Most religions have sacred books, claiming various degrees of divine activity for their origin. Muslims, for example, believe that the Qur’an was a verbatim recording of God’s words to the Prophet Mohammed, while the Bhagavad Gita records Lord Krishna’s words to King Arjun in the context of a battle. The Vedas are also sacred texts for Hindus, but their origin, many millennia ago, is shrouded in mystery. By contrast, the Sikh holy book, Guru Granth Sahib, occupying the place of the Tenth Guru, was only produced in the 17th century AD, and containing wise words from other religions, was composed predominantly by six Sikh Gurus. The Jewish scripture, and the Christian New Testament following that, are special in that they are collections of ‘books’, written by many authors, some unknown, and over many centuries.
The books known as the Apocrypha – Tobit, Judith, Baruch, Eccesiasticus, Maccabees etc. – were not part of the Jewish scriptures possibly because they were in Greek, not Hebrew, although apparently of Jewish origin. The early Christians accepted them as Scripture. It was not until the 5th Century that St Jerome and St Augustine clashed about the validity of these books. St Jerome, whilst considering them edifying, advocated that, as the Jews did not consider them as part of their Scripture, Christians should leave them out as well. St Augustine disagreed, holding that as in the past the Church should continue to keep them in. Augustine won the day... that is, till the Reformation ten Centuries later.
In Catholic and Orthodox churches, they are still treated as fully scriptural, while the practice varies with others, even within denominations. Lutherans and Anglicans in America treat them as important, though secondary to ‘proper’ Scripture, while the Church of England and many other Anglican provinces use them as Scripture readings in their liturgy. In the early church there was no special term to describe the books we now call apocryphal or ‘deutero-canonical’ (second tier) books.
Ultimately, groups of human beings decided what is ‘true scripture’, always convinced that the Holy Spirit has guided them in their choice. So we too can go with either the early church Fathers and St Augustine, or with the churches of the Reformation, in how we use the Apocrypha. One test might be whether they reveal God’s nature to us as other books of the Bible do.
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