Don't Know Much About the Bible - Kenneth C. Davis [128]
Some of these apocryphal books may have originally been written in Hebrew but were only known to exist in their Greek versions—one of the reasons the rabbis rejected them as part of Hebrew scripture. But they were included in the Septuagint, that Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible that was used by the early Christian church. For the first four centuries of the “Common Era,” these writings were accepted as holy by early Christians. The great divide among Christians over these “extra” books began in 382 CE, when Pope Damasus commissioned Jerome, the leading biblical scholar of the time, to make a new translation of the Bible into Latin. In creating what came to be called the “Vulgate,” Jerome relied upon Hebrew originals to make his translation. He was convinced that only those books in the Hebrew canon should be regarded as authentic, so he rejected the books found only in Greek, labeling them “apocryphal.” But Jerome’s views on this question were not accepted by church leaders, and the Christian church retained the apocryphal writings in the Old Testament for the next thousand years or so.
Then, during the Protestant Reformation of the 1500s, the rebellious Protestants sided with Jerome and the rabbis. They pointed to the fact that none of the authors of the New Testament books ever mentioned these apocryphal books, while they frequently referred to the thirty-nine books of the Hebrew canon. By 1530, the Protestant view was that these books lacked divine authority, and Protestants either removed the apocryphal books from their Bibles entirely or placed them in a separate section between the Hebrew scriptures and the New Testament. In response, the Roman Catholic Council of Trent declared in 1546 that the books were divine. These difference weren’t simply literary; they involved questions of doctrine that divided the Catholics and Protestants.
The apocryphal books represent several types of writing; there are pieces of outright fiction based loosely on Jewish history, legends and ancient folktales, wisdom books, and historical works that are particularly useful in presenting a picture of Jewish life in Judah in the years leading up to the birth of Jesus.
• Tobit (follows Nehemiah in the Catholic Bible)
Set in Nineveh, the capital of the Assyrians, this book contains some chronological inaccuracies that make it seem fictional. Fragments of the book in Hebrew have been found among the Dead Sea Scrolls. Tobit is a generous, God-fearing Jew who has gone blind. Aided by the disguised archangel Raphael, Tobit’s son Tobias catches a magical fish that will restore Tobit’s sight and heal a pious young woman, Sarah, who is plagued by a mysterious spirit who has killed seven of her previous suitors. With elements of several ancient folktales, Tobit is essentially a story of righteousness rewarded.
• Judith (follows Tobit and precedes Esther in the Catholic Bible)
Like the book of Daniel (see page 311), this story was probably composed during the oppressive rule of Antiochus Epiphanes, perhaps as late as 150 BCE. It tells of brave resistance to a cruel foreigner by a brave Jewish widow, Judith, whose name means “Jewess.” It is filled with historical and geographical inaccuracies, which is one reason it was not accepted into the Hebrew canon. The story tells how Nebuchadnezzar—inaccurately described as king of the Assyrians; he was Chaldean—sent his general Holofernes to conquer the rebellious Jews. Taking off her widow’s clothes, dressing alluringly, and perfuming herself, Judith goes to Holofernes’s camp and offers to help him defeat her people. She gets Holofernes roaring drunk one night, and in his stupor Judith cuts off the general’s head with his own sword. Judith returns home, rouses the Jewish people to the