Between the testaments

Since I was a child I have been fascinated by those extra books found in Catholic and Orthodox Bibles, known to Protestants as the Apocrypha. These include Tobit, Judith, the Wisdom of Solomon, Sirach, Baruch, the Letter of Jeremiah, 1 and 2 Maccabees and some additions to the books of Esther and Daniel as found in the Greek Septuagint. The Apocrypha also includes some ancient books not found in the Roman canon, such as 1 and 2 Esdras, the Prayer of Manasseh, 3 Maccabees and even an additional Psalm.

The church fathers differed as to the canonical status of these books. Augustine apparently considered them inspired Scripture, while Jerome, who famously translated the Bible into Latin, accepted the narrower Hebrew canon of 39 books, placing the others in an appendix. Not until the Council of Trent in the mid 16^th century did Rome officially declare these extra books canonical, while Protestants followed Jerome in rejecting them.

Blank margins 

In my personal library, I have an early King James Bible, printed in sections between 1637 and 1642, and presumably bound together in the latter year. Published by Robert Barker – “Printer to the Kings most Excellent Majestie” – it places the Apocrypha after the New Testament. The owners of this volume over the centuries underscored some verses and made notes in the margins. But not in the Apocryphal books, which suggests that they may not have read them.

Protestant Bibles continued to carry the Apocryphal books into the nineteenth century, when the missionary movement made it necessary to print mass numbers of Bibles at the lowest possible cost. It was then that most Bibles began to be printed with the undisputed 66 books of the Old and New Testaments.

So what do we do with these books? Admittedly, they are of varying quality, but some, such as Sirach, are similar to the Proverbs and worth reading and pondering. And I personally love the addition to Daniel 3 of the song of the three young men in the fiery furnace, which I set to verse and for which I composed music nearly two decades ago. Moreover, the books of the Maccabees are helpful in understanding the events that occurred between the Persian and Roman periods, especially the Maccabean revolt against the Greek rulers of Syria in the second century before Christ.

But not doctrine 

The 39 Articles of Religion from the Book of Common Prayer state this about the Apocrypha: “And the other Books (as Hierome [Jerome] saith) the Church doth read for example of life and instruction of manners; but yet doth it not apply them to establish any doctrine” (article 6).

Ultimately I agree with this assessment, yet I believe that all Christians should read these books for their own edification and to acquaint themselves better with the history and culture of God’s people between the testaments.