Lots of people on the blog seem to be really interested in early Christian apocrypha — other Gospels, Acts, epistles, apocalypses that did not make it into the New Testament.  It’s a major area of fascination for me as well.  But many folk talk about them as “the Apocrypha” and probably that’s not quite right — that is a designation usually reserved for the “Old Testament Apocrypha,” which are not Christian books but Jewish.

Many years ago I explained what these books are on the blog, and since I still get asked about them by  members, I thought it would be helpful to over that ground again.

I begin with a basic overview taken from my textbook on the entire Bible, Genesis to Revelation, The Bible: A Historical and Literary Introduction, 2nd. ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2018).

 

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In addition to the canonical books in the Hebrew Bible, there was other literature written by other Jewish authors that cannot be found there, but that is of great importance for anyone interested in it. Of these other Jewish books, none is of greater historical significance than a collection of writings that can be found in some Christian versions of the Old Testament. These are the deuterocanonical writings, as they are called in the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox traditions; Protestants typically designate them as the Apocrypha.

The term “apocrypha” may not be altogether appropriate, as it is a word that means “hidden things”—or in this case, “hidden books.” But there is nothing hidden about these books. They simply are books that are considered part of the canon by some Christian denominations, but not by Protestants and not by Jews. For Roman Catholic and Orthodox Christians they are in a kind of “second canon,” hence the name deuterocanonical.In addition to the canonical books in the Hebrew Bible, there was other literature written by other Jewish authors that cannot be found there, but that is of great importance for anyone interested in it.

These books are important for understanding the Bible of the early Christians. Even though these books are not found in Hebrew manuscripts of the Bible, they were transmitted as part of the Bible in the ancient Greek translation known as the Septuagint.  This was an important translation for Jews of the Diaspora, and eventually for Christians. As I have mentioned, most Jews by the time, say, of the Maccabean Revolt—or, later, of the days of Jesus—did not live in Palestine and so no longer had any facility in reading Hebrew. Most Jews, of course, could not read at all, since like most of the people living in the Roman Empire the vast majority of Jews—probably some 90 percent—were not literate.

For most ancient people, to “read” a book meant hearing someone else read it aloud. The Scripture was “read” regularly in the synagogues, and people could hear it read and discuss its meaning. But virtually no one outside of Palestine could “read” it in Hebrew. The standard Bible for most Jews in the Diaspora was the Septuagint. This became the Bible for the Greek-speaking Christians at the very early stages of the Christian movement, as soon as missionaries spread the religion outside of Palestine. And the Septuagint included these dozen or so books that we are calling deuterocanonical, or apocryphal.

It was during the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century that Martin Luther and like-minded leaders of the Protestant movement declared that the only books of the Old Testament to be accepted as Scripture were those found in the Hebrew Bible—that is, the books regarded as canonical by Jews. Roman Catholics, on the other hand, declared that the writings of the Septuagint had always been part of the scriptures for Christians, and so should continue to be accepted as such. The Orthodox churches more or less sided with the Roman Catholics on this issue.

But there was not a unanimous view on the subject. There are ten books that are accepted as deuterocanonical in both the Roman Catholic and Orthodox traditions; four others are accepted by various Eastern Orthodox groups (for example, Greek orthodox and Russian orthodox churches), and a couple of others that are accepted as standing on the margins by one group or another.

All of these books were written by Jews and for Jews. Most of them were written after the final books of the Hebrew Bible and before the writings of the New Testament, so that roughly speaking they can be thought of as some of the “intertestamental” Jewish literature (i.e., written “between the testaments”). They represent some of the truly great and interesting writings of the time. Some of them are historical narratives, for example of the Maccabean period; others are historical fictions that teach religious lessons; others are expansions of books found in the Hebrew Bible; and others are books of Wisdom. Here we can consider briefly the ten books that lie at the heart of the “Apocrypha”—the books accepted by both Roman Catholic and Orthodox traditions as deuterocanonical.

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The books I then discuss in my book, briefly, are Tobit, Judith, Additions to Esther, Wisdom of Solomon, Sirach (also called Ecclesiasticus), Baruch, Letter of Jeremiah, Additions to Daniel, 1 Maccabbees, and 2 Maccabbees.   I’ll introduce them here in a series of posts.

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2024-10-05T09:48:18-04:00October 8th, 2024|Early Judaism, Hebrew Bible/Old Testament|

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18 Comments

  1. mrpenastutoring October 8, 2024 at 1:28 pm

    What would Jesus or Paul have thought of these books? Or at least their ideas?

    • BDEhrman October 13, 2024 at 7:30 pm

      I”m afraid we have no way of knowing!

  2. fasoldr October 8, 2024 at 5:25 pm

    Of non-Roman Catholic, non-Orthodox groups (I don’t think that “Protestant”, strictly speaking, applies to them) who include the Apocrypha as scriptural are conservative Anabaptist groups (Mennonites and Amish) who use the Luther Bible which includes the Old Testament Apocrypha.

    • BDEhrman October 13, 2024 at 7:35 pm

      Thanks! (But surely these are classified as Protestant usually)

  3. Bennett October 8, 2024 at 5:30 pm

    Not to get ahead of you, but what about Enoch? Certainly early Christians were reading that.

    • BDEhrman October 13, 2024 at 7:36 pm

      It’s not included in the Apocrypha.

      • Bennett October 14, 2024 at 8:29 am

        Why not, do you think? It was certainly available and in use by both Jews and Christians. How would the people in, say, the first century have distinguished the ‘apocrypha’ from pseudepigraphal works?

        • BDEhrman October 16, 2024 at 5:43 pm

          Because it was not found in the Septuagint. But I’m not sure most people in the first century did clearly differentiate between various kinds of non-canonical books. But some of them were considered scripture by Jews in the Diaspora (The Apocrypha: Tobit, Sirach, etc.) and others that were used in some places were not (the ones scholars today label the Pseudepigrapha)

  4. 1SonOfZeus October 8, 2024 at 11:08 pm

    Hey there! I just wanted to mention that I’m interested in the new Biblical Studies Academy (BSA). I’m currently in the middle of my Construction Management semester; well, actually, the last week. I was wondering if you’ll be teaching any of the courses yourself.

    • BDEhrman October 13, 2024 at 7:40 pm

      Yup, down the line!

      • 1SonOfZeus October 18, 2024 at 9:03 pm

        Awesome, I’ll definitely try to attend one of your classes!

      • 1SonOfZeus October 27, 2024 at 9:59 am

        It’s November 9th and 10th, which is just around the corner from my birthday on November 5th. Isn’t it interesting to consider that Dionysus was born around this time LOL? It feels poignant that the election coincides with this date, almost as if there’s a deeper connection during such a significant period. Just kidding! You’re discussing the Book of Acts, and Acts 14:12 is one of my favorite verses. It mentions the people speaking in the Lycaonian language, declaring, “The gods have come down to us in human form!” The very next verse references Zeus, which is interesting since the Bible only mentions him a few times. I’ll do my best to attend your scholarly analysis of the Book of Acts over the eight lectures.

        The mysteries were truly fascinating! They help us preserve that sense of wonder in our hearts.

  5. AngeloB October 18, 2024 at 1:54 am

    I’m currently reading Tobit in my RSV New Oxford Annotated Bible

  6. sLiu October 19, 2024 at 6:27 pm

    “Martin Luther & like-minded leaders of the Protestant movement declared that the only books of the OT to be accepted as Scripture were those found in the Hebrew Bible—that is, the books regarded as canonical by Jews. Roman Catholics, on the other hand, declared that the writings of the Septuagint had always been part of the scriptures for Christians, so should continue to be accepted as such.”

    So errors made then continued … Boy, I wonder what Jesus as the interent preacher & his 12 apostles walking & preaching in Palestine would think of Christianity. At any point after the end of the Book of the Acts of the Apostles.

  7. AngeloB October 20, 2024 at 9:51 pm

    Bart, why do you think Jews don’t recognise the Old Testament Apocrypha in the Orthodox Christian and Catholic Bibles?

    • BDEhrman October 26, 2024 at 2:49 pm

      One major consideratiol: They accepted only books that were written and circulated in Hebrew.

      • AngeloB October 30, 2024 at 1:48 am

        Oh okay. That makes a lot of sense!

  8. AngeloB October 22, 2024 at 12:26 am

    I mean the Deuterocanonical books

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