The Apocrypha Problem: What If We Don’t Know Who Wrote the Protestant Old Testament Either?

One of the interesting phenomena I’ve been able to witness up close and personal over the last few years is the number of visitors to our parish who, though raised Christian of some sort, were stirred to visit an Orthodox Church because they had begun reading 2nd Temple apocryphal books they had never read up till that point in their life.

In some ways, it is rather odd, because reading apocryphal books was not a secret key or recipe in what brought me to Orthodox Christianity.

As someone who was married in an Anglican Church, and who attended an Anglican Mass for many, many years, what we called the ‘deuterocanonical books” were included in our daily readings throughout the church calendar my entire adult life.

The Anglican Book of Common Prayer, rather than hiding the Deuterocanonical books, places them with equal importance next to other Old Testament Scriptures like the book of Judges, Samuel, and more.

Our move toward Orthodoxy felt in many ways like a natural step in our prayer and sacramental life. The Anglican Christianity we spent years being a part of wasn’t opposed to Orthodox Christianity. In fact, the Anglican Church was once in fellowship and communion with Orthodox Christianity.

Thus, it wasn’t until the last few years, that I began meeting one visitor after another whose reading of the Apocryphal books led them to visiting our Orthodox parish. This has really fascinated me to say the least.

The people I've talked with who were prompted to visit our church by reading the Apocryphal books have been Baptists, Presbyterian, non-denominational, and numerous other Evangelical traditions.

Many of these people were followers of the late Michael Heiser, a well-known Evangelical Hebrew scholar who encouraged his followers to read and study these books as being very important to the Christian faith.

Recently, I came across this quote from Focus on the Family, an Evangelical non-profit organization that publishes various Christian books and media:

“Protestants do not consider the content of the apocryphal books to be “heretical” or “false.” They simply have doubts about the origins and authorship”

On the surface, this seems like a positive move forward, especially since when I was growing up in the 1980s, Evangelicals were far more likely to slander the Apocryphal books and accuse them of containing “heresy” and “false theology.”

Whereas now it appears Evangelicals are softening their stance, and they are merely saying, ‘we simply have doubts about who wrote them.’

But therein lies a huge problem.

Because if we are going to be honest about the Bible, we don’t really know who wrote a LOT of the books in it!

After all, we don’t know either the authorship or origins (or both) of the book of Judges, Samuel, Job, Esther, or Hebrews, to name a few! And there are many others!

If we were to remove from Protestant Bibles every book whose origins or authorship was unknown, the Protestant Bible would be considerably lighter.

Thus, I can’t help but wonder if this softening attitude toward the Apocryphal books, such as the statement by Focus on the Family that they are “not heretical or false,” is due to the sheer number of people moving towards older traditions of Christianity like Roman Catholicism or Orthodoxy.

Is this an intentional pivot on the part of large Evangelical organizations to try and tell their followers something akin to, “Hey, you don’t have to leave our camp over these books, you can read them, learn from them, and still be Evangelical!”

Yet, herein lies the contradiction. Because when I was growing up in the 1980s, it was directly due to what was in the Apocryphal books that Evangelicals condemned them as heresy; if you read them, you will soon see they contain theology that clearly supports a number of non-Evangelical ideas, not the least of which is praying for the dead.

Although Martin Luther and John Calvin both retained the Apocryphal books in their Bible translations. And even though the Baptists kept the Apocryphal in their King James Bibles until the 1830s, it wasn’t without much grumbling and consternation over the multiple examples in them that pious and righteous followers of Yahweh should be praying for the souls of those who have died.

And so in the 1830s, after 300 years of being in the vast majority of Protestant Bibles, the Apocryphal books were removed, and largely condemned as being filled with heresy.

Now, 200 years later, we find the very descendants of those who removed the books in effect saying, “Oh, we didn’t remove them because of heretical teaching, we simply removed them because we don’t know who wrote them.”

If this isn’t a case of what the young people call “gaslighting,” I don’t know what is.

Now let me pause and remind the reader that I am entirely grateful to the Evangelical Christian tradition. Without it, my parents and then me, may have never been exposed to the teachings of Christ. Secondly, I did not have a bad experience growing up in the Evangelical tradition expressed through Methodism and then Anglicanism. Quite the opposite, at each stage in my spiritual journey God provided me numerous spiritual fathers and mentors who were absolutely a joy to know and who helped shape and encourage me to seek Christ in all things - Kenneth

Now, if we are to believe that Focus on the Family is telling the truth; that they believe the Apocryphal books are Holy Scripture in the same sense that Protestants view the rest of the books in their Bible, then wouldn’t that therefore mean long-held Evangelical beliefs must be reexamined?

Take for instance the fact that the Apocryphal books teach that the righteous should pray for the dead.

This would mean that upon death the spiritual journey does not end, but it continues. And if the spiritual journey continues after death, then those of us in church should be faithfully praying for those whose bodies have reposed.

This is no small thing.

Perhaps this would mean the very foundation of what many Western Christians have been taught about prayer, life, and death is far more nuanced and theologically complex than the current popular narratives.

This isn’t to say I have all the answers. I am not a theologian and don’t pretend to be one. I am simply a humble history teacher.

Last year, an older Presbyterian fellow visited our parish for our Greek Festival. He was a genuinely nice man, and I really enjoyed the conversation. He was very well educated and acquainted with Church history and Orthodox Christianity, and I asked him if he had ever considered the ancient faith. His answer was that there was much about Orthodoxy he really loved, not the least of which was the beauty of the church buildings, the seriousness of the faith, and the devotion to a life of prayer.

But one of the main issues he couldn’t get past was that,

“Ya’ll pray for the dead, and that is clearly not Biblical.”

When I asked him about the numerous references in the Apocryphal books about righteous men praying for the souls of the dead, he responded,

“Well, those aren’t Biblical books, and since they’re not in the canon, we know the Jews didn’t believe in praying for the dead!”

My final comment was rather simple, “Well, didn’t the Jewish people who wrote the book of Tobit and Maccabees, both of which mention righteous people praying for the dead…wouldn’t the Jewish people who wrote those books as well as the Jewish people who preserved those books…wouldn’t they have believed in praying for the dead?”

He started to open his mouth to disagree and then stopped himself. And I could see him really think about what I had asked.

After about thirty seconds, he said, “Ya know. You’re right. I guess at least some Jews in the time of Jesus and before must have clearly believed it was theologically correct to pray for the souls of the dead.”

Now, that dialogue did not suddenly make the fellow leave his particular Christian tradition and convert to Orthodoxy. It wasn’t why I had the dialogue with him. I wasn’t trying to convince him to be Orthodox.

That isn’t the point of being Orthodox. It isn’t to argue people into the faith.

And regardless of what denomination or religion, or lack thereof, they choose to believe in, what we are called to do at all times and in all places is to love others and pray for them.

History is fun.

History might even lead you into an Orthodox Church.

But ultimately, I am not an Orthodox Christian because it checks off all the history boxes.

I am an Orthodox Christian because I want to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ through the church. I want to know Him. I want to learn how to love Him more. I want to learn how to pray better. I want to learn how to pray unceasing. I simply want to sit at the feet of Jesus.

Isn’t that what our faith is all about?

~ Kenneth

A few more thoughts on teaching Church history….

Thank you for reading, liking, subscribing, and supporting my weekly musings on the spiritual journey.

I am not at theologian and have no plans to be.

I teach history full time, especially church history, in a number of different venues, it is my passion.

I don’t teach to convert people to Orthodox Christianity, but rather to simply help educate people to aspects of our ancient faith they have perhaps never been exposed to.

I don't view history as some secret endeavor to get people to join the church tradition I love the most.

For many years I lectured on church history and biblical themes at a local county jail at the request of the sheriff who ran the operations.

It was an interesting learning experience for me, because I was expressly forbidden from teaching any particular “denominational views”.

That specific county jail only allowed for very broad ‘ecumenical views of the Bible and Biblical history”.

I also had many Muslims who attended my lectures as well, and because of that, I was also not allowed to even mention that Jesus Christ was the only way to God the Father.

Rather than being a difficult time, I found those years teaching at the county jail to be incredibly rewarding and joyous. I loved learning how to teach Biblical history in a way that was able to cross both denominational and religious boundaries.

That is how I approach teaching now. While I am unabashedly an Orthodox Christian, I don’t begin any lecture or essay with a particular agenda other than to try and a) share my own spiritual journey b) share observations on what I observe in our culture and c) to share things I’ve learned over the years as a history teacher.

If you find these weekly musings rewarding, and only if you have the available means, you might consider purchasing a paid subscription. I do not put any essays behind paywalls because of how I was raised; my father instilled within me the idea that anything related to our faith should not have a price tag on it as a requirement.

Nonetheless, a great deal of time goes into the planning, writing, and editing of these essays, and I am forever grateful to those who have the financial means to support me. Thank you.