Hi, I'm David Bercot, and tonight we're going to be continuing our discussion of the Apocrypha, separating myth from fact. In particular, we'll be discussing the various objections that many Christians make against the Old Testament books that are known today as the Apocrypha. I'm very familiar with these objections because for much of my life, I've made these exact same objections myself. You know, objections are funny things.
We can be strongly opposed to something, and yet our objections are based on purely inaccurate information, or perhaps even on emotional ones. Like my objections to Chinese food. As a boy, Chinese food was one of my favorite kinds of food. It was always a real treat when we went out to a Chinese restaurant. Shortly after I got married, my wife's aunt took my wife and me out to eat at a Chinese restaurant in San Antonio, Texas. Now, she warned us ahead of time that the atmosphere of the restaurant was pretty shabby.
But she said that the food was terrific, and it made up for the surroundings. Well, she was definitely right about the seedy atmosphere. The place was dirty, the lighting was dingy, and the restrooms were filthy. When the food came, I tried to just concentrate on the meal and forget about my surroundings. About midway through the meal, I struck up a conversation with our waitress, and I asked her how her evening was going. She said, " Well, it wasn't going so well. " I said, " Oh, well, what's the matter?
" Well, she answered she was suffering from diarrhea, and she was hoping the owner wouldn't find out or else he would make her go home. I didn't say anything, but I suddenly lost my appetite. Unfortunately, I didn't just lose my appetite for the night. I lost my appetite for Chinese food permanently. Yeah, I know, that's pretty wacky. Particularly for a guy who is so logical and rational like I am. But I just have this thing about having my food served by a waitress with diarrhea.
Now, let's suppose that years later my children had asked me when they were little, " Hey, Dad, how come when we eat out, we rarely go to a Chinese restaurant? " Now, if they had asked me that, I could have told them the real reason. But if I had, they would have probably replied, " Dad, that's a terrible reason. " So, if I had been a person without a lot of integrity, I probably wouldn't have told them the real reason, but I might have given them a lot of plausible sounding fake reasons.
Such as, " Well, children, there's a good reason why dad doesn't like to go to Chinese restaurants. " Did you know that what they serve in so-called Chinese restaurants? It's not really authentic Chinese food. Also, it's not very healthy. There's a lot of deep fat fried foods and heavy, sugary sauces. And did you know that Chinese food is high in MSG? Not just that, most Chinese restaurants have all-you-can-eat buffets. And that's bad because it encourages overeating and gluttony.
And you all know what the Bible says about gluttony. I think you can see that it would have been pretty easy for me to have totally turned my children against Chinese food if I had wanted to. And actually, most of the things I've just stated are factual. The main problem with them is that they are equally true of most other types of food as well. I mean, so-called Mexican food isn't authentic Mexican food, and it's not particularly healthy either.
Lots of restaurants have all-you-can-eat buffets, or they encourage gluttony in other ways. Now, my problem with Chinese food is very similar to the Protestant problem with the Apocrypha. We know the real reason why the scribes and Pharisees took these books out of the Jewish canon of Scripture. It was a byproduct of their war on the Septuagint, which was part of their larger campaign against Christianity. And we know the real reason why Luther took these same books out of the Christian canon.
It's because these books, or at least a few of them, went against his doctrines. Of course, if we told people the real reason why the books of the Apocrypha aren't in our Bibles, I think they would universally respond, " Those are terrible reasons. " So they're not ever going to be told, are they? They're going to be given plausible-sounding fake reasons. Similar to the type of fake reasons I gave in my hypothetical response to my children about Chinese food.
The fake reasons I gave my children were actually factual, but they're equally true of food served in almost all other restaurants as well, as I mentioned. Likewise, most of the fake objections thrown out against the Apocrypha are factual. But they're equally true about the other Old Testament books as well. So let's look at some of those specific fake objections.
If you had asked me as a young man why I rejected the Apocrypha, one of the reasons I would have given you is that Jesus and the New Testament writers never quote from them. And I firmly believe that that was the major reason why I rejected those books. In fact, even after I had discovered all of the things that I talked about last night, I still wrestled for many years with the question, " If these books are Scripture, why don't the New Testament writers ever directly quote from them?
" But you know, what I didn't realize for much of my life is that the New Testament writers never directly quote from about a third of the Old Testament books that are included in the Protestant canon. Did you know that? It's true. The New Testament writers never directly quote from Judges, Ruth, 1 Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon, Lamentations, Nahum, Zephaniah, or Obadiah.
So if the real reason I'm going to reject the books of the Apocrypha is that they aren't quoted in the New Testament, then I'd have to reject these 12 books as well, wouldn't I? In truth, I honestly thought it was the main reason I didn't accept those books. However, in reality, it didn't have anything to do with it. The real reason I didn't accept them was because I had been indoctrinated against them.
You know, I'm going to guess that most Christians have the idea that the Old Testament books are quoted throughout the New Testament in a fairly uniform manner. But that's not the case at all. Well, as we've just seen, about a third of the books of the Protestant canon are never quoted. Not just that, over half of the Old Testament quotations in the New Testament come from just three books: Psalms, Isaiah, and Deuteronomy.
And then when we add Genesis and Exodus, those five books total account for 77% of all of the direct Old Testament quotations. And when we look at the top 10 books quoted, they total a whopping 90% of all New Testament quotations. So the majority of the Old Testament books of the Protestant canon are either never quoted in the New Testament or are only quoted once or twice. In other words, there's nothing especially peculiar about the fact that the eight books of the Apocrypha are not quoted in the New Testament.
In fact, when we analyze things a bit further, the fact that they aren't quoted fits the same pattern as other similar Old Testament books. The list of the top 10 quoted Old Testament books is made up of Psalms, four of the books from the Pentateuch, and various prophetic books. And other than Psalms, only one of the wisdom books makes the list, and that is Proverbs. But here is the interesting thing. None of the historical books make the list. Now, why is that important to our discussion?
It's because, except for Sirach and The Wisdom of Solomon, all of the books of the Apocrypha are historical books. In fact, when we analyze things even further, then this situation becomes even more clear. None of the historical books of the Protestant canon that pertain to the post-exile period of Israel, that is, Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther, are ever quoted in the New Testament. In fact, the very names of Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther are missing entirely from the New Testament.
And since four of the eight books of the Apocrypha are historical books pertaining to post-exile Israel, we shouldn't expect to find them quoted in the New Testament. Let's do even more analysis. The New Testament writers generally limit their quotations to the Psalms, the Pentateuch, and the prophetic books. The Protestant Old Testament canon contains six wisdom books. Fully one half of these books, Song of Songs, Ecclesiastes, and Lamentations, are never quoted in the New Testament.
And since two of the books of the Apocrypha are wisdom books, it's no surprise that the New Testament writers don't quote from them. You've heard me say that there are 12 books from the Protestant Canon that aren't quoted in the new. However, some writers will say that there are eight books that aren't quoted in the new, and others say there are only five books that aren't quoted. Why the difference in calculation? Well, it all turns on what you mean by the term " quoted.
" Now, I'm talking about direct quotations preceded by an expression like, " It is written. " But if we're talking about indirect quotations or allusions, then yes, perhaps there are only five books from the Protestant Old Testament canon that aren't quoted in the New. For example, Matthew mentions Ruth in his genealogy of Jesus. Some people count that as a quotation from the Book of Ruth. Okay, fine. But then, it's not correct to say that the New Testament writers don't quote from the books of the Apocrypha.
Because if we're going to count brief quotations, indirect quotes, and references, then there are a number of quotations from the Apocrypha in the New Testament. For example, Jesus said, " On this rock, I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. " That phrase " gates of hell " or more precisely " gates of Hades " is a direct quotation from the wisdom of Solomon. That is the only place in the Old Testament where that phrase is used.
In fact, it's the only place in the entire Bible where that phrase is used, except in Matthew 16:18. Rather remarkable. I'll give you another example. In Colossians 1:17, speaking about Christ, who is the Word of God. Paul says, " In Him, all things hold together. " Now it seems pretty clear to me that Paul is quoting the passage in Sirach that says, " By his word, all things hold together. " One more example, James 1:19 says, " Be quick to hear, slow to speak.
" Sirach 5: 11 says, " Be quick to listen, slow to answer. " Moving from quotations to references, the 11th chapter of Hebrews is almost certainly referring to events from 2 Maccabees when it says, " And others were tortured, not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection. " Now let me ask you, where in the Old Testament do we read about anyone being tortured and not accepting deliverance, preferring to suffer and die in order to obtain a better resurrection? There is no such reference.
However, 2 Maccabees contains the stirring account of seven Jewish brothers who were tortured by the officers of the Greek king in order to force them to turn from God's law. However, they defiantly answered the king's officers saying, " We are ready to die rather than to transgress the laws of our fathers. " And each of the brothers did willingly die under torture rather than to break God's law. And the early Christians universally understood Hebrews 11 to be referring to this event.
Another often repeated objection to the Apocrypha is that Josephus supposedly set forth a list of the Hebrew canon of Scriptures that contains the same 39 books as the Protestant canon. In fact, the claim is even made that Josephus was a contemporary of Jesus. I remember hearing that objection when I was a teenager, and I used to repeat it myself. Of course, at the time, I never personally read Josephus, so I didn't realize that what I was saying wasn't true.
Now, it is true that Josephus discussed the Hebrew canon in a work entitled " Against Apion. " But this work wasn't written until about A.D. 105. So in this writing, Josephus wasn't describing the canon in Jesus ' day. He was describing the canon after the scribes and Pharisees had rejected the Septuagint, and after they had whittled their canon down accordingly. So Josephus doesn't shed any new light on the issue at hand.
Surprisingly, despite all that you read in Protestant literature, Josephus did not say the Jewish canon of the early 2nd century contained 39 books. He said it contained 22 books. This is what he wrote. " We do not have an innumerable multitude of books among us, but only 22 books, which contain the records of all the past times, which are justly believed to be divine. And of them five belong to Moses, which contain his laws and the traditions of the origin of mankind till his death.
" From the death of Moses till the reign of Artaxerxes, King of Persia, the prophets who were after Moses wrote down what was done in their times in 13 books. The remaining four books contain hymns to God and precepts for the conduct of human life. " End quote. That's the only description Josephus gives us of these 22 books. We all know what the five books of Moses are, but which four books does he include among the wisdom books? Surely Psalms and Proverbs, but what are the other two? Job and Ecclesiastes?
Did he omit lamentations and Song of Solomon from the canon? No one really knows. But the really big problem is that he lists only 13 more books, whereas the Protestant Canon has 28 more, or actually 30 more, if you pick up the additional two wisdom books. I have to smile at the gyrations that Protestants go through to try to turn these 13 remaining books of Josephus into the 30 remaining books of the Protestant canon. To do this, they take some very imaginative liberties.
For example, they say that judges and Ruth constituted one book, even though there's not even one scrap of historical evidence to support this. Now, to be fair, I do think we can plausibly convert Josephus ' canon of 22 books into 36 or 37 books. But I don't think there is any way to convert it into 39 books. At least not honestly. And this isn't surprising because the Talmudic writings would indicate that there was controversy for a considerable period of time about the Song of Solomon and about Esther.
In fact, not a single copy of Esther has been found among the Dead Sea Scrolls, whereas at least one copy of Sirach and multiple copies of Tobit have been found among the scrolls, as well as a portion of Baruch. And since this portion of Baruch is a fragment, I'm not sure if it was in a separate scroll by itself, or if it was included in the scroll of Jeremiah. But all of this misses the main point of Josephus ' statement about the 22 books.
Remember that Josephus made his statement around the year 105 after the New Testament was completed. He doesn't state that the Old Testament contains 22 books. He states that the Jews recognize only 22 books to be divine. Period. An educated, well-traveled man like Josephus was obviously aware of the books written by Jews like Paul, James, Peter, and Matthew. So he's stating along with the other Pharisees that the books written by the Christians were not divine.
So why on earth would any Christian quote Josephus as our authority on the canon of Scripture? All right, let's consider another objection. I often hear people say that the books of the Apocrypha contain strange unscriptural teachings. Really? All I can say is, imagine if the account in the Book of Judges about Jephthah sacrificing his daughter were in one of the books of the Apocrypha, everyone would say, " How terrible! A man offering up his daughter as a human sacrifice. " This is clearly unscriptural.
These books are obviously not part of the Bible. But what happens when we read about the same event in the Book of Judges? Oh, well, then it's different. We say, " Well, this is a difficult passage. Maybe it's not really talking about a human sacrifice. " And if it is, God certainly didn't approve of it. You see, when an event that is hard to understand is in one of the books that we accept as canonical, we call it a difficult passage.
But if it's in the apocrypha, we say that it's proof that the apocrypha shouldn't be included in the canon. It's a real double standard. I'll give you some more examples. What about the Witch of Endor bringing up Samuel from the dead? If that were in the apocrypha, we would say, " See, the apocrypha teaches spiritism. It says that spirit mediums can bring up the dead. " Ah, but since it's in 1 Samuel, we shrug our shoulders and call it a difficult passage.
And what about the passage in 1 Kings, where God sends His angel to be a lying spirit in the prophets before Ahab? Does God really tell His angels to lie? Now, if that passage were in the Apocrypha, we would immediately renounce it as unscriptural and perhaps even as blasphemous. Yes, but doesn't Second Maccabees teach prayers for the dead, people ask? Well, the quick answer is no, it does not. No more than 2nd Samuel teaches spiritism.
In case you haven't read 2 Maccabees, the incident in question is just a very small part of the book. The faithful Jews have just waged a battle against the Greeks who are trying to force them to forsake the law of Moses and the teachings of God. This small band of faithful Jews are blessed by God, and they defeat a larger army of the Greeks. In fact, only a few of the Jews die in the battle.
But when Judas Maccabee and his men go to bury their fallen comrades, they discover that under their tunics, each of these men were wearing a pagan amulet for good luck. And they realized that this is why these particular men died in battle. Well, out of love for their comrades, Judas and his men then took up an offering and sent it to Jerusalem as a sin offering on behalf of the fallen soldiers.
The narrator of the book states that this was commendable because it showed that Judas and his men believed in the resurrection of the dead. He says that if there was no resurrection, then there was no reason to ask God to forgive the sin of these dead men. That's it. The account doesn't state that the offering benefited these men. It simply states that it was commendable that Judas and his soldiers believed in the resurrection of the dead.
Actually, this incident is so insignificant in itself that I doubt anyone would take much notice of it if it weren't for the fact that the Roman Catholic Church wrongfully used it to teach people that they could get their loved ones out of purgatory by paying to have masses said for them or by buying indulgences for them. And as most of us know, it was that particular practice that touched off the Reformation.
But when the Catholic Church misuses a passage of Scripture, the answer isn't to throw that book out of the Bible. The answer is to point out that the Catholic Church is twisting the Scriptures. 2 Maccabees only refers to the resurrection of the dead. Purgatory pertains to the state of the dead between death and the resurrection, which is an entirely different matter. So for the Church to use this passage to tell Catholics that they can help their loved ones in purgatory is completely wrong.
The early Christians accepted 2 Maccabees as part of the canon of Scripture, but they didn't use it as a basis for praying for the dead, or to teach that we can help people after they die. Similarly, the early church didn't use 1 Samuel as a basis to teach that it's alright to go to spirit mediums. Let's move on to another objection that I hear so often, is that the apocrypha contains geographical, historical, or scientific errors unlike the rest of Scripture.
For example, just a few days ago, I received an email from one of my listeners that said, " I recently listened to a recording of your topic at the Anabaptist Identity Conference on the Apocrypha. " I found it quite interesting. I was discussing it with another individual, and he asked me why it is that some of the books of the Apocrypha quote dates and places that seem to be obvious errors.
He referred to the fact that the Bible is very careful with that, but that doesn't seem to hold true with some of the apocrypha. I had no answer for him. For example, some of the geography in Tobit seems questionable, end quote. Well, I appreciated the sincerity of this brother and the fact that he took the time to write me. But I'm always surprised when I hear things like this because it tells me that an awful lot of Christians live in a very sheltered spiritual world.
Now, I don't particularly want to be the one to open your eyes to various difficulties in the Scriptures, but you should be aware that there are a lot of historical, scientific, and geographical difficulties in the Bible. Sure, we can offer plausible explanations for many of these problems, but for quite a few of them, if we are spiritually and intellectually honest, we have to admit that we really don't know the answers. Now please don't misinterpret me.
I believe in the infallibility and inerrancy of Scripture, including the Apocrypha. But I don't close my eyes to the fact that there are some difficulties here and there. And if I don't have any credible answers for some of these difficulties, I don't make answers up. But I do have faith that there are answers. I've seen enough truth in the Bible, and I've seen the remarkable fulfillment of prophecies to convince me that this is the Word of God.
The friend of the man who wrote this email said that the books of the Apocrypha " dates and places that seem to be obvious errors, but the Bible is very careful with those kind of things. " Well, actually, like the rest of the Bible, the books of the Apocrypha vary depending on the writer. For example, the author of 1 Maccabee seems to be very precise with historical and geographical details, and it has the respect of even secular historians.
In contrast, the author of Judith seems to be less precise, and it's the same with other scriptures. We see the preciseness of Luke with chronological details in the second chapter of his gospel. But then when we compare the chronology of the Last Supper and crucifixion as presented in the Gospel of John, and contrast it with the chronology in the other three gospels, it's virtually impossible to reconcile them. Now, in faith, I believe there is a way to harmonize them, but I honestly don't know how to do it.
Moving to the Old Testament. In Genesis 14:14, we read that Abraham pursued the Elamites all the way to Dan. Now, the city of Dan was located in what was later the northern part of Israel. However, the person that the city of Dan was named after hadn't even been born yet when Abraham lived. In fact, he was a descendant of Abraham. So how could Abraham have pursued the Elamites all the way to Dan?
So I think it's fair to say that Moses doesn't write with the same geographical precision as did Luke and some of the other Bible writers. Of course, we would all say that Moses is merely giving the name that the city was known by in his day. That makes sense. The problem is that the city of Dan wasn't established until the time of the judges, long after Moses was dead. I mean, you can read about it in Judges 18:29. Hmm.
Well, actually, I could give you a list of at least 100 historical, geographic, scientific, or chronological problems we can find in the 66 books of the Protestant Bible that are just as puzzling as the ones I've mentioned. Now, some of these difficulties have plausible explanations, but others are real enigmas. Now, none of them affect my faith in Scripture, and the books of the Apocrypha are no different. For example, the Book of Judith contains a thorny problem.
Protestant critics always point out that the book refers to Nebuchadnezzar as the ruler of the Assyrians. They say that Nebuchadnezzar was the ruler of the Babylonians, not the Assyrians, and they immediately dismissed the book as fiction. Actually, however, that is not a historical error. You see, the Assyrian and Babylonian empires were both basically the same empires. You merely had a change of rulership. Nebuchadnezzar was a Chaldean, but he ruled over the Assyrians as well as the Chaldeans.
The real enigma is that Judith says that Nebuchadnezzar ruled from Nineveh. To be sure, Nineveh was still in existence in the time of Nebuchadnezzar, but we don't normally think of him ruling from there. Nebuchadnezzar's capital city was Babylon. Now, perhaps Nineveh still served as a governmental outpost in the time of Nebuchadnezzar. On the other hand, some Christians have hypothesized that Nineveh was a code word for Babylon among the exiled Jews.
Just like Babylon was a code word for Rome among the persecuted Christians. Nobody knows. It's definitely a difficulty. But I have faith that there is a solution. Yes, there are historical and geographical problems in some of the books of the Apocrypha, just as there are difficulties in some of the other books of the Bible. But there's not a higher percentage of difficulties in the Apocrypha.
Actually, when it comes to historical, scientific, and geographical difficulties, the books of the Apocrypha differ from the other 66 books of the Protestant Bible in only two ways. First, when it comes to the other books, for several centuries, we've had an army of scholars, apologists, and Christian universities defending the various difficulties that critics have brought up and proposing explanations for them.
But when it comes to the apocrypha, there is practically no one to defend the difficulties that are brought up. Now, you might think that the Catholic Church would defend these books, but it doesn't. That's because the Catholic Church doesn't take a fundamentalist view of Scripture. To be sure, it believes the Bible is the inspired Word of God, but it doesn't believe that we should take the Scriptures as being literally true when it comes to scientific and historical matters.
So normally it doesn't try to explain these difficulties. That leaves a few scattered individuals like myself left to defend the Apocrypha against an army of Protestants who are bent on tearing it down. The second difference between the Apocrypha and the other books of the Bible is that the attacks on the other books are generally made by unbelievers. But now here's the real irony. When it comes to the apocrypha, nearly all of the attacks come from conservative Bible-believing Christians. Isn't that something?
We believers find it very offensive when non-believers attack and belittle our Scriptures. And I believe that God finds it offensive as well. And yet we then go out and attack and belittle these books that were embraced as the inspired Word of God by virtually all Christians before the time of Martin Luther. Now, what do you imagine God thinks of that? Reflect on it for a moment.
Nearly all of my readers and listeners are kingdom Christians, people who embrace the teachings of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount and in the rest of the gospels. Throughout the centuries, virtually all kingdom Christians. I'm talking about the early Christians, the Waldensians, the Lollards, the early Moravians, and the Anabaptists. They all embraced the books of the Apocrypha as the inspired Word of God. More than that, they quoted from these books. They were inspired by these books.
They learned from them, and they loved them. So when we attack and ridicule the Apocrypha, we are also attacking and ridiculing the faith and the Scriptures of our beloved forefathers in the kingdom faith. I want to briefly address one last Protestant objection, and this objection is the books of the Apocrypha don't claim to be inspired. And that's a true statement. They don't. Now, at first, that might seem to be a devastating blow to these books.
That is, until you do a little bit of research using your own Bible. As I've already mentioned, two of the books of the Apocrypha are wisdom books, and all of the rest are historical books. Now, I want you to do a little experiment. Using a regular Protestant Bible, I want you to leaf through all of the historical books in your Bible. That is, look at the opening and closing verses, or any of the other verses you want to. Now, do any of the historical books claim to be inspired by God?
I did this experiment, and maybe I missed something, but I didn't find any of the historical books that made that claim. Now I'm going to ask you to do the same thing with the six wisdom books, which are Job through the Song of Solomon, plus the Book of Lamentations. Again, I may have missed something, but I didn't find any of them that claimed to be inspired by God.
Since there are 150 Psalms, actually 151 in the Septuagint, I'll admit that I didn't do the experiment on all of them, but I did on quite a few of them, and none of the ones I looked at claimed to be inspired by God. So we're back to my illustration about reasons not to eat Chinese food. I could tell you not to go to Chinese restaurants because the food there isn't authentic native cuisine. It's fattening, it's high in sodium, and eating in Chinese restaurants encourages overeating.
However, to whatever extent that that is true of Chinese food, it's equally true of food in other restaurants. And it's the same thing with the objections made against the Apocrypha. People point out that these books are not directly quoted in the New Testament. They describe events that seem strange. There are historical and geographical difficulties in them. The books don't claim to be inspired. Yet every one of those objections is equally applicable to many of the books of the Protestant Old Testament.
So in the end, there are bogus objections. Now, you would think that with all of the vehemence and energy that is channeled in attacking the books of the Apocrypha, there must be some huge doctrinal or lifestyle issues that are at stake. You know, if we accept the books of the Apocrypha, maybe we'll have to deny the Trinity, or maybe we'll have to start living by the Mosaic Law or something. But here's the irony. There are no ramifications whatsoever. No doctrines are affected. There's no new commandments.
Whether or not you accept the apocrypha as Scripture isn't going to have any impact on your walk with Christ. In other words, all this vehemence, all this denunciation of the apocrypha is over nothing. Now, at the outbreak of the Reformation, the big issue was the sale of indulgences, and the Catholic Church used Second Maccabees to justify their practice. But as we've seen, this was a total twisting of Scripture, and it was not part of the apostolic faith.
There was no need to change the canon of Scripture over it. As I said, that's the last Protestant objection I'm going to discuss, although there are no doubt others that they throw out. But there is one Amish-based objection I want to briefly talk about. Now I know most of you don't come from an Amish background, but a number of my listeners do. And to them, this is a very serious objection. And the objection has to do with the book of Tobit.
In case you've never read the book, part of the narrative concerns a demon who has this fixation on a young woman named Sarah. As a result, this demon has struck dead each of her husbands on their wedding nights. So when Tobias marries Sarah, he and Sarah spend the first three nights of their marriage in prayer for protection against this demon. They don't come together until the fourth night of their marriage. At least this is how Tobit reads in the Latin Vulgate.
But Jerome didn't translate Tobit from the Septuagint. He translated it from other sources. The Septuagint doesn't say anything about their not coming together during the first three nights of their marriage. Of course, it hardly matters. The book doesn't teach that this should be the practice of most couples. It was dealing with a very unusual situation. Well, anyway, Luther translated Tobit from the Vulgate, so Luther's version of Tobit contains the part about their practicing abstention for three nights.
And the Old Order Amish still used Luther's translation of the Bible. While many of the Amish groups, on the day of a couple's wedding, the bishops will privately meet with the couple and counsel them to practice abstention during the first three nights of their marriage based on this passage in Tobit. Well, as you might imagine, this doesn't make the book of Tobit particularly popular among the average Amish couple.
And when couples leave the Amish, they have an enormous resentment against the Apocrypha, based on this practice. And I don't blame them. I probably would too. It's kind of like my experience with the Chinese food served by the waitress with diarrhea. But that's not really a rational reason to reject the apocrypha. To begin with, this episode isn't even in the original Book of Tobit. It's something someone made up to embellish the story.
Second, even if it were, it's not given as a commandment or even as an example for a normal wedding night. I have no idea where the Amish came up with the idea of instructing newly wedded couples to follow this example. The early Christians used Tobit, but they never gave couples this advice. Catholics often quote the wedding values in Tobit in their wedding services, but they certainly don't tell couples that they can't sleep together during the first night of their marriage.
At the beginning of tonight's message, I told you about the dislike of Chinese food I developed because of a single evening at a Chinese restaurant with a waitress with diarrhea. Actually, over the years, I eventually got over my traumatic experience, and I got up the nerve to try Chinese food again. But when I first went back into a Chinese restaurant, the experience wasn't the same as I remembered it as a boy. Something had changed. And it wasn't just my imagination.
This doesn't taste like Chinese food, I thought to myself. What was the problem? The problem was that I had grown up with the Chinese food to the 50s, and that usually centered on chop suey. Now, if you were born after 1970, very likely you've never even heard of chop suey. They don't serve it in most Chinese restaurants anymore. It's a stir-fried dish of meat, bean sprouts, celery, and other vegetables, usually served over rice. I have fond memories of it. It is what I want when I think of Chinese food.
I don't particularly want General Tso's chicken or crab rangoon or fried wontons. Now, those dishes might taste just as good or even better, but it's not what I grew up with. Likewise, most people who haven't grown up reading The Apocrypha experience a similar reaction when they try to read it. I know I did. It just didn't read like the rest of the Bible. Or at least it seemed that way. I was used to reading about Noah, Samuel, and Ruth. Not about Judas Maccabee, Tobias, and Judith. It just didn't feel the same.
In other words, I wanted my chop suey. I didn't want General Tso's Chicken. Somebody who has never read the Bible before and has handed a copy of the Orthodox Study Bible isn't going to notice any difference between these books and the rest of the Old Testament. I can assure you of that. You and I only notice a difference because we're used to an Old Testament of 39 books. It's hard to overcome this prejudice against any books beyond those that we're familiar with. However, I'm living proof that it can be done.
We can get past that prejudice. But let me give you some help as you get started reading The Apocrypha. My recommendation is to start with the wisdom of Solomon, which is also known sometimes as the Book of Wisdom. Incidentally, the early Christians believed that this book contained the words of Solomon, but they didn't necessarily think that Solomon wrote it. For example, conservative Bible-believing Christians like myself believe that the Book of Job contains the actual words of Job.
But none of us believe that Job wrote the book. We all believe that God inspired some later writer to be able to put down what had been said by Job many centuries earlier. And I think the same thing is true with the wisdom of Solomon. At the same time, I'm not aware of any critic, no matter how liberal, who questions the fact that this book was written before Jesus was born.
The reason I'm mentioning this is because when you get to the second chapter of the Wisdom of Solomon, you're going to come across a real treat. It's one of the most amazing Messianic prophecies in the entire Old Testament. It reads, " Let us lie in wait for the righteous one, because He is a vexation to us and He opposes our deeds. He reproaches us for transgressions of the law and charges us with violations of our training. He professes to have knowledge of God and calls Himself a child of the Lord.
To us, He is the condemnation of our thoughts. Merely to see Him is a hardship for us, because His life is not like that of others, and different are His ways. He judges us debased. He holds aloof from our paths as from things impure. He calls blessed the destiny of the righteous, and he boasts that God is His Father. Let us see whether His words are true. Let us find out what will happen to Him in the end. For if the righteous one is the Son of God, God will help him and deliver Him from the hand of His foes.
With violence and torture, let us put Him to the test that we may have proof of His gentleness and try His patience. Let us condemn Him to a shameful death, for according to His own words, God will take care of Him. I still remember when I read that prophecy for the first time, which was about 30 years ago. Although I was still struggling to get past my Protestant prejudices, I knew there was no way I could deny that this was an inspired prophecy about Christ.
I remember thinking, " How could any human in his own power possibly write such a prophecy? " The writer describes to a T exactly what the scribes and Pharisees said and did. I also realized why the scribes and Pharisees wanted that book taken out of the canon of Scripture. Now, once you've finished reading The Wisdom of Solomon, I recommend that you next read Sirach. But first I want to give you a little tip that I wish so much that someone had given me 30 years ago.
The inspired Jewish writer of this book, whose name was Jesus Ben Sirach, wrote this book in Hebrew. However, a few decades after his death, his grandson translated the book into Greek. After translating the book, his grandson wrote an introduction to his translation. Unfortunately, most editions of Sirach include the grandson's uninspired preface along with the text of Sirach. And they make no clear distinction between it and the actual book of Sirach itself. This is true even in the Orthodox Study Bible.
And to me, this is absolutely inexcusable. Well, the result is that when people start reading Sirach, they begin by reading the grandson's preface to his translation. But they think that they're reading the first chapter of the Book of Sirach. I know this is true because that very thing happened to me. And when I started reading, I remember thinking, " Huh? This doesn't read like Scripture. " And in this instance, it wasn't a matter of prejudice.
For example, the grandson writes, " You are encouraged to read with goodwill and attention and to do your reading with allowances made in cases where, although I worked hard in translating, I may seem to render a phrase inadequately. " No, that doesn't read like Scripture, because it's not Scripture, and it isn't meant to be. I have a copy of the Old Douay Bible, and I notice that it properly sets forth the translator's prologue in a separate paragraph with much smaller print.
That way, the reader can't possibly mistake it as a part of the inspired book itself, and that's what all of the translation should do. But unfortunately, I didn't originally read Sirach from the Douay Bible. So for years and years, I was turned off from Sirach simply because of the uninspired notes of the translator that had been included as though they were the first chapter of the book. And that is so sad.
Well, once I realized the truth of the situation, I was then able to read Sirach without this stumbling block in front of me. I then discovered what an absolute gem of a book this is. In fact, the teaching in it more closely resembles the teaching of the New Testament than perhaps any other book of the Old Testament other than maybe the wisdom of Solomon. In fact, Sirach is now one of my favorite Old Testament books. After you've finished reading Sirach, my recommendation would be to go to 1 Maccabees next.
If the events in it seem strange to you, I can assure you that it's purely your own prejudice. Even secular historians view First Maccabees as valid history. And after you finish that book, we'll take your pick among the rest of the books. Probably save Judith for the last, since it's the one book among them that does have some genuine historical difficulties. If you're like me, you'll no doubt probably find that it will take you a while to get used to accepting these other books as part of Scripture.
But let me encourage you not to give up. Eventually, the walls of Protestant tradition and prejudice will fall, and then you'll discover what a true blessing awaits you. So let's talk about that blessing. The first blessing is that through the Apocrypha, we learn most of the story of what happened to the Jews between the time of Ezra and the birth of Christ. For much of my life, this was a complete mystery to me. 1 Maccabees begins with what happened after Alexander the Great conquered the region of Palestine.
We learned how some of the specific prophecies in Daniel were fulfilled and about the heroic struggles the Jews went through to remain faithful to God. We also learn how the Jewish nation became entangled with the Romans, originally as allies. Finally, in both 1st and 2nd Maccabees, we learn about the origin of the Feast of Dedication, which is spoken of in John 10:22. The second blessing is that the books of the Apocrypha eliminate the fictitious 400 years of silence between the days of Ezra and Christ.
You know, I find it incredible that Protestants have embraced the lie that the scribes and Pharisees put out that special revelation ended at the time of Ezra. Of course, the scribes and Pharisees meant that it had ended forever. Protestants have reshaped this to say that there was a 400-year period of silence after the time of Ezra until the appearance of John the Baptist. Now, how much sense does that make?
From the days of Moses until the time of Ezra, God had actively been sending prophets and giving revelation in Scriptures to His people. So now in preparing the Jews for the coming of their Messiah, why would God suddenly go silent for 400 years? That makes no sense at all, does it? Incidentally, I'll tell you a little secret that very few Christians know. As you're aware, Protestant Old Testaments end with Malachi. They close with the prophecy about sending Elijah before the great and fearful day of the Lord.
And then we turn a few pages, and soon we're reading about John the Baptist. And we soon discover that he is the Elijah who was to come. Bingo, that makes a great transition. There seems to be no gap. But there is a gap, a gap of at least 400 years. But here's the dirty secret. That is purely an artificial contrivance. Originally, the Old Testaments in Christian Bibles did not end with Malachi. In fact, the Old Testament in the Oldest Bible we have ends with lamentations.
The order of Old Testament books varies with different ancient Bibles, but none of them end with Malachi. One reason for this is that originally, the minor prophets came before the major prophets, not the other way around. This was true in Jewish Bibles as well. In fact, the oldest Jewish Bible we have ends with Ezra and Nehemiah. It doesn't end with any of the prophets. But we don't have to invent artificial contrivances when we embrace the historical Christian canon of Scripture.
That's because there is no inexplicable 400-year period of silence before the coming of the Son of God. Instead, what we see is that God was preparing the Jews and ultimately all of mankind for the teachings that would come through Jesus and His apostles. Let me give you some examples. First, we'll start with demons. Nowhere else in the Old Testament do we read about demons, except in the book of Tobit. And yet, when we read about the ministry of Jesus, immediately we start reading about demons everywhere.
Without the Book of Tobit, we would have to conclude that demons never possessed anyone or interfered with mankind until the time of Jesus. And that makes no sense. When Jesus told His disciples to cast out demons, they didn't reply, " Huh? What are demons? We've never heard of demons before. " Well, Tobit lets us know that demons were around centuries before Christ. Another doctrine, the immortality of the soul.
Surprisingly, there is no clear teaching about the immortality of the soul in the books of the Old Testament until we get to the wisdom of Solomon. But it tells us, for example, by the envy of the devil, death entered the world, and they who are in his possession experience it. But the souls of the just are in the hands of God, and no torment shall touch them. If before men indeed they are punished, yet their hope is full of immortality. Third, Sirach teaches us that the poor have a special place with God.
And this was one of the themes of the ministry of Jesus. For example, he said in Luke, " Blessed are the poor. " He talks about the poor man Lazarus, who ends up in Abraham's bosom, while the rich man suffers in the lower parts of Hades. Similarly, Sirach tells us, " The prayer from a poor man's lips is heard at once, and justice is quickly granted him. " Another surprising teaching that we find in Sirach is the forbidding of oaths.
The Old Testament does not forbid or even discourage truthful swearing until we come to Sirach, which teaches us, " Let not your mouth form the habit of swearing. " Finally, Sirach teaches us that the superior authorities are the ministers of God, which Paul reiterates in Romans 13. At the same time, Sirach explains that the superior authorities haven't acted righteously. He says, " Hear therefore kings and understand.
Authority was given you by the Lord and sovereignty by the Most High, who shall probe your works and scrutinize your counsels. Because although you were ministers of His kingdom, you did not judge righteously. Finally, there are numerous parallels between the teachings of the New Testament and the teachings of both Sirach and the wisdom of Solomon.
The first-century readers of the New Testament writings no doubt recognize that Jesus and His apostles were frequently alluding to these books and borrowing phrases from them. Here's some examples of what I'm talking about. This first group of quotes are from the wisdom of Solomon. Speaking of the righteous, it says, " As gold in the furnace, he proved them. At the time of their visitation, they shall shine. They shall judge nations and rule over peoples.
" The hope of the wicked is like thistle down borne on the wind, and like fine, tempest-driven foam. The just shall live forever. They shall receive the splendid crown. He will wear righteousness as a breastplate and put on impartial judgment as a helmet. He will take holiness as an unconquerable shield. Finally, speaking of wisdom, who is Christ, it says He is the radiance of eternal light, a spotless mirror of the power of God and the image of His goodness. Now here's some parallels from Sirach.
Again, speaking in the person of wisdom, it says, " Come to me, all you who learn from me and be filled. " It says in another place, " Store up almsgiving in your treasure house, " a reminiscent of Jesus ' words about storing up treasures in heaven. Listen to this: " Forgive your neighbors injustice. Then when you pray, your own sins will be forgiven. " So when Jesus said similar words in the Sermon on the Mount, His listeners no doubt called to mind the words they had read in Sirach.
In another place, Sirach wrote, " Like clay in the hands of a potter, so are men in the hands of their Creator. " Again, he wrote, " He sheds blood who denies the laborer his wages, " which parallels what James says in the fifth chapter of his book. And finally, he writes, " He is from eternity, one and the same. " Reminds me of what Hebrews says about Jesus, that He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Now those are just a few examples. You'll discover more when you read those books for yourself.
In short, there was no 400 years of silence. God was using those 400 years to prepare mankind for the greatest event in human history, the coming of his son. During those centuries, he was enlightening the Jewish people to prepare them for the truth that Jesus and His disciples would be sharing with them. This spiritual enlightenment is largely contained in the books of the Apocrypha. The scribes and Pharisees denied the Jewish people the blessing that God gave to the Jewish people in these books.
Martin Luther denied much of the Christian world these same blessings. Thankfully, today nobody can deny you and me the blessings of these books unless we let them.