The Use and Influence of the Apocrypha

It is often not clear to what extent individual books of the Apocrypha were known in Judaism after the Second Temple period. We have noted that Josephus used the additions to Esther, 1 Maccabees, and 1 Esdras (rather than the Hebrew Ezra-Nehemiah), but from the second century CE there was a move away from the Septuagint to using translations by Jews such as Aquila and Theodotion that did not include the Apocrypha or the additions to Daniel and Esther. When the rabbis discussed which Hebrew/Aramaic books “rendered the hands unclean” (m. Yad. 4:5), the polemic was around books such as Song of Songs and Ecclesiastes rather than books of the Apocrypha. Sirach was the one book quoted and often cited by name by the rabbis, even though it was acknowledged that it was not in the Hebrew Bible. It is often unclear whether the rabbis knew specific books per se or only traditions, such as those about the martyrdom of seven sons. Indeed, the rabbis sometimes focused on traditions not based on apocryphal books. For instance, the Hanukkah story of the oil in the temple that miraculously was sufficient to burn for eight days (b. Shab. 21b) is not found in 1 and 2 Maccabees.

During the Renaissance, Jewish interest was sparked in these books, and a translation of most into Hebrew was made in the early sixteenth century. Although historians have always drawn on the data in books such as 1 and 2 Maccabees, in recent centuries most of these books were not widely read by Jews, often being treated with suspicion as Christian literature. The Apocrypha will be part of the forthcoming major three-volume project, Outside the Bible: Ancient Jewish Writings Related to Scripture, initiated by the Jewish Publication Society to provide an up-to-date, readily accessible translation of extrabiblical texts for wide circulation in the Jewish and secular communities.

Since the Apocrypha was treated as part of the Old Testament for the most part in the Western and Eastern churches, it is not surprising to find numerous references and allusions in the New Testament and the church fathers. Again, it is often difficult to judge what is a direct quotation from an apocryphal book per se and when Christian authors are simply drawing on a common tradition or general vocabulary—for example, the reference to the martyrs in 2 Maccabees 6–7 and in Heb. 11:35–37, and similar terminology in the Wisdom of Solomon and the letters of Paul and the letter to the Hebrews (e.g., Heb. 1:1–3/Wisd. of Sol. 7:26; 1 Cor. 2:10–16/Jth. 8:14; Rom. 9:3; 10:1/Pr. of Man. 8–9).

The Apocrypha has exerted a significant influence on popular culture, in art, music, and drama, throughout the Middle Ages and into the modern era. The dramatic stories of Judith, Susanna, and the Maccabees have been particularly attractive and have been retold and reenacted in a variety of media: the Canterbury Tales (lines 3757–64); lesser-known Scottish ballads; medieval miracle plays; Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poem on Judas Maccabeus; and Handel’s oratorios Susanna, Judas Maccabeus, and Alexander Balus. A recent monograph has explored Judith studies across the disciplines, collecting examples of representations of Judith from the visual arts, music, and drama (see Brine, Ciletti, and Lähnemann). Equally rich studies could be done on the reception and reinterpretation of some of the other books of the Apocrypha.

Bruce Metzger collected some fascinating examples of the often-unrecognized influence of bits and pieces from the Apocrypha in the popular realm. For instance, many people quote the maxim, “Great is truth and strongest of all” (NRSV) or in the King James Version, “Great is Truth, and mighty above all things,” without realizing that it comes from 1 Esd. 4:41. Similarly, when singing the Christmas hymn “It Came Upon the Midnight Clear,” few people recognize that the identification of the hour of the birth is dependent on a passage in Wisdom of Solomon which declares that “the all-powerful word leaped from heaven” when “night in its swift course was now half gone” (18:14–15). And it was on the basis of 2 Esd. 6:42 and its interpretation of day three of the Genesis creation story that Christopher Columbus set out for India, confident that the seas could not be that vast since the waters were “gathered together in a seventh part of the earth” and six parts were dry land.

The Apocrypha becomes known to many churchgoers through the liturgy. In the Orthodox, Anglican, and Roman Catholic churches, selections from the Apocrypha are regularly read in the prescribed lectionary for Sundays, feasts, and weekdays; however, in the Revised Common Lectionary (an adaptation of the Roman lectionary), which is used in many Protestant churches, whenever a reading from Apocrypha is listed, an alternative from the canonical books is also provided. In lectionaries, the Wisdom of Solomon is the book that is used most frequently (on nine Sundays in the Roman Catholic lectionary). A passage from Wisdom of Solomon, “But the souls of the righteous are in the hand of God” (3:1), is sometimes popular as a funeral reading even in Protestant churches that do not otherwise use the Apocrypha. According to long-standing tradition, on feasts of Mary, the first reading is often a passage about Lady Wisdom from Wisdom of Solomon 7–9 or Sirach 24 or the canticle from Judith 16. In the daily Roman lectionary, substantial portions of Tobit, 1 and 2 Maccabees, and Sirach are read over consecutive days. The liturgical use of the Prayer of Manasseh and the Song of the Three Young Men makes these apocryphal prayers part of contemporary devotional practice.