the New Testament.

But as the Western Church schisms into Roman Catholic and Protestant, both sides double-down. The Protestants reject the Greek Old Testament completely, so that the excluded books now become known as Apocrypha (“hidden” or “obscure”), while the Roman Church does just the opposite. Rome declares the Greek books to be exactly as authoritative as the Hebrew, and thus they become known as Deuterocanonical (literally a “second canon”).

To add to the confusion, the Eastern Orthodox Church accepts more Greek books into the Old Testament than do the Roman Catholics, and the Oriental Orthodox accept even more than the Eastern Orthodox. So some collections of Apocrypha are a little fatter than others.

Finally there’s the Pseudepigrapha (“false title”) that has to do with popular religious writings, mostly in Greek, from around the time of Christ, purportedly written by ancient figures from the Bible. The most popular of these would be books like Enoch, Jubilees, or the Sibylline Oracles—influential in and around Christ’s time, but never accepted into any major canon of Scripture outside Ethiopia.

So, to address your questions more directly:

(1) What are your thoughts on the omission of the Apocrypha from various versions of the Old Testament?

Well, I agree with Luther. I think the Apocrypha should be included in Bibles in its own section. It helps to complete the story. Otherwise we have a 400-year gap between Malachi and Matthew, with no idea where all these Romans came from and why everybody’s now speaking Greek.

Whenever Apocryphal books are listed as an option in our Revised Common Lectionary for Sunday readings, I always make sure to read them. I want folks to be exposed to this part of our shared Christian heritage.

(2) Are there versions/translations of the Old Testament that include the Apocrypha?

Versions, yes. Translations, no. What I mean by that is that if you want to have a Bible that includes the Greek Old Testament, the translation isn’t as important as the fact that the Bible will say “with Apocrypha/Deuterocanonicals” or just “Catholic Edition.”

So, for example, the academic standard in English tends to be the Oxford Annotated Study Bible: New Revised Standard Version (NRSV). This Bible can be purchased either with or without the Apocrypha/Deuterocanonical books included. Either way, it’s the same translation (NRSV) but in different versions (with or without the Apocrypha).

Some publishers are returning to Luther’s method of placing the Apocryphal books in a separate section between the Hebrew Old Testament and the New Testament. This isn’t so much an endorsement of Luther’s wisdom, however, as it is an acknowledgement of financial practicality: with the Apocrypha in its own section, the publishers can sell to both Catholic and Protestant customers.

(3) What have you learned about the Apocrypha during your studies to become a pastor?

The Apocrypha came up from time to time, but my seminary had no specific class on these books, either separately or as a collection—much to my chagrin. But I’ve read them on my own and quite value them. Maccabees is particularly helpful for understanding biblical history in the centuries just before Christ, and Wisdom is a lovely illustration of how Trinitarian thought was beginning to develop in Second Temple Judaism long before the Church showed up.

(4) Are there similar books that were omitted from the New Testament?

Not really, no. There were other “gospels”—Thomas comes to mind—but these all developed later than the canonical books of the New Testament, and were never given widespread credence and authority in the way that the Greek Old Testament was.

Certain works, such as the Shepherd of Hermas, the Epistle of Clement, the Apocalypse of Peter, and the Didache, were considered for inclusion in the New Testament, but were ultimately rejected as lacking apostolic authority. They were never, however, hidden or suppressed, and have ever been included in the collections of the Church Fathers.

(5) Are there versions/translations of the Bible that include the Apocrypha for the New Testament?

There are some collections out there published under titles such as Lost and Rejected Scriptures or the like, but these tend to be writings from Gnostics or similar splinter-heretical communities. There are really only a handful of books—Enoch, Clement, Didache, &c—that I would think worthy of including in an appendix to a good Study Bible.

I hope that helps to clear the waters rather than just muddy them.