Syllabus, Deuterocanonical Books

The Deuterocanonical Books (Tobit, Judith, 1 & 2 Maccabees, Wisdom, Sirach, Baruch, and additions to Daniel & Esther) Caravaggio. Saint Jerome Writing (oil on canvas), c. 1605-1606. Galleria Borghese, Rome. with Dr. Bill Creasy Copyright © 2021 by Logos Educational Corporation. All rights reserved. No part of this course—audio, video, photography, maps, timelines or other media—may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage or retrieval devices without permission in writing or a licensing agreement from the copyright holder. Scripture texts in this work are taken from the New American Bible, revised edition © 2010, 1991, 1986, 1970 Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Washington, D.C. and are used by permission of the copyright owner. All Rights Reserved. No part of the New American Bible may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the copyright owner. 2 The Deuterocanonical Books (Tobit, Judith, 1 & 2 Maccabees, Wisdom, Sirach, Baruch, and additions to Daniel & Esther) Traditional Authors: Various Traditional Dates Written: c. 250-100 B.C. Traditional Periods Covered: c. 250-100 B.C. Introduction The Deuterocanonical books are those books of Scripture written (for the most part) in Greek that are accepted by Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches as inspired, but they are not among the 39 books written in Hebrew accepted by Jews, nor are they accepted as Scripture by most Protestant denominations. The deuterocanonical books include: • Tobit • Judith • 1 Maccabees • 2 Maccabees • Wisdom (also called the Wisdom of Solomon) • Sirach (also called Ecclesiasticus) • Baruch, (including the Letter of Jeremiah) • Additions to Daniel o “Prayer of Azariah” and the “Song of the Three Holy Children” (Vulgate Daniel 3: 24- 90) o Suzanna (Daniel 13) o Bel and the Dragon (Daniel 14) • Additions to Esther Eastern Orthodox churches also include: 3 Maccabees, 4 Maccabees, 1 Esdras, Odes (which include the “Prayer of Manasseh”) and Psalm 151. Thus, in the Jewish and Protestant “Old Testament” there are 39 books; in the Roman Catholic, 46 books; and in the Eastern Orthodox, 51 books. The word “deuterocanonical” means “belonging to the second canon,” the “protocanonical” books being the 39 books written in Hebrew and accepted by Jews and Protestants. Protestants often follow Martin Luther, calling the Deuterocanonical books “Apocrypha” [Greek = ajpovkrufoß], which means “hidden” or “obscure.” This all sounds rather complicated, and it is. To understand the issues involved, we need to explore how the canon of Scripture—those books considered to be the inspired word of God and normative for their faith communities—came to be selected in the first place. It’s a lengthy process, but one that we need to understand if we are to be “educated readers of Scripture.” 3 The Idea of a “Canon” The word “canon” derives from the Greek canovn, a “measuring rod” or “standard,” kah-nay’], meaning “reed.” A “canon” is a set of] הֶנָק perhaps related to the Hebrew standards considered to be cultural norms, the “rules,” if you will, by which a society of any type—civil, professional, religious—functions. The formation of a society’s “canon”—be it oral or written—is a cultural phenomenon, a natural societal process. For much of human history, a group’s values, ideals and normative behavior were defined, expressed and passed on from one generation to the next through story, ritual and behaviors that were either lauded or condemned. Over time, such stories, rituals and behaviors took on form and shape, gradually becoming a group’s moral, ethical and religious foundation, a foundation that expressed the group’s core values and norms, a foundation upon which a society was built. Importantly, all such foundational values and norms in pre-literate societies were defined, expressed and passed on orally, by word of mouth, for written language did not yet exist for them. The ancient Greek culture is a perfect example, and Homer’s Iliad serves as its best paradigm. The Iliad tells the tale of the Trojan War, a ten-year siege of the city of Troy by the Achaeans, a coalition of Greek states, led by Agamemnon, king of Mycenae. Troy sat on the entrance to the Dardanelles, a narrow, 38-mile-long strait that connects the Sea of Marmara with the Aegean and Mediterranean Seas to the south, allowing passage north to the Black Sea via the Bosphorus: control the Dardanelles, and you control the power and wealth of the ancient Mediterranean world. Controlling that wealth is the political reason for the Trojan War; getting back “Helen of Troy”—wife of Menelaus (Agamemnon’s brother)—who had run off with Paris, the prince of Troy and youngest son of Priam, king of Troy is the poetical reason for the Trojan War: controlling wealth and regaining honor; the basic ingredients of an epic drama! Traditionally, the Trojan War took place 1175-1184 B.C., consistent with the burning of Troy VII, at the archaeological site at Hisarlik in western Turkey. For many centuries readers assumed that Homer wrote the Iliad shortly after the Trojan War, but in fact, as Harvard classics scholar Milman Parry demonstrated in the 1920s, the poem was first composed and performed orally until the 8th-century B.C., when it was finally written down. The Iliad’s structure; its use of stock epithets (“swift runner, Achilles,” even when he is sitting still; “laughter-loving” Aphrodite, even when she’s painfully wounded!); reiteration of words, phrases and verses; and the rigid use of its dactylic hexameter rhythmic scheme are all characteristic of oral poetry in a preliterate society. Yet, Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey served as the most influential “canon” for educated Greek speakers of the Hellenistic world, along with the works of Euripides, Menander and Demosthenes; of Hesiod, Pindar, Sappho; Aeschylus, Sophocles, Aristophanes; Herodotus, Thucydides and Aesop, all serving as prime examples of the genres and basic modes of cultural life: philosophy, epic, drama, poetry and history. It was not a religious canon, to be sure, but the works of these authors expressed (and one might even say, “enshrined”) the fundamental values of Greek society and culture. 4 Dr. C. teaches Homer’s The Iliad on site, overlooking the “windy plains of Troy.” The Dardanelles are in the background. Photography by Ana Maria Vargas Canons are common in every art and discipline. Today, for example, we have inherited the canon of Western concert hall music, enshrining Bach, Beethoven, Brahms (the “killer Bs”); Haydn, Handel, Chopin; Mahler, Mendelsohn, Mozart; Tchaikovsky, Verdi, Wagner. Go to any concert hall and you will hear one or more of these composers performed; rarely will you hear 20th-century composers like David del Tredici, George Crumb, George Rochberg or Peter Maxwell Davies. The canon of Western concert hall music—for the most part—has been closed for more than a century: a modern-day composer needs a bazooka to break into it! Literary canons offer another example. For generations Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton; Donne, Herbert, Vaughn; Byron, Shelley, Keats; Dickens, Trollope, Hardy were staples of university English literature programs: every undergraduate and graduate student studied them. Not so, today. Many of the formerly required courses that included writers from the established canon have been replaced by “Gender, Ethnicity, Disability and Sexuality Studies”; “Imperial, Transnational and Postcolonial Studies”; “Gender Studies” and “Interdisciplinary Studies.” There are plenty of excellent writers working in these categories who are well worth reading, I’m sure, but should they replace Chaucer, Shakespeare and Milton? It’s inconceivable (to me, at least) that one could graduate as an English major and not take a single course on Chaucer, Shakespeare or Milton! But then again, maybe I’m just a cranky, old white guy. 5 A canon—be it in music, literature or Scripture—does not come into being because it’s declared from on high. No one can declare a work canonical if it has no canonical pedigree; one can only affirm a work’s canonical status because it has already been accepted as canonical by consensus. That is the flaw in requiring such “politically correct” literature courses as those mentioned above: they were placed in the curriculum by political pressure and by the “powers that be,” and they will surely meet an early demise, unless they make it into the literary canon by merit and by the consensus of educated readers over time. Likewise, a canon like that of Western concert hall music may well accept new composers and new compositions, if time and the consensus of educated listeners deem them worthy. The point is this: canons emerge, they are not declared; no canon is forever fixed; and all canons are in constant flux, though the pace may be glacial. The Development of Writing As pre-literate societies developed and became more complex, memory no longer served adequately for record keeping and for managing those societies: something more stable and permanent was needed. Evidence suggests that writing (in the West) developed first in Mesopotamia in cuneiform script around 3100 B.C. and simultaneously in Egypt in hieroglyphs. In Sumer (Mesopotamia), writing employed a round-shaped stylus impressed into soft clay at different angles; in Egypt, writing combined logographic, syllabic and alphabetic images written with a reed pen on papyrus or inscribed in stone. Cuneiform Tablet Collection #13 (2039 B.C.) Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. [The tablet lists wages paid to 656 day laborers by Amar-Suen, third king of the Ur III dynasty.] 6 False door in the tomb of Mereruka (Chamber A8), vizier (and son-in-law) to Teti, first pharaoh of the Old Kingdom’s 6th dynasty (2345-2333 B.C.).

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