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When discussing the Jewish view on the Apocrypha, it is helpful to split it up into three categories: 1. Antithetical to Jewish Scripture. Some of these books contain stories or ideas that contradict Scripture and/or Jewish thought.
- Yehuda Shurpin
- Tobit, written 225-175 BCE. This book tells the story of two Israelite people, a blind man named Tobit living in Nineveh and a woman named Sarah, living in a city called Ecbatana.
- Judith, written about 100 BCE. Judith, a Jewish widow, attracts and seduces an Assyrian general besieging her city. Having ingratiated herself with him, she waits until he is drunk and then decapitates him, saving the capital Jerusalem from total destruction.
- Esther, written around 115 BCE. Although the Hebrew version of Esther is canonical, the Greek translation adds six sections to it. Esther is the story of an Israelite woman who saves her people from an anti-Israelite Persian plot.
- Wisdom of Solomon, written around 50 BCE. This book centers on the importance of Wisdom as related to humans and to God. It may have influenced the famous prologue of the Gospel of John, with wisdom replaced by the “Word.”
The Jewish apocrypha (Hebrew: הספרים החיצוניים, romanized: HaSefarim haChitzoniyim, lit. 'the outer books') are religious texts written in large part by Jews, especially during the Second Temple period, not accepted as sacred manuscripts when the Hebrew Bible was canonized.
Apocrypha, (from Greek apokryptein, “to hide away”), in biblical literature, works outside an accepted canon of scripture. The history of the term’s usage indicates that it referred to a body of esoteric writings that were at first prized, later tolerated, and finally excluded.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
- What Are These Works?
- Why Are They Important?
- What Do They contain?
This lead us to a discussion of two different sets of ancient texts that are not included in the Hebrew Bible, but whose existence speaks to the richness, creativity, diversity, and complexity of the emerging Judeo-Christian community of Palestine and its surroundings during roughly 200 BCE to 70 CE. One such set is called “Apocrypha” (meaning hidd...
There is great scholarly merit in studying these texts as well as their historical neighbors–the Dead Sea Scrolls that were discovered throughout the Judean desert, most notably at Qumran. Foremost, it sheds light on the political, ideological, and historical reality of the authors and their audience’s time period. These texts not only divulge reli...
Both Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha were written–scholars believe–during the same general period of time, and it is not inconceivable to imagine the discovery of future texts that (along with the Qumran library and other assorted scrolls) might continue to inform our knowledge of the world from which they emerged. Some of the texts in both the Apocry...
- Jacob Cytryn
What is the Difference Between Tanach, Apocrypha, and Pseudepigrapha? 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 ...
The Apocrypha in Judaism. During the two centuries prior to the birth of Christ a great many books were written by Jewish authors. Since it was only about a.d. 100 that the idea of a “closed” Heb. Canon was implemented, the problem of the canonicity of these compositions was not serious.
