Aprocrypha/Deuterocanonical

What it is

BI291 The Apocrypha: Witness Between the Testaments A Collection of Texts

The Apocrypha is a collection of texts regarded as part of the OT by Roman Catholic and Orthodox Christians but not regarded as part of the OT by Protestant Christians.

The term “Apocrypha” itself comes from a Greek word meaning “hidden things”—in this case, hidden books—and that term reflects the Protestant position on the place of these books in the canon of Scripture. These same books will be called deuterocanonical in the Catholic and Orthodox church or simply known as part of the OT.

BI291 The Apocrypha: Witness Between the Testaments A Collection of Texts

These books were all written between about 200 BC and AD 100.

BI291 The Apocrypha: Witness Between the Testaments A Collection of Texts

Now, the books of the Apocrypha are not the only Jewish literature that comes from this period. Dozens upon dozens of other books were written by Jews in all of these centers in multiple languages, but the Apocrypha comes as a collection specifically because of the reading practices of different Christian communities. One thing is certain: We would not speak today of the Apocrypha as a collection of Jewish texts had the church in every age not revered these particular books and drawn constant inspiration from them alongside those Jewish texts that are collected in the Hebrew Bible and, above all, other Jewish literature beyond the Hebrew Bible and the NT.

Five different categories of literature:

Expansions and retellings of the Biblical story, such as 1 Esdras which tells a different version of the story of Ezra and part of the book of Nehemiah, a Greek version of Esther, a longer version of Daniel, and 151st Psalm that celebrates two important events in David’s life: his anointing by Samuel to be king and his defeat of Goliath.

Historical Books: 1 and 2 Maccabees give a window into what was happening in Palestine between 175 and 141 BC.

Wisdom or Instructional Literature: Wisdom of Ben Sira, also known sometimes as Sirach or Ecclesiasticus, which contains the collected instruction of a Jerusalem sage who kept a school in Jerusalem between 200 and 180 BC. It is, in effect, the written curriculum that a Jewish elite young man might have received in Jerusalem during this period. There is The Wisdom of Solomon, written in Greek by Jew probably living in the Egyptian Diaspora community. Other books include Baruch, the Letter of Jeremiah (again not written by the person it’s attributed to. And finally 4 Maccabees promoting continued observance of the Torah among Jews living in exile.

Inspirational Fiction: Tobit and Judith and 3 Maccabees. The latter book does not feature the same characters of 1 and 2 Maccabees, the heroes of the Hasmonean family, Judas Maccabeus and his brothers. Instead, this is a tale of what might have happened in Egypt to the Jewish community there if they encountered the same kind of persecution as their Jewish brothers and sisters encountered in Judaea just prior to the Maccabean Revolt.

Visionary or Apocalyptic Literature: 2 Esdras. It dates from about the same time as the NT’s Apocalypse, the Revelation of John. It is a very useful text for thinking about how Jewish apocalypses work and thinking about Jewish critique of Rome and the ways in which Jews hoped that Yah would intervene on behalf of Yah’s people at the end of this period.