Loading...In my previous post I began to describe the Old Testament Apocrypha/Deuterocanonical books. In the several posts that follow I will describe the ones commonly accepted by Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches. These are very interesting books, well worth reading, and, as I’ve said, canonical Scripture for some parts of the Christian church.
My summaries here are taken from my book, The Bible: A Historical and Literary Introduction (Oxford, 2018)
******************************
Tobit
Tobit is a work of historical fiction
Get access to Dr. Ehrman's library of 4,000+ articles plus five new articles per week about the New Testament and early Christianity. It costs as little as $2.99/mth and every cent goes to charity!
Unlock 4,000+ Articles Like This!
When referring to the additions to the book of Esther you comment here “ If you will recall, there is nothing about God — directly at least — in the Hebrew version of Esther.”
By saying ‘directly at least’ are you suggesting that there is indeed a secret code in the form of a set of acrostics within the text as has been claimed?
Nope! I’m saying that one could detect the hand of God behind the action if one wanted to. The “secret code” business never, ever works for reasons that those who prove one seem not to realize (one reason is that the codes always depend entirely on knowing precisely what words and which letters were used in the Hebrew or Greek text by the author, which is precisely what we DON’T know!)
“Since Nebuchadnezzar was not the king of Assyria but of Babylonia.”
What about the book of Daniel, not confirmed in history books