Books Jesus Read

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Books Jesus Read

meet that need, while at the same time introducing readers to the historical, biblical, and theological significance of the Apocrypha. The Earliest Translations of the Bible Did you know that the Apocrypha were read as Holy Scripture by many in the ancient church? This was due partly to their inclusion in the manuscripts of the Greek- Jewish Scriptures known as the Septuagint. 2 Then too, Jerome 3 included these writings in his authoritative Latin Vulgate translation of the Bible, though he considered them unequal to Scripture. The medieval church’s adoption of the Vulgate kept these books before Christian readers for more a thousand years. Martin Luther, the 16th century Protestant Reformer, judged the Apocrypha good to read but not sufficient as a source for doctrine. 4 The Articles of Religion of the Anglican Church (1571) were more specific, naming fourteen apocryphal books which “the church doth read for example of life and instruction of manners; but yet 2 Septuagint – the earliest known translation of the Hebrew Old Testament into Greek, the language spoken throughout the ancient Mediterranean world and the language of the New Testament. The translation was completed around 200 BC. According to tradition, the translation was produced by seventy (some say seventy-two) rabbis. Septuagint means “seventy” and is abbreviated by the Roman numerals LXX, which is 70. 3 Jerome – revered as a “Doctor of the Church,” Jerome (AD 345–420) was among the few church fathers literate in Hebrew. He based his Old Testament translation, therefore, on the Hebrew text and not only on the Septuagint translation. It was he who first called these writings “Apocrypha.” 4 Other Reformers, particularly Anabaptists, considered the Apocrypha of equal authority to the rest of Scripture. See Jonathan R. Seiling, “Solae (Quae) Scripturae: Anabaptists and the Apocrypha,” Mennonite Quarterly Review 80 (2006), 30.