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The
Apocrypha
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The
Apocrypha (from the Greek word meaning hidden or stored away)
is made up of those sacred books of Jewish scripture which the
translators of the 1611 King James Bible, the so-called 'Authorized'
version, excluded from the Anglican Old Testament. In this the
translators followed the Hebrew Bible which had come around 100
CE to place these books outside the Jewish canon. But there exists
an older version of the Jewish scriptures, the so-called Septuagint,
the ancient Greek translation of around 250 BCE which predates
the later decision to keep certain well-established books from
the Hebrew Bible.
Many of these 'apocryphal' books had been part of Jewish Wisdom
literature, often considered too holy or precious to be made
commonly
available. That the Book of Tobit was certainly in use as a sacred
text among the Jews around the first century CE is confirmed
by
its discovery among the Dead Sea scrolls finds at Qumran. (Interestingly,
other textual finds at Qumran demonstrate tendencies towards
the
cosmology of Zoroastrianism, which perceives human life as a
struggle between twinned forces of good and evil.) The Eastern
Orthodox
Church still uses the older Septuagint translation for its Old
Testament, so the Book of Tobit remains in currency there; as
it does in the Catholic Bible, which, since the Council of Trent,
1546, has included those books which the Anglicans, following
the lead of Martin Luther, called 'Apocryphal. St Jerome's translation
in the fourth century, which became the so-called 'Vulgate',
has
Tobit blinded by swallows' dung than sparrows'. In the
context of the story of Tobias's marriage, it is interesting
to note that
both these birds have associations with Aphrodite and other Eastern
love deities.
Tobit, like Judith, or Esther, or Susanna is an example of an
edifying early novel: the pious Jew who, against all adversity
maintains his integrity by observance of his religious tradition
even in exile and at the risk of his own life. That the tale includes
other, somewhat unJewish, elements may have contributed to its
removal from the Jewish canon.
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APOCRYPHA
Authorized (KJB) version CUP ISBN 0-521-50674-3
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