“….the Church doth read [the books of the Apocrypha] for example of life and instruction of manners; but yet it doth not apply them to establish any doctrine” (Article VI of the Church of England Book of Common Prayer.
I don’t regard the Apocrypha (or Deuterocanonicals) as scripture but I’m writing this article in order to demonstrate that most of the arguments against them can equally be applied to the Bible of the Protestant canon. So, if anyone wants to disprove the Apocrypha/Deuterocanonicals as scripture, they need to come up with more considered arguments, otherwise they’re shooting themselves in the foot.
Protestant objections to the Apocrypha being Scripture which I’ve come across are inconsistent and weak. In this article I’ve taken those objections and attempted to demonstrate their weaknesses so that the reader might be challenged to re-think their reasons for rejecting the Apocrypha as scripture.
(1) For example, one objection is that Jerome, Athanasius and some other Church Fathers didn’t include these books in the canon. But this link (http://matt1618.freeyellow.com/deut.html) gives ample quotes from the writings of those same Fathers showing that they did use them as scripture.
However even if Jerome and Athanasius didn’t believe the Apocrypha were scripture, it doesn’t make any difference, because it was the Church which defined which books were in the canon, not Jerome or Athanasius or any other individual. The canon as we have it today, with OT including the books of the Apocrypha in their appropriate places therein, and the 27 books of the NT, were first defined formally at the Council of Rome in 383, the Council of Hippo in 393 and the Council of Carthage in 397; and later, more definitely and widely set at the Council of Florence in 1442 AD and formally finalised at the Council of Trent in 1546 AD. More than two thirds of today’s Church, including some Protestant groups, (e.g. the Amish), regard these books as Scripture.
Moreover there are some New Testament books which can also be regarded as deuterocanonical because their status as canonical scripture was disputed and is still so to this day. These books are Hebrews, James, 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John, Jude, and Revelation. The Eastern Church disputed Revelation and the Western Church disputed Hebrews. Even Martin Luther said that Hebrews had nothing of the gospel and he called James an epistle of straw.
During the first few centuries various canons were proposed, and the Apocrypha/Deuterocanonicals in both Testaments were sometimes included and sometimes not.
(2) Then there is the argument that the Apocrypha were not quoted in the New Testament (I’ve shown in a separate article on this website that they are quoted or alluded to in the NT – “Some References and Allusions to the Apocrypha in the New Testament”). But this is no argument anyway because if that were a true standard for a writing becoming scripture then the books of Judges, Ruth, Esther, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon, Lamentations, Obadiah, Nahum, and Zephaniah, according to some, or as few as Esther, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon, Ezra and Nehemiah according to others, should also be excluded because neither are they quoted in the NT. Even if the smaller number of books as just mentioned were excluded for this reason, it still shows that some books in the Palestinian canon were not quoted in the NT; therefore this rule is invalid.
And Ezekiel, as far as I can determine, is not quoted in the NT although the parallels in Revelation are clear. This is also a positive for the Apocrypha because some of them have parallels or are alluded to in the NT, e.g. Wisdom, Tobit and 1 Maccabees.
Further, if being quoted in the NT is a criterion for inclusion in the canon, then Enoch and the Assumption of Moses should be there because Jude quotes from them (see verses 14 and 9). And Paul, in his epistle to Titus 91:12) quotes Epimenides, a Cretan poet of the 6th century BC; so Epimenides should also be included in the canon. This last example is ridiculous, of course, and purposely so, in order to make my point.
(3) Another objection is that the Apocrypha were not written by prophets. Who set this criterion? If this is a true requirement then there are other books which would fail to make the cut, such as Joshua, Judges (mentions prophets but no prophetic writings or “Thus saith the Lord” statements), Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Solomon; and in the NT, Mark and Luke/Acts would fail the test.
Besides, the majority of the Church always recognised, and in the 4th century specified, these “apocryphal” books as scripture. Either the Holy Spirit guided the Church in the formation of the canon or he didn’t. If he did guide the Church then we have no right to change it; if he didn’t guide the Church, then how do we know which books are canonical and which are not; and anything goes.
(4) The Palestinian Pharisees, who had earlier accepted the Alexandrian canon (containing the Apocrypha) for 2-3 centuries, when they saw the use the Christians were making of them to prove Christ as Messiah, narrowed their canon, insisting that only those books written in Hebrew were scripture. But this is a wrong criterion for three reasons:
- As far as I can see, it seems to be an arbitrary standard.
- The book of Daniel has a section written in Aramaic.
- But more importantly, this criterion is unacceptable because the Jews who determined it (at the Jewish Council of Jamnia 90 AD where they attempted to define a canon but failed) came after the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple and therefore have absolutely no right to determine anything the Church does (Matt 21:43; 22:7-8). The Temple curtain was torn in two at the moment Christ died, symbolising the end of the Jewish system and the Old Covenant; and the Church became the new Israel at Pentecost (1 Tim 3:15, 1 Per 2:9-10). If Protestants want to reject the Apocrypha because to the Jews “were committed the oracles of God” (but only in the OT era), then they also have to reject the New Testament and Jesus Christ, the Messiah, because these same Pharisaic Jews at Jamnia rejected them too!
- Further to this point, some critics say that the Septuagint (LXX) was not written by Levites or priests, therefore it is invalid as a translation of scripture. But the Masoretic text (MT) on which all bibles in the West since Jerome are based, is a version concocted by rabbis and Pharisees, not Levites; therefore, according to this rule, we shouldn’t be using it.
- Baruch and 1 Maccabees were originally written in Hebrew, and Tobit and Judith were originally written in Aramaic, possibly Hebrew, and therefore should not be exempted from the canon on these grounds.
(5) The apocrypha can’t be scripture because some passages contradict NT doctrines, e.g. that giving alms gains eternal life for the giver. One of the passages which offend Protestants comes from the book of Tobit, which reads “Revere the Lord all your days, my son, and refuse to sin or to transgress his commandments…..To all those who practice righteousness give alms from your possessions, and do not let your eye begrudge the gift when you make it. Do not turn your face away from anyone who is poor, and the face of God will not be turned away from you. If you have many possessions, make your gift from them in proportion; if few, do not be afraid to give according to the little you have. So you will be laying up a good treasure for yourself against the day of necessity. For almsgiving delivers from death and keeps you from going into the Darkness. Indeed, almsgiving, for all who practice it, is an excellent offering in the presence of the Most High…..do not let your eye begrudge your giving of alms” (Tobit 4:5-11, 16 NRSV-CE). And later, the angel Raphael says “Prayer with fasting is good, but better than both is almsgiving with righteousness…..it is better to give alms than to lay up gold, For almsgiving saves from death and purges away every sin. Those who give alms enjoy a full life, but those who commit sin and do wrong are their own worst enemies” (Tob 12:8-10 NRSV-CE).
What is wrong with this passage? It simply echoes the Law, Psalms, and Proverbs, as well as passages from the NT such as Matthew 6:19-21 where we’re exhorted to lay up for ourselves treasures in heaven, among many.
And what do we do with Cornelius in the book of Acts? Just as in Tobit, an angel visits a righteous man, Cornelius. We’re told: “There was a certain man in Caesarea called Cornelius, a centurion of the band called the Italian band, A devout man, and one that feared God with all his house, which gave much alms to the people, and prayed to God alway. He saw in a vision evidently about the ninth hour of the day an angel of God coming in to him, and saying unto him, Cornelius. And when he looked on him, he was afraid, and said, What is it, Lord? And he said unto him, Thy prayers and thine alms are come up for a memorial before God” (Acts 10:1-4). Subsequently God sent Peter with the gospel to Cornelius and his household and they were saved – and almsgiving played a significant role in this! And wasn’t Cornelius simply doing what Tobit counselled his son, Tobias, to do? If Tobit was wrong, why did God bless Cornelius who did the same? Shouldn’t we toss out Acts because it suggests almsgiving delivers from death?
The New Testament claims repeatedly that we are judged by our works (e.g. Rom 2:6; Rev 20:12), and James says faith without works is dead. In Matthew 25 the goats will be rejected by Jesus on the Day of Judgment because they didn’t do works of charity, while the sheep will be received because they did do those works of charity. There is no mention whatsoever of faith in this passage – did Jesus get it wrong? If this passage was in the Apocrypha it would be rejected by we all-knowing Protestants.
And concerning almsgiving, is this not simply caring for the vulnerable, a concept dear to God’s heart, as we see in James 1:26-27, where it is called “Pure religion and undefiled”? And James, Peter and John required of Paul that “we should remember the poor” (Gal 2:9-10).
(6) Some Protestant fundamentalist opponents of the LXX go so far as to say that the LXX is a post-Christian forgery by Origen; and that the OT quotes in the NT are also Origen’s. The fact is Origen was aware that the integrity of the text of the LXX was in danger because of the many poor copies in circulation, so he preserved it in his Hexapla.
They also say there are no copies of the LXX before the NT era. To this I say that there is evidence for several Hebrew and several other LXX’s in circulation before the NT era but they are not extant today (Law, T, 2013, p. 25-26). Jerome is said to have had access to Hebrew texts to which we no longer have access. And, incidentally, it was Jerome who testifies to having seen a copy of the Gospel of Matthew written in Hebrew in the library at Alexandria – the Church was aware that Matthew originally wrote his Gospel in Hebrew, but we no longer have it today.
And Jesus, the apostles, and the whole Jewish nation celebrated the Feast of Hanukkah, the origin and scriptural reference of which is found only in 1 Maccabees 4:36-59.
Unfortunately many ancient texts have disappeared because of deterioration or destruction e.g. the library at Alexandria, with the wealth of the knowledge of the ancient world within its walls, burnt down and everything in it was destroyed. Persecutions also account for the loss of many NT and OT texts as the emperor Diocletian set out to destroy every copy of scripture in the empire. So it is no wonder that we do not have many ancient texts available to us now; the wonder is that we have any. The Dead Sea Scrolls testify to the existence of the LXX in the scrolls found in the cave at Qumran, and they pre-date Origen by centuries, and the Masoretic text by over 1000 years!
(7) Another objection is that some, at least, of the books of the Apocrypha are historically inaccurate and therefore they can’t be inerrant scripture. This objection has some merit, and it is most likely the reason the Reformers removed these books from the OT section of their bibles and placed them between the Testaments.
But why can’t God use fiction as a genre in the bible, or use fiction to make or illustrate a point? Did not Jesus use fiction in the form of parables when teaching? In fact, the parable of “The Rich Man and Lazarus” is still a disputed topic among some Christians as they argue over whether it is biographical and factual, or simply a story to make a point i.e. fiction. And Lazarus went to the “bosom of Abraham” for comfort and rest, when the NT tells us that when we die we go to be with the Lord (Phil 1:23). I could adduce many other examples as well.
Even Paul the Apostle made a statement which, if one wanted to be pedantic, could be challenged. In Titus 1:12-13 he writes “One of themselves, even a prophet of their own, said, the Cretians are alway liars, evil beasts, slow bellies. This witness is true”. I doubt that every individual Cretan was like that, but Paul made his point and we get it.
So why can’t books such as Tobit or Judith have historical inaccuracies or folklore when they’ve been such a blessing to Christians since the Church began? Judith was written to give the Jews hope in spite of the threat of the overwhelming and relentless forces of the Greeks. The point of Tobit was similarly to encourage the Jews during this same period, assuring them that God rewards faithfulness in his people. Susanna (an extra part of Daniel not found in the Palestinian canon), is an example of faithfulness and sexual purity; and in Bel and the Dragon, Daniel exposes the deceptions of idolatry and demonstrates that our God is the living and true God.
Bizarre? Some may think so, especially those who are not familiar with these books. But wouldn’t you say that some of the demands God made of his OT prophets are equally bizarre? For example, Ezekiel was told to lie on his left side for 390 days; and when these days were completed he was told to lie on his right side for 40 days. And during this time he was given a strict diet and told to bake his barley cakes using human dung for the fuel (Ezek 4:1-17). Is this not bizarre? And it is just one example of strange things in the bible which, if they were in the Apocrypha, would be criticised and ridiculed by Protestants. But it’s in the bible that Protestants use, so we explain it and preach it without question.
(8) Critics of the Apocrypha claim that in the book of 2 Maccabees, the Seleucid king, Antiochus IV “Epiphanes”, was killed twice; once in chapter 1 and again in chapter 9. The account in chapter 1 says he was lured into a temple in Persia when he invaded that country, and he and some of his men were killed inside it as they tried to steal the gold within. The account in chapter 9 says that he died of a loathsome disease and, recognising his sinfulness before God, attempted reconciliation with the Jews (cf Acts 12:20-23 for a very similar circumstance). Antiochus referring to his return from Persia said: “On my way back from the region of Persia I suffered an annoying illness…..” (2 Macc 9:21 NRSV-CE). Here we have Antiochus’ own account of the circumstances leading to his death, and he was obviously concerned about it enough to nominate his son, Antiochus Eupator, as his successor. The account in 1 Macc 6:1-16 coincides more closely with the account in 2 Macc 9. The notes in the New American Bible – Revised Edition (a Catholic bible) shed some light on the issue:
- “[1:11-12] The king: Antiochus IV of Syria, the bitter persecutor of the Jews, who, as leader of the Syrian army that invaded Persia, perished there in 164 BC”
- “[1:14-17] Differing accounts of the death of Antiochus IV are found in 2 Mc9:1-29 and in 1 Mc 6:1-16 (see also Dan 11:40-45). The writer of this letter had probably heard a distorted rumour of the king’s death. This and other indications suggest that the letter was written very soon after Antiochus IV died, perhaps in 164 BC”.
- And in a comment on 9:1-29: “In order to keep together the various accounts of God’s punishment of the persecutors of his people, the author places here the stories of Antiochus’ illness and death (in actuality the king died about the same time as the purification of the Temple, i.e., 164 BC; cf 1 Mc 4:36-59; 16:1-16; 2 Mc10:1-80; of Judas’ campaigns in Idumea and Jordan; cf 1 Mc 5:1-51; 2 Mc 10:14-38; and of the first expedition of Lysias (1 Mc 4:26-35; 2 Mc 11:1-13”.
So does this discrepancy preclude 2 Maccabees from being scripture? No, because it was accepted into the canon of Christian scripture, along with 1 Maccabees, in the 4th century after having been used as such by the Church from the beginning, while the books of 3 and 4 Maccabees were rejected, at least by the Western Church. This book is one of those termed “deuterocanonical” by Catholics because its universal acceptance took longer than the protocanonical books such as the Pentateuch. But the Church accepted and used it as scripture, in spite of its discrepancies. And it’s clear that the author didn’t set out to deceive when he wrote the history, unlike the forged gospels and epistles of the Gnostics during the period of the early Church.
Another example of this kind of discrepancy can be found in the New Testament, where Judas Iscariot also dies twice. In his gospel Matthew tells us that Judas “went and hanged himself”. With the 30 pieces of silver that he obtained to betray Jesus, the chief priests “…took counsel, and bought with them the potter’s field, to bury strangers in” (Matt 27:5, 7).
However in Acts, Luke tells us that it was Judas who bought the field, and that he died in it. “(Now this man purchased a field with the reward of iniquity; and falling headlong, he burst asunder in the midst, and all his bowels gushed out” (Acts 1:18-20).
So which account is the right one? They can’t both be. But we still accept the books of Matthew and Acts as scripture in spite of this discrepancy because the Holy Spirit guided the Church into accepting them as such.
And when it comes to discrepancies in scripture, Luke has yet another, and with potentially serious implications. In his gospel he tells us that Jesus ascended into heaven on the day of his resurrection (Luke 24:1, 13, 29, 51). Yet in Acts he tells us that Jesus ascended forty days after his resurrection (Acts 1:3, 9). Should we therefore reject the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles because of these discrepancies? I don’t think so! So should we not therefore make the same concessions for the book of 2 Maccabees?
(9) Then there is the accusation of the practice of magic. In Tobit 8:2-3, a demon is banished by the smoke from the heart and liver of a fish after they have been placed on burning incense; this was in accordance with instructions from the angel Raphael. However as I showed above, God does do some things which we don’t understand and we think them strange. Why he chose to banish the demon in this manner I don’t know, but if it’s from God then it isn’t magic.
Another example is Tobit 11:7-8 where Raphael tells Tobias to rub his father’s (Tobit) eyes with the gall of a fish in order to remove his blindness. In a similar vein, in the gospel of John, when Jesus healed a blind man, “he spat on the ground, and made clay of the spittle, and he anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay, And said unto him, Go, wash in the pool of Siloam, (which is by interpretation, Sent.) He went his way therefore, and washed, and came seeing” (Jn 9:6). Why did Jesus do that? He could much more easily have touched the man’s eyes or just healed with a word; besides, putting spittle and mud on a man’s face is so unhygienic! Eeoo! Is this very much different in nature to what Tobias did with the fish?
Or what about the paralysed man at the Pool of Bethesda/Bethzatha? Many sick people lay there in the hope of being cured – all they had to do was step into the water as soon as it stirred. Problem was, only the first person in the water would be healed. The Authorised Version and New King James Version use the superior and majority Textus Receptus Greek text and this text tells us that an angel came and stirred the water. I’m sure that if this narrative was in one of the books of the Apocrypha, Protestants would label it as superstitious paganism or magic or similar, and would reject the whole book on that account.
And then there is Naaman, the Syrian general who had leprosy. One of his servants, a young Israelite female, recommended he go to Israel to seek healing from the prophet Elisha. He did so and was told to wash in the Jordan River seven times. The bottom line is that he finally complied, washed in the Jordan seen times, and was healed (2 Kings 5:1-27). This could be taken by some as magic, and it is certainly bizarre, or at least unusual.
(10) Finally, some Protestants say that the Apocrypha aren’t scripture because they “feel different” when they read them. But what kind of argument is that? What have our feelings got to do with determining whether or not a text is scripture? I must admit, whenever I read Philemon I wonder why it is in the bible; but the judgment is not mine to make, it belongs to the Church – and the Church has recognised that Philemon is inspired scripture, so who amI to question? There are books in the Apocrypha that I love to read for various reasons. Sirach (Ecclesiasticus) is excellent and has so much practical wisdom; if it comes to feeling whether a book is scripture or not, I have to say that Sirach certainly “feels” like scripture. I also love 2 Maccabees – it has some very exciting passages showing supernatural deliverance e.g. 3:22-28; and the courage and perseverance of the martyrs in 6:18-7:42 are so inspiring and encouraging. Conversely when I read parts of Zechariah or some of the Minor Prophets, and Revelation, for example, I can’t make head or tail of what I’m reading, and I don’t get the same “feeling”. But thank God – he has shown the Church which books are to be included in the canon, and whether we feel they are inspired or not is totally irrelevant.
Conclusion
If we were to apply the same principles and criteria to the NT as we do to the Apocrypha as tests of canonicity, we’d have to remove Hebrews, James, 2 Peter, 2 & 3 John, Jude and Revelation because they were disputed at first; we’d have to remove Matthew, Luke and Acts because there are discrepancies in them; the synoptic gospels because they contain fictional accounts (parables); and all four gospels because their accounts surrounding the choosing of the apostles, the death and resurrection of Christ, and other examples, don’t match and even seem to contradict each other. That’s twelve books in the New Testament that shouldn’t be there if the criteria placed on the Apocrypha were applied to the NT! And the majority of people who dismiss these books haven’t even read them!
These are my reasons why I think that Protestants should not fear or detest the Apocrypha. The Reformers rejected them as canonical Scripture and instructed that doctrine not be based on them, but at the same time they recommended that Christians read them for edification and encouragement. They even translated them and included them within the covers of their bible versions, albeit separately from the Old and New Testaments to distinguish them from canonical and inspired scripture.
References
Law, T. 2013, When God Spoke Greek: The Septuagint and the Making of the Christian Bible, Oxford University Press, New York
All scripture references are from the Authorised King James Version of the Bible.