1st Maccabees, Lesson 1: Introduction

Why the Apocrypha

When we consider studying a book from what we call the Apocrypha, why should we do so?  After all, when we look at our Bible translations, those books are missing from our English-language Bibles and have been so for about 200 years.  Are those books part of the Bible?  If so, then why aren’t they in the Bibles we now use?  If they aren’t, then why were they universally in all Bibles for about 1800 years?

To make sense of this, at least if the Apocrypha is Scripture, we need to go the beginning.  In this case, the beginning is with the Septuagint, the first translation of the Old Testament into the Greek language.

 

Vocabulary

• Septuagint (LXX): An ancient translation of the Old Testament into Greek, dated as early as the late 2^nd century BC.  The New Testament quoted it, particularly the Apostle Paul, as did the Apostolic, Early Church, and later Greek Church Fathers.  Today, the Septuagint still serves as the Old Testament for Eastern Orthodoxy, including translations of it.

The oldest Septuagint manuscripts include fragments of Leviticus and Deuteronomy (2^nd century BC), and 1^st century BC fragments of the Torah and the Minor Prophets.  Later, relatively complete manuscripts of the Septuagint include the Codex Vaticanus (4^th Century) and the Codex Alexandrinus (5th century).

• Masoretic Text: The Hebrew text of the Old Testament.  A group of Jewish scholars known as the Masoretes compiled this text between the 7^th and 10^th centuries and also added vowel points to the consonant-only Hebrew text (thus, also adding a layer of interpretation).  It serves as the source for Protestant Old Testament translations and one which Roman Catholic translators consult for the non-Deuterocanonical books.

The oldest manuscripts of the Masoretic Text that exist date from the 9^th century.  The Aleppo Codex, which is missing its Torah (Genesis – Deuteronomy), dates from the 10^th century.

 

The Septuagint

If we were to trace the New Testament writers’ use of the Old Testament, we would find that the Septuagint was the primary text the writers used.   We can see the influence of the Septuagint on the New Testament in several ways.

1. Vocabulary: The Septuagint’s influence on the vocabulary used in the New Testament “outweighs all other influences.”[1]
2. Quotations: When the New Testament (NT) writers quoted the Old Testament, what constituted a quotation for them was not the same as for us (they were freer with quotations, even combining different Old Testament quotations into composite quotations).  Yet, when we analyze the Old Testament (OT) quotations, this is what we find.  When we analyze OT quotations in the NT where the Septuagint and Masoretic Text differ, the NT favors the Septuagint over the MT almost 13 to one.  The NT has 77 instances where it favors the Septuagint over the Masoretic Text.[2]  The NT has six where it favors the Masoretic Text.[3]
3. The NT includes a broader range of writings as authoritative Scripture than only the Masoretic Text (the OT in today’s Protestant Bibles).  This broader range is what we call the Apocrypha.  Here are just a couple of examples.

• The Jewish leaders in Jesus’ day used the OT book, Wisdom of Solomon, to mock Jesus and assert that He wasn’t the Messiah.  This shows that the Pharisees (but not the Sadducees) considered the books in the Septuagint, including the Apocrypha, as Scripture.
  • In Matthew 27:43, they taunted Jesus for not merely being loved by God (Psalm 22:8-9) but specifically because “He said, ‘I am the Son of God’” (Wisdom 2:18).  Matthew 27:41-43:
    • So also the chief priests, with the scribes and elders, mocked him saying, “He saved others; he cannot save himself.  He is the king of Israel; let him come down now from the cross and save himself, and we will believe in him. He trusts in God; let God deliver him now, if he desires him. For he said, ‘I am the son of God.’”
• Hebrews chapter 11 lists many martyrs who died for the faith in the Old Testament.  The movement is chronological, from older to newer.  By the time Hebrews chapter 11 gets to verse 35, it describes what took place in 2^nd Maccabees.
  • Hebrews 11:35: “Women received back their dead by resurrection.  Some were tortured, refusing to accept release, so that they might rise again to a better life.”
  • 2 Maccabees 7:1, 13-14:
    • It happened also that seven brothers and their mothers were arrested and were being compelled by the king, under torture with whips and cords, to partake of unlawful swine’s flesh…. When he too had died, they maltreated and tortured the fourths in the same way. And when he was near death, he said, “One cannot but choose to die at the hands of men and to cherish the hope that God gives of being raised again by him.  But for you there will be no resurrection to life.”

That the NT references the Septuagint so often simply shows that the NT writers (under Holy Spirit inspiration!) considered the Septuagint as Scripture.  That they also quoted and referenced what we call today the Apocrypha (which were books in the Septuagint) simply shows that the NT writers also considered those books as Scripture.

 

The Lutheran Church

As incredulous as it may sound, in our theological disagreements with the Roman Catholic Church, our Lutheran Confessions never list the books of the Bible!  Since the Lutheran Church considers the Bible as the final authority in judging doctrine, knowing what is Scripture and what is not is supremely important.[4]  Yet, we made no such list of the books of the Bible.

The question is why?  It’s very simple.  We had no disagreement with the Roman Catholic Church on what books made up the Bible.  We considered the same books as they did as biblical, so we never bothered compiling a list to differentiate ourselves from them.

How do we know this to be true?  Within the Lutheran Church, Martin Chemnitz (the “Second Martin”), in his Enchiridion, was the first to list the books of the Bible.  He listed the Apocrypha as Old Testament Scripture; however, he labeled them as the “apocryphal books of the Old Testament.”  What he meant by that is that they were books of the Bible that we would not use to make doctrine.

Now, we must also recognize that Luther did not consider the Apocrypha as books that belonged in the Bible.  Luther also had the same opinion for Esther and Song of Songs in the OT and James and Revelation in the NT.  Yet, Luther never removed those books from his translation of the Bible into German (Die Bibel).  And so we agree with Luther’s actions but not what he said about those books. (In other words, if we throw out the Apocrypha based on what Luther said, then we would have to do the same for Esther, Song of Songs, James, and Revelation).

 

Introduction to 1^st Maccabees