Theological Term of the Week

Old Testament apocrypha
A collection of books included in the Old Testament canon of scripture by Roman Catholics and Orthodox Christians but not by Protestants; also called deuterocanonical books, especially by Roman Catholics.

• From The Belgic Confession:

Article 6: The Difference Between Canonical and Apocryphal Books

We distinguish between these holy books and the apocryphal ones, which are the third and fourth books of Esdras; the books of Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Jesus Sirach, Baruch; what was added to the Story of Esther; the Song of the Three Children in the Furnace; the Story of Susannah; the Story of Bell and the Dragon; the Prayer of Manasseh; and the two books of Maccabees.

The church may certainly read these books and learn from them as far as they agree with the canonical books. But they do not have such power and virtue that one could confirm from their testimony any point of faith or of the Christian religion. Much less can they detract from the authority of the other holy books.

• From 40 Questions About Interpreting the Bible by Robert L. Plummer:

Roman Catholic and Orthodox Christians (Eastern Orthodox, Russian Orthodox, Ethiopian Orthodox, etc.) have some additional books in their Old Testaments that Protestants do not consider Scripture … . Protestants refer to these books as the Apocrypha, though Roman Catholics call them the deuterocanonical books (literally, the “secondly canonical” books, because they were formally recognized as canonical at a later time—as opposed to the protocanonical, or “firstly canonical,” books). These books were written by Jews in the roughly five-hundred-year period between the Old and New Testaments (430 B.C.—A.D. 40).

Protestants do not consider the Apocrypha as Scripture for a number of reasons. 

1. The Jews who authored the books never accepted them into their canon. This is a weighty argument in that those who wrote and preserved these books put them in a different category from the recognized Hebrew Scriptures. Indeed, comments within the Apocrypha distinguish contemporary writers from the divinely inspired prophets, who had long been silent (1 Macc. 4:41—46; 9:27; 14:40).
2. The Apocrypha contains clear factual errors and, from the standpoint of Protestants, theological errors (such a praying for the dead, see 2 Macc. 12:43-45).
3. The Roman Catholic Church did not officially recognize the books in the Apocrypha as canonical until the Council of Trent in 1546. In fact, Jerome (A.D. 340-420), the translator of the Vulgate (the official Roman Catholic Latin Bible for more than a millennium), claimed the books of the Apocrypha were edifying for Christians but were “not for the establishing of the authority of the doctrines of the church. At the Council of Trent, Roman Catholics recognized the deuterocanonical books in reaction to Protestant leaders who called for a return to biblical Christianity, stripped of later accretions and distortions. Roman Catholics include the Apocryphal books within their Old Testament canon, sometimes adding whole books and sometimes combining apocryphal portions with books Protestants recognize as canonical (for example, three additions to Daniel—The Prayer of Azariah, Susanna, and Bel and the Dragon). These additions and combinations result in a forty-six-book Old t=Testament canon for Roman Catholics.
4. While there are some debatable allusions to the Apocrypha in the New Testament, New Testament authors nowhere cite the Apocrypha as Scripture (that is, with a formula such as “The Scripture says”). Almost every book in the Old Testament is cited as Scripture.

Learn more:

1. Got Questions.org: What are the Apocrypha/Deuterocanonical books?
2. Blue Letter Bible: What Is the Old Testament Apocrypha?
3. Blue Letter Bible: What Are the Contents of the Various Books of the Old Testament Apocrypha?
4. Blue Letter Bible: Why Were the Books of the Apocrypha Rejected as Scripture by the Protestants?
5. Bible Research: The Old Testament Canon and Apocrypha
6. Michael Marlowe:  Formation of the New Testament Canon
7. ESV Study Bible: The Canon of the Old Testament

Related term:

• canon of scripture
• New Testament apocrypha

1From The Canon and Ancient Versions of Scripture.

Filed under Scripture

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Clicking on the Theological Term graphic at the top of this post will take you to a list of all the previous theological terms in alphabetical order.

Theological Term of the Week

New Testament apocrypha
Eary Christian non-canonical writings related to the narratives or personalities of the New Testament, and which are not among the Apostolic Fathers.1

• From The London Baptist Confession, 1689, Chapter 1, Of the Holy Scriptures:

2. Under the name of Holy Scripture, or the Word of God written, are now contained all the books of the Old and New Testaments, which are these:

OF THE OLD TESTAMENT: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, I Samuel, II Samuel, I Kings, II Kings, I Chronicles, II Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, The Song of Solomen, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations,Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi

OF THE NEW TESTAMENT: Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, The Acts of the Apostles, Paul’s Epistle to the Romans, I Corinthians, II Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, I Thessalonians, II Thessalonians, I Timothy, II Timothy, To Titus, To Philemon, The Epistle to the Hebrews, Epistle of James, The first and second Epistles of Peter, The first, second, and third Epistles of John, The Epistle of Jude, The Revelation

All of which are given by the inspiration of God, to be the rule of faith and life. 

• From Systematic Theology by Wayne Grudem:

Today there exist no strong candidates for addition to the [New Testament] canon and no strong objections to any books presently in the canon. Of those writings that some in the early church wanted to include in the canon, it is safe to say that there are none that present-day evangelicals would want to include. Some of the very early writers distinguished themselves quite clearly from the apostles and their writings from the writings of the apostles, Ignatius, for example, about A.D. 110, said, “I do not order you as did Peter and Paul; they were apostles, I am a convict; they were free, I am even until now a slave” (Ignatius, To the Romans, 4.3; compare the attitude toward the apostles in 1 Clement 42:1-2; [A.D. 95]; Ignatius, To the Magnesians, 7:1; 13:1-2; et.al.).

Even those writings that were for a time thought by some to be worthy of inclusion in the canon contain doctrinal teaching that is contradictory to the rest of Scripture. “The Shepherd” of Hermas, for example, teaches “the necessity of penance” and “the possibility of the forgiveness of sins at least once after baptism … . The author seems to identify the Holy Spirit with the Son of God before the Incarnation, and to hold that the Trinity came into existence only after the humanity of Christ had been taken up into heaven” (Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, p. 641).

The Gospel of Thomas, which for a time was held by some to belong to the canon, ends with the following absurd statement (par. 114):

Simon Peter said to them; “Let Mary go away from us, for women are not worthy of life,” Jesus said: “Lo, I shall lead her, so that I may make her a male, that she too may become a living spirit, resembling you males. For every woman who makes herself a male will enter the kingdom of heaven.”

All other existing documents that had in the early church any possibility of inclusion in the canon are similar to these in that they either contain explicit disclaimers of canonical status or include some doctrinal aberrations that clearly make them unworthy of inclusion in the Bible.

Learn more:

1. The Development of the New Testament Canon: List of Apocryphal New Testament Writings
2. Michael Marlowe:  Formation of the New Testament Canon
3. Ryan Turner: An Overview of the Lost Books of the New Testament; Myths about the Lost Books of the New Testament.
4. Michael Kruger: Apocryphal Books in Early Christian Codices; Evidence for their Canonical Status?; Misconceptions About the New Testament Canon: In the Early Stages, Apocryphal Books Were As Popular As the Canonical Books.

Related term:

• canon of scripture

1From The Canon and Ancient Versions of Scripture.

Filed under Scripture

Do you have a term you’d like to see featured here as a Theological Term of the Week? If you email it to me, I’ll seriously consider using it, giving you credit for the suggestion and linking back to your blog when I do.

Clicking on the Theological Term graphic at the top of this post will take you to a list of all the previous theological terms in alphabetical order.

Theological Term of the Week

contextualization
Evangelical Christian jargon: In the best sense, taking the unchanging truth of the gospel and tailoring the presentation of it to a specific cultural context in order to achieve greater understanding; but also used to refer to changing the message of the gospel (always unjustified and inexcusable) in order to make it more palatable in a specific cultural context; also often used ambiguously.

• From scripture:

For though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win more of them. 20 To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though not being myself under the law) that I might win those under the law. 21 To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (not being outside the law of God but under the law of Christ) that I might win those outside the law. 22 To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some. 23 I do it all for the sake of the gospel, rthat I may share with them in its blessings. (1 Corinthians 9:19-23 ESV)

• From Contextualization Without Compromise by Tullian Tchividjian:

Becoming “all things to all people” … does not mean fitting in with the fallen patterns of this world so that there is no distinguishable difference between Christians and non-Christians. While rightly living “in the world,” we must avoid the extreme of accommodation—being “of the world.” It happens when Christians, in their attempt to make proper contact with the world, go out of their way to adopt worldly styles, standards, and strategies.

When Christians try to eliminate the counter-cultural, unfashionable features of the biblical message because those features are unpopular in the wider culture—for example, when we reduce sin to a lack of self-esteem, deny the exclusivity of Christ, or downplay the reality of knowable absolute truth—we’ve moved from contextualization to compromise. When we accommodate our culture by jettisoning key themes of the gospel, such as suffering, humility, persecution, service, and self-sacrifice, we actually do our world more harm than good. For love’s sake, compromise is to be avoided at all costs.

Learn more:

1. GotQuestions.org: What Is Contextualization?
2. 9Marks Journal: Putting Contextualization in Its Place
3. Tullian Tchividjian: Contextualization Without Compromise
4. Phil Johnson: Context and Contextualization
5. John Piper: Don’t Contextualize the Gospel (video)
6. David Wells: Contextualization and Foreign Missions,  Contextualization and Preaching (audio)
7. Together for the Gospel: Panel Discussion on Contextualization (audio)

Related term:

• gospel, the

Filed under Ecclesiology

This week’s theological term was suggested by Moon Poni. Do you have a term you’d like to see featured here as a Theological Term of the Week? If you email it to me, I’ll seriously consider using it, giving you credit for the suggestion and linking back to your blog when I do.

Clicking on the Theological Term graphic at the top of this post will take you to a list of all the previous theological terms in alphabetical order.