Apocryphal

I was reading from the Apocrypha* today.  Wait, isn't that, like, apocryphal?  What are you doing reading that?

Apocryphal has come to mean "from an unreliable source" and, more baldly, untrue or fabricated.  Can't trust that stuff - avoid it at all costs.  As Protestants we are at best, disinclined to read the texts of the Apocrypha, at worst, inclined to burn them.  How are we to think of these texts?

The Protestant Reformation sentiment around these texts is well-articulated in one of Anglicanism's 39 Articles of Religion (find them all here), number VI to be exact.  I will summarize as the sixth is a long one.  The articles enumerates the canonical (authoritative books of the Old Testament) and states that all the commonly received books of the New Testament are solid (I am sure St. Paul is relieved to have had this endorsement).  It also enumerates the books of the Apocrypha calling them "other books" following the usage of St. Jerome, who translated the Bible into Latin (the Vulgate).

Here (finally) is my summary: The Old and New Testaments contain everything necessary for salvation and we can teach as doctrine only what may be established from them. As to these other writings, they may be read for "example of life and instruction in manners" but cannot be used to establish doctrine.  Quite other than our usual avoidance or vilification.

I like to think of it like this.  We read other non-canonical texts for wisdom and understanding or even devotional edification.  Here is a smattering of examples from my favorites list: C.S. Lewis, Tim Keller, Oswald Chambers, Dorothy Sayers.  But there are others: Max Lucado and Beth Moore.  But, one might argue, these are modern authors.  That's different.  (Don't get me started on the appalling poverty of mind and spirit that results from reading only recent authors.) We read also John Calvin, Martin Luther, Brother Lawrence, Dante, St. John of the Cross, St. Teresa of Avila, St. Augustine, the Desert Fathers.  At least some do. Again a smattering.  

Except where these authors articulate the truth established in the canon of the Old and New Testaments, we cannot say that their teaching is necessary for salvation.  It isn't.  But it certainly can provide insight and encouragement from time to time.  We might find the same in the Apocrypha.

The Apocrypha is a collection of largely intertestamenal writings (authored between when Malachi put down his pen and whenever the first Gospel writer took up his.**)  

It includes, among others, books like Tobit -- an interesting account of a young man and his quest to save a woman who has a remarkable problem with losing husbands.  This one also includes Raphael, in tradition understood to be one of the seven Archangels.  This is, of course, apocryphal and cannot be understood as doctrine, so don't quote me on his heavenly status. Raphael's namesakes include the Renaissance artist and one of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

We also find in these writings the story of the Maccabees, the Jewish brothers who overthrew the Selucid oppressors and reclaimed the Jewish temple for worship.  This is a helpful text in understanding intertestamental history, the establishment of the Jewish festival of Hanukkah, and also New Testament references to the Feast of the Dedication (Hanukkah, by any other name...)

Another one is entitled Bel and the Dragon, which sounds like a modern fantasy novel.  Or apparently a burgundy.   Its hero is Daniel, of lion's den fame.  It is actually two stories, one about Bel, the Babylonian counterpart to the Canaanite Baal, in which Daniel is the Jewish Hercule Poirot.  He is sleuth and shows that Bel is a false god.  In the Dragon part Daniel is the first dragon-slayer.  In this he is like Jesus, who crushes the serpent's head (see Genesis 3), and a precursor to St. George and Arthur's Knights.

I do draw a distinction between the Apocrypha and other writings such as the Gospel of Thomas, now in trendy resurgence in some circles.  The Gospel of Thomas and other texts have come to be known as the Gnostic Gospels.  Their resurgence is due, perhaps, to the growth of gnostic*** thought in the Church today.  Unlike the Apocrypha, these texts were rejected by those determining the canon of Scripture as teaching that which is contrary to the faith.  These ones I do avoid.

Today I read from the Apocrypha.  And something struck me.

There is for all one entrance into life and one way out. (Wisdom 7:6)

It comes in the context of the king reflecting on his origins and eventual ends and his commonality with all people.  It reminded me that earthly distinctions between persons are just that, earthly.  Our beginning and end make that clear.  It also reminded me that my life has a beginning and an end, like all others.  In the end it was to me an exhortation to humility.  Necessary for salvation?  No.  Helpful as I walk before God?  Absolutely.

*From the Greek αποκρυπτειν (apo-kryptein), to hide away, to obscure.  The root verb, κρυπτειν (kryptein), is also where we get the English word cryptic which also means obscure or hidden. I am not sure if Superman's home Krypton has also the same root.  Perhaps Jerry Seigel and Joe Shuster, in addition to being Hebrews, were Greek scholars.

**Yes, I know that Matthew appears first in the New Testament canon, but it is not certain that he was the first to write.  Most scholars think Mark's economical and "immediately" peppered text was first.  For that matter, We aren't sure that Malachi was the last of the Old Testament canon written, but you get my point.

***Gnosticism was one of the earliest heresies in the Church.  St. John's first epistle is a Christian defense against gnostic thought.  "God is light, in him there is no darkness at all" (I John 1:5) sounds like an inspired description of his nature.  It is, but it is also a clear polemic against the idea that within God there is a little bit of darkness - the yin/yang idea.  I am not a fan.