Apocrypha

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vlasinj

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I was once told that there was a link between the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Apocrypha…unless I understood (which is possible) I thought it to be true that the “reason” the Apocrypha was taking out was the it was in Greek and there was no proof that it was ever written in Hebrew. I then thought I heard that when the Dead Sea Scrolls were found there were fragments of the Apocrypha books written in Hebrew. Hence this is why the Apocrypha books are starting to appear in the back reference section of protestants bibles. Is this not true? I had a priest tell me last week that there is no link between the Apocrypha and the Dead Sea Scrolls. Is this right?
 
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vlasinj:
I was once told that there was a link between the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Apocrypha…unless I understood (which is possible) I thought it to be true that the “reason” the Apocrypha was taking out was the it was in Greek and there was no proof that it was ever written in Hebrew. I then thought I heard that when the Dead Sea Scrolls were found there were fragments of the Apocrypha books written in Hebrew. Hence this is why the Apocrypha books are starting to appear in the back reference section of protestants bibles. Is this not true? I had a priest tell me last week that there is no link between the Apocrypha and the Dead Sea Scrolls. Is this right?
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Apocrypha is the term the protestants falsely use for the deuterocanonicals. There is no link between these books and the dead sea scrolls that I have ever heard. Apocrypha refers to writings that the author is unknown and they are heretical in nature basically. The dead sea scrolls includes some apocryphal books.
 
In fact, portions of some of the deuterocanonical books that were rejected by some because they were only in Greek, were found with the Dead Sea Scrolls – in Hebrew.
 
Here is an excerpt from an interesting article in the Jewish Virtual Library:

The biblical texts display considerable similarity to the standard Masoretic (received) text. This, however, is not always the rule, and many texts diverge from the Masoretic. For example, some of the texts of Samuel from Cave 4 follow the Septuagint, the Greek version of the Bible translated in the third to second centuries B.C.E. Indeed. Qumran has yielded copies of the Septuagint in Greek.

The biblical scrolls in general have provided many new readings that facilitate the reconstruction of the textual history of the Old Testament. It is also significant that several manuscripts of the Bible, including the Leviticus Scroll are inscribed not in the Jewish script dominant at the time but rather in the ancient paleo-Hebrew script.

A considerable number of apocryphal and pseudepigraphic texts are preserved at Qumran, where original Hebrew and Aramaic versions of these Jewish compositions of the Second Temple period were first encountered. These writings, which arc not included in the canonical Jewish scriptures, were preserved by different Christian churches and were transmitted in Greek, Ethiopic, Syriac, Armenian, and other translations.

Some of these are narrative texts closely related to biblical compositions, such as the Book of Jubilees and Enoch, whereas others arc independent works-for example, Tobit and Ben Sira. Apparently some of these compositions were treated by the Qumran community as canonical and were studied by them.
 
This should help you out a lot.

They were correct when they told you that the proper term is Deuterocanonical books…as apocrypha is a perjorative.

See this great article: 5 Myths About 7 Books

They did indeed find parts of the book of Tobit in Hebrew.
Pax tecum,
 
Catholics call the seven OT books of the Bible the deuterocanonicals which means (secondarily included in the canon) and NOT second canon, since their is only ONE canon they were first cited as the canon in 382 AD at the council of Rome under Pope Damasus. As the Gospels were always considered part of the canon many of the books of the early Church weren’t and it took centuries for the Magisterium under to direction of the Holy Spirit to and authoritatively recognize what was and wasn’t the inspired word of God.

The Septuagant which is the Greek translation of the Hebrew done it is said by 70 Jewish scribes some 100 to 400? years prior to Christ. The Septuagant, is also known as the LXX, L=50 X=10 another X=10 hence it adds up to 70 (amazing I could add that up since I am horrible at math!). It contained the deuterocanonicals in it.

It was always considered part of the OT canon from the earliest times of the Church for 1500 years. Luther relied on the Jews of the first century to decide which books he would accept (as though he had ANY authority to do so) and of course the Jews of the first century rejected the deuterocanonicals as inspired; but that wasn’t surprising, since the Jews also rejected the Gospels!!
After the Protestant reformation many of the reformers put the duetero;s in their bibles although in the index’s. Around 1830 or so the English Bible Society (I could be wrong on this name) finally took out the deuterocanonicals for good even though they have always been considered part of the canon.
rc
 
That group of Anti-Catholics that come into the resturant I work, were talking about the “apocrypha” durring the winter. The made the affiliation that they are part of the dead sea scrolls. Just because they were found in Aramaic with other suprious works does not mean that they are not inspired. This group made no comments that the deuterocanonicals were in texts of the LXX. And that many of the Church Fathers used them as scripture. Also, they didn’t seem to realize that the Ethiopian Jews still consider the deuterocanonicals scripture today.
 
One of St. Jerome’s arguments against including the Deutero’s in the canon was he thought they were only written in Greek. That’s why the fact that some of them were found written in Aramaic is so interesting.

I love when people use this as an argument against the Deutero’s, since it turns out as an argument for Papal Authority - St. Jerome ended up bowing to Rome’s rule and including the 7 books in the Canon.

NotWorthy
 
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