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LESSONS

• The Bible
• The Canon of the Bible
• Four Writers of the Pent
• The Translations, etc.

(no links yet! still under "construction")

CALENDAR

July 2002

* 8-13 Prelims Week

August 2002

* 26 National Heroes Day
28-29 SU Founders Day

September 2002

October 2002

* 7-11 Finals Week

Dear Students,

Kindly take time to visit this site regularly as notes, readings, illustrations and pointers to exams and quizzes will be placed here soon. Thanks!

- Callum Tabada
Instructor, Rel. 11 Class

13. What Are the Old Testament Apocrypha?

The word "Apocrypha" is the plural form of a Greek adjective meaning "hidden," a designation that may have applied to writings thought to contain some form of "secret" doctrine whose teachings would be "hidden" fromignorant or uninitiated readers. In this respect, however, they are not different from other books of the Bible, nearly all of which express difficult or obscure ideas.

Since the Bible of the early Church wan not the Hebrew but the Greek, it is natural that theapocryphal books in the Septuagint were adopted by the Roman Catholic church and included in Jerome's Latin Vulgate translation. These were 1 and 2 Esdras, Tobit, Judith, the Wisdom of Solomon, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch, the Prayer of Manasseh, 1 and 2 Maccabees. Additions to Daniel (the Prayer of the Three Hebrew Hildren, Sussana and Bel and the Dragon). Of these, 1 Maccabees is excellent history, Ecclesiasticus and Wisdom first-rate example of Hebrew wisdom literature, and Tobit a well-crafted historical romance.

Interestingly, many Protestant reformers vigorously emphasized Jerome himself first described books in the Greek but not in the Hebrew Old Testament as Apocrypha, and his implied distinction of relative worth between the two. The latter argued that because the Old Testament is meant to illustrate the faith of pre-Christian Israel, Protestant Christians ought to include only books found in the original Hebrew Bible as defined by the rabbis at Jamnia; hence, most Protestant translations contain books from the Hebrew canon only. One result of the Reformation, many leaders of which questioned or even denied the Apocrypha's religious authority, was the famous Council of Trent (1546) at which the Roman Catholic church reaffirmed its position that these books belonged to a second canon, or Deuterocanon, of a sacred literature.

14. Is Inclusion of the Apocrypha the Only Difference Among Jewish, Protestant, and Roman Catholic Bibles?

Unfortunately, no. To compound the confusion, both Protestants and Roman Catholics retained the Septuagint's general ordering of the contents, which differs appreciably from the Hebrew. The threefold Hebrew division of Scripture into Law, Prophets, and Writings is in some respects a more logical (and chronological) arrangement than in the Septuagint's interspersing of prophets with historical writings and poetic books.

In Christian Bibles, then, the distinction between the Prophets and the Writings is seriously obscured. The traditional Christian catalog separates the Festival Scrolls, such as Ruth, Esther, and the Song of Songs, from one another, with the result that their devotional and cultic siginificance is no longer clear. The original arrangement is more meaningful, for some of these short books were probably adopted into the canon because of their long association with particular holy days on which they were read aloud. Their long-term familiarity to the Jewish community of faith may largely have determined their canonization.

15. Are There Any Other Jewish Writings That Were Not Received into the Bible?

Yes, these non-canonical Jewish books are known collectectively as the Pseudepigrapha because some of them were piously but inaccurately attributed to revered biblical figures of the distant past, such as Enoch and Moses. Dating form about 200 B.C.E. to 200 C.E., the Pseudepigrapha include a rich variety of legendary and apocalyptic material that significantly influenced Jewish and early Christian thought. Many pseudepigraphal works were found among the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Essence library from Qumran. Manuscripts of some of these books show signs of reworking by Christian hands, which indicates that they circulated among and were read by members of the early Church.

16. What Are the Dead Sea Scrolls?

Until about thirty years ago, the oldest known extant manuscript copies of the Hebrew Scriptures were the Masoretic Texts, which date from about the ninth and tenth centuries C.E. In 1947, however, according to a popular version of the story, a Bedouin shepherd boy threw a stone into a cave at Qumran near the Dead Sea and heard pottery shattering inside. Investigating later, he found hidden in the cave clay jars containing leather scrolls. On examining the site, scholars found an entire library of religious books dating from about the second century B.C.E. to the first century C.E.

Many of these scrolls were copies of canonical Old Testament works-such as Isaiah, the Psalms, Deuteronomy, and Daniel-as wellas commentaries on them. There were also original writings, apparently produced by a monastic group of Essenes, a Jewish sect that occupied the Qumran area over the three century period during which the manuscripts were written. These original works include a Manual of Discipline for the Qumran community and a set of military instructions for fighting the cosmic battle between Good and Evil, the imminent War of the Sons of Light against the Sons of Darkness. Many other tracts, sermons, and biblical explications were found in various caves.

This find was significant in several ways. First, it provided copies of at least fragments of all Old Testament books (except Esther) that were almost 1000 years older than any other extant manuscripts. Second, it demonstrated that whereas many biblical texts contained numerous variations from the received copies, the Book of Isaiah, represented in a scroll twenty-four feet long, had been transmitted for nearly ten centuries with little appreciable change. Third, it revealed the existence of a monastic religious community, mentioned by the first-century Jewish historian Favius Josephus, that was strikingly different from mainstream or rabbinic Judaism. Finally, it proved that the Qumran community apparently practiced certain rites, such as a form of water baptism and a covental meal, that strikingly resembled later Christian customs.

>>1. What is the Bible?
>>2. What Does the Word "Bible" Mean?
>>3. Who Wrote the Bible?
>>4. When Was the Bible Written?
>>5. Is the Bible the World's Oldest Book?
>>6. In What Languages was the Bible Originally Written?
>>7. For Study Purposes, How Do Scholars Recommend That We Read the Bible?

Manuscripts and Translations
>>8. When Was the Bible First Translated?
>>9. In What Form Has the Bible's Text Been Preserved?
>>10. How Did Our Modern English Translations Come About?

The Old Testament Canon
>>11. What Is Meant by Canon?
>>12. How Did the Biblical Canon Come into Being, and Which Parts of the Bible Were First Accepted as Canonical?
>>13. What Are the Old Testament Apocrypha?
>>14. Is Inclusion of the Apocrypha the Only Difference Among Jewish, Protestant, and Roman Catholic Bibles?
>>15. Are There Any Other Jewish Writings That Were Not Received into the Bible?
>>16. What Are the Dead Sea Scrolls?