The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha
by Michael E. Stone
The Tanakh (Hebrew Bible) consists of a collection of writings dating from approximately
the 13th - 3rd centuries BCE.
These books were included in the Jewish canon by the Talmudic sages
at Yavneh around the end of the first century CE, after the destruction
of the Second Temple.
However, there are many other Jewish writings from the Second Temple
Period which were excluded from the Tanakh; these are known as the Apocrypha
and the Pseudepigrapha.
The Apocrypha (Greek, "hidden books") are
Jewish books from that period not preserved in the Tanakh, but included
in the Latin (Vulgate) and Greek (Septuagint) Old Testaments. The Apocrypha
are still regarded as part of the canon of the Roman Catholic and Orthodox
churches, and as such, their number is fixed.
The term Pseudepigrapha (Greek, "falsely attributed")
was given to Jewish writings of the same period, which were attributed
to authors who did not actually write them. This was widespread in Greco-Roman
antiquity - in Jewish, Christian, and pagan circles alike. Books were
attributed to pagan authors, and names drawn from the repertoire of
biblical personalities, such as Adam, Noah, Enoch, Abraham, Moses, Elijah, Ezekiel, Baruch, and Jeremiah.
The Pseudepigrapha resemble the Apocrypha in general character, yet
were not included in the Bible, Apocrypha, or rabbinic literature.
All the Apocrypha and most of the Pseudepigrapha are
Jewish works (some contain Christianizing additions). They provide essential
evidence of Jewish literature and thought during the period between
the end of biblical writing (ca. 400 BCE) and the beginning of substantial
rabbinic literature in the latter part of the first century CE. They
have aroused much scholarly interest, since they provide information
about Judaism at the turn of the
era between the Bible and the Mishna (Biblical Law and Oral Law), and help explain how Rabbinic Judaism and
Christianity came into being.
When They Were Written
The oldest known Jewish work not included in the Bible
is the Book of Enoch. This is a complex work, written in the third (or
perhaps even the late fourth) century BCE, after the return from the
Babylonian Exile and the establishment of the Second Jewish Commonwealth
(6th-5th centuries BCE) and before the Maccabean
revolt in 172 BCE. The oldest copies of the Book of Enoch, dating
from the third century BCE, were discovered among the Dead Sea Scrolls (see below).
The latest of the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha are
the Apocalypses of Ezra and Baruch, written in the decades following
the Roman destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE. These works, contemporary
with those of the early Rabbinic school of Yavneh, reflect the theological
and ethical struggles and dilemmas aroused by the Roman conquest of Judea and the destruction of the Temple.
Most of these works were written in the Land of Israel,
in Aramaic or Hebrew. However,
some of them, such as The Wisdom of Solomon, were written in Greek.
These Jewish Greek writings were produced in the widespread Jewish Diaspora of the time, mainly in Egypt (Alexandria) and in North Africa. Although most of the Hebrew and Aramaic
texts have been lost over the centuries, many of them, translated into
Greek or Oriental Christian languages (such as Ethiopic, Syriac or Armenian)
have been found. Early Christianity showed great interest in Jewish
traditions and stories about biblical figures and events, and as a result
scholars now have access to a substantial library of Jewish writing,
created during a crucial period of Jewish history, but preserved only
within the Christian tradition.
The Development of Biblical scholarship
Certain of the apocryphal works were known in Jewish
tradition throughout the Middle Ages, not necessarily in their full
texts, but in shortened and retold versions, or in translations back
into Hebrew or Aramaic from Christian languages. Thus forms of the Books
of Judith, Maccabees and Ben Sira, as well as parts of Wisdom of Solomon
were familiar to Jewish scholars. But these works never achieved wide
acceptance in Judaism and remained, to a greater or lesser extent, curiosities.
During the Renaissance in Europe and in the following
centuries, an interest in various Oriental languages developed in Christian
circles. First Hebrew, then Arabic, Aramaic, Ethiopic, Syriac and more
took their place alongside Greek and Latin in the scholarly purview.
At the same time, Christian scholars began to be interested in rabbinic
sources (preserved in Hebrew) and Jewish biblical exegesis. This combined
interest in language and rabbinics was an important component in the
complex development that, by the end of the eighteenth century, provided
the basis for "modern" critical biblical scholarship.
Other developments contributed to and stemmed from
this process: the beginnings of archeology, the deciphering of Egyptian
hieroglyphs and Babylonian cuneiform, and antiquarian and scholarly
study of the Holy Land. In this context, interest developed in Jewish
documents which could help illuminate the New Testament. Many works
were discovered, published, translated and studied, and they came to
be called the Pseudepigrapha. An English translation of works known
by the early twentieth century was prepared under the guidance of the
renowned English scholar R. H. Charles and entitled The Apocrypha and
Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament, published in 1913. To modern Jewish
scholars, these works are known as the Sefarim Hitsonim ("External
Books"). Two major annotated translations into Modern Hebrew have
been published, one edited by Abraham Kahana (most recently re-issued
in 1959) and one by A.S. Hartom (1969).
The Dead Sea Scrolls
Scholarly interest was renewed after the discovery
of the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1947. In the eleven caves near Qumran north-west of the Dead
Sea, parts of more than 700 ancient Jewish manuscripts were discovered.
These had been written in the same period as the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha,
mostly in Hebrew, with a lesser number in Aramaic and even fewer in
Greek. The Dead Sea Scrolls, as they came to be known, are assumed to
have been the library of a sectarian community at Qumran. The scrolls
survived the Roman ravaging of Judea in the years 68-70 CE, because
they were hidden in caves. They have been a major focus of scholarly
and general interest for the last half-century.
Among the Dead Sea Scrolls were a number of manuscripts
of the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha, including ten manuscripts of the
Book of Enoch in the original Aramaic (until then copies were extant
only in an Ethiopic translation of a Greek translation of a Semitic
original), which were vital to answering many questions about its origins.
Dating of the manuscripts by their script shows that certain parts of
Enoch are at least as old as the third century BCE. Fragments of Ben
Sira in Hebrew, Tobit in Aramaic, the Epistle of Jeremiah in Greek,
and others were also found at Qumran.
In addition to these discoveries, the scrolls included
other, similar writings that were previously unknown. In a Psalms Scroll
from Qumran, a number of additional compositions were discovered, thereby
increasing the corpus of texts already known. They also assisted in
understanding a literary genre - the later Psalms - which happen to
be poorly represented in the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha. These prayerful
poems provide a deep insight into the religious feelings and sentiments
of their authors. The knowledge that a lively literary production of
Psalms existed at that time means that any study of ancient Jewish literature
must now take these apocryphal Psalms very seriously into account.
A third important aspect of the Dead Sea Scrolls is
that they were discovered in a known archeological and sociological
context, firmly fixing them in the Second Temple period. Before 1947,
only medieval, Christian manuscripts of the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha
were known, and they could be dated only on the basis of details contained
in them. This is not always a dependable procedure. The Dead Sea Scrolls,
stemming from a clearly established archeological context, are vital
in dating the writings accurately.
What do these texts teach us about
ancient Judaism?
In addition to the discoveries at Qumran, a substantial
number of ancient Pseudepigrapha have been found elsewhere. Some of
them were preserved in Greek and Latin; others in translations from
Greek and Latin into various Oriental Christian languages - Syriac,
Ethiopic, Arabic, Church Slavonic, Armenian and Georgian, among others.
The most prominent of these are the Book of Enoch (Ethiopic and Greek);
the Book of Jubilees, also preserved in Ethiopic; Testaments of the
Twelve Patriarchs in Greek; The Apocalypse of Baruch in Syriac; the
Book of the Secrets of Enoch in Old Church Slavonic; and the Books of
Adam and Eve in Latin, Greek, Slavonic, Armenian and Georgian.
Among this literature are works of varied character.
Some are histories: the main source for knowledge of the Maccabean wars
are the apocryphal First and Second Books of Maccabees. Other works,
called apocalypses, present visions of heavenly and earthly secrets,
of God and his angels. The concern with heavenly realities is a very
prominent development in the Second Temple Period. In these works central
religious questions dominate, above all the issue of the justice of
God. Such visions are attributed to Enoch, Ezra, Baruch and Abraham.
A substantial number of works transmit proverbial
teaching about religious and practical issues. These numerous wisdom
or sapiental books are a continuation of the tradition of Proverbs and
Ecclesiastes in the Bible. The Wisdom of Ben Sira is a record of the
teachings of Ben Sira, the head of an academy in Jerusalem in the early
decades of the second century BCE. In addition, the Jews of the Second
Temple period composed many psalms and prayers, expressing their love
for God, their yearning to be close to Him, and their anguish over the
fate of individuals and of Israel.
The manuscripts demonstrate that Jewish thought of
this period was orientated between poles: Israel and mankind; the earthly
and heavenly world; the righteous and the wicked. The people at that
time lived in a consciousness of these dualities and in tension created
by them. A certainty of God’s just and merciful providence was
challenged by the turbulent and violent events of their times. These
books are different from the rabbinic literature; they deal only peripherally
with traditions of a legal (halakhic) character, which dominated the
next, rabbinic stage of Jewish creativity.
What is their importance?
When these books were first studied, scholars realized
that they could help to provide a context for the understanding of the
origins of Christianity. No longer was rabbinic Judaism to form the
primary basis for comparison with the earliest Christian literature,
but rather the Jewish literature of the Second Temple Period, and particularly
the Pseudepigrapha, could contribute much insight, making the Jewish
origin of Christianity more comprehensible.
The contribution of the study of the Apocrypha and
Pseudepigrapha to the understanding of the New
Testament should not be underrated. The approach to Jesus that is
typified by Schweitzer’s Quest of the Historical Jesus (1964) -
using the context of "Jewish apocalyptic" to help understand
his activity - would not have been possible without the discovery of
the Pseudepigrapha. As a result of these studies, we now have insight
into types of Judaism and religious ideas within the Jewish tradition
that would otherwise have remained lost.
Here we move closer to answering a central question:
why study this literature at all? The general answer is that the Apocrypha
and Pseudepigrapha should be studied because they embody an expression
of the human spirit, and the historian is enjoined to study the human
past. But, for scholars of the so-called "Judeo-Christian culture",
a particular interest is inherent in the investigation of that segment
of the past in which Judaism took on the form it still has and in which
Christianity emerged. Yet this very agenda, when formulated thus, bears
within it potentialities for the perversion of truth and the misconception
of reality. The historical enterprise is an interpretative one; there
is a great danger inherent in the study of the origins of one’s
own tradition. Modern and medieval "orthodoxies" tend to interpret
the time before they existed in terms of themselves. It has only been
in the last generation of scholarship of Judaism in the Second Temple
Period, that the implications of this way of seeing the world have begun
to penetrate the fabric of historical thinking and writing.
This is an extremely important development, for it
permits the Jewish literature of the Second Temple Period, and the people
who produced and cherished these works, to step outside the giant shadows
cast by the twin colossi of the Talmud and the New Testament. It
then becomes possible to start to delineate what appear to have been
central aspects of Judaism in the
Second Temple Period. New features of Jewish life and thought become
evident and the task of their detailed description and integration into
an overall picture can be broached. Only such an endeavor will, in the
final analysis, make it possible for us to advance our understanding
of the development of rabbinic Judaism and of Christianity. This is
a weighty labor but a very important one, and it is the Pseudepigrapha
that provide us with evidence of vital aspects of Judaism that would
otherwise have remained unknown.
This aspect of the study of the pseudepigraphical
literature is in its very infancy. By pursuing it, we are able to trace
the influence of ancient Jewish traditions and documents down the centuries.
There have been one or two researches that have shown the way (Satran
1980; Stone 2001); other associated investigations have looked at the
way Jewish apocryphal traditions were taken up and developed by medieval
Judaism and Christianity (Bousset 1896; Stone 1982, Stone 1996). These
two avenues of investigation seem likely to produce real results in
the direct study of the texts, in the evaluation of their character
and function, as well as in the differentiation of Jewish and Christian
materials, not always an easy task. From this particular perspective,
the study of the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha teaches us to understand
significant aspects of medieval culture, of Jewish history and of Christian
origins.
List of Apocrypha
Tobit
Judith
The Additions to the Book of Esther
Wisdom of Solomon
Ecclesiasticus, or the Wisdom of Joshua ben Sira
Baruch
The Letter of Jeremiah
The Additions to the Book of Daniel
The Prayer of Azariah and the Song of the Three
Jews
Susanna
Bel and the Dragon
1 Maccabees
2 Maccabees
In addition, the following books are in the Greek
and Slavonic Bibles but not in the Roman Catholic Canon, though some
of them occur in Latin:
1 Esdras
2 Esdras
3 Maccabees
4 Maccabees
Prayer of Manasseh
Psalm 151, following Psalm 150 in the Greek Bible
Select List of Pseudepigrapha with
some Notes
Apocalypse of Abraham: A Jewish writing presenting
a vision seen by Abraham as well as legends about him. Surviving only
in Old Church Slavonic, it was probably written in the second century
C.E.
Books of Adam and Eve: A number of closely
related versions of a writing dealing with the story of the protoplasts.
All of these might derive from a Jewish source document, the language
and date of which are unknown.
Apocalypse of Adam: An apparently Sethian gnostic
revelation received by Adam and transmitted to Seth. Perhaps first or
second century C.E. in date, it occurs in Nag Hammadi Codex 5.
Syriac Apocalypse of Baruch: An apocalypse
written in the aftermath of the destruction of the Temple by the Romans,
it is closely related to the Fourth Book of Ezra. Its chief subjects
are the theological issues raised by the destruction.
Biblical Antiquities: Sometimes also called
Pseudo-Philo, this is a biblical history from the creation to the monarchy
and seems to have been written before the destruction of the Temple
by the Romans.
Book of Enoch: A compendium of five Jewish
apocalypses all of which were composed before the destruction of the
Second Temple. These come from diverse periods and social sects, the
oldest being the first and third parts. the whole book is found only
in Ethiopic, but parts of it have been discovered in Greek and in the
original Aramaic from Qumran.
Book of the Secrets of Enoch: (2 Enoch or Slavonic
Enoch). A Jewish apocalypse from the time before the destruction of
the Temple, relating Enoch's ascent to the heavens and the revelations
received by him there, as well as the history of the antediluvian generations.
Fourth Book of Ezra (2 Esdras): An apocalypse
written after the destruction of the Second Temple, probably between
95 and 100 C.E. It deals with the theological problems that arose from
the destruction of the Temple.
Books of Giants: A writing associated with
the Enoch cycle, relating the deeds of the giants who were born of the
union of the "sons of God and human women" (Genesis 6:1-4).
It is known from fragments found at Qumran and was written before 100
B.C.E.
Book of Jubilees: A retelling and expansion
of the biblical history from the Creation to Moses. It was originally
written in Hebrew early in the second century B.C.E.
Lives of the Prophets: A collection of biographical
notes relating details of the lives and deeds of various prophets. It
was circulated widely among Christians and probably reflects Jewish
sources. Written in the early centuries C.E.
Fourth Book of Maccabees: A book written in
Greek by a Hellenized Jew to show the rule of reason over the passions.
The martyrs of the Maccabean revolt serve as his chief examples.
Testament of Moses (Assumption of Moses): This
writing relates Moses' last charge to Joshua. Its present form dates
from early in the first century C.E. It contains much important eschatological
teaching.
Sibylline Oracles: Collection of oracles fabricated
by Jewish and Christian propagandists in the early centuries C.E. They
were attributed to the Sibyl, a pagan prophetess.
Testament of Solomon: A Greek work, Christian
in its present form, containing extensive legendary and magical traditions
associated with Solomon.
Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs: A work
listing the last wills and testaments of the twelve sons of Jacob. It
survives in Greek in a Christian form but clearly contains many older,
Jewish sectarian sources. It is important for the study of Jewish ethical
and eschatological teaching.
Sources: Israeli Foreign
Ministry
* Michael E. Stone is a Professor
of Armenian Studies and of Religious Studies at the Hebrew University
of Jerusalem, and an Adjunct Professor of Reilgious Studies at the University
of Pennsylvania. He is the author of over 40 books and numerous articles
in the fields of Armenian Studies and Ancient Judaism. |