Hello all:
Just over a year ago, I wrote a post asking what people though about the apocrypha. Since then, I’ve done a lot more thinking on the subject.
The Apocrypha, or the Deutero-Canonical books as the Catholics call them, was included in the Christian canon until Martin Luther excluded them in 1534. Luther also excluded Esther, Hebrews, James, Jude, and Revelation. Luther stated that he wished Esther had never been written, and he called James “an epistle of straw.”
I am not saying that apocrypha is scripture…and I am not saying that it is not; I am saying, however, that I think we should re-visit the apocrypha, that we should read it, and that we should carefully and prayerfully consider whether or not these writings hold a place as sacred scripture.
Some questions I have:
What gave Luther the right to remove these books from the canon?
The apocrypha was included in the canon for 1500 years. Would God allow these books to be considered scripture for such a long period of time if they did not belong in the canon?
What makes Esther, Hebrews, James, Jude and Revelation acceptable, but the apocryphal books unacceptable?
Shouldn’t we, as a group of churches that values “Restoration,” consider whether or not the apocrypha is in need of restoration in the Protestant church?
-Clarke
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April 21st, 2007 at 10:40
Hi Clarke,
The debate about the inclusion of the OT apocrypha goes back a long time before Luther. Josephus (first century) rejected those books. Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria (4th century) excluded most of what we call the apocrypha from the canon. Jerome (late 4th century), who produce the Latin Vulgate, coined the term apocrypha to distinguish the books included in the septuagent but not included in the Hebrew OT. He clearly excluded the apocrypha from the canon.
Here is a pretty interesting survey of the different historical points:
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/augustine/arch/sbrandt/canon.htm
That writer’s conclusion is that the deuterocanon has always been in a grey area. That’s not a very convenient conclusion if one is trying to determine what belongs in the infallible Word of God. Grey areas and infallible scripture don’t mix.
April 22nd, 2007 at 8:58
i don’t have a source on hand, but i thought that i had read more than once that the apocrypha was included, but never thought of as equal to the rest of scripture, but always regarded as *deutero*-canonical.
There’s certainly a giant heaping pile of books beyond the apocrypha that never made it into our Bibles. i’ve often felt scared by that–what if we missed something? so i’ve purchased several books for myself about the canon and want to spend the summer reading about the topic. i’ve only scratched the surface of the reading and it’s already pretty clear from the start why the vast majority of those books didn’t make it in.
i could give you a pretty thorough bibliography on the topic of the canon if you’re interested.
the only question i’m still wrestling with (which will hopefully be clearer after my mound of reading is done) is whether the canon is an authoritative collection of books, or a collection of authoritative books, and what the theological implications of each would be.
April 22nd, 2007 at 11:42
I have always felt like guy, as if we were missing something. I have come to the belief that we are missing out on the bigger picture of who Jesus was. If you want to read on certain Christian views on why they were left out to beging with, you can start with author Elaine Pagels.
April 25th, 2007 at 17:30
The so called “cannonization” was established by the beginning of the second century. To claim medievel men or councils did it is ridiculous. We have listing of accepted books from many early churches and most are the same books we have today.
Some of the churches did read from some of the other books and included them in their libraries, but they were very careful to point out which books did not reach the level of inspiration the accepted books have.
The early christians did not live in a vacuum. They wrote extensively and we have a good historical record that support the books of the bible, the interpretations and practices.
April 25th, 2007 at 19:23
“Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria (4th century) excluded most of what we call the apocrypha from the canon.”
The only apocrypha Athanasius lists in his list of the canon is the epistle of Baruch, which is simply a treatise against idolatry which purports to have been written by Baruch who was Jeremiah’s understudy.
Now, although Luther supposedly removed the Apocrypha, it was actually translated and printed as part of the King James Version (a long while after Luther). Luther did not remove the apocrypha (not from the English Bible anyway) and his idiotic comments on James and Hebrews have nothing to do with this subject. In reality, it was removed by printing companies, not by Luther. The fact that it used to be printed commonly in the KJV and now hardly at all shows it was printers, not Luther, that removed it. However, in the KJV it was always clearly marked off in its own section with APOCRYPHA in giant letters and was viewed by the translators as only of historical value (as it shows what the Jews were up to between Malachi and Matthew) and not as true Scripture. In fact, if you buy one of Holman’s KJV 1611 facsimiles (about $60) you can read that kind of thing in their notes. You can also order modern KJV’s with Apocryphas from Britain. One other point about the apocrypha is that the KJV apocrypha actually includes more books than the Catholic “dueteros” because the Catholics remove 3rd Esdras because it condemns drinking (which they can’t allow to stand) and they remove 4th Esdras and the Prayer of Manasse.
The apocrpyha cannot add anything to our knowledge accept for a bit of Jewish history, such as with the book of Macabees. This is the view endorsed by the oldschool Protestant confessions, that the apocrypha is to be received for historical purposes only and not as actual Scripture, and I believe they are exactly right.
April 28th, 2007 at 3:45
First off, surprise surprise, I disagree with jk on this one and obviously the early church does as well.
Anyways, you asked a great question at the end of this post that I would love to hear more fair minded “Church of Christers” answer.
April 28th, 2007 at 13:13
What question is that? BTW, I have read most of the apocrypha. I never finished all the Maccabee books nor 4th Esdras (4th Esdras is rejected by the Catholics reject BTW). I don’t remember exactly what 4th Esdras was about, but the part I read sounded pretty good. I suppose I need to go re-read it. However, it has a mark against it, that it only exists in Latin and there is currently no Hebrew or Greek copy of it (or at least so they say).
April 29th, 2007 at 12:24
Sorry jk, I was refering to the question the Clarke has asked:
“Shouldn’t we, as a group of churches that values “Restoration,” consider whether or not the apocrypha is in need of restoration in the Protestant church?”
I would say we could learn alot about the “bigger” picture of our faith and how it was seen in early communities.
April 30th, 2007 at 10:01
Infallible…Who orignally determined that some was infallible and some wasn’t??