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Jewish Holy Scriptures: Jewish Holy Scriptures: Table of Contents The Tanakh (Hebrew Bible) consists of a collection of writings dating from approximately the 13th - 3rd centuries BCE. These books were included in the Jewish canon by the Talmudic sages at Yavneh around the end of the first century CE, after the destruction of the Second Temple. This clearly contradicts Scripture (e.g., Leviticus 17:11, Titus 3:5, Romans 4 and 5, etc.). Seventh, the apocryphal books were never accepted by the church until the Council of Trent. Roughly 1,500 years after these books were written, the Catholic church decided to “officially” recognize the apocrypha as Scripture.

Reviews of the Enoch Seminar 2018.06.05

Alexander Kulik & Sergey Minov. Biblical Pseudepigrapha in Slavonic Traditions. Oxford: OUP, 2016. ISBN: 9780199590940.Pp. 224. $125. Hardcover.

Gavin McDowell
Université Laval

Alexander Kulik’s and Sergey Minov’s Biblical Pseudepigrapha in Slavonic Tradition is an important and necessary volume on the extrabiblical traditions prevalent in the literature of Eastern Europe. The volume is a bilingual collection of eight smaller works which are only preserved in Slavonic, the ecclesiastical language of Orthodox Europe. Most of the works have actually appeared in earlier English translations, duly noted by the authors, scattered across a number of different collections. Two, the Tale of the Tree of the Cross and About the Ark, appear here for the first time in any Western European language. The collection therefore fills an important gap in the history of scholarship and provides a good basis for further work in this fascinating and neglected corner of Pseudepigrapha research.

Unfortunately, I must begin with a criticism of the title of the book relative to its contents. In Pseudepigrapha studies, the word “Slavonic” immediately suggests 2 Enoch, the Apocalypse of Abraham, and the Ladder of Jacob, the three works included in the influential collection of James H. Charlesworth.[1] Consequently, most scholarship on the Slavonic Pseudepigrapha focuses on these three. However, 2 Enoch and the Apocalypse of Abraham are not found in the present volume. Their absence is not a fault in itself. New editions of these longer works would be a massive undertaking. The problem is the way the work presents itself. The title, as it stands, is misleading, especially since the introduction presents the corpus as a collection of minor Pseudepigrapha. The sense of false advertising extends to the jacket image, which is an illustration of the Apocalypse of Abraham!

Slavonic Apocrypha Iirejected Scriptures Verses

The general introduction situates the volume as a collection of works exclusive to the Slavonic literary tradition (i.e., not translations of Greek works) which are indebted in some way to Second Temple Jewish tradition. Their comments on the individual texts, however, tend to focus on Byzantine, rabbinic, and even Islamic antecedents—that is, medieval sources— rather than Second Temple works. This should not be surprising, since the Slavonic texts themselves are medieval works. Barring the Ladder of Jacob, they are also Christian works, which always ties the primeval history to the death and resurrection of Christ. The collection is therefore called Biblical Pseudepigrapha rather than the more conventional Old Testament Pseudepigrapha. In fact, the works blur the line between Old Testament Pseudepigrapha and New Testament Apocrypha.

Each of the eight texts is preceded by a brief introduction, including a list of manuscripts, translations, and previous scholarship, and followed by extensive commentary on each portion of the text. The Slavonic text is presented first—sometimes as multiple recensions in parallel columns—followed by the English translation. In a few instances, the Slavonic text and English translation appear synoptically. The synoptic presentation has a certain pedagogic value (it is easy to pick up some Slavonic vocabulary by comparing the two) and one wishes that this format had been adopted for all of the texts in the volume.

Slavonic Apocrypha Iirejected Scriptures King James Version

The eight texts require some words of introduction. The first work, About All Creation, describes the Hexameron. It is notable for its polemic against the idea that Satan was expelled from heaven for refusing to adore Adam, a tradition prevalent in the Life of Adam and Eve and the Qur’an. The author instead maintains that Satan fell by attempting to establish himself as equal to God (cf. Isa 14:12-14), which became the common Christian tradition. The work ends with a notice on the mission of Jesus.

The second work, The Creation of Adam, focuses specifically on the events of the sixth day. The familiar biblical narrative is embellished with accounts of Satan’s attacks against the inanimate body of Adam, despite God’s attempts to protect the body by creating a dog. Adam, upon waking, has a prophetic vision of the coming of Christ and the preaching of Peter and Paul. The second half of the work covers Adam’s sojourn in Paradise but is inconsistent on the length of his stay—either seven days or six hours.

The third work, Adam’s Contract with Satan, tells how Adam and his descendants became debtors of Satan, builds on the reference to a “cheirograph” in Colossians 2:14. According to the legend, Adam was tricked by Satan into signing a document promising that his children would belong to the devil. The contract is hidden in a rock within the Jordan, which Christ destroys at his baptism. This story is found in many Eastern Christian traditions.[2]

The fourth work, The Tale of the Tree of the Cross, is the most important Slavonic contribution to the rich tapestry of legends about the origin of the wood of the cross. The tale not only describes the origin of the cross of Christ, brought from Seth out of Paradise, but it also addresses the crosses of the two thieves, the first recovered by a penitent Lot, the second found by Moses in the wilderness. The work describes the incorporation of the three crosses into the Temple of Solomon prior to their arrival at Golgotha. The story is like a summa of earlier cross legends, including those found in the Palaea Historica and the Slavonic Life of Adam and Eve.

The fifth work, The Appeal of Adam to Lazarus in Hell, begins with the righteous dead of the Old Testament learning of the birth of Christ. They decide to send Lazarus as an emissary to petition for their release. Adam composes this plea, consisting of a list of major figures from the Old Testament and their good deeds. A longer version briefly recounts the resurrection of Lazarus. The work anticipates Christ’s descent into Hell and is particularly close to the Gospel of Nicodemus.

The sixth work, The Sea of Tiberias, recounts the primeval history from creation until the death of Adam, with a final notice about the life of Christ. The titular sea is the primordial ocean before the creation of the world. The most noteworthy aspect of this text is the description of a duck, identified as Satan, floating over the watery chaos. Satan is not created by God but rather aids him in the creation of the world. This dualism, coupled with the notion of pre-existent matter, diverges from Christian orthodoxy and has led to the suspicion of a Bogomil origin, a judgment that is uncritically applied to many Slavonic texts. The editors describe several earlier theories but wisely leave the question unresolved.

With the seventh work, About the Ark, the collection finally turns its focus from Adam to Noah. The text does not exist as an independent document but is always attached to a longer work, usually the Palaea Interpretata but also, in one case, the Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius. The text refers to the devil’s attempts to thwart Noah. He destroys the first Ark with the assistance of Noah’s wife. He then boards the second Ark—again with the assistance of Noah’s wife—and transforms into a mouse in order to gnaw through the floorboards before he is attacked by cats. The demonization of Noah’s wife, which had a long afterlife in medieval Christianity, is also prominent in Islamic tradition, beginning with the Qur’an.

Slavonic Apocrypha Iirejected Scriptures Study

The last work, the Ladder of Jacob, is distinguished from the others in several respects. First, it is the work which is most familiar to scholars of the Pseudepigrapha and Second Temple literature, owing to its inclusion in Charlesworth. Second, it is the only work in the collection to focus exclusively on the postdiluvian period. Finally, a portion of the Hebrew text was recovered in an eleventh century manuscript from the Cairo Genizah, which provides a Jewish background that is not found among the other works in the collection. The text is an account of Jacob’s famous vision (cf. Gen 28), in which he sees a series of twenty-four human faces along the twelve steps of the ladder. An angel explains that the faces represent kings who will oppress the Jews and destroy their Temple. However, a righteous king will arise and punish Israel’s enemies. Despite the apparent Jewish background, this work, like About the Ark, forms part of the Palaea Interpretata.

The Ladder of Jacob is a suitable conclusion to the work as it opens up two future avenues of study. First, a number of Slavonic texts, including the Slavonic translation of Esther, are not based on Greek texts but were translated directly from the Hebrew.[3] The authors (p. xv) note that this phenomenon is mostly restricted to medieval compositions such as the Sefer Yosippon and the Chronicles of Moses, but it also involves the two most famous Slavonic Pseudepigrapha. Of the two recensions of 2 Enoch, it is the longer, secondary recension which includes isolated Hebrew words, such as the names of the months or the designations of the different heavens (e.g., Aravoth). Similarly, Abrahram’s iconoclasm in the Apocalypse of Abraham more closely resembles the stories from rabbinic (and Islamic!) literature (e.g., Gen. Rab. 38:13; Q 21:51-70) than the cognate episode in Jubilees (cf., Jub. 12). The engagement with contemporary (as opposed to Second Temple) Judaism is a hallmark of Slavonic apocrypha.

The other hallmark of the Slavonic tradition is the Palaea literature which assembles diverse parabiblical traditions into one narrative complex. The value of these works, apart from their intrinsic interest, is the light they shed on the context in which Pseudepigrapha and pseudepigraphal traditions are transmitted. Among these works is the Palaea Historica, an originally Greek composition which has been recently translated into English by William Adler.[4] This work was more popular in Slavonic than in Greek, and the published Greek text represents only one recension of a notoriously pluriform composition. A separate work, the Palaea Interpretata, is our primary source for the Ladder of Jacob and the Apocalypse of Abraham. It includes a typological commentary on the history of Israel, much of it venomously anti-Jewish. Ironically, this very same text includes works translated directly from Hebrew, including the aforementioned Chronicles of Moses and, apparently, the Ladder of Jacob. This work has not been translated into a Western European language, although Kulik has informed me that he is preparing an English translation and that Christfried Böttrich is working on a German version. One hopes that these forthcoming translations will encourage further study of the Slavonic tradition.

The study of the Slavonic Pseudepigrapha is a field that still needs pioneers. This present collection, with its lists of manuscripts, detailed commentaries, and extensive bibliographies (in Latin and Cyrillic characters) provides an excellent foundation for understanding this material. It should provide a much-needed stimulus for future generations to tackle the Slavic languages necessary to read the primary and secondary sources.

[1] James H. Charlesworth, The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, 2 vols. (London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1983-1985).

Slavonic Apocrypha Iirejected Scriptures Fulfilled

[2] See Michael E. Stone, Adam’s Contract with Satan: The Legend of the Cheirograph of Adam (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002).

[3] For a quick summary, see http://www.yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/East_Slavic_Texts.

[4] William Adler, “Palaea Historica,” in Old Testament Pseudepigrapha: More Noncanonical Scriptures, ed. Richard Bauckham, James Davila, and Alex Panayotov (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2013), 585–672.

The Apocrypha

Unknown to almost all of the over two billion people who claim the Bible as their spiritual foundation is that there are several books and two sections missing missing from all but a few versions of that Bible. Perhaps one of the best kept secrets of the modern Protestant church is that the Bible used by that body is not the original King James Bible. That translation, completed in 1611, and the Bibles published for the use of the clergy and the church members until late in the 19th Century, contained 80 books. Although attempts to remove the 14 books known as the Apocrypha from the Bible began immediately after the King James translation was completed they remained in the Bible until the end of the 19th Century. There is no doubt that the 14 books of the Apocrypha were controversial, but it cannot be denied they were included in the original King James Bible.

The concept of the Protestant Church about the Apocrypha is virtually non-existent, with the general understanding that only the Catholic Church uses it. One would be hard-pressed to find any members of the clergy even aware that these books were ever included in the King James Bible. There are 155,683 words and over 5,700 verses contained in 168 chapters now missing from the King James translation of the Bible due to the exclusion of the Apocrypha. Although this only happened just over a hundred years ago, their existence as fully accepted scripture is virtually unknown.

A clear history exists of the inclusion of the Apocrypha in the King James Bible:

• In the year 1615 Archbishop Gorge Abbott, a High Commission Court member and one of the original translators of the 1611 translation, “forbade anyone to issue a Bible without the Apocrypha on pain of one year’s imprisonment”
• “It should be observed that the Old Testament thus admitted as authoritative in the Church was somewhat bulkier and more comprehensive than the [Protestant Old Testament] . . . It always included, though with varying degrees of recognition, the so-called Apocrypha or Deutero-canonical books. The use made of the Apocrypha by Tertullian, Hippolytus, Cyprian and Clement of Alexandria is too frequent for detailed references to be necessary” (Early Christian Doctrines, J. Kelly)
• “In 405 Pope Innocent I embodied a list of canonical books in a letter addressed to Exsuperius, bishop of Toulouse; it too included the Apocrypha. The Sixth Council of Carthage (419) Re-enacted the ruling of the Third Council, again with the inclusion of the apocryphal books… “The Sixth Council of Carthage repromulgated in Canon 24 the resolution of the Third Council regarding the canon of scripture, and added a note directing that the resolution be sent to the bishop of Rome (Boniface I) and other bishops: ‘Let this be made known also to our brother and fellow-priest Boniface, or to other bishops of those parts, for the purpose of confirming that Canon [Canon 47 of the Third Council], because we have received from our fathers that these are the books which are to be read in church.’” (The Canon on Scripture, F. F. Bruce)
• “The holy ecumenical and general Council of Trent . . . following the example of the orthodox Fathers, receives and venerates all the books of the Old and New Testament . . . and also the traditions pertaining to faith and conduct . . . with an equal sense of devotion and reverence . . . If, however, any one receive not, as sacred and canonical, the said books entire with all their parts, as they have by custom been read in the Catholic Church, and as they are contained in the old Latin Vulgate, and knowingly and deliberately rejects the aforesaid traditions, let him be accursed.” (Decree of the Council of Trent in 1546)
• “In the name of Holy Scripture we do understand those canonical books of the Old and New Testament, of whose authority was never any doubt in the Church. . . And the other books (as Jerome saith) the Church doth read for example of life and instruction of manners: but yet doth it not apply them to establish any doctrine.” (Articles of Religion of the Church of England, 1563, Sixth Article)

Most early Bibles contained the Apocrypha; here are just a few:

• 1534 Luther’s German translation of the Bible
• 1534 The Coverdale Bible
• 1537 Thomas Matthew Bible
• 1539 The Taverner Bible
• 1541 The “Great” or “Cromwell’s” Bible
• 1551 The “Tyndale/ Matthews” Bible
• 1560 The Geneva Bible
• 1568 The Bishops’ Bible
• 1610 Catholic Old Testament
• 1611 King James Bible
• 1615 King James Version Robert Barker at London, England
• 1625 A King James Version
• 1717 King George 1st, AKA, The “Vinegar Bible”
• 1782 The Aitken Bible
• 1791 The Family Bible
• 1846 The Illuminated Bible

The Apocrypha are also contained in the following:

1. The Septuagint (LXX) – Except II Esdras.
2. Codex Alexandrinus (A) – Also contains III & IV Maccabees
3. Codex Vaticanus – Except I & II Maccabees and The defaulter of Manassah
4. Codex Sinaiticus (Aleph)
5. Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus – Includes Wisdom of Solomon and Ecclesiasticus
6. Chester Beatty Papyri – Fragments of Ecclesiasticus
7. The Dead Sea Scrolls – Some apocryphal writing was found among the Dead Sea Scrolls – interestingly written in Greek.
8. Several writings of Church Fathers

Bibles are still available with Apocrypha:

• The Bible: Authorized King James Version with Apocrypha: Published by Oxford University Press; ISBN: 0192835254 (Pub. Date: July 1998)
• KJV Standard Reference Edition With Apocrypha: Published by Cambridge Univ Pr (Bibles); ISBN: 0521509467; Slipcase edition (Pub. Date: August 1997)
• 1611 Edition: a reprint of the 1611 KJV With Apocrypha, Published by Nelson Bible; ISBN: 0840700415; Reissue edition (Pub. Date: June 1, 1982)
• King James Version Lectern Edition: Published by Cambridge Univ Pr (Bibles); ISBN: 0521508169; (Pub. Date: March 1998)
• The Dake Annotated Reference Bible, Standard Edition: King James Version With Apocrypha, Published by Dake Publishing ISBN: 1558290699 (Pub. Date: April 1996)

For 275 years there were efforts to purge these the Apocrypha from the Bible:

• “APOCRYPHA, that is, Books which are not to be esteemed like the Holy Scriptures, and yet which are useful and good to read.” (Luther Bible, 1534)
• “The books and treatises which among the Fathers of old are not reckoned to be of like authority with the other books of the Bible, neither are they found in the Canon of Hebrew.” (Coverdale Bible 1535)
• “The books that follow in order after the Prophets unto the New Testament, are called Apocrypha, that is, books which were not received by a common consent to be read and expounded publicly in the Church, neither yet served to prove any point of Christian religion save in so much as they had the consent of the other scriptures called canonical to confirm the same, or rather whereon they were grounded: but as books proceeding from godly men they were received to be read for the advancement and furtherance of the knowledge of history and for the instruction of godly manners: which books declare that at all times God had an especial care of His Church, and left them not utterly destitute of teachers and means to confirm them in the hope of the promised Messiah, and also witness that those calamities that God sent to his Church were according to his providence, who had both so threatened by his prophets, and so brought it to pass, for the destruction of their enemies and for the trial of his children.” (Geneva Bible, 1560, Preface)
• The Synod of the Reformed Church held at Dordrecht in 1618 condemned the Apocrypha.
• “The books commonly called Apocrypha, not being of divine inspiration, are no part of the Canon of Scripture; and therefore are of no authority in the Church of God, nor to be any otherwise approved, or made use of, than other human writings.” (Westminster Confession, 1647)
• The thirty nine Articles of the Church of England in 1562 recognized this and rejected the canonicity of these apocryphal writings which the Roman church had proclaimed.
• In 1880 the American Bible Society voted remove the “Apocrypha” Books from the King James Version. These 14 Books [There are 155,683 words in over 5,700 verses in 168 Chapters] of the Apocrypha had been part of the King’s bible since 1611.
• The “Apocrypha” was officially removed from the English printings of the KJV by the Archbishop of Canterbury in 1885 leaving only 66 books.

There was a Preface written for the original King James Bible, which is mysteriously missing from that work:The Translator’s Preface

There was also a Dedication written for the original King James Bible: The Epistle Dedicatory