Old Testament and New Testament Apocrypha
OLD TESTAMENT AND NEW TESTAMENT APOCRYPHA
R. K. Harrison
The writings of the Old and New Testaments tended to attract certain additional compositions in the form of books, parts of books, letters, “gospels,” apocalypses, and so on. Most of the authors wrote anonymously but some presented their writings to the public under the name of a familiar Old Testament figure or member of the Christian church. Such compositions formed a small but important part of the great body of Jewish literature which emerged during the period between the Old and New Testaments. Much of it was the result of religious and political ferment, for the Jews felt their faith and their very existence threatened first by the pagan influences of Hellenistic Greek culture, then by the oppression of invading Roman forces.
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
A brief review of the history of that intertestamental period will establish the background against which the majority of the Old Testament apocryphal books were composed. When Alexander the Great died in 323 B.C., his empire was split up among his four generals. Judea was included in the territory governed by Seleucus I, but in 320 B.C. it was annexed by Ptolemy of Egypt to his own territory. That kind of activity characterized much of the intertestamental period, placing the Palestinian people under severe political and social pressure. In general their conquerors sought to conciliate the Jews, and in the case of the Ptolemies even encouraged them to migrate to Egypt. However, the threat of military oppression was never far from Judea, and became a reality once more in 205 B.C. when Ptolemy V died suddenly and Antiochus III of Syria decided to annex Judea. An Egyptian army moved to check his advance but was defeated near Sidon in 198 B.C., after which Judea became part of the Seleucid kingdom. Although Antiochus was tolerant toward the Jews, he maintained firm political control over the country, just as the Egyptians had done. Eventually the civil strife which had been breaking out in various parts of the Near East toward the end of the Greek period attracted the attention of the Romans, who were coming to the forefront as a military and political power. Roman legions entered Asia Minor in 197 B.C. and were attacked by the Syrians. After a long campaign Scipio Africanus crushed Syrian forces at Magnesia in 190 B.C., thus paving the way for further Roman inroads into Palestine.
In the meantime the Seleucid kings clung precariously to their power and began to behave with increasing severity toward the Jews. Part of the difficulty lay in the fact that the Seleucids had become propagandists for pagan Hellenic culture and were bent upon introducing Greek traditions into orthodox Judaism. “Hellenizing” occurred with particular severity under Antiochus IV (175–164 B.C.), causing the Hasmonean family to rise up in revolt. The resistance under Judas Maccabeus was so successful that the Syrian regent Lysias guaranteed the return of Jewish liberties, an obvious setback for the hellenizing party in Judea. In 142 B.C. Judea became independent from Syria, and under John Hyrcanus (135–105 B.C.) achieved some political and territorial solidarity. But the whole situation was unstable at best and was complicated by the conflicts between the Hellenizers and the more traditional Sadducees, Pharisees, and scribes. In the meantime, purist religious groups such as the members of the Dead Sea community broke away from the orthodox Jews and founded their own settlements in the inhospitable wilderness of Judea.
In 64 B.C. Pompey attacked Syria and made it into a Roman province. While endeavoring to quell unrest in Judea, the Romans were attacked by fanatical Jews who were ultimately slaughtered on the Temple mount. The Romans kept a garrison in Jerusalem thereafter and incorporated Judea into the newly fashioned province of Syria. The subsequent Herodian dynasty governed under the supervision of Rome, which maintained legions in Judea until after the second Jewish Revolt (A.D. 132–135).
The period that saw the writing of the Apocryphal material was thus one of unprecedented political, military, social, and religious turbulence. It has been estimated that at the birth of Christ, one person out of every two in the Roman Empire was a slave. Jewish resistance to hellenizing influences produced times of repression and persecution that made the Jews long for deliverance and stimulated the interest of at least some in the possiblity of a messiah coming from God to remedy the situation. The apocalyptic writings dealt at length with the problem of the struggle between good and evil and with the expectation of a new age in which God would reward the faithful with spiritual blessings. Messianic figures who appeared in apocalyptic writings, especially in New Testament Apocrypha, were not infrequently balanced by an antichrist, both of them being attended by many angelic personages. It was a literary and spiritual world of partial fact and partial fantasy, the fantasy being an important ingredient for maintaining the expectations of the less emotionally stable.
While the Dead Sea scrolls cannot be regarded as apocryphal, some passages are apocalyptic—e.g., the Manual of Discipline 3:13–4:26, the War Scroll (1QM) 1:15-19, and the New Jerusalem (5Q15). Some scholars have interpreted parts of the Copper Scroll (3Q15) apocalyptically, but most writers simply regard the material as a list of concealed treasure.
APOCRYPHAL AND CANONICAL WRITINGS
Although the earliest Old Testament apocryphal works may have been written as early as the end of the fourth century B.C., the majority appeared from the second century B.C. onward. Some of them quite closely approximated counterparts in the canonical Scriptures, and there is no doubt that in some circles their authority and inspiration were regarded as similar to that of the scriptural compositions venerated by the Jews and later by Christians.
Other religious writings from that period made no claim to be scriptural. Such compositions preserved the familiar traditions of both Judaism and primitive Christianity, although on occasion they enriched or embellished them by means of legends and unhistorical narratives. Because very few books of any kind were in circulation at that time, the Palestinians tended to read whatever literary material came into their possession. Although the Torah or Law of Moses had always been recognized as the standard of theological orthodoxy for the Jews, narratives of endurance under persecution or accounts of the way that the enemies of God’s people received their just reward had an obvious attraction for those under the pressures of a pagan society.
In the same way, although the Gospels and Epistles—along with the Old Testament—comprised the basic canon or approved list of Scriptures for Christians, many additional narratives claimed the attention of Christ’s early followers. Those compositions often dealt with the supposed activities of Jesus and his followers, as well as with martyrdoms, revelations, and spiritual teachings. Some works contained material that was not only unhistorical but downright bizarre, but others reflected the spirit of Christ and the apostolic teachings to a certain extent. For the early Christians, as also for the Jews, the establishment of a formal canon of scriptural writings must have been prompted in part by a necessity to separate the record of revealed truth from other written forms of religious tradition as well as from actual heresy.
Writings that failed to gain acceptance into the Old and New Testament canons were described in the writings of some early Christian scholars by the term “apocrypha.” The Greek word means “hidden things,” and when applied to books it described those works which religious authorities wished to be concealed from the reading public. The reason was that such books were thought to contain mysterious or secret lore, meaningful only to the initiate and therefore unsuitable for the ordinary reader. But the word “apocrypha” was also applied in a less complimentary sense to works that deserved to be concealed. Such works contained harmful doctrines or false teachings calculated to unsettle or pervert rather than edify those who read them. The suppression of undesirable writings was comparatively easy at a time when only a few copies of any book were in circulation at a given time. Offensive writings would more likely have been burned by the authorities than “hidden” (compare Acts 19:19).
Hidden or esoteric teachings were not part of the Hebrew tradition, which based its spirituality on the first five books of the Hebrew canon. Insofar as mysterious doctrines came into Hebrew life, they did so from pagan sources and generally involved magical practices which were forbidden to Israel. Only when the concept of wisdom emerged in such writings as Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Job, and certain psalms did Jewish teachers such as Jesus Ben Sirach advise their hearers to search out the “hidden things” of divine wisdom (Ecclus. 14:20-21; 39:1-3, 7). Even so, the emphasis was upon knowing the mind and revealed will of God, not on the study of esoteric treatises of a kind popular among Hellenistic authors and readers.
By the end of the first century A.D., a clear distinction was being made in Jewish circles between writings which were suitable for use by the general public and esoteric works which were to be restricted to the knowledgeable and the initiated. Thus in 2 Esdras 4:1-6, the writer tells how Ezra was supposedly instructed by God to publish openly certain writings (that is, the Torah of Moses), and keep others secret (that is, apocalyptic traditions dealing with the coming end of the age). In 2 Esdras 14:42-46 reference is made to seventy books, evidently noncanonical material, written after the twenty-four books of the Hebrew canon.
Use of the term “apocrypha” to mean “noncanonical” goes back to the fifth century A.D., when Jerome urged that the books found in the Septuagint and in the Latin Bibles that did not occur in the canon of the Hebrew Old Testament writings should be treated as apocryphal. They were not to be disregarded entirely, since they were part of the great contemporary outpouring of Jewish national literature. At the same time they should not be used as sources for Christian doctrine, but at best for supplementary reading of an uplifting or inspirational nature.
Protestant theologians generally have followed the tradition established by Jerome, regarding the Old Testament Apocrypha as the excess of the Septuagint canon over the Hebrew Scriptures. When the Hebrew Bible began to be translated into Greek in Egypt during the reign of Ptolemy II (285–246 B.C.), the scholars concerned included a number of books that, while remaining outside the generally accepted list of Hebrew canonical writings, still had a bearing upon Jewish history and society. That procedure reflected contemporary attitudes in Palestine, where, as the Dead Sea scrolls show, many people made little serious attempt to separate canonical writings from other forms of religious literature. The decision made by Jewish authorities about what to regard as canonical Scripture naturally had a bearing on what would constitute Old Testament Apocrypha.
Textual evidence represented by certain manuscripts and fragments from the Dead Sea caves makes it reasonably certain that the last of the canonical Hebrew writings had been completed several decades before the time Alexander the Great (356–323 B.C.) began his conquests in the Near East. The process by which those compositions came to be accepted as canonical was more protracted, however. Only when they had been circulated, read, and assessed favorably by comparison with the spirituality of the Torah were they accorded general canonicity. Hence the distinction between the canonical and apocryphal writings came as much through usage and general consent on the part of orthodox Judaism as in any other manner. Earlier scholars suggested that the so-called “Council of Jamnia,” held in Palestine about A.D. 100, was responsible for drawing up a list of Old Testament books suitable for use by the faithful. However, subsequent studies have thrown considerable doubt upon the historicity of such a council, at the same time showing that the Jewish authorities of that period considered their noncanonical writings to be more of an obstacle than a help to devotion.
OLD TESTAMENT APOCRYPHA
The books the Jews regarded as being specifically “outside the canon,” and therefore apocryphal, are as follows: 1 Esdras; 2 Esdras; Tobit; Judith; the additions to Esther; the Wisdom of Solomon; Ecclesiasticus; Baruch; the Letter of Jeremiah; the additions to the Book of Daniel (the Prayer of Asariah and the Song of the Three Young Men; Susanna; and Bel and the Dragon); the Prayer of Manasseh; 1 Maccabees; and 2 Maccabees. Several Septuagint manuscripts included some pseudohistorical material under the titles of 3 and 4 Maccabees; thus even the Apocrypha varied somewhat in content, depending upon the manuscript tradition being followed. Among early Christian scholars there was also some difference of opinion about the precise limits of canonical Hebrew Scripture, and hence of apocryphal material. A serious break with Hebrew and rabbinic tradition came with the writings of Augustine, who advanced the view that the books of the Apocrypha were of equal authority with the other writings of the canonical Hebrew and Christian Scriptures. A few dissenting voices were raised in support of Jerome’s position, but the views of Augustine were embraced by the Council of Trent (1546) and became official Roman Catholic teaching.
The book called 1 Esdras seems to be a compilation of historical material drawn from various parts of the Old Testament, notably Chronicles, Ezra, and Nehemiah. It includes one interesting interpolation, the Debate of the Three Soldiers (1 Esdras 3:1–5:6), in which the supremacy of truth is demonstrated by some unfortunate historical errors and inconsistencies that are found in the book, in sharp contrast to the accuracy of the canonical sources upon which the compiler of 1 Esdras drew. The book called 2 Esdras consists mostly of a Jewish apocalypse in which Ezra, in a series of visions, bewails the predicament of exiled Israel and looks for a Messianic figure to restore the nation to its former glory.
The book of Tobit is a mixture of folklore and romance, written perhaps about 200 B.C. and apparently intended to instruct the Jews in proper attitudes of piety toward God. Tobit himself appears as resolute in suffering and an example to his fellows in matters of charity, justice, morality, and religious obligations. As with 1 Esdras, the book contains historical as well as geographical mistakes.
The book of Judith narrates the way in which an enterprising Jewish woman kills an enemy leader and saves her people. The narrative, however, seems to have no basis in historical fact and is also marked by chronological and other errors.
The additions to the Book of Esther comprise the following sections: the dream of Mordecai; the edict of Artaxerxes; prayers of Mordecai and Esther; Esther before the king; the counter-edict; an epilogue. These sections were meant to be interpolated into the text of the canonical book, and were probably written originally in Greek.
The Wisdom of Solomon, compiled perhaps about 100 B.C., represents an elaboration of the teaching about wisdom found in Proverbs and Ecclesiastes: but in its doctrines is considerably closer to Greek than to Hebrew thought. The book was read widely in the early Christian era.
The Book of Ecclesiasticus, also called the Wisdom of Jesus the Son of Sirach, was valued highly by both Jews and Christians. The author was a scribe who wished to give his teachings a more permanent form, for which he utilized the canonical Proverbs as a model. His instruction adheres closely to Jewish orthodoxy, though the author shows Sadducean tendencies. The book was probably written about 180 B.C.
Baruch draws heavily for its content upon certain Old Testament prophets and sages and is in the form of an address purportedly sent to the exiled Judeans in Babylonia. Its principal themes are the sin, punishment, and forgiveness of Israel. The Letter of Jeremiah, a document supposedly sent to the Judeans about to be taken captive in Babylonia, is actually a religious tract condemning idolatry.
The additions to the book of Daniel consist of three supplementary sections foreign to the Hebrew and Aramaic of the canonical work. The Prayer of Azariah, which recognizes the divine justice of the Babylonian exile, is followed by the Song of the Three Young Men when they were delivered from death in the fiery furnace. The story of Susanna tells how Daniel saves an innocent woman from death and seems to have been based upon a popular Babylonian tale. Bel and the Dragon contains two stories that ridicule idolatry and show the powerlessness of the Babylonian gods.
The Prayer of Manasseh consists of a short penitential psalm representing the king’s supposed petition for divine mercy during a period of imprisonment in Babylonia (compare 2 Chron. 33:10-13).
Evidently 1 Maccabees was written, much as Chronicles was, to record a “spiritual” history of the nation, except that it deals exclusively with the Maccabean period. It drew upon some genuine literary sources, although the authenticity of parts of the work has been questioned. Whereas 1 Maccabees endeavors to present a reasonably objective account of the Hasmoneans, 2 Maccabees comprises a rhetorical summary of a considerably larger work on the subject of the Maccabean era. It is even more theologically oriented than 1 Maccabees, and contains several chronological errors along with other actual contradictions.
The Old Testament Apocrypha depicts graphically the conditions of the desperate days before Christ’s birth. Unfortunately, military, political, and ideological conflicts were to be part of Jewish life until resistance to Roman rule ended in the second century A.D. There were times, as in the Maccabean period, when a brief respite was obtained from military and pagan religious pressures, but for the most part the orthodox Jew was a beleaguered figure in his own land. A people hardened by successive atrocities and by the omnipresent forces first of Egypt, then of Syria, and finally of Rome, could look for true freedom only in the messianic assurances of their national literature. In any event, the deliverance of the nation could be only in the somewhat distant future. For the time being the Jews in their struggles with alien political and religious influences had to be content with stories of heroism and self-sacrifice in time of war, bravery in the face of persecution, resolution in defeat, and the prospect of a coming golden age that was described in some of the apocalyptic writings.
NEW TESTAMENT APOCRYPHA
Christians of the New Testament period were already familiar with Jewish apocryphal works, including the apocalyptic speculations found in 2 Esdras. Therefore it was hardly surprising that a similar body of literature should grow up around their own Scriptures when they began to be composed and circulated.
New Testament Apocrypha, however, like its Old Testament counterpart, could be considered only in relationship to an established canon of scriptural writings. Since the earliest catalog of New Testament writings, the Muratorian Canon, was not compiled until about A.D. 200, a considerable period of time elapsed before an official church statement could appear on what was to be considered New Testament Apocrypha. In the meantime a large assortment of materials of a predominantly religious nature appeared, purporting to be orthodox in nature and dealing with various aspects of historic Christianity. As events turned out, this apocryphal literature defeated the purposes it was intended to serve. Because of the scarcity of information about such matters as the childhood, adolescence, and early manhood of Jesus, the “infancy” gospels undertook to supply the reader with what was meant to pass for historical fact. Much of the material, however, was entirely within the realm of fantasy and could never have been accepted as fact by any intelligent reader. For example, in the Gospel of Thomas the five-year-old Jesus is accused of breaking the Sabbath by making sparrows of clay beside a stream. When his father Joseph investigates the situation, Jesus claps his hands and the clay birds come to life and fly away chirping.
“Passion” gospels were written to embellish the canonical accounts of Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection. As supplements to Christian teaching, many of the apocryphal writings seemed to be proclaiming ideas that were actually outside the scope of New Testament doctrine. Attempts to fill in the “hidden years” of Christ’s life had no foundation whatever in the traditions of the Gospels. Works dealing with the last state of unbelievers were embellished in a manner that went far beyond anything stated in the New Testament. In some notable instances, as in the writings of various Gnostic sects, the authors set out deliberately to propagate heretical teachings they had accepted under the authority of some apostolic figure. The Gospel of Thomas, recovered around 1945 from Nag Hammadi (Chenoboskion) near the Nile River, is an example of an attempt to perpetuate curious sayings and dogmas by attributing them to Jesus, so that they would receive wide currency and acceptance.
Because the writings under discussion bear some resemblance to the principal literary types and divisions of the New Testament, scholars have often grouped them together in a similar manner for the convenience of students. The principal Apocrypha Gospels are:
There are also some apocryphal Acts, which are purported to be accounts of apostolic achievements not recorded in Scripture. Such “Acts” are the source of much tradition such as Peter’s being crucified upside down and Thomas’s mission to India. The reliability of the traditions is questionable because the writings contain clearly unorthodox material. Yet small fragments of accurate information may be embedded in this mass of largely fictitious literature.
Because of their often heretical character, the church consistently reacted against such books, sometimes even demanding that they be burned (for example, at the Nicene Council of 787). The Acts of John pictured Jesus talking to John on the Mount of Olives during the crucifixion, explaining that it was only a spectacle. In the Acts of Thomas, Jesus appeared in the form of Thomas, exhorting a newly married couple to dedicate themselves to virginity. Sexual abstinence was a dominant theme, reflecting Platonic ideas, which disparaged the physical body.
Many scholars date the earliest work, the Acts of John, before A.D. 150. The major Acts (of John, Paul, Peter, Andrew, and Thomas) were probably written during the second and third centuries. These gave rise to other Acts that were primarily miracle stories, written more to entertain than to teach. Works classified in one way or another under the heading of Acts include:
A host of apocryphal works are classified as epistles. These generally pseudonymous works originated from many widely separated periods of time. For example, one group of epistles is primarily Jewish and relates to the Old Testament, such as the Letter of Jeremiah (mentioned earlier in this article). The larger group focuses around persons and places mentioned in the New Testament. Such epistolary writings include:
Many liberal scholars have considered 2 Peter and Jude to be apocryphal also.
Many other apocryphal works are apocalyptic in nature. These works are supplemented by material such as the Apostolic Constitutions and Canons. Added to these are the Gnostic compositions found at Nag Hammadi, which include works purporting to represent the teachings of Christ as well as “secret” instructions compiled by the Gnostic writers and a few apocryphal compositions.
Comparative studies have shown without doubt that the New Testament apocryphal writings preserve at best a series of debased traditions about the Founder and teachings of early Christianity. At worst, the narratives are entirely devoid of historical value and in some respects are totally alien to New Testament spirituality. Even where they seem to support a tradition current in some part of the early church, the evidence they present is inferior to what can often be had from other sources. Sometimes the compositions are so trivial and inconsequential that it is difficult to account for their survival. Certain apocryphal writings did in fact become lost, and are now known only in the form of quotations in larger works.
Nevertheless, the New Testament apocryphal compositions are important in indicating what was attractive to the ordinary people of the day. For them an element of the romantic seemed necessary to supplement the body of received spiritual truth. Certain of the stories recounted were vivid and imaginative, and others such as the apocalypses provided a form of escapism from harsh temporal realities. No matter what their nature, the New Testament apocryphal writings exerted an influence out of all proportion to their fundamental worth.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Allegro, J. M. The Treasure of the Copper Scroll, 1960.
Charles, R. H. The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament, 1913.
Charlesworth, J. H. The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, 2 vols., 1983, 1985.
James, M. R. The Apocryphal New Testament, 1924.
Kirkpatrick, P. G. The Old Testament and Folklore Study, 1988.
Robinson, J. M., ed. The Nag Hammadi Library, 1988 (third, revised edition).
Schneemelcher, W., ed.; R. M. Wilson, trans. New Testament Apocrypha, 1963.
Sparks, H. F. D. The Apocryphal Old Testament, 1984.