4 ms·

We know much more Jewish and Christian religious literature from antiquity than found its way into the bible. The nomenclature for it is a bit confusing. There

We know much more Jewish and Christian religious literature from antiquity than found its way into the bible. The nomenclature for it is a bit confusing. There are the "apocrypha" of the "Old Testament" in the narrow sense, which are those parts nowadays excluded by the Protestants. And then there are the "apocrypha" in a wider sense, which is the literature that bears a certain generic resemblance to biblical writings. However, some texts related to the New Testaments were typically not called "apocrypha" because the term traditionally had something pejorative about it; so it is not used for "almost" canonical texts that were traditionally recommended as pious reading, such as the so-called "Apostolic Fathers"[1]. To everyone who is interested in the texts and backgrounds of the apocrypha of the New Testament, I can highly recommend the two volumns of Wilhelm Schneemelcher: "New Testament Apocrypha" (or for German speakers: "Neutestamentliche Apokryphen"): vol. I: "Gospels and Related Writings" and vol. 2: "Writings Relating to the Apostles Apocalypses and Related Subjects". They include a lot of texts, many in complete translations, and provide excellent philological introductions to each text. However, the Apostilic Fathers are not included. For this you must look for other editions. [1] See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostolic_Fathers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostolic_Fathers

skissane 4y ago
> There are the "apocrypha" of the "Old Testament" in the narrow sense, which are those parts nowadays excluded by the Protestants. Given the pejorative connotations of "apocrypha", Catholics don't accept that term for the books in their OT canon which are rejected by Jews and Protestants – they say the appropriate term is "deuterocanon" ("second canon"). Catholics do use the term "apocrypha" for books of similar antiquity (such as Enoch) which ended up being rejected from the Catholic canon. Many Protestants prefer to call those later books "pseudepigrapha", to avoid confusion with the books of the Protestant apocrypha / Catholic deuterocanon; however, in the strictest sense of the term, that's not entirely correct, since "pseudepigrapha" literally refers to false claims of authorship, and while most of these texts do make such false claims, some of them are instead anonymous.

skissane 4y ago

> There are the "apocrypha" of the "Old Testament" in the narrow sense, which are those parts nowadays excluded by the Protestants. Given the pejorative connotations of "apocrypha", Catholics don't accept that term for the books in their OT canon which are rejected by Jews and Protestants – they say the appropriate term is "deuterocanon" ("second canon"). Catholics do use the term "apocrypha" for books of similar antiquity (such as Enoch) which ended up being rejected from the Catholic canon. Many Protestants prefer to call those later books "pseudepigrapha", to avoid confusion with the books of the Protestant apocrypha / Catholic deuterocanon; however, in the strictest sense of the term, that's not entirely correct, since "pseudepigrapha" literally refers to false claims of authorship, and while most of these texts do make such false claims, some of them are instead anonymous.