06.20. The Old Testament Apocrypha
Chapter 19 The Old Testament Apocrypha
It seems hardly necessary from one point of view to add to a work of this limited nature a chapter on the apocryphal books of the Old Testament; and yet there is a good deal of curiosity as to their character and history that ought to be satisfied, to say nothing of the effect it might have negatively, at least, in substantiating the evidence for the canonicity of the other books. The word “Apocrypha” itself literally means “hidden,” in the sense of secret, mysterious, occult, and applied in early times to that sacred literature of certain philosophic and religious sects which was intended only for the initiated or the elect--Such literature, indeed, as is associated in our own time with the metaphysical teachings of the Orient imported into these Western lands. But such an application of the word is far enough away from the idea of the revelation in the Bible. There is nothing secret in that sense in either the Old or New Testament. Christianity, surely, is intended for all men, and the same may have been said of Judaism though from another point of view. The word “mystery” is frequently used in the New Testament, but usually with reference to some divine truth which is about to be explained not to a few but to all who are willing to receive it. All the treasures of knowledge and wisdom are said to be hidden in Christ, but whoever will receive Christ may receive them.
“Apocrypha,” therefore, as applied to those books which have had a certain uncanonical relation to the Bible, is not employed so much in the sense of hidden or occult, as in the sense of spurious and false, and spurious and false chiefly, so far as any claim to divine inspiration or authority is concerned. The apocryphal books of the Old Testament, to quote another here, occupy a kind of intermediate place between the inspired Scriptures themselves and that secret or occult literature to which the name originally attached. Some of the contents of these books are of a high literary and historical value, and the churches of the Reformation considered them valuable for “examples of life and instruction of manners,” while rejecting them utterly as of authority in matters of faith. The names of these books are as follows: Tobit; Judith; Esther; The Wisdom of Solomon; The Wisdom of Jesus ben Sirach, or Ecclesiasticus; Baruch; The Song of the Three Holy Children; The History of Susanna; Bel and the Dragon; The Prayer of Manasses; III and IV Esdras; I and II Maccabees. Most of them have an origin somewhat corresponding in time and place to the Septuagint Version of the Old Testament of which mention has been made; i.e., they were written at about that time, or somewhere between the 3rd century B.C. and the 1st century A.D., and emanated, for the most part, from the Jewish Colony in Alexandria. They have found their way into our literature, however, through the avenue of the Roman Catholic Church, being attached first, to the Latin Vulgate, whose history we have touched upon, and thence to certain copies of the Bible in the English tongue. As to the subject matter of these books, it may be interesting to those who have never read them to learn the following data condensed from a larger work upon this subject:
Tobit is a fictitious narrative intended to show how a pious Jew living in Nineveh might yet be true to his faith, and enjoy some of the blessed rewards of his fidelity. Judith is a story of about the same place and time, whose heroine, like Jael in the Old Testament, slew her nation’s foe, a Chaldean general, named Holofernes. Esther is a kind of uninspired appendix to the Old Testament book of that name giving additional details, and claiming to quote from original documents of the Persian Court. The Wisdom of Solomon is a Greek imitation of the earlier part of Proverbs and is thought to belong to the Christian era. The Wisdom of Jesus ben Sirach, or Ecclesiasticus, is perhaps, the choicest of all from a literary point of view, and dates from an early period of the 2nd century B.C. Reference has been already made to certain of the contents of this book as substantiating the genuineness of the Old Testament as we now possess it. The recent discovery of an old manuscript has been a kind of bombshell in the camp of the ultra critics. Baruch has been described as “a feeble imitation” of the language and style of Jeremiah, the illusion being strengthened by the use of the name of his former associate and amanuensis. Its date is unknown. The Song of the Three Holy Children purports to have been that uttered in the furnace by Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego (see Daniel 3:1-30). The History of Susanna and Bel and the Dragon are also supplementary to the same canonical book of Daniel. The Prayer of Manasses, or Manasseh, is a penitential psalm placed on the lips of that wicked but humbled king of Judah. Esdras or Ezra 3:1-13; Ezra 4:1-24, give some incidents from the Old Testament related with deviations, and also a series of apocalyptic visions, partly of Jewish, and partly of Christian origin and thought to date from about the close of the first century A.D. Maccabees is an accurate and valuable history of Jewish affairs from the accession of Antiochus Epiphanes, King of Syria, B.C. 175, to the death of Simon Maccabeus (135), The latter was a Jewish prince, one of the line of brothers who were successful for a while in breaking the foreign yoke before the days of the Roman Empire. II Maccabees is an abridgement of a longer history covering about the same period but quite independent of the other. (The Bible Handbook, Revised Ed. pp. 613-614.)
If, in closing this chapter, we should seek to answer the question, Why are not these books, or any of them, included in the Canon, or rather, on what ground are they excluded, we might say:
1. They do not claim divine authority as almost all the accepted books do.
2. In some cases they altogether disclaim such authority. (See the Introduction to Sirach, and also 2Ma 11:23; 2Ma 15:38).
3. They contain statements here and there at variance with the facts, at variance with themselves for that matter, not to say at variance with the Scriptures. (Compare Bar 1:2 with Jeremiah 43:6-7. See also 2Ma 12:43 and the following verses).
4. They are not found in any catalog or list of the sacred Scriptures for the first four centuries of the Christian era.
5. The Jews never received them as canonical.
6. Christ and His apostles never quoted them.
It is true that the Roman Catholic Church accepts these books as canonical, but even she has only done so since the Council of Trent, 1545.