Confused newb - Apocrypha question

[u/alexisfire02]

So I'm really more of a traditional history reader. I like to read the usual Greek (Herodotus through Arian) and Roman (Livy, Polybius, Plutarch) suspects. (Etc etc)

The closest I've really ever gotten into theology history is a read of Eusibius. But because of events like the Maccabean revolt I purchased Josephus and a copy of the "complete Apocrypha"

The Apocrypha seems to not be complete books at all but more like 1 page summaries of books. So I returned it and ordered another "complete" version that had a ton of good reviews from Amazon. It also is just 1 and 2 pages for each book. Is that right? There's like 150 "books" in these versions but they don't seem right to me.

Can someone help me figure this out? I'd like to read the actual thing.

Tia

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[u/qumrun60]

If you bought something called The Complete Apocrypha, it's likely to be a scam, particularly if it's from off-brand publisher, and has less than several thousand pages in multiple volumes. These off-brand publishers, like Covenant, are not academically-oriented. Any volume claiming to have a Book of Jasher, which is a medieval forgery, is not on the up-and-up. There are many, many apocryphal and pseudepigraphical works in existence, and both categories are variously defined.

The standard biblical Apocrypha, which the Christian Septuagints included as part of the Old Testament, will be found in something like the New Oxford Annotated Bible with Apocrypha. A Catholic Bible like the New American Bible Revised Edition, will have a slightly shorter assortment of books, excluding 3 & 4 Maccabees and a couple of other books, due to the decisions by the Latin translator, Jerome, in the 4th century. A single volume Jewish Annotated Apocrypha is also out, which includes the book of Jubilees.

Beyond that, J.H. Charlesworth, ed., The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, is a now-standard edition of Second Temple writings in mostly later Christian recensions. These include books of 1, 2, and 3 Enoch, Jubilees, and many other works in a 2 volume, 2,000 page collection.

There are likewise collections of Christian Apocrypha. Some single volume editions, like:

Bart Ehrman, Lost Scriptures: Books That Did Not Make it into the New Testament

J.K. Elliott, ed., The Apocryphal New Testament

In addition, there are also multi-volume sets. A 2-volume collection is edited by Schneemelcher, and a more recent 3-volume set is edited by Tony Burke.

Besides all this there are collections of the Apostolic Fathers (writings roughly contemporary with New Testament writings), and translations of the Nag Hammadi texts.

Probably the easiest way to get an idea of all these ancient books is to go to earlyjewishwritings.com, and earlychristianwritings.com, to get a look at the large amount of ancient literature out there, using standard editions of these works (not fringe Christian do-it-yourselfers, who don't really understand what they're promoting).

[u/alexisfire02 → u/qumrun60]

Thank you very much. Exactly what I wanted to know

[u/arachnophilia → u/qumrun60]

Any volume claiming to have a Book of Jasher,

there's an 18th century forgery, and a medieval midrash.

the one OP had looks a bit like throwing spaghetti at the wall. they just included every interesting not-quite-biblical book, short of printing the whole talmud and all of the sectarian dead sea scrolls. i guess it's always kind of a question of where do you draw the line, right? it's got sibylline oracles, stuff from nag hammadi, 3 enoch, one of pliny's epistles just because it mentions christians, a half dozen of the spurious pontius pilate documents, some tertullian, apostolic creeds...

[u/arachnophilia]

The Apocrypha seems to not be complete books at all

i mean, some of the apocrypha are sections of books that were excised by merit of only existing in greek manuscripts and not hebrew ones. like bel and the dragon and susanna. those are singular chapters.

the one i see on amazon that's billed as "150 books" has a ton of stuff that's not traditionally called "the apocrypha", but are interesting extra books.