THE DEUTEROCANONICAL OR APOCRYPHAL BOOKS

It is important at the very outset to define some terms, for the lack of agreement over terminology between Catholic and Protestant works on this subject invites confusion. The books which Catholics customarily call ‘deuterocanonical’ correspond, or very nearly correspond, to what Protestants call the apocryphal books. The term ‘deutero-canonica is contrasted with ‘protocanonical’. Now the protocanonical books are identical with those of the Hebrew Bible of Palestinian Judaism, and are the only ones which the Protestants officially accept. The deuterocanonical books appear in the Greek version of the Bible, the Septuagint. These two ancient collections of sacred writings, the one preserved in Hebrew, the other handed down in Greek, differ appreciably from one another. Apart from differences in the order of the books, and often quite important textual variants, the Septuagint is not a simple reproduction in Greek of the Hebrew Old Testament. It contains several writings which do not appear in the Hebrew canon at all, and these are the ones which the Catholics call deuterocanonical. The adjectives ‘protocanonical’ and ‘deuterocanonical’ applied to the Scriptures were not used before the sixteenth century, and are generally believed to have been invented by Sixtus of Siena (1520–1569) in his Bibliotheca Sacra of 1566. Catholics recognize seven deuterocanonical books: Judith, Tobit, 1 and 2 Maccabees, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus and Baruch. To these must be added the Greek portions of Esther and the Greek additions to Daniel, i.e., the Prayer of Azariah and the Song of the Three Young Men (called in the older English versions the Song of the Three Holy Children), the story of Susanna and the story of Bel and the Dragon.

GREEKS, BARBARIANS AND JEWS: THE PROBLEM OF HELLENIZATION IN THE EARLY HELLENISTIC PERIOD

A description of the interpenetration of Judaism and Hellenism in the pre-Maccabean period, that is, in the 158 years between 333 and 175 b.c.e., presents us with a twofold difficulty. Firstly, from this period we have only fragmentary and sporadic reports about the Jews in Palestine and the Diaspora. Non-Jewish literary sources are almost completely silent, and, where they do provide information, they are minimally concerned with the absorption of Hellenistic culture by the Jews. Even epigraphic, papyrological and archeological evidence is in the main sparse and often difficult to assess. Furthermore, Jewish literature of this epoch can often be dated only hypothetically, and most often can be used only as indirect evidence of this penetration or of repulsion. It either (at least apparently) says nothing at all about relationship to its Hellenistic environment or, in the case of polemic or apologetic writings, it presents a biased view. Nearly all the Jewish literature available to us from this period is religiously and nationalistically biased. A complete picture cannot be derived from such sources, and we can at best only describe individual situations and developments as they are fortuitously presented to us in the sources.

Secondly, although we can grasp fairly clearly what ‘Judaism’ means, i.e. those belonging to the Jewish ethnos both in Palestine and the Diaspora, their religion, their way of life and their literature, the much used terms ‘Hellenism’ and ‘Hellenization’ are less clear and more subject to dispute.

Considerable darkness shrouds the political and social history of Palestine in the early Hellenistic period between the rise of Alexander and the death of Antiochus III a few years after his defeat by Rome, a defeat which began the downfall of the Hellenistic monarchies. The very fragmentary ancient sources available mention the area of interest to us only sporadically in the context of wider politicomilitary developments. We are, therefore, forced to begin our reconstruction from these broader contexts. We gain insight into social conditions only through combining fortuitous discoveries in the field of archeology and papyri which, as in the case of the Zenon papyri, partially lighten the darkness at particular points. Information about the Jews is still more scanty, since legend and history are so closely interwoven in our primary source, Josephus. In some areas, therefore, we can only hope to draw a sketchy and to some extent a hypothetical picture, which may at any time have to be revised in the light of new discoveries. Nevertheless, there can be no doubt that within this period, which for us is so obscure, there occurred the first intensive encounter between ancient Palestinian Judaism and the superior Hellenistic culture. This clash left a decisive stamp on later development, and constitutes the significant factor of this epoch.

ALEXANDER'S CAMPAIGN AND PALESTINE (333–331 b.c.e.)

The last decades of the Persian empire had already brought for Palestine and the Jews the troubles of war. The revolt of King Tennes of Sidon (circa 354–346 b.c.e.) had affected Palestine too, for a large part of the coastal plain belonged to Sidon; and it is likely that Judah too suffered during the Persian counter-attack.

The purpose of this chapter is to show that, contrary to the almost universally accepted view, there is no inconsistency between the rabbinic sources regarding the leaders of the Pharisees from the time of the Maccabean revolt and the non-rabbinic sources, such as the New Testament and Josephus. On the contrary, Josephus and the record in the New Testament supplement and confirm the rabbinic tradition with regard to these teachers.

It will be seen that of these teachers some were also heads of the contemporary Temple tribunal, which in the course of time came to be called the Sanhedrin; others were members of the Sanhedrin, but not its heads; still others were not even members of that body. But whatever their relation to the contemporary Sanhedrin might be, all were heads of the Pharisaic schools and tribunals, and indeed of Pharisaism as an organized movement.

Virtually all modern discussions regarding the Pharisees and Pharisaism are based on the premise that there existed only one form of Pharisaism. Doubtless this is because Josephus and the New Testament always speak of the Pharisees as a unit. Yet, as any student of the Talmud soon realizes, there were, in fact, two forms of Pharisaism, differing from each other on basic issues – the one, that which came to be known as the doctrine of the school of Shammai, the other, as that of the school of Hillel. While only about a score of issues are recorded as dividing the Pharisees from the Sadducees, more than three hundred divided the Shammaites from the Hillelites.

The Jewish writings gathered under the headings ‘apocrypha’ and ‘pseudepigrapha’ are broadly heterogeneous, as indicated by Professor Delcor in chapter 12. This heterogeneity is due in part to the wide diversity of literary genres utilized by the various writers represented in these ancient works. On a deeper level, however, it reflects a social and religious matrix of great complexity, characterized by divergent streams, diverse foreign and domestic influences, and differing responses to those influences. We shall briefly consider the major apocryphal and pseudepigraphical writings of the last centuries b.c.e. with attention to their social and religious setting. And while conceding the great diversity of these works, we shall suggest that they fall into two general categories which reflect opposing tendencies within postexilic Judaism.

Diversity existed within Israelite religion from early times, as seen for example in divisions caused by the introduction of monarchy, the role of the cult, the claims of rival priestly families, the separate kingdoms of Judah and Israel, and the relation of Yahwism to other religions. Over the sweep of the preexilic period, however, a centripetal force was exerted by the concept of a central cult and the ideal of one people in covenant with Yahweh. This force is manifested, for example, by the way in which even northern prophetic traditions were assimilated to a central Temple ideology in the Deuteronomistic history.

This centripetal force was dealt a stunning blow in the events culminating in 587/6: the Temple was destroyed, and nationhood was lost. Not only were the institutions thereby lost which had contributed a unifying quality to Jewish religious experience; more profoundly, the central theologumenon upon which Yahwism was based was threatened: Zion, the mountain elected by Yahweh, had been violated by worshippers of Marduk, which seemed to thow into question the status of Israel's election, and the binding authority of her institutions.

By about 200 b.c.e. the Jewish community of Alexandria had become large and sophisticated enough to require a translation of its Hebrew Bible into its current vernacular, Greek; the Septuagint translation of the Torah was the result.

JUDAISM IN ALEXANDRIA: HALAKAH AND THE HEBREW LANGUAGE

Ever since Jews had begun to settle in Egypt in increasing numbers, whether because pro-Babylonian forces in Judah from about 600 b.c.e. had made it necessary for them to emigrate or because subsequent social–political conditions at home had made flight desirable, the growing community had adjusted itself extraordinarily well to the pagan environment. A significant portion of the Jewish population had retained its loyalties and ties – especially the religious – with Judah at the same time as it adopted many of the more meaningful aspects of the gentile society in which it dwelt and flourished. Thus the Alexandria Jewish community sent tithes and made pilgrimages to the Temple in Jerusalem and acknowledged the religious authority in Jerusalem as theirs also.

One of the most radical changes that had taken place in the homeland was the belief that the spirit of prophecy, since Malachi, had ascended to heaven and that until God let it descend again it was only those who were learned in His written Law who were authorized to speak in His name. 1 Mace. 4:42–6 (see also, for example, 9:27 and 14:4) put it this way: [Judah] chose blameless priests devoted to the Law, and they cleansed the Sanctuary…they tore down the altar, and stored the stones on the Temple Mount, in a suitable place, until a prophet should come to decide what to do with them.’