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Noncanonical Jewish Writings · Reformed Thinking

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Imagine discovering an ancient dust covered scroll hidden away
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in a desert cave. You, you carefully unroll it and
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the very first line claims to be written by Moses himself,
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revealing a completely different set of commandments, a brand new
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calendar for the year, and a totally alternate history of the
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universe, right. What do you do with that?
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I mean, do you burn it as a forgery?
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Do you add it to your Bible? Or, you know, do you read it as
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a key to understanding the culture of the ancient world?
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Yeah, that is the big question. Welcome to Reformed thinking.
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As Protestant Christians who adhere to the Westminster
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Confession, our theological framework on this show is clear
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right from the start. We hold firmly that the 66 books
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of the Bible are the only divinely inspired scripture.
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Absolutely. But the literary landscape of
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the centuries right before and right after the birth of Christ
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was just massive. So we are looking at a stack of
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ancient non canonical Jewish writings today, specifically the
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collections known as the Apocrypha and the Sutupigrapha.
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Yeah, it is a massive amount of historical ground to cover.
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It really is, and we want to ensure a clear, methodical
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analysis of the facts here. So to keep things moving
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efficiently, we are going to take structured, alternating
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turns, breaking down the source material.
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We will focus on not interrupting each other, giving
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each concept the breathing room it needs.
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So why should you, the listener, care about these ancient texts?
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Well, you should care because these texts offer a direct
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window into the minds of the people living in the 1st
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century. The late scholar Martin Hengel,
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whose research heavily informs our source material today.
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He used to tell his university students that individuals who
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know only the Bible do not really know the Bible.
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Wow, that sounds incredibly provocative.
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It does, right? But his underlying logic was
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rock solid. He meant that if you want to
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understand the New Testament, you have to understand the air
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Jesus and the apostles were breathing.
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Yeah, that makes sense. You have to understand the
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political anxieties, the theological debates and, well,
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the cultural pressures of Second Temple Judaism.
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The people of that era were reading, debating, and
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circulating a vast library of texts.
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Knowing those texts makes you a vastly better, more thoroughly
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informed reader of the canonical New Testament.
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That brings us to our first major category of ancient
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literature, the apocrypha. Uncovering the hidden texts.
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Now, the English word apocrypha comes from the Greek noun
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apocrypha, which translates literally to hidden, right?
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But how did a word meaning hidden come to represent a very
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specific, widely read collection of books?
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I mean, I've always assumed hidden meant they were buried in
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the sand somewhere. Or maybe may be kept locked away
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by a secret society. Yeah, the historical origin of
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that designation is actually somewhat obscure, and it changed
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over time. In the Greek translation of the
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Old Testament, the Septuagint, and in the New Testament itself,
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the Greek word is used simply to describe a secret thing.
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Sometimes it denotes something deliberately kept out of sight,
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like hidden treasures mentioned in the Book of Isaiah or secret
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plans in First Maccabees. Other times it describes
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something that is simply not easily seen without any
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malicious or secretive intent behind it at all, like a hidden
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trap. So not necessarily a Da Vinci
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Code kind of conspiracy. No, not at all.
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There is a strong theory among scholars that the notion of
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hidden texts stems from the apocalyptic traditions of the
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time. Apocalyptic books like Daniel or
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the extra biblical book of Second Baruch.
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You see prophets receiving divine disclosures and then an
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Angel commands them to seal the book up or keep it hidden until
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the end of the age. Oh, right.
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But in practical historical terms, the label shifted
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significantly by the time of the scholar Jerome.
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In the late 4th century, the term apocryphal lost its
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mystical connotation. It was used as a technical
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classification for a very specific set of books.
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Books that were. Precisely these are the books
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found in the massive Greek scriptural codices, but which
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were completely absent from the Hebrew Masoretic Text, the
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Masoretic Text being the authoritative Hebrew and Aramaic
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version of the Jewish Bible preserved by Jewish scholars
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known as the Masorets. Jerome noticed the discrepancy
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between the Greek lists and the Hebrew lists, and he applied the
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term apocrypha to the extras. That brings up the manuscript
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evidence, which is you know, it is like putting together a
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massive puzzle where you realize some boxes have extra pieces.
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A codex, for those unfamiliar, is essentially an ancient book
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with pages bound together at the spine as opposed to a scroll.
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Yeah, a huge technological leap for texts.
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Right. And when we look at the major
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ancient Greek codices, the inclusion of these apocryphal
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books was not uniform in the slightest.
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You have Codex Sinoticus, an incredibly famous manuscript
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from the 4th century. It includes Greek Ester, Tobit,
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Judith, 1st and 4th Maccabees, the Wisdom of Solomon, and
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Sirach. But then you look at Codex
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Vaticanus, another major manuscript from the exact same
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century, and it lacks the Maccabees altogether.
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Instead, it includes Greek Ester, Judith, Tobit, Wisdom,
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Sirach, Baruch, and the additions to Daniel like the
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story of Susanna. Is very fluid.
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Yeah, and then move forward to the 5th century with Codex
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Alexandranus and suddenly the list changes again.
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You see first, second, third, and 4th Maccabees along with the
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Prayer of Manasseh. Because these extra books were
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preserved entirely in Greek for centuries, modern scholars used
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to wonder if they were just Hellenistic inventions.
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Like did Greek speaking Jews just invent these stories out of
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thin air? Yeah, but then the Dead Sea
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Scrolls were discovered at Qumran in the mid 20th century.
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Amidst those jars, archaeologists found ancient
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Hebrew and Aramaic manuscript fragments for books like Serac,
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Tobit and The Letter of Jeremiah.
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Which was a massive deal. Unbelievable.
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That discovery proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that these
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texts had ancient, authentic Jewish roots in the Land of
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Israel long before they were translated into Greek.
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Absolutely. The Dead Sea Scrolls changed the
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entire landscape of biblical scholarship because they
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anchored these texts in a Semitic reality.
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To give you an idea of what this literature actually contains, we
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should look closely at a few major apocryphal books.
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Let us do it. Let us start with the Book of
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Tobit, written between 200 and 168 BC, It is set during the
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horrific period when the northern tribes of Israel were
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exiled to Assyria. Tobit is a righteous Israelite
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living in Nineveh who risks his life to illegally bury the
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bodies of his murdered countrymen.
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A dangerous thing to do. Very.
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And then through a bizarre accident involving bird
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droppings falling into his eyes while he sleeps.
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He is blinded. He prays for death.
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Meanwhile, hundreds of miles away in the city of Ekbatana, a
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young woman named Sarah is also praying for death.
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Why is she praying for death? She is tormented by a demon
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named Asmodeus, who's killed seven of her husbands on their
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wedding night before the marriages could be consummated.
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That is terrifying. It is a dark story.
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God hears both prayers and sends the Angel Raphael.
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Disguised as a human. Raphael guides Tobid's son
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Tobias on a long journey, helps him catch a massive fish in the
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Tigris River, and instructs him to use the fish's internal
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organs to perform an exorcism. OK, that took a turn.
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It did. Tobias, Mary, Sarah The demon is
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driven away by the burning smoke of the fish's heart and liver,
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and they use the gall of the fish to cure Tobit's blindness.
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It is a wild narrative, but it carries a massive theological
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message for Jews living in exile.
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It says God still sees your piety, almsgiving delivers from
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death, and the righteous will be vindicated even in a Pagan land.
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That is an incredible story and you can see why it was so
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popular. And other amazing narrative is
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the Book of Judith. Written in the mid 2nd century
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BC. This is a brilliant piece of
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historical fiction. The story is set during a
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terrifying national crisis. Right, the Assyrians.
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Yeah, the Assyrian king Nebuchadnezzar sends his top
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general Holofernes to wipe out the Western nations, and he lays
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siege to the Israelite town of Bethulia.
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The town is starving and out of water.
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The elders decide they will surrender in five days if God
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does not save them. Which never goes well.
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No. Judith, a wealthy, pious widow,
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rebukes the elders for testing God.
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She takes matters into her own hands, takes off her morning
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clothes, dresses herself beautifully, and walks straight
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into the enemy camp. She manipulates Holofernes,
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convincing him she has a secret plan to hand the Israelites
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over. She plays him perfectly.
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She really does. Holofernes, A smitten, invites
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her to a banquet, drinks himself into a stupor and passes out.
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Judith takes his own sword, cuts off his head, puts it in a food
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bag and walks back to her town. Just brutal.
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The Assyrian army wakes up, finds their invincible general
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decapitated and flees in terror. The theological message is
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unmistakable. There, God champions the
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oppressed and can use the seemingly weakest vessel, a
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widow, acting alone to bring down the mightiest empire on
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earth. Then we have Greek Esther, which
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is a fascinating case study in theological adaptation.
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The canonical Hebrew book of Esther is a masterpiece of
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literature, but it is famous for completely omitting the name of
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God. Right, No mention of God at all.
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None. There is no explicit mention of
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prayer, no mention of the covenant, and no mention of the
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Torah. When the book was translated
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into Greek for the Diaspora community, the translators added
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six major expansions. Like what?
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They added an opening dream for Mordecai featuring 2 battling
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Dragons. They added the full forged royal
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edicts of the king. They added an intense desperate
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prayer for Mordecai and another from Esther where she talks
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about how much she hates her royal position and hates being
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married to an uncircumcised Pagan.
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Most noticeably, they explicitly injected the name of God
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throughout the narrative. They also added a highly
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dramatic scene where Esther approaches the king uninvited,
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faints from terror, and God miraculously changes the King's
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spirit to gentleness. OK, I have a massive point of
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confusion here and I want to push back on this practice a
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bit. Sure, when I look at texts like
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Greek Esther, it feels, well, it feels basically like watching a
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directors cut of a famous movie where the studio goes back years
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later and adds deleted scenes to fix plot holes the fans
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complained about. That is a great analogy.
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But if the original Hebrew text of Esther was sufficient for the
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community back in the Persian period, why did later
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generations feel the need to inject extra prayers and
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explicitly insert God's name? If the hidden Providence of God
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was the entire point of the Hebrew original, doesn't hacking
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into the text and adding obvious miracles indicate a massive
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theological insecurity? It feels like they didn't trust
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the subtlety of the original author.
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That is a sharp critique, and your analogy of a director's cut
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gets right to the mechanics of what the ancient editors were
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doing. But to understand the why, we
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have to view this to the lens of Diaspora Judaism.
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OK, these Jewish communities were living under foreign rule,
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scattered across the Hellenistic world.
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The cultural pressure to assimilate into Greek culture
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was overwhelming. They were surrounded by Pagan
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temples, Greek philosophy and competing religious claims.
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Right, they were minority. A vulnerable minority.
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The original Hebrew book of Esther is indeed a brilliant,
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subtle piece of literature. But in a Hellenistic
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environment, subtlety can be dangerous.
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The Jewish community use these specific expansions to clarify
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their theology. For a Greek speaking audience
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who might miss the subtext, adding the prayers of Mordecai
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and Esther and explicitly naming God was a deliberate way to
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under score the piety of the characters.
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It was a form of theological translation they needed to
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provide a robust defense of their faith and maintain clear
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boundaries between Jews and Gentiles.
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The additions make Esther a model of strict Jewish
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observance in a Pagan palace. That makes a lot of sense.
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You see the same dynamic and other apocryphal works like the
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Letter of Jeremiah. That document is a relentless
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polemic against the folly of Gentile idols, mocking them as
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chunks of wood that have to be dusted off and protected from
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termites. These books were survival tools.
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They were designed to exhort the reader to pursue righteous
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living and hold on to their identity despite the immense
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pressures of living in exile. I see it is literature
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functioning as cultural armor. They were terrified of losing
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their children to Greek culture, so they made the theological
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lessons undeniable. Spot on.
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Let us look at another example of this the additions to Daniel.
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These date between 165 and 100 BC.
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The original Hebrew and Aramaic book of Daniel gets several
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director's cut editions. In the Greek version, you have
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the prayer of Azariah, which is inserted right into the middle
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of the fiery furnace narrative. Which is a beautiful prayer.
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It is then you have the story of Susanna.
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Susanna is a righteous, beautiful Jewish woman who is
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cornered in her garden by two wicked elders.
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They demand she sleep with them or they will falsely testify
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that they caught her with a young man.
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A terrible situation, yeah. She refuses, choosing death over
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sin. The elders testify against her
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and she is sentenced to death. But a young Daniel steps in,
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separates the two elders, cross examines them individually about
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which tree they allegedly saw the crime happen under, catches
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them in a lie, and Save Susanna. It is one of the earliest
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detective stories in recorded history.
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It really is. And then there is the wild story
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of Belle and the dragon. The Babylonian priests claim
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their idol Belle eats massive amounts of food every night.
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Daniel laughs, scatters ashes on the temple floor, seals the
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door, and the next morning reveals the footprints of the
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priests and their families who were sneaking in through a
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trapdoor to eat the food. Caught red handed.
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Exactly. He then kills a revered dragon
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by feeding it hair, pitch and fat until it literally bursts
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open. It is theological mockery of the
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highest order. Finally, in this apocryphal
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category, we have the Books of Thirst and 2nd Maccabees.
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Very significant historical texts.
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Yes, these are historical accounts of the Hasmonean
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revolt. In the one 60s BC, the Seleucid
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king Antiochus Epiphanes tried to forcefully eradicate Judaism.
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He banned circumcision, banned the Torah and sacrificed a pig
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on the altar in Jerusalem. Just a horrific desecration.
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A priest named Mattifius and his sons, nicknamed the Maccabees,
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or Hammers, launched a brutal guerrilla war and miraculously
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took back the Temple. First Maccabees reads like a
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straightforward military history, but Second Maccabees
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adds significant theological commentary, introducing concepts
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that became huge in later centuries.
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Like what? Like God creating the universe
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out of nothing, the physical resurrection of the dead, the
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merit of martyrdom, and even offering prayers and sacrifices
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for soldiers who died in battle. It brings up a fascinating
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transition. The apocrypha consists of books
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whose authors are generally known or anonymous, and their
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community context was clear. But there is a second, far more
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obscure and heavily debated category, the pseudepigrapha.
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The section with the fake names. Yeah, if the apocrypha was the
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hidden section of the ancient library, the pseudepigrapha is
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the section where the author portraits on the wall do not
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match the names on the books. The term comes from the Greek
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transliteration of 2 words, pseudaise meaning false, and
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epigraphy meaning inscription or superscription.
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So it literally translates to a falsely attributed writing.
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I have to admit that label carries a massive stigma.
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It does. When I hear falsely attributed,
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my brain instantly goes to fraud, deceit, and malicious
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forgery. If a modern author slaps CS
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Lewis's name on a manuscript to sell more copies, we would sue
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them. So where did this term come from
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and why do we use it for ancient Jewish texts?
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The stigma is entirely modern, and it is a major hurdle for
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readers today. The Greek term pseudepigrapha
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never occurs in biblical texts or Second Temple Jewish sources.
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It was popularized much later in church history.
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By who? We trace the concept back to
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figures like Serapian around 8191 to 211.
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He used it to describe and reject writings that were
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falsely attributed to Christ's apostles, like the Gospel of
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Peter. In formal biblical scholarship,
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the label was likely first applied to the Old Testament era
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by Johann Albert Fabricius in 1713.
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OK, so it is a later classification.
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Right. You are correct that modern
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readers associate pseudonymity with deceit, but the ancient
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world viewed this practice completely differently, and we
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have to read these sects on their own terms.
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The ancient responses to these books were not uniform
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rejection. How so?
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Well, the historian Josephus treated the apocryphal additions
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to Daniel as sacred history. The early Christian apologist
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Tatullian vigorously defended the book of first Enoch and
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genuinely believed it's ascription to the biblical
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patriarch Enoch was authentic. Modern scholars point out that
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writing in someone else's name was a widespread convention
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engaged in for a variety of reasons that had nothing to do
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with fraud. What could possibly be a
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legitimate reason for forging a name on a document?
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It seems inherently deceptive. Consider the massive libraries
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of the ancient world, like the famed library in Alexandria,
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Egypt. They collected works of well
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known authoritative writers. If you were a brilliant but
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unknown Jewish thinker, a fixing a famous ancient name like Moses
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or Solomon to your manuscript might simply be a pragmatic
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method to secure a spot on those library shelves and get a
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hearing for your views. So it was a distribution tactic.
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Partly. Furthermore, in antiquity,
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writing a sweeping theological treatise in your own name might
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have been perceived as incredibly arrogant.
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Writing in the name of an ancient patriarch was viewed as
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a modest, respectful way to express your absolute
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indebtedness to a specific tradition.
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You were essentially saying, this is not my new idea.
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This is the logical extension of what Enoch or Moses taught us.
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That is a very different mindset.
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It is perhaps most fascinating is the use of pseudonymity to
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process severe trauma. Consider the book of Forth Ezra.
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The biblical book of Ezra is set during the return from the
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Babylonian exile and the rebuilding of the temple around
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538 BC. But the cinepigraphic book of
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4th Ezra was actually written around AD 100, decades after the
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devastating Roman destruction of the Herodian Temple in AD 70.
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The real author watched Jerusalem burn at the hands of
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Roman legions. He utilized the biblical Ezra's
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historical setting of a previously destroyed temple to
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address the fresh burning agony of his own generation.
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The affinities between the biblical context of Babylon and
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the contemporary context of Rome allowed the author to process
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the justice of God in the face of unimaginable devastation.
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He was wearing the mask of Ezra to ask God, why did you let this
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happen again? That reframes the entire
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practice. It is less about tricking the
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reader and more about historical role play for the sake of
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communal therapy. Spot on.
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There are several key texts in this citipigraphy category that
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are absolutely wild when you read them.
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Let me highlight a few to show the scale of this literature.
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First there is the Book of Jubilees, composed in Hebrew in
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the 2nd century BC. It completely rewrites the
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canonical books of Genesis and the first half of Exodus A.
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Total rewrite. Yeah, it claims to be a secret
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revelation given by an Angel to Moses on Mount Sinai.
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It divides all of history into precise 49 year blocks known as
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Jubilees. What stands out is its intense,
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almost obsessive focus on priestly concerns.
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It recasts ancient figures like Adam, Enoch, Noah and Abraham as
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strictly observant hues who are offering sacrifices, burning
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incense and and keeping festivals long before the
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Levitical priesthood was formally established in the
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Bible. It also heavily promotes a 364
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days solar calendar rather than a lunar one.
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That calendar issue is huge. Yeah, it is.
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Then you have the Psalms of Solomon.
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This is a collection of 18 poetic writings from the 1st
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century BC. They are reacting in real time
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to the Roman General Pompeii. Pompey captured Jerusalem in 63
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BC and actually walked into the Holy of Holies, defiling the
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Temple. A catastrophic event?
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The writers of these songs are devastated.
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They view themselves as the pious remnant.
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They launch fierce theological attacks against the corrupt
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Hasmonean monarchy that brought Rome to their doorstep.
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And they eagerly anticipate a militant Davidic Messiah to
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crush the Romans and set things right.
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You can feel the tension in the text.
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And then there's the giant of this category.
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First Enoch. This is not just one book.
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It is a massive compilation of five different booklets dating
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from the 4th century BC down to the turn of the era.
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It contains the Book of Watchers, which dramatically
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expands on the cryptic verses in Genesis 6 about the sons of God
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marrying the daughters of men. The Nephilim stuff.
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Exactly. It details the rebellion of
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angels led by Azazel who teach humanity how to make weapons of
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war and how to use cosmetics to seduce.
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It contains the similitudes featuring a heavenly pre
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existent judge called the Chosen One or the Son of Man.
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It even has a detailed astronomical book that maps out
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the movements of the stars to justify that 364 day calendar.
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The calendar issue, and you believe in First Enoch, is a
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perfect example of why these books were written.
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In the ancient world, a lunar calendar is roughly 354 days.
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That means it slips out of alignment with the soul a year
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very quickly. Right, the dates drift.
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Yeah, if you use a lunar calendar, your holy festivals
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will eventually fall on different days of the week,
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including the Sabbath. To the strict priestly authors
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of these texts, doing the work of a festival sacrifice on a
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Sabbath day was a cosmic disaster.
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It was a severe violation of Torah.
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Oh, because it counts as labor. Precisely, a 364 day solar
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calendar is exactly 52 weeks. It is perfectly divisible by 7.
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That meant every festival every year would fall on the exact
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same day of the week forever, entirely avoiding the Sabbath.
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The authors were using the names of Enoch and Moses to argue for
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what they believed was the only mathematically pure, holy way to
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worship God. That makes absolute sense.
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It solves a massive logistical and theological problem.
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But this brings up a pointed ethical question for me.
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OK, let us hear it. If I write a theological book
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today advocating for a specific type of worship, and I sign the
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author's name is John Calvin, I am committing literary fraud.
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My publisher would drop me instantly, and readers would be
21:55
outraged. So how can we trust the
21:58
historical reliability of an ancient community that widely
22:01
accepted this practice? How did an ancient Jew
22:04
distinguish between a genuine historical record of what Moses
22:07
actually said and a piece of theological fiction written by a
22:11
frustrated priest angry about a lunar calendar?
22:14
That is the core tension for modern readers trying to
22:17
evaluate these texts. You are applying post
22:20
Enlightenment standards of historical authorship, forensic
22:23
evidence, and copyright law to an ancient Middle Eastern
22:26
culture that simply did not operate by those rules.
22:28
Fair enough. When evaluating how they
22:30
distinguish between history and theology, we have to look at how
22:33
ancient communities actually read.
22:35
As we noted, some ancient readers did believe the
22:37
attributions were literal, but many communities read these
22:40
texts primarily for their theological messaging and their
22:43
alignment with older traditions. So the message mattered more
22:46
than the signature. Exactly.
22:49
The author of Jubilees was not trying to trick the priests in
22:52
Jerusalem into thinking a guy named Moses just dropped off a
22:55
new scroll. The community knew the text was
22:58
a contemporary document. They read it to see how the
23:00
author was applying the ancient Torah to their current
23:03
Hellenistic situation, emphasizing strict separation
23:06
from the surrounding nations. The pseudonym was a signal of
23:10
the tradition the book belonged to, not a legal claim of
23:13
copyright. The scholar Hindi Najman coined
23:16
a brilliant phrase for this. She calls it Seconding Sinai.
23:19
Seconding Sinai. I like that.
23:21
It is a literary recreation of the discourse of esteemed
23:24
figures of the past to validate contemporary communal practices.
23:27
The community's trusted the text not because they ran a
23:30
handwriting analysis on the parchment, but because the
23:33
theological instruction aligned with the trajectory of their
23:36
sacred heritage. It sounded like Moses, so they
23:38
accepted it as speaking with the voice of Moses.
23:40
I really appreciate that explanation.
23:42
It shifts the paradigm entirely. It is less about who physically
23:47
held the pen and more about whose ancient tradition is
23:50
speaking through the pen. And that leads us to a massive
23:53
plot twist in our analysis today, discerning origins, or
23:58
what we can call the provenance puzzle.
23:59
This is where it gets really complicated.
24:01
Yeah, here is the massive twist for you listening Nearly all of
24:05
the so-called Old Testament pseudepigrapha.
24:07
These books, supposedly written by ancient Jewish patriarchs
24:10
like Abraham, Enoch and the 12 sons of Jacob, were preserved
24:14
exclusively by Christians, not Jews.
24:17
It is a stunning fact. Let that reality sink in.
24:20
The very text that claim to be the foundation of ancient Jewish
24:23
apocalyptic thought survived antiquity mostly because
24:26
Christian monks and scribes in Syria, Egypt and Ethiopia kept
24:30
copying them. Century after century, the
24:32
Jewish community largely abandoned them.
24:34
This creates a massive structural headache for modern
24:36
scholars trying to figure out where these books actually came
24:39
from. It is an incredibly complicated
24:41
puzzle, and it requires intense linguistic and historical
24:45
analysis to untangle. The debate centers on one
24:48
fundamental question for every single document in this pile.
24:51
Is this specific document Jewish or Christian?
24:55
In the past, scholars operated under fairly simple and deeply
24:59
flawed assumption. They presumed that if a document
25:01
heavily revered an Old Testament figure like Abraham or Job, and
25:05
lacked blatant, explicit Christian theology about Jesus
25:08
dying on a cross, it must automatically be a Jewish
25:11
document from the Second Temple period.
25:13
This seems like a logical leap. It was.
25:16
Consequently, they assumed it was perfectly appropriate to use
25:19
that text as background material for understanding the Jewish
25:22
world to the New Testament. However, modern scholarship is
25:25
realized that assumption fails on multiple levels.
25:28
Early Christians frequently wrote entirely new texts that
25:31
were heavily influenced by Jewish traditions and Old
25:33
Testament characters. Documents like the Testaments of
25:37
the 12 Patriarchs or the Ascension of Isaiah might look
25:40
Jewish at first glance, but they were shaped, heavily edited, or
25:44
entirely composed by early Christians in the second or
25:46
third century. If you mistakenly take a
25:49
Christian document from the year 8150 and use it to explain the
25:53
Jew of background of the Apostle Paul in the year 8050, your
25:56
historical timeline collapses. You are reading history
25:59
backward, using the effect to explain the cause.
26:02
To solve this chronological nightmare, scholars have tried
26:04
to establish concrete criteria. James R Devila is a key figure
26:08
here. He isolated what he calls
26:10
signature features to identify a truly Jewish text.
26:14
He argues that we cannot just rely on a gut feeling, we need
26:17
specific markers. What are his markers?
26:19
According to Davila, a text is Jewish if it exhibits strict
26:22
monotheism, strong support of the Jerusalem Temple cult, clear
26:26
recognition of Palestine as the Holy Land, adherence to specific
26:30
Jewish customs and rituals, and self identification as Jewish.
26:34
If a text hits these specific boundary markers, Davidla
26:37
argues, you can confidently categorize it as Jewish in
26:39
origin, even if Christians preserved it.
26:41
That sounds incredibly systematic and helpful, but it
26:45
immediately drew a fierce counter argument from another
26:47
prominent scholar, Richard Baucom.
26:51
Balkham challenges Davila's criteria by pointing out that
26:53
relying on strict boundary maintenance is historically
26:56
dangerous. How?
26:57
So. If you only define a Jewish text
27:00
by its strict, unyielding adherence to the Temple cult in
27:03
geographical Palestine, you automatically marginalized any
27:06
ancient Jewish text that might have been friendly or at least
27:09
congenial toward early Christianity.
27:12
Judaism in the Second Temple period was not a single
27:15
monolithic Orthodox block. It was highly diverse.
27:17
Right, you had the Pharisees, Sadducees, the scenes.
27:20
Yeah, Zealots and various apocalyptic groups.
27:24
Baucom argues that we must first seek to understand why these
27:27
documents were preserved in Christian context in the 1st
27:29
place. Early Christians preserve Jewish
27:32
texts because they believe those texts prophesied about Jesus.
27:35
Baucom stresses that the original Jewish document likely
27:38
predates the Christian manuscript that preserved it.
27:41
Assuming a default position that a text is entirely Christian
27:44
just because a Christian monk copied it in the 3rd century
27:47
might be unwarranted. It raises intense awareness of
27:50
how difficult it is to presume a text's origin based solely on
27:54
who held the manuscript last. I like to conceptualize this
27:58
provenance puzzle by comparing it to finding an antique family
28:01
recipe written on an index card in your neighbor's kitchen.
28:04
You are visiting your neighbor who is a Christian, and you find
28:06
a card in their handwriting titled Great Grandma's Passover
28:09
Stew. I like this analogy.
28:11
You have to carefully analyze the ingredients to figure out
28:14
the truth. Is this entirely a Jewish recipe
28:17
that the Christian neighbor simply copied down word for
28:20
word? Or did the neighbor take an
28:22
original Jewish recipe and add a pinch of their own Christian
28:25
theology later on? Maybe throwing some pork into
28:27
the Stew? Or did the neighbor invent the
28:30
entire recipe from scratch, just making it sound like an old
28:33
Jewish family tradition to give it authority?
28:36
Exactly the problem we face. For a text like First Enoch or
28:39
Jubilees, the discovery of Aramaic fragments among the Dead
28:42
Sea Scrolls proves the recipe is genuinely, anciently Jewish.
28:45
We found the original recipe card, but for something like the
28:49
testaments of the 12 Patriarchs, scholars are still fiercely
28:52
arguing over who added the specific theological spices.
28:57
That analogy clarifies the methodology perfectly.
29:00
We see texts like the civilian oracles, chapters 6 through 8,
29:03
or the Apocalypse of Elijah, which are clearly Christian
29:05
documents with very little actual Jewish influence.
29:08
They are new recipes. Then we have texts like Third
29:11
Baruch, which most likely started as a Jewish document
29:15
processing the destruction of Jerusalem, but became an
29:18
essentially Christian document over the course of its
29:20
transmission through interpolations, someone adding
29:23
Christian phrases to the text. The collection is incredibly
29:26
diverse and defies simple binary categorization.
29:30
Which brings us perfectly to the ripple effect of this
29:33
literature. How do the ancient communities,
29:35
both Rabbinic Jews and early Christians, actually interact
29:39
with these texts? Once the dust settled, let us
29:42
move the timeline forward and look at how Rabbinic Judaism
29:45
responded to these outside books as they called.
29:47
Them this is a really interesting period.
29:49
After the destruction of the Temple in 8070, Judaism had to
29:52
consolidate around the Torah and the Pharisees.
29:55
There's a famous clash detailed in the Talmud that highlights
29:58
the tension. On one side you have Rabbi
30:00
Akibar, a massive core figure in early rabbinic Judaism who lived
30:04
in the 2nd century. He drew a hard line.
30:07
He claimed that anyone who reads the outside books has absolutely
30:10
no portion in the world to come. That is a severe condemnation.
30:14
That is a heavy eternal condemnation for reading the
30:17
wrong scroll. But on the other side you have
30:19
Rabbi Joseph. He apparently forbade the public
30:22
reading of the Book of Ben Sira, also known as Siric.
30:26
Yet in other rabbinic sources, this exact same Rabbi Joseph is
30:29
claimed to expound on excellent statements found in Bensira.
30:33
In fact, Bensira is quoted positively a number of times in
30:37
the Talmud, alongside canonical books like Proverbs and
30:40
Jeremiah. So the rabbinic reaction was not
30:43
a simple unified rejection. It was highly nuanced.
30:46
The Rabbi's developed a fascinating, almost
30:49
counterintuitive concept for distinguishing Sacred Scripture
30:53
from regular books. They taught that Holy Scriptures
30:56
make the hands unclean. Wait, holy things make you
30:58
unclean? Yes, the Mishnah and the Talmud
31:01
state that even the containers holding scripture, the leather
31:04
straps used to bind the manuscripts, and the scrolls
31:06
themselves to file the hands of the person touching them to a
31:10
modern year, that seems completely backward.
31:12
Why would something incredibly holy make you unclean?
31:14
Yeah, you would think it makes you holy.
31:15
The concept suggests a sacred contagion.
31:18
It is very similar to the lethal effect of touching the Ark of
31:21
the Covenant, as the unfortunate Ooza experienced in the Book of
31:24
Second Samuel. When the oxen stumbled, Oozer
31:28
reached out to steady the ark, and God struck him dead.
31:32
The holiness of God is a consuming fire.
31:35
True canonical texts possessed a divine energy that was genuinely
31:39
dangerous to common human touch. That is an amazing way to view
31:42
scripture. You had to wash your hands after
31:44
handling A biblical scroll to remove the residual dangerous
31:48
holiness. Conversely, the Rabbi's noted
31:50
that books like Ben Sira, or even the secular writings of the
31:53
Greek poet Homer, did not have this effect.
31:55
They did not define all the hands.
31:57
You could read Homer all day and your hands remained ritually
31:59
clean because there was no divine fire in the text.
32:02
So it was a physical test of canonicity.
32:04
Exactly. This was a physical, theological
32:07
categorization. The sacred texts held a lethal
32:10
holiness, the outside texts did not.
32:14
Furthermore, there was a prevailing view among the
32:16
rabbi's that the prophets had fallen asleep.
32:19
They believed the active, inspired era of prophecy had
32:22
ceased around the time of Artaxerxes.
32:24
In Ezra, the Jewish historian Josephus affirmed 22
32:28
authoritative books while explicitly acknowledging a
32:30
multitude of other contradictory books written after that period.
32:34
The rabbinic community marginalized the outside books
32:37
because they believed the era of canonical authority had
32:40
definitively closed. That concept of sacred contagion
32:43
is brilliant. It treats the word of God like a
32:45
live electrical wire. You don't just casually grab it.
32:48
Now, bringing this conversation directly to the New Testament,
32:50
we see something quite remarkable regarding how the
32:53
apostles handled this literature.
32:54
We really do. While there are absolutely no
32:57
direct, explicit quotes from the Apocrypha and the New Testament,
33:00
though there are familiar concepts and historical
33:02
background, there are clear, undeniable interactions with the
33:06
Pseudepigrapha. The most famous example is found
33:09
in the brief letter of Jude. Jude is writing to a church
33:12
facing severe issues with false teachers.
33:14
In verse 14 Jude explicitly quotes from First Enoch chapter
33:18
one verse 9 saying see the Lord is coming with 10 thousands of
33:23
his holy ones to execute judgement on all.
33:25
He even names Enoch. Yes, he introduces the quote by
33:28
saying Enoch the 7th from Adam prophesied earlier.
33:32
In verse nine of the same letter, Jude references A
33:35
bizarre dispute between the Archangel Michael and Satan over
33:38
the body of Moses. Where does that come from?
33:40
According to early church figures like Clement of
33:42
Alexandria and Origen, this specific legend was found in the
33:46
so demographic book called the Assumption of Moses.
33:48
Though we only have fragments of that book today.
33:50
Right. The X step manuscripts we have
33:52
are heavily damaged and missing that specific part, but the
33:55
early church recognized the source.
33:57
We also see this in Hebrews Chapter 11, verse 37.
34:00
The author lists the horrific sufferings of faithful heroes,
34:03
mentioning that some were sawn into.
34:06
This is widely recognized by scholars as an allusion to the
34:09
martyrdom of the prophet Isaiah, a tradition preserved in the
34:12
pseudepigraphic lives of the prophets and the ascension of
34:15
Isaiah. And Paul does it too.
34:17
Yeah, consider the Apostle Paul in Second Timothy chapter 3
34:20
verse 8. He names the Egyptian magicians
34:22
who opposed Moses before Pharaoh as Janis and Jambres.
34:26
If you read the original canonical account in the Book of
34:28
Exodus, those specific names are completely absent.
34:32
Paul is pulling those names from extra biblical traditions that
34:35
were well known in his day, showing up in Aramaic, Targums,
34:38
and even in some Pagan literature.
34:40
It demonstrates unequivocally that the new testable authors
34:44
were intimately familiar with the theological traditions
34:47
contained in both apocryphal and pseudepigraphic sources.
34:50
Furthermore, they assumed their original readers were familiar
34:53
with them as well. The citation of Jana Jambres is
34:57
a perfect example of a shared cultural knowledge base.
35:01
Paul didn't have to explain who they were.
35:03
The audience already knew the lore.
35:05
I have to admit I am completely stuck on this.
35:07
This is the ultimate reformed theological question and where
35:11
the rubber meets the road for our confessional stance.
35:13
Let us break it down. If the inspired apostle Jude
35:17
explicitly quotes the book of First Enoch by name and uses it
35:20
to make a massive theological point about the return of the
35:23
Lord and divine judgment, doesn't that grant First Enoch
35:26
scriptural authority? How do we, as Protestants,
35:30
adhering to the strict boundaries of the Westminster
35:32
Confession, maintain a closed 66 book Canon when the biblical
35:37
authors themselves are actively citing the pseudepigrapha as if
35:40
it were authoritative? It feels like a massive
35:42
contradiction. That is the crucial question,
35:45
and it has troubled readers for centuries.
35:48
The synthesis here requires careful nuance regarding how the
35:51
doctrine of inspiration actually works.
35:53
Citing A secular or non canonical text for a
35:56
historically or theologically accurate point does not
36:00
magically elevate the entire source document to the level of
36:03
divine inspiration. Because truth is truth.
36:06
Exactly. Truth is truth wherever it's
36:08
found. A broken clock is right twice a
36:10
day. The Apostle Paul famously quoted
36:12
Pagan Greek poets when he spoke on Mars Hill in Acts chapter 17.
36:16
He cited up amenities in Aeratus to connect with his Athenian
36:19
audience, saying in him we live and move and have our being.
36:23
Absolutely no one argues that those Pagan Greek poems belong
36:26
in the Bible. Right, nobody's adding aeratus
36:28
to the New Testament. It's exactly similarly.
36:31
Jude utilized widely known, highly respected Jewish
36:35
literature like First Enoch to communicate an accurate truth
36:38
about God's judgement effectively to his specific
36:41
audience. The Holy Spirit guided Jude to
36:44
select a true, accurate statement from a non canonical
36:47
source to serve the inspired purpose of his letter.
36:51
The New Testaments use of these texts validates the specific
36:54
isolated truth being cited. It absolutely does not canonize
36:58
the massive, bizarre scrolls from which they were pulled.
37:01
That distinction is incredibly helpful.
37:03
It is the difference between quoting a history textbook in a
37:06
Sunday sermon to make a point and declaring the history
37:08
textbook itself to be infallible scripture.
37:11
Moving on to how the church processed all of this, let us
37:14
trace this through church history and the canons moving
37:16
from the early church right up to the Westminster Assembly.
37:20
How did the early Church Fathers, the men who lived just
37:22
after the apostles, wrestle with this vast, complicated library?
37:26
They wrestled with it intensely, and their opinions were
37:29
certainly not monolithic. You have origin in the 3rd
37:32
century, vigorously defending the inclusion of the apocryphal
37:35
additions to Daniel. Like the story of Susanna, his
37:39
reasoning was largely based on divine Providence and church
37:42
usage, basically arguing that if the Church has used these texts
37:45
and liturgy for this long, God must have ordained it.
37:49
A very pragmatic argument, yeah. Then you have Irenaeus.
37:52
In the late 2nd century he condemned what he called an
37:55
unspeakable number of apocryphal and spurious writings generated
37:58
by heretical groups. Yet he accepted the veracity of
38:02
historical accounts from First Enoch and the Letter of Aristius
38:05
and showed clear familiarity with 4th Ezra.
38:08
So the earliest centuries the boundary lines were quite
38:10
porous. The significant tectonic shift
38:13
in clarity comes with Jerome in the late 4th century.
38:16
Jerome and the Vulgate, right? Jerome moved to Bethlehem and
38:21
undertook the massive lifelong project of translating the
38:24
Scriptures into Latin, which became known as the Vulgate.
38:28
Crucially, Jerome decided to learn Hebrew from local rabbis
38:31
and translate the Old Testament directly from the original
38:33
Hebrew texts, rather than relying on the Greek Septuagint.
38:37
When he did this, the discrepancy became glaringly
38:39
obvious. Because the books just weren't
38:40
there in the Hebrew. Precisely.
38:43
He realized that the Hebrew Bible entirely lacked books like
38:45
Wisdom, Ciroc, Judith, and the Maccabees.
38:49
In his famous prologue as Galitus or Helmet and Preface,
38:52
which he attached to the books of Samuel and Kings, Jerome
38:56
distinctly categorized these extra Greek books as outside the
38:59
Canon. He wrote a letter to a woman
39:01
named Laida advising her on her daughter's spiritual education.
39:05
He told her to avoid apocryphal writings entirely, but if she
39:08
must read them, she should do so to judge them rather than to
39:11
follow them. He famously stated that it
39:13
requires infinite discretion to look for gold in the midst of
39:16
dirt. Gold in the midst of dirt.
39:18
What an incredible phrase. It acknowledges the historical
39:22
and moral value is present, but you have to sift for it
39:25
carefully, knowing you are surrounded by human error.
39:29
Precisely another prominent figure, Rufinus, offered a
39:32
highly practical 3 tier categorization that influenced
39:35
many. He divided all religious books
39:37
into 3 levels. First, canonical books, which
39:40
are the only ones to be used for proof of doctrine.
39:43
Second, ecclesiastical books like Wisdom and Tobit, which may
39:46
be read publicly in churches for moral edification and history.
39:50
Third, apocryphal books, which were entirely spurious and not
39:53
to be read in churches at all. This distinction between books
39:57
meant for establishing doctrine and books meant purely for moral
40:00
edification held significant sway for centuries.
40:03
That brings the historical timeline right to the
40:05
theological home base of reformed thinking.
40:08
When the Reformation ignited in the 16th century, the debate
40:11
over these texts exploded from an academic discussion into a
40:14
full blown theological crisis. Martin Luther translated the
40:18
Bible into German in 1534. He made a massive formatting
40:21
change. He moved them all.
40:23
He did. He took all the apocryphal
40:25
books, pulled them out of the Old Testament, and placed them
40:27
in a separate section between the Testaments.
40:30
He added a specific defining note stating that these books
40:33
are not equal to Sacred Scripture, but are nevertheless
40:36
useful and profitable to read. This matched the sentiment of
40:39
early reformers like Andreas Bodenstein of Karlstadt, but the
40:43
theological divide solidified dramatically between the
40:46
Protestant Confessions and the Roman Catholic Church.
40:49
It was a stark, unyielding polarization.
40:52
The Protestant bodies sought confessional clarity based
40:54
strictly on the Hebrew text. Following Jerome's ancient
40:57
logic. The Belgic Confession in 1561,
41:01
the Synod of Dort in 1618, and our standard, the Westminster
41:04
Confession of Faith in 1647 all drew a hard, definitive line.
41:09
Westminster strictly separated these human writings from the
41:11
divine Canon. What did it actually state?
41:13
The Confession states plainly that the books commonly called
41:16
Apocrypha, not being of divine inspiration, are no part of the
41:19
Canon of the Scripture, and therefore are of no authority of
41:22
the Church of God, nor to be any otherwise approved or made use
41:26
of than other human writings. In direct, fierce juxtaposition,
41:31
the Roman Catholic Church convened the Council of Trent.
41:33
And they went the opposite direction.
41:35
Oh, completely. In 1546, in direct response to
41:38
Protestant criticisms, Trent pronounced an anathema, a
41:42
formal, damning curse on anyone who refused to recognize all the
41:46
books contained in the Latin Vulgate, including the
41:48
Apocrypha, as sacred and canonical.
41:50
This dogmatic decree elevated books like Maccabees and Sirach
41:54
to the exact same as Byard level as Genesis or the Gospel of
41:57
John. I think of it like organizing a
42:00
massive theological library for a university in the Protestant
42:04
view. The canonical section contains
42:06
the absolute inspired truth upon which the entire foundation of
42:10
the university is built. The ecclesiastical or apocryphal
42:14
section contains the commentaries, the historical
42:17
logs, and the devotional thoughts of past generations.
42:20
They are incredibly valuable for research, but they are not the
42:23
foundation. If you find an error in the
42:25
historical log, the building doesn't collapse.
42:28
This is a great visual. The Council of Trent essentially
42:31
blurred the sections together, telling the reader that the
42:33
historical logs hold the exact same authority as the
42:36
architectural foundation, but the Westminster Divines build a
42:39
solid, unmistakable brick wall between them.
42:42
A wall that protects the authority of the prophetic and
42:44
Apostolic witness while still allowing us to peer over the top
42:48
and learn from the history of the intertestamental period
42:51
without compromising our theology.
42:53
That brings us to the end of our analysis.
42:55
Today. We have covered an immense
42:57
amount of historical and theological ground, and I want
43:00
to thank you, the listener, for tracking alongside this
43:03
extensive evaluation. To summarize our core insights,
43:06
the Apocrypha consists of widely read, historically valuable
43:10
texts like Maccabees, Tobit, and Judith that were included in
43:14
ancient Greek codices but absent from the original Hebrew Canon.
43:18
They show us clearly how Diaspora Jews maintained their
43:21
identity under foreign pressure. The Pseudepigrapha consists of
43:24
heavily debated, highly visionary texts falsely
43:27
attributed to ancient patriarchs like Enoch and Ezra, often
43:31
written to address contemporary crises, correct calendars, or
43:34
secure a place in an ancient theological tradition.
43:37
Both categories were known to and even utilized by the authors
43:41
of the New Testament to make accurate points, though the
43:43
Reformed tradition strictly recognizes only the 66 books of
43:47
the Bible as the inspired rule of faith and life.
43:50
As we conclude, I want to leave you with a final consideration
43:53
that builds directly on the reality that New Testament
43:56
authors comfortably quoted non canonical texts.
44:00
If the inspired apostles possess the discernment to read the
44:04
uninspired literature of their day, extract the truth from it,
44:07
and use it to communicate the Gospel effectively to their
44:10
culture, what does that require of you?
44:13
That is a great question. Consider how familiar you are
44:15
with the non canonical literature, the media, the
44:18
cultural texts, and the dominant philosophies of the 21st
44:21
century. Are you equipped to engage with
44:23
the writings of our modern day, exercising infinite discretion
44:27
to find the gold in the midst of dirt so that you can better
44:30
communicate the eternal truths of Scripture to the world around
44:32
you? That is a staggering challenge
44:34
we need to carry with us. Thank you for joining us on this
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deep dive. Keep your discernment sharp,
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keep your reading broad, and we will see you next time on
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Reformed Thinking.