Apocrypha

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In the broad sense, apocrypha are texts or statements whose authorship or historical accuracy is uncertain. The word apocrypha more usually means those parts of the Bible which are not accepted by all churches, or which have been removed over time.

Apocrypha is a relative term. What the Protestant churches call apocrypha, the Catholic Church calls the deuterocanonicals (or "second canon"), but considers three books held as canon by the Eastern Orthodox churches as apocrypha. Judaism holds all the books of the New Testament as well as the deuterocanonicals and anything else found in the Greek translation of the Law and Prophets (the Septuagint) as apocrypha. Some Orthodox prefer the Eastern term anagignoskomena instead.

These books were rejected by Jews, in part on the grounds that they were written in Greek rather than Hebrew. While some of them were originally composed in Greek, others are in origin Hebrew — for example, the book of Sirach, while it only survives in its entirety in Greek translation, around two-thirds of it survives in the original Hebrew; the Books of Enoch and Jubilees (accepted by the Ethiopian and Eritrean Orthodox churches) was originally in Hebrew, while their books of Meqabyan may well have originally been written in Ge'ez. From the Dead Sea Scrolls we know that Psalm 151, surviving in Greek, is actually a combination of two separate Psalms in Hebrew (sometimes called 151a and 151b).

Protestants refer to these books as apocrypha (meaning spurious, hidden, obscure), but Catholics reject that phrasing. Sometimes one sees Deuterocanon/Apocrypha used as a joint term to express both group's perspectives. Catholics do however call those books accepted by Eastern Orthodox but not by Catholics apocrypha. The term pseudepigrapha is used by Protestants to refer to those books which were not traditionally accepted by any major Christian groups—the Protestant Apocrypha, while not considered a reliable source for doctrines or morals, was still considered worthy of sufficient respect so as to print them in Protestant Bibles (at least in the earlier centuries of Protestantism), while the pseudepigraphical books were purely of scholarly interest. While originally Protestant, Catholic scholars accept this usage of pseudepigraphical.

Contents

[edit] Apocryphal/Deuterocanonical books (canonical in some churches)

[edit] King James Bible

The King James Bible (1611) contained a section named "Books called Apocrypha" which contained the following:

  • 1 Esdras (Vulgate 3 Esdras)
  • 2 Esdras (Vulgate 4 Esdras)
  • Tobit
  • Judith
  • Rest of Esther (Vulgate Esther 10:4-16:24)
  • Wisdom
  • Ecclesiasticus (also known as Sirach)
  • Book of Baruch and the Epistle of Jeremy (all part of Vulgate Baruch)
  • The Prayer of Azariah and Song of the Three Holy Children|Song of the Three Children (Vulgate Daniel 3:24-90)
  • Susanna (Book of Daniel) (Vulgate Daniel 13)
  • Bel and the Dragon (Vulgate Daniel 14)
  • Prayer of Manasseh
  • 1 Maccabees
  • 2 Maccabees

[edit] Roman Catholic Church

The Catholic canon includes all the above books except for 1 and 2 Esdras and the Prayer of Manasseh. The Vulgate and Douay-Rheims include the latter three in an "Apocrypha" appendix while more recent Catholic translations exclude them entirely. The other books are incorporated into the Old Testament.

[edit] Canonical only in Eastern Orthodox churches

In addition to the books considered canonical by the Roman Catholic Church:

  • 3 Maccabees
  • 4 Maccabees
  • 1 Esdras
  • Odes
  • Psalm 151
  • Psalm 152-155 (Syriac church only)

[edit] Canonical only in the Ethiopian Orthodox Church

In addition to the books considered canonical by the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox:

[edit] Apocryphal/Pseudipigraphical books (not canonical)

A number of apocryphal books dating from the 1st and 2nd centuries exist, often "lost" Gospels, and other early Christian writings like the Didache, 2 and 3 Baruch, and the Apocalypse of Peter. There are also several infancy Gospels about the birth and childhood of Jesus. They are not part of the canon in any church. They have attracted recent interest though, both in what ways they depart from the theology in the canonical New Testament as well as whether and to what degree the decision to exclude them from the canon was driven by political motivations. Sometimes these works are known as the pseudepigrapha—that term technically means a work claiming false authorship, something true of many of these works (but not all; some make no such claims)—but by extension the term has come to refer even to those which do not, to clearly distinguish those books accepted by no contemporary mainstream church from those accepted by some of them.

Several of these are of Gnostic movement origin:

The Gospel of Thomas is often classified as a Gnostic text but some scholars believe it to be the earliest and most accurate gospel account from around 50 CE. Others date it well into the second century when Gnosticism was all the rage.

Several Gnostic texts were recovered with the discovery of the Nag Hammadi texts. Most of these are in fragments but the Gospel of Thomas is complete, and subsequently has attracted the most interest.

[edit] Modern forgeries

Like z0mG! I found this old scroll hidden deep in the vaults of the caves of Palmyra, New York Egypt!!

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