Apocrypha

Books that Protestants do not recognize as part of the Old Testament but that Roman Catholics and some Orthodox churches do. Apocrypha is a Greek word meaning "hidden." Protestants use it for several books that they do not accept as biblical. Catholics prefer the term deuterocanonical. This term means that although the books were not part of the fi rst canon of the Old Testament, they are still authoritative. The books in the Apocrypha are Tobit, Judith, the Wisdom of Solomon, Ecclesiasticus (also known as the Wisdom of Jesus, Son of Sirach), Baruch (including the Letter of JEREMIAH), and 1 and 2 Maccabees, along with additions to the book of ESTHER and three additions to the book of DANIEL (The Prayer of Azariah and the Song of the Three Jews, Susanna, and Bel and the Dragon). Other apocryphal books that the Roman Catholic Church does not accept as deuterocanonical are: 1 and 2 Esdras, 3 and 4 Maccabees, The Prayer of Manasseh, and Psalm 151. WHY IS THERE AN APOCRYPHA? CHRISTIANITY came into existence before the content of the Hebrew scriptures had been fi xed (see SCRIPTURES, HEBREW). Because the earliest Christians spoke Greek, they used as their Old Testament a Greek version of Hebrew writings known as the Septuagint. This version contained more material than what eventually became the Hebrew Bible. Some church leaders were always aware of the difference between the Old Testament and the Hebrew Bible. It did not become important, however, until the Protestant REFORMATION. At that time the Protestants decided to recognize only the books in the Hebrew Bible as having authority. In response, the Council of TRENT declared in 1546 that the deuterocanonical books were just as authoritative as the books in the Hebrew Bible. CONTENT OF THE APOCRYPHA Regardless of whether one believes that the books of the Apocrypha have authority, some of them are remarkable. Some books tell folk stories. Judith is the story of a woman who saved her people when the Babylonian army was laying siege to her city. She entertained the general of the opposing army, got him drunk, and then, when he was sleeping, cut off his head with his own sword. Susanna is the story of a woman whom two old men falsely accuse of adultery because she has refused to have sex with them. Daniel, still a boy, proves that the two old men were lying. They are put to death. Tobit tells of a man who is blinded for doing a righteous deed but recovers his sight. Two books of the Apocrypha, the Wisdom of Solomon and Sirach, are considered WISDOM LITERATURE. They touch upon a great variety of topics, but some people fi nd them to be not so profound as wisdom books in the Hebrew Bible, such as Job or Ecclesiastes. For example, Ecclesiasticus assumes that people can choose to be good all the time: "If you choose, you can keep the commandments, and to act faithfully is a matter of your own choice" (15.15). It also does not seem to recognize, as Job does, the problem of undeserved suffering: "everyone receives in accordance with his or her deeds" (16.14). These books do, however, celebrate Wisdom personifi ed in highly poetic terms, as in this passage from Wisdom of Solomon: "[Wisdom] is a refl ection of eternal light, a spotless mirror of the working of God, and an image of his goodness. Although she is but one, she can do all things, and while remaining in herself, she renews all things; in every generation she passes into holy souls and make them friends of God, and prophets, for God loves nothing so much as the person who lives with wisdom." 1 and 2 Maccabees are about the sufferings of the Jewish people under Persian rulers in the early 100s B.C.E. and how the Maccabees led them to independence in 164 B.C.E. Perhaps the bestknown story in these books is the story of the rededication of the Temple. Jews celebrate this event at HANUKKAH. INFLUENCE OF THE APOCRYPHA Although Protestants have rejected the Apocrypha, these books have had a major infl uence on European culture. For example, the composer Georg Friedrich Handel (1685–1759) wrote two oratorios based on the Apocrypha: Susanna and Judas Maccabaeus. European painters often painted scenes from Susanna, Tobit, and Judith. A striking example is Judith Slaying Holofernes by Artemisia Gentilleschi (1597–1651). The Apocrypha even played a role in the European discovery of the Americas. After reading a verse in 2 Esdras, Christopher Columbus (1451–1506) reasoned that the distance across the Atlantic from Europe to Asia could not be very far. He was wrong, but he discovered the Americas as a result. Further reading: R. H. Charles, Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998); Michael D. Coogan et al., eds., The New Oxford Annotated NRSV Bible with the Apocrypha, 3d ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001); Daniel J. Harrington, Invitation to the Apocrypha (Grand Rapids, Mich.: W. B. Eerdmans, 1999); Otto Kaiser, The Old Testament Apocrypha: An Introduction (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson Publishers, 2004).