What is the Apocrypha?

The Apocrypha is a selection of books included in the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Bibles that are not a part of the Hebrew Bible (i.e., the Christian “Old Testament”) or the Protestant Bible. The Apocrypha includes books like Tobit, Judith, Baruch, and 1 and 2 Maccabees. The specific books accepted by the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches differ, but do overlap.

The Apocrypha was included in the Septuagint (abbreviated as LXX), which is an ancient  Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible. This translation was completed before the Jews formally determined which books were to be recognized as the list of authoritative writings that compose the canon of the Hebrew Bible (“canon” refers to the inspired, authoritative books of the Bible). When the Jewish canon was formalized in 100-200 AD, the rabbis rejected the Apocrypha.

As the early Christian movement was spreading throughout the Greek-speaking Mediterranean world, it used the LXX as its preferred version of the Old Testament. Because the Apocrypha was included in the LXX translation, it eventually became regularly included in the Bible of the early church in the fourth and fifth centuries. When the church slowly separated (and eventually split) into East and West in 1056, this led to different lists of the Apocrypha being accepted.

Some in the early church, like Jerome (early fifth century), did not accept the Apocrypha as fully inspired scripture. Jerome pointed out the difference between the Hebrew and Greek Old Testaments, and stated that the books not found in the Hebrew Old Testament (i.e., the Apocrypha) should not be considered equal in authority to the rest of the Christian Bible (although some argue that, later in his life, Jerome came to accept the Apocrypha as scripture). Jerome’s Vulgate Bible became the standard Latin translation of the Western church for over 1,000 years.

When the Protestant Reformation was forced to re-open the question of the Christian canon, the Protestant leaders rejected the Apocrypha on the basis that it wasn’t in the Jewish version of the Hebrew Bible. Martin Luther and other reformers concluded that, although the Apocrypha included helpful books written by godly people, they were not part of the inspired, authoritative Old Testament canon.

In response to the Protestant rejection of the Apocrypha, the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church explicitly pronounced them as “canonical.” The Roman Catholics did so at the Council of Trent (1546), while the Eastern Orthodox made this decision at the Council of Jerusalem (1672).

There was never an official ecumenical council that decided one way or the other on the inclusion of the Apocrypha, so the disagreement remains to this day.

Arguments in favor of accepting the Apocrypha as inspired scripture include:

1. The claim that it was included in the original LXX Greek Translation of the Hebrew Bible.
2. The Apocrypha has some presence within the Dead Sea Scrolls.
3. Some early Christians used it (e.g., Irenaeus and Clement of Alexandria)
4. Some early ecumenical councils made use of it
5. The Church – both East and West (though they differed in what they included) – used it for centuries up until the Protestant Reformation

Arguments in favor of rejecting the Apocrypha as inspired scripture include:

1. While it is present in the LXX copies from the fourth century onward, both Philo and Jospehus (first century Jewish scholars) never mention it. Thus it is likely the original LXX did not include it.
2. Many works contained in the Dead Sea Scrolls are not canonical (e.g., 1 Enoch, the Qumran sectarian writings, etc.)
3. Most early Christians functionally excluded them from the canon (e.g., Melito and Origen)
4. The early church was too divided on this question, so they failed to meet the “widely accepted” criterion.
5. The New Testament  never explicitly cites any of the Apocrypha texts as scripture
6. Ancient Palestinian Jews, like Josephus, didn’t accept it
7. When the Rabbinic Jews finalized the canon of their Hebrew Bible, they rejected the Apocrypha from inclusion
8. The Roman Catholic church never officially canonized them until the counter-reformation, as a reaction to the Protestants’ explicit rejection of them

As a church community, Woodland Hills does not accept the Apocrypha as inspired scripture.

Recommended Resources

• Introducing the Apocrypha: Message, Context, and Significance by David deSilva