Biblical apocrypha
The
biblical apocrypha includes texts written in the
Jewish and
Christian religious traditions that either
* were accepted into the
biblical canon by some, but not all, Christian faiths, or
* are frequently printed in
Bibles despite their non-canonical status.A comparative list can be found in the article on
books of the Bible. For other works sometimes referred to as "apocrypha", see the article on
apocrypha.
The biblical apocrypha are sometimes referred to as
the Apocrypha. Although the term
apocrypha simply means
hidden, this usage is sometimes considered pejorative by those who consider such works to be canonical parts of their scripture.
Jerome completed his version of the Bible, the
Latin Vulgate in 405. In addition to the sacred text, the Vulgate manuscripts included prologues [
1] by Jerome. For ten centuries, these prologues were part of every Bible in the western Church, and through these prologues many western Christians received their first exposure to the concept of apocrypha.
The Vulgate manuscripts were divided into
Old and
New Testaments only; there was no Apocrypha section. But the prologues clearly identified certain books of the Vulgate Old Testament as apocryphal, meaning not in the canon. In the prologue to the
books of Samuel and
Kings, which is often called the
Prologus Galeatus, Jerome described those books not translated from the Hebrew as apocrypha; he specifically mentions that
Wisdom, the
book of Jesus son of Sirach,
Judith,
Tobias, and the
Shepherd "are not in the canon". In the prologue to
Esdras he mentions
3 and
4 Esdras as being apocrypha. In his prologue to the books of Solomon, he mentioned "the
book of Jesus son of Sirach and another
pseudepigraphos, which is titled the
Wisdom of Solomon". He says of them and
Judith,
Tobias, and the
books of the Machabees, that the Church "has not received them among the canonical scriptures".
Although he mentions the
book of Baruch in his prologue to
Jeremias, he does not explicitly refer to it as an apocryphon, but he does mention that "it is neither read nor held among the Hebrews".
Although in his
Apology against Rufinus, Book II he denied the authority of the canon of the Hebrews, this caveat does not appear in the prologues themselves, nor in his prologues does he specify the authorship of the canon he describes. It was this canon without qualification which was written in the prologues of the bibles of
Western Europe.
Due to the unavailability of a universally definitive and authoritative list of the
canon of scriptures before the
Protestant Reformation and
Catholic Counter-Reformation, all surviving manuscripts of the whole Christian
Bible include at least some of the Apocryphal books. After the Protestant and Catholic canons were defined by
Luther and
Trent respectively, early Protestant and Catholic editions of the
Bible did not omit these non-canonical books, but did place them in a separate
Apocrypha section apart from the
Old and
New Testaments to indicate their status.
The Gutenberg Bible
This famous edition of the
Vulgate was published in 1455. Like the manuscripts on which it was based, the
Gutenberg Bible lacked a specific Apocrypha section[
2]; its
Old Testament included the books that Jerome considered apocryphal, and those which
Clement VIII would later move to the appendix. The
Prayer of Manasses was located after the
Books of Chronicles, and
3 and
4 Esdras followed
2 Esdras.
The Luther Bible
Martin Luther translated the
Bible into German during the early part of the 16th century, first releasing a complete Bible in 1534. His bible was the first major edition to have a separate section for the apocrypha. Books and portions of books not found in the Hebrew
Tanakh were moved out of the body of the
Old Testament to this section. The books
1 and
2 Esdras were omitted entirely
[Preface to the Revised Standard Version Common Bible]. Luther placed the Apocrypha between the
Old and
New Testaments. For this reason, these works are sometimes known as
inter-testamental books. Many twentieth century editions of the Luther Bible omit the Apocrypha section.
Luther also believed four books of the New Testament to be apocryphal: the
Epistle to the Hebrews, the Epistles of
James and
Jude, and the
Revelation to John. He did not put them in a separate section, but he did relegate them to the end of the New Testament.
The Clementine Vulgate
In 1592
Pope Clement VIII published his revised edition of the
Vulgate. He labeled three books not found in the
canon of the
Council of Trent apocrypha and placed them in an appendix,
"ne prorsus interirent", that is, "lest they utterly perish" [
3].
*
Prayer of Manasses*
3 Esdras (1 Esdras in the King James Bible)
*
4 Esdras (2 Esdras in the King James Bible)
All the other books labeled apocrypha in the
Luther Bible, i.e. the
Deuterocanonical books, were placed in the
Old Testament in their traditional positions.
Apocrypha of the King James Version
The English-language
King James Version of 1611 followed the lead of the Luther Bible in using an inter-testamental section labelled "Apocrypha". It included those books of the Vulgate's
Old Testament and Apocrypha which were not in Luther's canon. These are the books most frequently included under the appellation
"the Apocrypha", and are comprised as follows:
*
1 Esdras (Vulgate 3 Esdras)
*
2 Esdras (Vulgate 4 Esdras)
*
Tobit*
Judith* Rest of
Esther (Vulgate Esther 10:4-16:24)
*
Wisdom*
Ecclesiasticus (also known as Sirach)
*
Baruch and the
Epistle of Jeremy (all part of Vulgate Baruch)
*
Song of the Three Children (Vulgate Daniel 3:24-90)
*
Story of Susanna (Vulgate Daniel 13)
*
The Idol Bel and the Dragon (Vulgate Daniel 14)
*
Prayer of Manasses*
1 Maccabees*
2 MaccabeesOther 16th century Bible editions
All English translations of the Bible printed in the sixteenth century included a section or appendix for Apocryphal books.
Matthew's Bible, published in 1537, contains all the Apocrypha of the later
King James Version in an inter-testamental section. The 1538
Myles Coverdale Bible contained the Apocrypha minus Baruch and the Prayer of Manasses. The 1560
Geneva Bible omitted the Prayer of Manasses from its Apocrypha, but did include the other texts. The
Douay-Rheims Bible (1582-1609) placed the Prayer of Manasses and 3 and 4 Esdras into an appendix of the second volume of the
Old Testament.
In 1569 the Spanish Reina Bible following the example of the pre-Clementine Latin
Vulgate contained the
Deuterocanonical books in its
Old Testament. Valera's 1602 revision of the Reina Bible removed these books into an inter-Testamental section following the other Protestant translations of its day.
Modern editions
The first King James Bible published without the Apocrypha appeared in 1640. Other printings included it. In 1826, the
British and Foreign Bible Society decided to refuse to distribute Bibles containing the Apocrypha. Since then most
modern editions of the Bible and re-printings of the King James Bible omit the Apocrypha section. Even modern reprintings of the Vulgate and Douay-Rheims versions, although they include the
Deuterocanonical books, omit
their Apocrypha section.
There are some exceptions to this trend, however. Some editions of the
Revised Standard Version of the King James Bible include not only the Apocrypha listed above, but also the
third and
fourth books of the
Maccabees, and
Psalm 151. The American Bible Society lifted restrictions on the publication of Bibles with the Apocrypha in
1964. The British and Foreign Bible Society followed in
1966.
[A Brief History of the United Bible Societies]. The Stuttgart edition of the
Vulgate (the printed edition, not most of the on-line editions), which is published by the
UBS, contains the
Clementine Apocrypha as well as the
Epistle to the Laodiceans and
Psalm 151.
Brenton's edition of the
Septuagint includes all of the Apocrypha of the King James Bible with the exception of
2 Esdras. He places them in a separate section at the end of his
Old Testament, following English tradition. In Greek circles, however, these books are not traditionally called
Apocrypha, but
Anagignoskomena, and are integrated into the
Old Testament.
Pseudepigrapha
Technically a
Pseudepigraphon is a book written in a biblical style which is ascribed to an author who did not write it. In common usage, however, the term Pseudepigrapha is often used by way of distinction to refer to apocryphal writings which do not appear in printed editions of the
Bible, as opposed to the Apocryphal texts listed above.
Cultural impact
* Christopher Columbus was said to have been inspired by a verse from
4 Esdras 6:42 to undertake his hazardous journey across the Atlantic. [
4]
* The
introitus, "Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them", of the traditional
Requiem in the Catholic Church is loosely based on
4 Esdras 2:34-35.
*
The Story of Susanna is perhaps the earliest example of a
courtroom drama.
*
The Idol Bel and the Dragon is perhaps the earliest example of a
locked room mystery.
The
Apocrypha of the King James Bible constitutes the books from the
Old Testament of the
Vulgate that are not present in the Hebrew Old Testament. Since these are derived from the Septuagint, from which the old Latin version was translated, it follows that the difference between the Protestant and the Catholic Old Testaments is traceable to the difference between the Palestinian and the Alexandrian canons of the Old Testament. This is only true with certain reservations, as the Latin Vulgate was revised by Jerome according to the Hebrew, and, where Hebrew originals were not found, according to the Septuagint. Furthermore, the Vulgate omits
3 and
4 Maccabees, which generally appear in the Septuagint, while the Septuagint and Luther's Bible omit
4 Ezra, which is found in the Apocrypha of the Vulgate and the King James Bible. Luther's Bible, moreover, also omits
3 Ezra. It should further be observed that the Clementine Vulgate places the Prayer of Manasses and
3 and
4 Ezra in an appendix after the New Testament as apocryphal.
It is hardly possible to form any classification which is not open to some objection. Scholars are still divided as to the original language, date, and place of composition of some of the books which must come under this provisional attempt at order. (Thus some of the additions to Daniel and the Prayer of Manasseh are most probably derived from a Semitic original written in Palestine, yet in compliance with the prevailing opinion they are classed under Hellenistic Jewish literature. Again, the Slavonic
Enoch goes back undoubtedly in parts to a Semitic original, though most of it may have been written by a Greek Jew in Egypt.)
A distinction can be made between:
* the Palestinian, and
* the Hellenistic literatureof the Old Testament, though even is open to serious objections. The former literature was generally written in Hebrew or Aramaic, and seldom in Greek; the latter naturally in Greek.
Next, within these literatures there are three or four classes of subject material.
* Historical,
* Legendary (Haggadic),
* Apocalyptic,
* Didactic or Sapiential.
The Apocrypha proper then would be classified as follows:--
*Palestinian Jewish Literature
**Historical
***
1 (i.e. 3) Ezra.
***
1 Maccabees.
**Legendary
***
Book of Baruch***
Book of Judith**Apocalyptic
***
2 (i.e. 4) Ezra (see also
Apocalyptic literature)
**Didactic
***
Sirach (also known as
Ecclesiasticus)
***
Tobit*Hellenistic Jewish Literature:--
**Historical and Legendary
***Additions to
Daniel***
Additions to Esther***
Epistle of Jeremy***
2 Maccabees***
Prayer of Manasseh**Didactic
***
Book of WisdomMain article:
Biblical canonRegarding the latter-day pejorative use of "apocrypha," R.M. Wilson wrote::"The Greek word
apocryphos was not always used in the disparaging sense in which it later was. In
Gnostic circles it was used of books the contents of which were too sacred to be divulged to the common herd, and it was in fact the
heretical associations which it thus came to possess which led to its use as a term of disparagement...":—from
Studies in the Gospel of Thomas (the "apocryphal"
Gospel of Thomas)The definition of "apocryphal" material varies depending on the denomination:
Catholic and
Orthodox Christian Bibles contain several texts not included in the biblical canon by
Protestant Christians. The Hellenist (Greek speaking) Jews also include seven apocryphal books. Early Christians received the Bible by way of the Hellenist Jews, and thus were familiar with the seven books of the Apocrypha.
Catholics and Orthodox Christians consider some of these texts equally canonical to other books of the Bible (with Catholics terming them
deuterocanonical, from
Greek: "second canon," or "measuring rule"), and consider them divinely inspired; written under the influence of the
Holy Spirit, whereas Protestants typically do not. The
Church of England takes an intermediate position; its sixth article of religion says of the Apocrypha that "the Church doth read for example of life and instruction of manners; but yet doth it not apply them to establish any doctrine".
The Council of Jamnia
At least until the
Council of Jamnia in AD
92,
Jews did not have a single unified
canon of Scripture. Some ancient Jewish sects (including the
Essenes, as evidenced in the
Dead Sea scrolls) included as Scripture much that modern Jews consider non-canonical. The Council explicitly excluded certain books for reasons that included their late composition or because they were not written in
Hebrew (although some parts of the
Hebrew Bible or
Tanakh itself are in
biblical Aramaic). The word Apocrypha means hidden writing, and it was given to such books by the Jews to distinguish them from the books which they accepted as canonical.
Gentiles continued to use Greek translations made in the period from the
third century to the
first century BC, which a legend ascribes to a school in
Alexandria,
Egypt. These works, which collectively became known as the
Septuagint, included several that were rejected at Jamnia.
The Jewish view today of the rejection of some of these works says they lack the unction of the prophetic books of the canon. However they are regarded as consistent, for most part, with the wisdom which rests on the fear of God and loyalty to His law, and some Jews have at various times drawn from them as a legitimate part of Jewish literary creativity, even using elements from them as the basis for two important parts of the Jewish liturgy.
In the
Mahzor (High Holy Day prayer book), a medieval Jewish poet used the book of
Sirach as the basis for a beautiful poem, Ke'Ohel HaNimtah.
A closing
piyyut in the
Seder Avodah section, in the
Yom Kippur Musaf begins::"How glorious indeed was the High Priest, when he safely left the Holy of Holies.
:Like the clearest canopy of Heaven was the dazzling countenance of the priest."
Mahzor replaces the medieval
piyyut with the relevant section from Ben Sira, which is more direct.
Apocrypha have even formed the basis of the most important of all Jewish prayers, the
Amidah (the Shemonah Esrah). Sirach provides the vocabulary and framework for many of the Amidah's blessings, which were instituted by the men of the Great Assembly. The description of the origins of
Hanukkah is also to be found in the books rejected at Jamnia.
While the texts themselves may not be accepted as canonical, some of their contents are regarded as historical truth. In particular,
1 Maccabees is cited by Jewish scholars as highly reliable history and was used by
Josephus in his history of the Maccabean revolt.
Majority Christian usage
The ancient Greek Old Testament known as the
Septuagint contained both the protocanonical books and the
deuterocanonical books of the Old Testament. The
protocanonical books of the Old Testament are found in the
Bible of the Hebrews. The
deuterocanonical (deuteros, "second") are those books whose canonical character have been contested and classed by Protestants as apocrypha.
The
Roman Catholic Church and the
Eastern Orthodox and
Oriental Orthodox Churches accept as part of the Old Testament some books excluded from the Jewish and Protestant canon. Roman Catholics refer to them as
deuterocanonical books, a term first used by
Sixtus of Siena in 1566, signifying that general recognition of their canonical status came later than that of the other books. Catholics and Orthodox today do not usually call these books
apocrypha, a term they apply only to books they consider non-canonical.
The deuterocanonical books are
Tobit,
Judith,
1 Maccabees,
2 Maccabees,
Wisdom of Solomon,
Sirach (Ecclesiasticus), and
Baruch, as well as some parts of
Esther and
Daniel.
Eastern Orthodox Churches sometimes also consider
3 Maccabees,
4 Maccabees,
1 Esdras and/or
2 Esdras to be deuterocanonical and include
Psalm 151 with the
Psalms, while the
Ethiopian Orthodox venerate additional books, such as
Jubilees,
Enoch, and the
Rest of the Words of Baruch. The inclusion of Enoch is justified on the grounds that the
Book of Jude quotes it as Scripture. See
here for conflicting accounts on what is actually included in the Ethiopian canon.
Since there was no fixed canon even among Jews until the Council of Jamnia (c.70-90 AD), it is not surprising that, historically, there have been hesitations among Christians, especially in the early centuries, about which
Old Testament books to consider canonical. St Jerome explicitly denied the canonical character of any Old Testament book not included in the Hebrew Bible; but later, in his Preface to the Book of Tobit (PL 29, 24-25), stated that he translated the deuterocanonical books into Latin as a concession to the authority of the bishops; and in
402 AD declared he had not really denied the inspiration of these books, but had only given the opinion of the Jews (
Apol. contra Ruf. 11, 33. PL 23, 476).
In view of that controversy, a list of canonical books (with the deuterocanonical books included) was drawn up at councils in Africa and approved by the Pope of the time. This was generally accepted in the West, while in the East, particularly in Syria, general agreement was reached only in the seventh century. Within the Roman Catholic Church, individual leaders and scholars, even at a later date, sometimes expressed contrary views, but the matter was definitively settled in
1546, when the
Council of Trent, reacting to the views of the Protestant Reformers, declared that it accepted all the books of the Old and New Testaments with equal feelings of piety and reverence, and named them in accordance with the list of the fifth-century African councils. The
First Vatican Council reaffirmed this declaration.
Protestant views
Martin Luther rejected the books that do not appear in the Jewish Tanakh, partly because of the stress the Reformers laid on translating from the original text, and partly because some passages contradicted his views, especially where
2 Maccabees speaks, by implication, of
purgatory: "It is therefore a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead, that they may be loosed from sins." (12:46).
Luther also considered the
Epistle of James apocryphal, doubting authorship by any of the several New Testament figures named James, and also because the epistle contains a statement that seemingly contradicts Luther's teachings of
Salvation by faith alone: "Faith without works is dead" (2:26). His edition of the Bible relegated this and three other books (
Epistle to the Hebrews, the
Epistle of Jude and the
Revelation, to an appendix. Later
Lutherans included these books with the Protestant Canon in their New Testament, but placed them after those books. Thus, the books of the Lutheran New Testament (at least in
German) are ordered somewhat differently than other Protestant Bibles.
Protestants call the biblical books that are not in Luther's canon apocrypha. Luther and the Anglican Church regarded them as useful for edification, but not to be relied upon for doctrine, while Calvin and in general his followers attached no value to them beyond that of any other human writing, and objected to any use of them in church.
In
1615, the Archbishop of Canterbury imposed a year's imprisonment for publishing Bibles without the Apocrypha; but in later printings of the Bible in English these books were omitted more and more. In the early nineteenth century, the Edinburgh Bible Society denounced them as superstitious and absurd, and soon all the Bible Societies decided not to publish them. More recently, in spite of the expense involved, Protestant Bibles in English have again sometimes included them, placing them in a separate section either between the Old Testament and the New or at the end.
What most Christians consider to be canonical parts of Esther and Daniel are in some instances counted by Protestants as additional books. In the book of Esther, it is difficult to separate these from the rest, since they are tightly integrated into the Greek text, and even the common parts of the book contain small variations from the Hebrew text. Protestant Bibles therefore sometimes give the entire book of Esther in two versions, one, based on the Hebrew text, as part of the Protestant Old Testament, and one, translated from the Greek, in the "Apocrypha" section.
Not all Protestants have omitted the Apocrypha. For example, all Luther Bibles in the Lutheran areas of
Germany included them until
World War II. Only after the war, when American
Bible Societies offered funding on condition that the Apocrypha were omitted, they began to be dropped from most editions. Additionally, the original edition of the KJV (1611) included them between the Old and New Testaments.
See also: Books of the Bible, a side-by-side comparison of the Jewish, Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox canons.
Texts:* Holmes and Parsons,
Vet. Test. Graecum cum var. lectionibus (Oxford, 1798-1827)
*
Henry Barclay Swete,
Old Testament in Greek, i.-iii. (Cambridge, 1887-1894)
*
Otto Fridolinus Fritzsche,
Libri Apocryphi V. T. Graece (1871).
Commentaries* O. F. Fritzsche and Grimm,
Kurzgef. exeget. Handbuch zu den Apok. des A.T. (Leipzig, 1851-1860)
*
Edwin Cone Bissell,
Apocrypha of the Old Testament (Edinburgh, 1880)
*
Otto Zöckler,
Die Apokryphen des Alten Testaments (Munchen, 1891)
*
Henry Wace,
The Apocrypha ("Speaker's Commentary") (1888)
Introduction and General Literature:*
Emil Schürer,
Geschichte des jüdischen Volkes, vol. iii. 135 sqq., and his article on "Apokryphen" in Herzog's
Realencykl. i. 622-653
* Porter in
James Hastings's
Dictionary of the Bible. i. 111-123.
