[These Deuterocanonical]…texts were included in Bibles and were presented in exactly the same manner as the canonical books, in similar typeface and appearance. The books continued to have authority and religious significance, and the stories they told remained widely known. I could give countless examples, but let me take one English moment. In 1746, the Duke of Cumberland returned to London after bloodily defeating the Jacobite rebellion. Handel composed an oratorio for the occasion, and naturally turned to the Bible for an appropriate story of a heroic general fighting for his nation and faith against a pagan foe. Also, the story had to be a famous piece well known to a Protestant audience. Where else would he turn, then, but to the story of Judas Maccabaeus? Patriots of the American Revolution loved the story of Maccabees.
English-speaking Protestants lost the Deuterocanon not through any calculated theological decision, but through publishing accident, and at quite a recent date. Prior to the early nineteenth century, Anglo-American Bibles included the apocryphal section, but this dropped out as printers sought to produce more and cheaper editions. Increasingly too, during the nineteenth century, anti-Catholic sentiment encouraged Protestants to draw a sharp line between the two variant Bibles. If Catholics esteemed books like Maccabees and Wisdom, there must be something terribly wrong with them.
As I have noted elsewhere, the sudden loss of those books had unexpected consequences….
(Unintentional?) typo in your title. [[i]now fixed – thanks. Elves[/i]]
There is also a problem with the second link, Elves. [[i] that was just a typo – there is no second link. We’ve removed it, thanks. – elves[/i]]
I am in hearty agreement with Philip Jenkins, and I too bemoan the “amnesia” about the valuable Deutero-canonical books. That’s not so suprising among Presbyterians, Baptists, or other purely Protestant groups, but it is a sad and deplorable development among many Anglicans and Lutherans. Jenkins points out that many recent Protestant Bibles, he cites the NIV in particular, lack the “Apocrypha.” Of course, the same could be said about the NLT, the NASB, etc. Let me add that there is another interesting case of particular concern to those of us in the ACNA, namely the increasingly popular ESV, which is the favored version at Trinity School of Ministry in Ambridge and in many Anglican parishes. The curious thing is that the American distributor of the ESV (Crossway, based in Wheaton, IL) doesn’t even sell any form of the ESV that includes the Deutero-canonicals, even though there is an ESV transaltion of those important books and it’s available in England. I hope that Crossway will soon remedy that deficiency for American readers, but I’m not holding my breath.
Although much more could be said about this often-neglected issue, I’ll content myself for now with the following two brief remarks. First, it’s highly significant that some influential commentary series include commentaries on the Deutero-canonical books, including the famous Anchor Bible series, and perhaps most notably the New Interpreter’s Bible series. I welcome this advance.
Second, I think it’s highly significant that we Anglicans have always referred to the longest and most important of those intertestamental works by the meaningful name “Ecclesiasticus.” That is, while scholars generally refer to that book by the name of “Sirach” (it’s full name is “The Wisdom of Jesus, Son of Sirach”), we Anglicans haven’t hesitated to continue calling it “The Church’s book.” Please note: NOT “the Synagogue’s Book” or “The Catholic CHurch’s book” but simply and tellingly, The Church’s Book, including the Church of England’s Book. Those T19 readers who read widely among the ancient church fathers know that among the OT books, Sirach/Ecclesiasticus would rank among the most-often cited books, perhaps the 5th or 6th most often quoted OT book, after Psalms, Isaiah, Genesis, and Deuteronomy. Certainly, the 51 chapters of Ecclesiasticus are cited more often than the 31 chapters of Proverbs, the OT book it resembles most.
In the end, what canon of Holy Scripture you use and acknowledge tends to function as a badge of religious/denominational identity. I think there is little doubt that the great majority of the world’s Anglicans today think of themselves as Protestants and so find it natural to follow the Protestant canon and quietly ignore the books they would call, following the 39 Articles of 1671, “the Apocrypha.” Howelver, a minority of us, myself included, prefer to regard Anglicanism at its best as a Protestant-Catholic hybrid, rather than as the English form of Protestantism. Many of us prefer the Catholic canon to the Protestant one, although some of us, myself included, would place more emphasis on the secondary nature of the inspiration and authority of the Deutero-canonicals than Roman Catholics would. IOW, which canon you follow tends to be a litmus test showing whether you’re the kind of Anglican that is basically a “liturgical Protestant,” or the kind that’s fundamentally a “biblical catholic.” There is something of a Continental Divide between the two.
David Handy+
Upholder of the Whole Bible (all 73 books)
I can recall one Baptist minister serving in a Presbyterian setting who found the books very helpful in the way they filled a chronological gap in the Bible (yes, let’s capitalize this most important of all books).
I found one Bible published a few years ago that had the Books used by the Roman Church, the Russian Church, the Greek Church. There are more Books that just what is in Protestant and Roman Bibles. I feel that ALL Bibles should include all of the Books if for nothing else historical insight. The Truth of God’s Word should not be afraid of including ALL of the Books. I look at this like I would using just a single sentence or paragraph out of any of the Books, you will probably miss much of the meaning by not knowing the context that it came from. That can lead to misunderstanding and leaving out the Apocryphal Books can do the same.
drummie (#4),
Yes, there are growing numbers of Bibles published that include most of the books recognized as canonical by the various churches. For example, the main study Bibles that I use are the New Interpreter’s Study Bible published by Abingdon (ed. by Leander Keck), and the HarperCollins Study Bible (ed. by Wayne Meeks). Both feature the NRSV, and include in a separate section the different books recognized by the Catholic, Greek Orthodox, and Slavic Orthodox Churches. However, as professor Jenkins points out in his article, the rather idiosyncratic Ethiopian Orthodox Church, which has by far the largest canon in the Christian world, includes some other books not recognized as canonical by any other major Christian community, i.e., 1 Enoch and Jubilees. Those latter books aren’t included in any ecumenical study Bible, as far as I know.
Yes, the very least that can be said in favor of rediscovering the forgotten Deutero-canonical books in the differing Catholic and Orthodox canons is that they have much historical value in filling in the gaps in the biblical story between the OT and the NT. Thus, e.g., 1 and 2 Maccabees shed much welcome light on the circumstances surrounding the composition of Daniel (assuming a Maccabean dating for the latter). But there is much more to be gained from those sorely neglected books than that.
Perhaps the most notable thing that adding the extra books does is to increase substantially the amount of wisdom literature in the Bible. That is, Sirach/Ecclesiasticus with its 51 chapters, plus the Wisdom of Solomon, with its additional 19 chapters, together add another 70 chapters of wisdom material to the canon.
But the fact remains that we Anglicans can’t agree among outselves anymore (not since the Catholic Revival began in 1833) on what constitutes “the Bible, the whole Bible, and nothing but the Bible.” The position taken by the 39 Articles in 1563/1571 shows where Anglicanism stood then. But that was the FIRST word on the subject, not the last word. And Anglicanism no longer has a unified position on that fundamental topic of the extent of the canon. Not even for those of us who have signed the Jerusalem Declaration, with its reaffirmation of the continuing importance of our historic formularies: the 39 Articles and the 1662 BCP. And that’s in part because our formularies aren’t consistent themselves. The Articles tend to disparage the “Apocrypha” in Protestant, even Reformed, fashion. But the 1662 BCP, which restored the use of the disputed books after the Puritans did away with them during the Interregnum (1640s and 1650s), impicitly attributes more value to them by insisting not only on their public reading during worship (i.e., inclusion in the lectionary), but even more notably by prominently drawing on the Greek form of Daniel for some of the canticles used in Morning Prayer (Benedictus Es, and especially the beloved Benedicite, Omnia Opera Domini).
David Handy+
David Handy,
The ESV with Apocrypha is quite available here in the USA, published by [url=http://global.oup.com/academic/product/english-standard-version-bible-with-apocrypha-9780195289107?q=esv apocrypha&lang=en&cc=us]Oxford University Press[/url]. This is the translation I use, as do several of the faculty, as well as many of our students.
Unfortunately, Oxford publishes this only in a garish and cheaply bound red cover, and one frequently sees copies on campus that are held together with duct tape. It is not the fault of TSM that Crossway refuses to publish the ESV with Apocrypha, or that Oxford will not publish a decently bound leather version.
TSM uses the ESV because it simply is the most literal translation available today. The NRSV sadly compromised political correctness for accuracy in the name of inclusive language and so is really a paraphrase.
BTW, a few years ago NT professor David DeSilva taught an interterm course on the Apocrypha at TSM, which was well attended.
I think the typical Anglican attitude toward the Apocrypha was summarized well by Richard Hooker in his Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity in response to Puritan critics, who complained that Anglicans should not include the Apocrypha in lectionary readings because it contains numerous errors. Hooker responded, in effect, “You are correct that the Apocrypha contains errors. Those aren’t the parts we read.”
I would imagine that the 39 Articles really is the last word on this subject. If Anglicans cannot agree about which Prayer Book to use, or whether women should be ordained, we’re hardly going to agree that the Apocrypha is inspired Scripture.
Before I get myself in hot water with other members of the faculty: the Oxford ESV with Apocrypha is the translation that is used by more than one faculty member. “Several” might give the wrong impression.
In the early 1990s, I attended a meeting sponsored by Zondervan to publicize their new NIV Concordance. A member of the NIV translation team was present, and I asked him why the NIV did not include the Apocryphal Books. I pointed out that Anglicans used some of the books in their Sunday lectionaries. He said that the translators rejected the books because they were not part of the Protestant “canon”, and they contained fanciful stories and that they added nothing to the real books of the Bible. Besides they were given too much importance by Roman Catholics. Having used the NIV Study Bible prior to that meeting, I reverted to the RSV with the Aprocrypha. I didn’t find the translator’s rationale all that convincing and have paid little or no attention subsequently to the NASB, New Century, and until the Oxford ESV came out, to the ESV. Parts of the Aporcrypha (e.g. Wisdom 1 and 2) are as sublime as anything in the Protestant Canon
Since securing episcopal permission to use the ESV in worship, I contacted Oxford about whether they’d be producing a larger print version. They said no. Perhaps and Anglican-friendly publisher would explore possibilities. Meanwhile, I’ve produced an ESV gospel book (RCL), and am working away at producing the rest of the lectionary in lectern-size and bulletin inserts. I’m happy to share freely, as per Crossway’s and OUP’s permissions.
Thanks to Dr. Witt (#6 & 7) and Ian+ (#9).
I appreciate your contributions to this thread. I’m glad to stand corrected about the availability of the ESV with the Deutero-canonical books in North America. And I’m delighted that Ian is helping make ESV lectionary-based materials available. I think the significant thing that’s relevant to the Jenkin’s article is that there seems to be little demand for Bibles that include the extra (disputed) books among Protestant, or even Anglican, readers. It may be a chicken-and-egg question as to whether the lack of reader interest is due to paucity of full Bibles available on the market, or the publishers are simploy reflecting the lack of demand in the market, but most likely the two factors unfortunately reinforce each other.
I’m glad that Dr. Witt took the bait and responded to my rather provocative assertion about the implicitly rather minimalist stance taken toward the “Apocrypha” in the Articles being only the first word on the topic for Anglicans, not the last word. Obviously, my claim is highly debatable, and I certainly don’t expect all Anglicans to agree with me. Nor even the majority of them. I freely concede that I’ve adopted a minority position on this matter.
Clearly, there is a major underlying issue at stake here, especially for those of us who have signed the Jerusalem Declaration and are a part of the GFCA movement (Global Fellowship of CONFESSING Anglicans). And that crucial issue is clarifying just what status our historic formularies will have in the New Anglicanism emerging from the realignment that’s still evolving. I hope that my rather audacious and controversial comments about the “whole Bible” above will be understood in the teasing manner in which I meant them. I was trying to spark some discussion about a neglected topic, not to pontificate about it or presume to settle it.
Nonetheless, I’ll continue in a self-differentiating manner and add the rather provocative comment here that the minimalist stance taken toward the Deutero-canonical books is one of several severe defects with the 39 Articles. Simply put, the Articles are FAR too one-sidedly Protestant for my liking. I certainly deplore the way that the venerable Articles have been marginalized and relegated to virtual oblivion by most leaders in TEC. But the fact remains that thier normative status within Anglicanism has changed over time, and changed drastically since 1833.
Since the Catholic Revival started at Oxford in 1833 there have been a significant minority of Anglicans who think of themselves as more Catholic than Protestant (myself included). Clearly the Articles reflect a robustly Protestant doctrinal stance, even a generally or broadly Reformed one, while making allowance for some more Lutheran views. But the strong opposition to “Romish” errors is all too clear. As Newman wryly noted with typically British understatement, the Articles are the fruit of an “unCatholic age.”
So here’s the fundamental issue that still awaits clarification, an inevitable and unavoidable dilemma that I hope the leaders who gather in Nairobi for GAFCON II will start to address with the seriousness that the question deserves. [b]How can the Evangelical and Anglo-Catholic versions of orthodox Anglicanism co-exist under the same big tent without compromising our theological integrity in an unacceptable way?[/b] Or to rephrase it more pointedly, [b]How can those of us who see ourselves as “biblical catholics” rather than “liturgical Protestants” be included within a confessionally-based Anglicanism without falling into the trap of doctrinal indifferentism or sheer incoherence??[/b]
I don’t think that million-dollar question has as yet started to be taken with the seriousness that it deserves in the GFCA movement.
Coridally,
David Handy+