OT Apocrypha

The Old Testament Apocrypha", or Deutocanonici is a Christian corpus generated in the 16th century to denote a certain group of Second Temple Texts not included in the Hebrew Bible and in the Protestant Canon but deemed "canonical" by the Roman Catholic Church.

<Tobit, Judith, Ben Sira, Wisdom of Solomon, 1-2 Maccabees, Baruch, plus the additions to Daniel and Esther) + 4 Ezra >

Overview

The corpus of the OT Apocrypha or Deuterocanici (Tobit, Judith, Ben Sira, Wisdom of Solomon, 1-2 Maccabees, Baruch, plus the additions to Daniel and Esther) owes its existence to the polemics of the Reformation era and was sanctioned by the Council of Trent in 1546.

The Protestant reformers had adopted Jerome’s principle of Hebraica veritas, and acknowledged only the books also found in the Rabbinic Canon or Hebrew Bible as inspired scripture in the Old Testament. The Council of Trent reacted by affirming the larger canon of the traditional Roman Catholic Church, based on the Latin Vulgate: “If any one receive not, as sacred and canonical, the said books entire with all their parts, as they have been used to be read in the Catholic Church and as they are contained in the old Latin Vulgate . . . let him be anathema.”

The Tridentine canon was identical to the list issued by the Council of Hippo (339 CE), except that the Council Fathers appear to have misunderstood the meaning of 1 and 2 Esdras, which they identified as the proto-canonical books of Ezra and Nehemiah with the exclusion of 2 Esdras (=4 Ezra).

As a result the first Protestant collection of OT Apocrypha by Taverner in 1549 published as a separated corpus texts originally printed as part of the Old Testament (from the 1939 Taverner's Bible) and included the apocalyptic 4 Ezra

On the other hand, the Roman Catholic commentary, Biblioteca Magna by Sixtus of Siena included these texts (with the exception of 4 Ezra) in the Old Testament, only by giving them the label of deuterocanonici in recognition of the fact that their canonicity was disputed.

This distinction in the treatment of the material within the Protestant and Catholic traditions has shaped the modern research; see OT Apocrypha Studies.

The Canonical Status OT Apocryphal Texts before the 16th century

Before the 16th century the OT Apocrypha or Deutocanonici did not exist as a distinctive corpus, but were part -- as Collins defines it -- of a "gray area" of a larger amount of books that were more or less authoritative, or authoritative for some Second Temple Jews but not for others, and then for some Christians but not for others.

The designation “deutero-canonical” is attributed to Sixtus of Siena was (1520-1569), in recognition of the fact that their canonicity was disputed.

< Categories: OT Apocrypha Translations -- OT Apocrypha Intro -- Bible, with OT Apocrypha -- -- Book of Tobit -- Book of Judith -- Esther Additions -- Wisdom of Solomon -- Book of Sirach -- 1 Baruch and the Letter of Jeremiah -- Daniel Additions (Prayer of Azariah and Song of the Children; Susanna; Bel and the Dragon) -- 1 Maccabees -- 2 Maccabees -- 3 Ezra (1 Esdras) -- Prayer of Manasseh -- Psalm 151 -- 3 Maccabees -- 4 Ezra (2 Esdras) >