Who Wrote the Bible? Episode 4: Apocrypha / Deuterocanonicals

hi this is matt baker welcome to episode 4 in my series on who wrote the bible today we'll be covering the apocrypha or deutero canonicals books that appear in some versions of the bible but not others this will include books such as tobit judith the maccabees enoch jubilees and more [Music] [Music] it's important to realize that there was never a single point in time when all of the various religious authorities in the ancient world got together and decided which books should be included in the bible and which ones should not instead the contents of the bible grew slowly over time with various books being put in and others being taken out and with different religious authorities making different decisions in this regard so although i've been emphasizing throughout this series that jews and christians share most of the old testament in common there are actually a few exceptions that i would now like to focus on so far we've looked at the three main sections of the jewish tanakh equaling 24 books in total as i've mentioned previously the protestant old testament consists of these exact same 24 books simply reordered and divided into 39 books however we're now going to consider the versions of the old testament used by the roman catholic church the eastern orthodox church and the ethiopian church all three of these bibles contain the 39 core books of the old testament but they also each contain some extra books catholics have 7 extra books for a total of 46 the extra books are tobit judith baruch syrac first and second maccabees and the wisdom of solomon according to catholics these books are called the deutero canonicals meaning second canon whereas according to protestants they are called the apocrypha meaning obscure or uncertain in addition to these seven books the catholic old testament also includes additions to both esther and daniel the eastern orthodox old testament also includes these same seven extra books however it also includes three more for a total of forty nine these are first as dras second as draws and third macbees it too includes the additions to esther and daniel as well as one extra psalm and an addition to chronicles known as the prayer of manasseh finally the eastern orthodox old testament also includes a 50th book fourth maccabees but it is listed as an appendix and not one of the core 49 then there is the ethiopian old testament which is the largest of them all first of all it divides proverbs into two books and hence the core part has 40 books not 39 it also includes everything we've mentioned so far except for the three maccabees so that brings us to 47 but it also includes seven unique books found only in the ethiopian bible bringing its grand total to 54. those books are first second and third mecca bean which are different from first second and third maccabees jubilees enoch 4th baruch and josephon okay so now let's look at each of these extra books one by one to do so i'm going to bring up my timeline which i used in the previous two episodes you'll notice that generally speaking the torah and the prophets represent the older books whereas the writings tend to be the books that were written later this is why i prefer the jewish ordering it's not just because i'm jewish it's because the jewish ordering makes the evolution of the bible more clear the torah was clearly thought to be the most important part followed by the prophets most of the writings though were written much later and they are far more literary hence it makes more sense to include them at the end rather than to sprinkle them throughout what we're about to discover is that the apocryphal or deuterocanonical books represent a second set of writings that were written even later so in order to make room for their placement we need to expand our timeline to include the next three periods in jewish history the hasmonean period the herodian period and the post-temple period the hasmonean period began in 167 bce when a family of jewish priests known as the maccabees or more formally the hasmoneans managed to win independence for judea their rule continued until 37 bce when the throne passed to herod the great by that point judea was a client state of rome but it did still retain a certain degree of autonomy however in 70 ce the romans destroyed jerusalem as well as the second temple and ushered in the final period on this timeline which i have named the post temple period okay so now that our timeline is set up let's start with the book of tobit tobit is a collection of several stories set shortly after the assyrians conquered the northern kingdom of israel they center around a couple named tobit and anna and their son tobias who ends up marrying a woman named sarah however it also prominently features an angel named raphael and a demon named asmodeus this already makes the book of tobit quite a bit different from the books that made it into the hebrew bible it might surprise you to learn that angels are rarely mentioned by name in the hebrew bible and demons do not appear at all in fact the only book in the entire hebrew bible to mention an angel by name is the book of daniel as i mentioned in the last episode daniel was written late in the greek period well tobit was written by an anonymous author around the same time this is why they have several features in common such as the inclusion of spiritual beings with names by this point judaism had been strongly influenced by zoroastrianism the main religion in persia this is why from this point forward we find a much more detailed spiritual world within jewish literature for example more angels and demons the next book is judith judith like esther is best thought of as being a work of historical fiction in this case it is set during the time when the babylonians were conquering judah the story revolves around a woman named judith who uses her wit to sneak into the enemy's camp and behead a general named halofernes however it is likely that the story is actually an allegory about the beheading of a much later enemy a seleucid general named nickener who was killed by the maccabees the evidence for this interpretation is based on the fact that the military terminology political institutions and geographical boundaries mentioned in the book all match those of the hasmonean period indicating that this was when the book was written next up is the wisdom of sirach a book that is kind of like proverbs and is sometimes called ecclesiasticus unlike tobit judith and so many other books we actually know the name of the person who wrote this one his name was joshua ben sira or jesus ben sirak hence the title sirach we also know exactly when he wrote it because he mentions the name of the high priest at the time simon ii this puts it right at the end of the greek period just before the hasmonean takeover we also know that a prologue was added to the book several decades later by his grandson and this prologue is particularly helpful in understanding how and when the jewish canon was formed because it contains the earliest mention of the tripartite division of the tanakh sirach chapter 1 verse 1 reads many great teachings have been given to us through the law and the prophets and the others that followed them moving on let's now consider the book of baruch according to the book of jeremiah baruch was the prophet jeremiah's scribe that would mean that he lived around the time of the babylonian exile however due to the language used in the book it is unlikely that baruch actually wrote baruch as is often the case it is more likely that a later anonymous writer simply wrote the book as if it was written by baruch and although the book deals with the loss of the temple due to the babylonians it is likely that what it is really talking about is the loss of the temple that occurred just prior to the maccabean revolt this would place its composition around the same time as judith next is the book of wisdom also known as the wisdom of solomon another proverbs-like book that was supposedly written by king solomon but almost certainly was written much later probably around the same time as baruch based on an analysis of the grammar and vocabulary used baruch and wisdom are thought to be the two earliest books on this chart to have been originally written in greek this is in contrast to tobit and sirach and perhaps judith which were originally written in hebrew and only later translated to greek we know this partly because hebrew fragments of both tobit and sirach were found among the dead sea scrolls the final two books in the apocrypha are first and second maccabees however please note that these two books are not a part one and part two instead they are two different versions of the same events written by two different authors first maccabees was originally written in hebrew by someone living in judea whereas second maccabees was written in greek by someone living in alexandria egypt both were written around 100 bce we do not know the name of either author however second maccabees is supposedly a condensed version of a now lost five book series about the maccabees written by a man named jason of cyrene the maccabees are of course associated with the jewish holiday of chanukah however please note that the miracle of the oil story is actually not mentioned in either first or second maccabees the earliest mention of that part of the hanukkah story is actually in the talmud anyway if you want to learn more about the maccabees and the hasmonean period from a historical point of view i'd recommend watching the video on this channel where we go through their family tree i'll link to that in the description okay as i mentioned earlier the apocrypha also includes several additions to esther and daniel in other words the greek versions of those two books are longer than the original hebrew versions because at some point someone added some bonus material probably written in greek from the start and added around 100 bce in the case of esther the additions are sprinkled throughout and end up changing the tone of the entire work from that of a comedy to that of a more serious tale in contrast the additions to daniel consist of three large chunks the prayer of azariah which is part of the fiery furnace story susanna and the elders a story about two creepy old men sexually harassing a woman and belle and the dragon which is actually two stories one about corrupt priests and one about daniel slaying a dragon so that takes care of all the catholic deuterocanonical books called the apocrypha by protestants however as i mentioned the eastern orthodox and ethiopian bibles include several more books let's start with first and second esdras again these are not a part 1 and part 2 but rather two totally different books by two totally different authors the first thing you need to know is that estras is simply the greek version of the name ezra and we already have a book of ezra as well as the book of nehemiah which in the original jewish bible was considered to be a part of the book of ezra first esdras is basically a greek version of the original book of ezra with some changes written in the late hasmonean or early herodian period second astras however is something totally different it was written in latin after the rise of christianity and falls into the category of apocalyptic literature next is third and fourth maccabees third maccabees actually has nothing to do with the maccabees it's a story about ptolemy iv's persecution of the jews about 40 years prior to the rise of the maccabees it was written in greek around the same time as first astras fourth maccabees is kind of a commentary on second magabis it too was written in greek but much later around the same time as second esdras that takes care of everything included in the eastern orthodox bible which leaves us with the books that are found only in the ethiopian bible let's start with the books of first second and third maccabean although the name derives from the word maccabee these ethiopian books are totally different from first second and third maccabees for one thing they are written in guies which is the ancient language of ethiopia the first two do appear to be loosely based on the maccabees but with the names and locations in the story changed significantly for example the evil king in the ethiopian version is a man named sirut saiden interestingly coins of antiochus iv the villain in the original story often included the city names tyre and sidon which could be where the name sirutsaden comes from third maccabean however has nothing to do with the maccabees and instead focuses on bible characters such as adam and david all three of the ethiopian maccabees were likely written very late in the post-temple period almost as late as the fall of the western roman empire we then have fourth baruch which is designated as such because there is also a second baruch and a third baruch even though neither of them ended up being included in any bible anyhow fourth baruch was likely written in greek sometime in the post-temple period however josephine was written much later than anything we've seen so far in fact it was probably written in italy well into the middle ages even though it was written in hebrew and its name comes from the fact that it was said to have been written by josephus it's kind of a recap of jewish history but because it was written so late i'm going to place it completely off the chart in contrast the book of jubilees which was also originally written in hebrew was composed much earlier likely around the same time as first and second maccabees which is why fragments of it have been found among the dead sea scrolls it's kind of an alternative book of genesis and in fact is sometimes called leptogenesis meaning the lesser genesis it centers around the idea of the jubilee cycle a concept from the torah in which the land is given rest every 7 years and then after seven cycles of seven there is a special jubilee year according to the book of jubilees the exodus from egypt occurred in the 2451st year after the creation of the world 50 multiplied by 49 equals 2450 which means that the exodus occurred at the start of the 50th set of 50 years making it a jubilee of jubilees i'll be returning to this calculation in september when i plan to do a video on the jewish calendar okay last but not least is the book of enoch which in my opinion is the most interesting of all the apocryphal books it takes its name from a minor bible character named enoch who shows up on the genealogy between adam and noah in islam this character is known as idris however the book of enoch was obviously not written by enoch it was written during the greek period and one of the things that makes it so interesting is the fact that parts of it are likely older than daniel daniel being the last book that made it into the tanakh so basically every other apocryphal book except enoch was written after daniel which makes enoch special on top of this it is also the only apocryphal book that is referenced in the new testament in fact it's referenced seven times in these verses finally i should also point out that several hebrew and aramaic fragments of the book of enoch have been found among the dead sea scrolls however the most important thing you need to know about the book of enoch is that it's actually five books and that each book was likely written by a different author at a different time there's the book of watchers the book of parables the book of astronomy the book of dreams and the epistle of enoch the oldest section is the book of watchers this is the part that was likely written in the greek period before the book of daniel whereas the latest section is the book of parables written during the post-temple period i'm going to focus on the book of watchers because that's the part that tends to come up the most when people talk about the book of enoch the whole thing is basically based on a few short verses in genesis that go like this when people began to multiply on the face of the ground the sons of god saw they were fair and they took wives for themselves the nephilim were on earth in those days when the sons of god went into the daughters of men who bore children to them these were the heroes that were of old warriors of renowned the lord saw the wickedness of humankind was great in the earth and the lord was sorry that he made mankind so the lord said i will blot out from the earth the human beings i have created genesis 6 1-7 new revised standard version what follows is the flood story so it seems that these few somewhat puzzling verses that read more like pagan mythology than the rest of the bible are given as the explanation for the flood well according to the book of enoch the phrase sons of god refers to a special group of angels called the watchers whose job was to watch over the newly created humans the book of enoch basically fleshes out the genesis account and describes how fallen angels end up having sex with human women resulting in a race of giants known as the nephilim as i mentioned earlier the tanakh doesn't really give much information about angels or fallen angels but the book of enoch does it lists the names of many angelic beings such as samyaza the leader of the watchers azazel the fallen angel who teaches humans to use metal and to make weapons and uriel one of the good archangels who acts as enoch's guide so if the book of enoch includes so much extra information why then did it not make it into the jewish bible to explain i need to tell you a bit more about what was happening during the greek period of jewish history in episode 1 i put forward the idea that the ancient israelites were originally two separate kingdoms with two separate origin stories one that involved moses and one that involved the three patriarchs and that it wasn't until after the fall of the northern kingdom that the idea of monotheism really took off when most of the northerners fled south and joined the kingdom of judah to create a unified state and a unified religion this religion which can be called first temple judaism was short-lived because not too long after it got going the first temple was destroyed and the elite were exiled to babylon but as you're hopefully aware of by this point the jews were eventually allowed by the persians to return and rebuild their temple it is probably sometime during this period that the two origin stories were combined for the first time and that the final version of the torah was compiled creating a new religion that could be called second temple judaism however over the next several hundred years particularly by the time that the persians were replaced by the greeks several different groups emerged within second temple judaism each with their own slightly different understanding of the religion the three main groups were the pharisees who were mainly scribes and teachers the sadducees who were the priests and the essenes who were the most mystical of the three when the second temple was destroyed by the romans in 70 ce the sadducees basically disappeared because there was no longer a temple for them to use at this point the very bookish pharisees ended up redefining judaism and it eventually evolved into rabbinical judaism which is the type of judaism that exists to this day the essenes are the group that we know the least about they may or may not have been the ones responsible for making the dead sea scrolls these days there's some debate about that however one idea is that they were the ones who were the most interested in stuff like angels and demons and a future messiah because of this some scholars have put forward the idea that the essenes might have had a strong influence on the development of christianity so by the time that the biblical canon was finalized which was sometime after 70 ce second temple judaism no longer existed and instead there were two main descendants left behind on one hand there was rabbinical judaism and on the other hand early christianity the rabbis as the direct descendants of the pharisees were more concerned with the torah and less concerned with later writings such as the book of enoch in fact the early rabbis interpreted genesis 6 vary differently than the way that the book of enoch does they taught that the phrase the sons of god which can also be translated as the sons of the powerful ones did not refer to spiritual beings at all but rather refer to some kind of noble line of humans that became corrupt so the rabbis did not include enoch in the jewish tanakh the early christians on the other hand seemed to hold on to the book of enoch a little longer for example third century church fathers such as tertullian and origen both considered it to be divinely inspired however in 382 ce at the council of rome it did not make the final cut when the contents of the catholic bible were finally set in stone of course it did remain in the ethiopian bible which is why it did make it into this video so that completes our look at the jewish bible as well as the apocrypha which means that starting with the next episode we'll be moving into the new testament you can find the full schedule in the description thanks for watching [Music] [Music] you

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Length: 27min 31sec (1651 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 13 2021