apocrypha

A·poc·ry·pha

A0368000 (ə-pŏk′rə-fə)n. (used with a sing. or pl. verb)1. The biblical books included in the Septuagint and accepted in the Roman Catholic and Orthodox canon but considered noncanonical by Protestants because they are not part of the Hebrew Scriptures. See Table at Bible.2. Various early Christian writings proposed as additions to the New Testament but rejected by the major canons.3. apocrypha Writings or statements of questionable authorship or authenticity.

[Middle English apocripha, not authentic, from Late Latin Apocrypha, the Apocrypha, from Greek Apokrupha, neuter pl. of apokruphos, secret, hidden, from apokruptein, to hide away : apo-, apo- + kruptein, kruph-, to hide.]

Apocrypha

(əˈpɒkrɪfə) n (functioning as singular or plural) 1. (Bible) the 14 books included as an appendix to the Old Testament in the Septuagint and the Vulgate but not included in the Hebrew canon. They are not printed in Protestant versions of the Bible2. (Bible) RC Church another name for the Pseudepigrapha[C14: via Late Latin apocrypha (scripta) hidden (writings), from Greek, from apokruptein to hide away]

a•poc•ry•pha

(əˈpɒk rə fə)

n. (used with a sing. or pl. v.) 1. (cap.) a group of books not found in Jewish or Protestant versions of the Old Testament but included in the Septuagint and in Roman Catholic editions of the Bible. 2. various religious writings of uncertain origin. 3. writings or statements of doubtful authenticity. Compare canon ¹ (defs. 5, 6, 8). [1350–1400; Middle English < Late Latin < Greek, neuter pl. of apókryphos hidden, unknown, spurious]

apocrypha

1. religious writings of disputed origin, regarded by many author-ities as uncanonical.
2. (capitalized) a group of 15 books, not part of the canonical Hebrew Bible, but present in the Septuagint and Vulgate and hence accepted by some as biblical. — apocryphal, adj.See also: Bible

Thesaurus

Noun

Apocrypha - 14 books of the Old Testament included in the Vulgate (except for II Esdras) but omitted in Jewish and Protestant versions of the Bible; eastern Christian churches (except the Coptic Church) accept all these books as canonical; the Russian Orthodox Church accepts these texts as divinely inspired but does not grant them the same statusreligious text, religious writing, sacred text, sacred writing - writing that is venerated for the worship of a deityOld Testament - the collection of books comprising the sacred scripture of the Hebrews and recording their history as the chosen people; the first half of the Christian BibleAdditions to Esther - an Apocryphal book consisting of text added to the Book of EstherPrayer of Azariah and Song of the Three Children - an Apocryphal book consisting of text added to the Book of DanielBook of Susanna, Susanna - an Apocryphal book consisting of text added to the Book of DanielBel and the Dragon - an Apocryphal book consisting of text added to the Book of DanielBook of Baruch, Baruch - an Apocryphal book ascribed to BaruchEpistle of Jeremiah, Letter of Jeremiah - an Apocryphal book consisting of a letter ascribed to Jeremiah to the Jews in exile in Babylon warning them against idolatryBook of Tobit, Tobit - an Apocryphal book that was a popular novel for several centuriesBook of Judith, Judith - an Apocryphal book telling how Judith saved her people1 Esdras, I Esdra - an Apocryphal book consisting of a compilation from I Chronicles and II Chronicles and Ezra and Nehemiah2 Esdras, II Esdras - an Apocryphal book of angelic revelationsBen Sira, Ecclesiasticus, Sirach, Wisdom of Jesus the Son of Sirach - an Apocryphal book mainly of maxims (resembling Proverbs in that respect)Wisdom of Solomon, Wisdom - an Apocryphal book consisting mainly of a meditation on wisdom; although ascribed to Solomon it was probably written in the first century BC1 Maccabees, I Maccabees - an Apocryphal book describing the life of Judas Maccabaeus2 Maccabees, II Maccabees - an Apocryphal book describing the life of Judas MaccabaeusJudith - Jewish heroine in one of the books of the Apocrypha; she saved her people by decapitating the Assyrian general HolofernesHolofernes - (Apocrypha) the Assyrian general who was decapitated by the biblical heroine Judith

Translations

Apocrypha

(əpŏk`rĭfə) [Gr.,=hidden things], term signifying a collection of early Jewish writings excluded from the canon of the Hebrew scriptures. It is not clear why the term was chosen. The Apocrypha include the following books and parts of books: First and Second EsdrasEsdras
[Gr. from Heb. Ezra], name of several books found in the Old Testament Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha. The New Revised Standard Version (following the Authorized Version) maintains the titles Ezra and Nehemiah for the books to which the Vulgate gives the titles First and
..... Click the link for more information. ; TobitTobit
[Gr. from Heb. Tobijah=God is my good], book of the Old Testament Apocrypha, not included in the Hebrew Bible. It is the account of Tobit, a devout Jew in exile, and of his son Tobias.
..... Click the link for more information. ; JudithJudith
[Heb.,=Jewess], early Jewish book included in the Septuagint, but not included in the Hebrew Bible, and placed in the Apocrypha of Protestant Bibles. It recounts an attack on the Jews by an army led by Holofernes, Nebuchadnezzar's general.
..... Click the link for more information. ; the Additions to Esther; Wisdom of SolomonWisdom of Solomon
or Wisdom,
early Jewish book included in the Septuagint and the Vulgate but not in the Hebrew Bible. The book opens with an exhortation to seek wisdom, followed by a statement on worldly attitudes.
..... Click the link for more information. ; SirachSirach
or Ecclesiasticus
[Lat. from Gr.,=ecclesiastical], book included in the Septuagint and in the Roman Catholic canon of the Old Testament but not included in the Hebrew Bible and placed in the Apocrypha of the Authorized Version and Protestant Bibles since.
..... Click the link for more information. (also called Ecclesiasticus); BaruchBaruch,
early Jewish book included in the Septuagint, but not included in the Hebrew Bible and placed in the Apocrypha in the Authorized Version. It is named for a Jewish prince Baruch (fl. 600 B.C.), friend and editor of Jeremiah the prophet (see Jeremiah, book of the Bible).
..... Click the link for more information. ; the Letter of Jeremiah (in Baruch); parts of Daniel (the Prayer of AzariahAzariah
, common name in ancient Israel, especially among the priests. The following occurrences of the name in the Bible do not necessarily all refer to different persons. 1 Chief officer under Solomon. 2 Chief officer under Solomon.
..... Click the link for more information. and the Song of the Three Young MenThree Young Men,
in the Book of Daniel, the three men cast by Nebuchadnezzar into the fiery furnace and delivered by an angel. Their names are Abed-nego, Shadrach, and Meshach, in Babylonian; Azariah, Hananiah, and Mishael, in Hebrew; and Azarias, Ananias, and Misael, in Greek.
..... Click the link for more information. ; see also Bel and the DragonBel and the Dragon,
customary name for chapter 14 of the Book of Daniel, a passage included in the Septuagint and the Apocrypha. It was written possibly in the 1st cent. B.C. as a response to Gentile threat to the Jewish culture and state.
..... Click the link for more information. and SusannaSusanna.
1 Heroine of a story told in the Book of Daniel, in a chapter (13) placed in the Apocrypha in the Authorized Version (see Daniel). Two elders attempt to seduce Susanna and are repulsed; they accuse her of illicit relations with a young man, but she is saved from
..... Click the link for more information. (1)); First and Second MaccabeesMaccabees,
two books included in the Septuagint and placed as the last two books in the Old Testament of the Vulgate; they are not included in the Hebrew Bible and are placed in the Apocrypha in Protestant Bibles. First and Second Maccabees are both historical narratives.
..... Click the link for more information. ; the Prayer of Manasses (see ManassehManasseh
[Heb.,=making to forget], in the Bible. 1 First son of Joseph by his Egyptian wife, Asenath, and eponymous ancestor of one of the 12 tribes of Israel. Manasseh received land on both sides of the Jordan River.
..... Click the link for more information. ). All are included in the SeptuagintSeptuagint
[Lat.,=70], oldest extant Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible made by Hellenistic Jews, possibly from Alexandria, c.250 B.C. Legend, according to the fictional letter of Aristeas, records that it was done in 72 days by 72 translators for Ptolemy Philadelphus, which
..... Click the link for more information. , with the exception of 2 Esdras (4 Ezra). However, they were not included in the Hebrew canon (ratified c.A.D. 100). In 1566 the collection was deemed "deutero-canonical" by the Roman Catholic Church, meaning that their canonicity was recognized only after a period of time. Protestants follow Jewish tradition in regarding all these books as non-canonical. Jewish and Christian works resembling biblical books, but not included among the Apocrypha, are collected in the PseudepigraphaPseudepigrapha
[Gr.,=things falsely ascribed], a collection of early Jewish and some Jewish-Christian writings composed between c.200 B.C. and c.A.D. 200, not found in the Bible or rabbinic writings.
..... Click the link for more information. . The term Apocrypha is sometimes applied to early Christian writings that were once considered canonical by some but are not in the New Testament.

Bibliography

See The Oxford Annotated Apocrypha (1977); G. W. E. Nickelsburg, Jewish Literature Between the Bible and the Mishnah (1981).

Apocrypha

(religion, spiritualism, and occult)

Between 90 and 98 CE, Jewish scholars met at Jamania and established the criteria for the books of the Hebrew Bible that would later be adopted as part of Christianity's official biblical canon—the "canonical books." Criteria of antiquity, language, and moral integrity were established. Books that failed to meet the criteria came to be called "apocryphal."

The word is a Greek plural neuter adjective meaning "hidden." As a literary term it was first applied to books containing esoteric wisdom deemed too sensitive for the uninitiated. Hence, it was a term of honor among scholars. But after the destruction of the Temple at Jerusalem in 70 CE, its meaning gradually evolved to mean "spurious" or even "heretical."

When it came time for the New Testament canon to be "fixed" at the Council of Hippo in 393 CE, the criteria were established that each book had to have been written by an apostle or someone close to an apostle, and each had to have been traditionally used in public worship.

The term apocryphal is now applied to books not included in the official canon of the Bible but often included, especially in Protestant Bibles, as a section between the Old and New Testaments. Such writings include additions to the book of Esther, the Prayer of Azariah and the Song of the Three Young Men, Psalm 151, and the books of Baruch, Bel and the Dragon, Ecclesiasticus, 1 and 2 Esdras, Letter of Jeremiah, Judith, 1-4 Maccabees, Prayer of Manasseh, Susanna, Tobit, and Wisdom of Solomon. Orthodox, Roman, and Protestant churches differ regarding the importance and content of these sections.

Jerome, writing in the early fifth century, was probably the first to use the term "Apocrypha" to describe noncanonical books. He believed apocryphal books should be read for edification but not "for confirming the authority of church dogmas." Because of their acceptance in church tradition, he felt compelled to include them in his famous Latin Bible, The Vulgate, which became the official translation of the Roman Catholic Church.

In the Greek Orthodox Church all but four books of the Apocrypha were accepted as canonical. After the Reformation of the sixteenth century, most Protestants generally ignored the Apocrypha. Martin Luther added the Apocrypha to the end of his German translation while commenting, "These books are not held equal to the sacred Scriptures but are useful and good for reading." That statement probably marked the beginning of the end for the study of the Apocrypha in most Protestant circles. Because they were placed together in a group, they were easy to remove, and most Protestant Bibles do not contain even a mention of such books.

Apocrypha

works of Jewish and early Christian literature that were not included by their churches in their canons—that is, those not used in the divine liturgy. Not all the works excluded from the Jewish canon are considered apocryphal by the Christian church; moreover, there are differences among various Christian churches as to which works belong among the Apocrypha.

The term “Apocrypha” was first used in a papal decree at the end of the fourth century, and it was at that time that the first list of apocryphal works was drawn up by the Christian church. Apocrypha are divided into Old Testament, New Testament, and biographical works. The Old Testament Apocrypha are landmarks of Jewish literature primarily of the second and first centuries B.C. They include the first three books of the Maccabees, the Epistle of Jeremy, the Wisdom of Solomon, Judith, the Wisdom of Jesus ben Sirach, the third book of Esdras, Tobit, and a number of others. The Christian church (except for the Lutherans) has included part of the Old Testament Apocrypha in its canon; therefore, some of it, which was lost in the original Hebrew, has been preserved in the Greek translation. Certain of the Old Testament Apocrypha were evidently written in Greek, including the third book of the Maccabees and the Prayer of Manasseh, and some were written in Aramaic—for example, Tobit. Fragments of Old Testament Apocrypha were found among the Qumran manuscripts, discovered during the period 1947–65 in caves along the shores of the Dead Sea. New Testament Apocrypha include numerous gospels—such as those of Peter and Thomas and the Protevangelium of James—and epistles by Clement, Polycarp, Barnabas, and others. A number of Coptic New Testament Apocrypha—for example, the gospels of Thomas and of Truth—were found in 1946 during excavations at Nag-Hammadi, Egypt. On the borderline between New Testament and biographical Apocrypha are the apocryphal Acts of the Apostles (Paul, Andrew, and others), which recount the dissemination of Christianity and the sufferings of its first preachers.

During the Middle Ages the creation and dissemination of Apocrypha were most frequently connected with popular antifeudal movements and heresies. Thus, in Bulgaria the Bogomil movement evoked a flourishing apocryphal literature. In its struggle with heresies the Christian church condemned the majority of Apocrypha as heretical, but at the same time certain Apocrypha—those which did not contradict the canon—were not only not condemned by the church but were even recommended for reading by believers. In old Rus’, Apocrypha were being extensively propagated at the same time that Christianity was spreading. These were the so-called forbidden books, many of which, having penetrated through Bulgaria, were translations and reworkings of Greek Apocrypha—for example, “The Virgin’s Descent Into Hell” and the apocryphal works about Solomon and Kitov-ras. Russian texts of Apocrypha have come down to us in copies the earliest of which date back to the 11th century. The Anthology of Sviatoslav (1073) enumerates some “hidden,” or apocryphal, books. Some Apocrypha, however, even found their way into such official church collections as Velikie Chet’i Minei (The Great Monthly Readings), published during the 16th century. Many Apocrypha were preserved in monastery libraries—for example, in the Solovetsk Monastery. Apocrypha were reflected in paintings—for example, the icon Descent into Hell; in folklore—for example, religious verses, charms, and divinations; and in music—for example, A. Serov’s opera Judith.

REFERENCES

Iatsimirskii, A. I. Bibliograficheskii obzor apokrifov v iuzhno-slavianskoi i russkoi pis’mennosti. Petrograd, 1921.
Sventsitskaia, I. S. Zapreshchennye evangeliia. Moscow, 1965.
Gudzii, N. K. Istoriia drevnei russkoi literatury. Moscow, 1966.
Pages 28–35.
Eissfeld, O. Einleitung in das Alte Testament,3rd ed. Tübingen, 1964.

A. P. KAZHDAN, N. N. ROZOV, and M. I. ZAND

Apocrypha

the1. the 14 books included as an appendix to the Old Testament in the Septuagint and the Vulgate but not included in the Hebrew canon. They are not printed in Protestant versions of the Bible 2. RC Church another name for the Pseudepigrapha
www.sacred-texts.com/chr/apo

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Words related to Apocrypha

noun 14 books of the Old Testament included in the Vulgate (except for II Esdras) but omitted in Jewish and Protestant versions of the Bible

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