Theology in the Raw - S8 Ep893: Why Christians Need to Read the Apocrypha: Dr. Joey Dodson

Episode Date: August 16, 2021

What is the Apocrypha and what isn’t the Apocrypha? Is it a Catholic set of uninspired books? Books vital for understanding the New Testament? Should it be included in our Bibles? In our...Canon? New Testament scholar and Apocrypha expert Dr. Joey Dodson guides us through this important conversation with wisdom, wit, and cultural relevance. You’ll see what I mean.

Hello, friends. Welcome back to another episode of Theology in the Raw. My guest today needs no introduction. He is the one and only Dr. Professor Joey Dodson, aka my best friend. We studied together at Aberdeen University 15 years ago, have been best friends ever since. He is a professor at Denver Theological Seminary. I would encourage you to check out Denver Seminary. It's one of my favorites, and we'll talk about it at the end of the show. The reason why I want to have Joey on the show is to talk about the Apocrypha. I have dabbled in the Apocrypha at various times on this podcast, but I've never had a full-blown conversation about it. So I invited Joey, who is an expert in the Apocrypha, to come on the show and tell us all about what the Apocrypha is, what it isn't, and why we as Protestant Christians should read and engage and learn from

the so-called Apocrypha. If you'd like to support the show, you can go to patreon.com forward slash theology in the raw support show for as little as five bucks a month. All of the info is in the show notes. All right, without further ado, let's get to know the one and only Dr. Joey Dodson. All right, Joey, welcome back to Theology in the Raw. I don't know how many times you've been on, but not nearly enough. It's always a pleasure. Well, thanks for coming back on. And we're going to talk about the significance and importance of the Apocrypha for understanding specifically, I guess, New Testament studies, although I guess it could help understand a bit of the latter Old Testament to some extent. But yeah, tell us, give us a basic introduction. What is the Apocrypha? What isn't the Apocrypha? And then we can get into why it's good for

Christians to understand it and study it. When I say Christians, I guess I mean Protestant Christians. Yeah. When I lived in Houston, I had a friend named Bob Hamilton, and Bob was part of the Hell's Angels. He had dropped out of school as an eighth grader. He'd been incarcerated numerous times, maybe art capturing his life. He had two tattoos on his forearms of daggers with blood coming off of them. But he's an example of he who has sinned much and has been forgiven much, loves much. And he was just so passionate, but he didn't know a whole lot about the Bible. And he would come and interrupt me all the time. And it was always a divine interruption. But one day he knocked on my door and he came and said, Joey, I got an

aperture whispering. I'm like, a what? He says, an aperture. I'm like, I don't know what that is. And he was like, you don't know what the aperture is? I was like, no, I don't. He was like, I thought you were smart. I'm like, I'm sorry, I've never heard of the aperture. And he's like, I got it out in my van. And so he takes me out to his van, this big black van.

Looks like I'm going to get kidnapped. And he reaches inside and like smoke from all the cigarettes comes out. And he grabs this black book and he hands it to me and he says, it's the aperture. And I read it. And of course, it's the Apocrypha. But for him, you know, the Apocrypha was something secret and he was so excited that he had it. It was contraband. And I was in Princeton presenting a paper and I met with an old former high school friend named Roger Guster. And Roger was like, man, you got a PhD in the Bible. I know you know all the secrets, right?

They told you – let me know what secrets they told you in the PhD program. Like, ah, it doesn't really work like that. And he was like, well, what about the Apocrypha? Is it supposed to be in or supposed to be out? And so there are a lot of people that are fascinated with the Apocrypha, but a lot of people don't really even know how to pronounce it or know what it is. A lot of people also get it confused with the New Testament Apocrypha, works like the Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of Judas. But generally speaking, when we talk about the Apocrypha, it's the works between Malachi and Matthew, give or take a couple of decades. And it's Jewish works. It's what often people refer to as the 400 years of silence. It wasn't quite as silent as you think. So God was moving through

these different authors. And to be fair, even among these authors, we see that they didn't put the Apocrypha, these works on the same level as what we would consider the other canonical books of the Old Testament, almost like a second tier. With coffee, you could have your single origin Ethiopian roast. So it's not quite up there, but maybe Starbucks, a second tier. So it's not quite as good, but it's still better than Folgers. And so they had different categories. And we even see this with the New Testament. Pharisees and Sadducees, you know, they debated on what actually should be the Old Testament. And it wasn't necessarily that the Sadducees absolutely repudiated the prophets, but they didn't hold it on the same level. canon in response to Marcion, we call it the Muratorian canon, it actually had levels. Like, these are the best. These are the most. Get the single origin. And then these are also good to read. They may not be as inspired, but they're still inspiring. And then in that canon, they

also said, you know, avoid these books. Anything by Preston Springer. I mean, you know, avoid, don't read these. But also what's interesting is that in that first New Testament canon that we had before we got to our own centuries later, it actually included some of the works of the Apocrypha. But to answer maybe a short answer between, to go back to your first question, the Apocrypha are Jewish works by faithful Jews between Malachi and Matthew. Okay. So it wasn't a bunch of... I think the Protestant assumption is that the Apocrypha is a Catholic work because it's adopted into the Catholic canon. But just to clarify, I mean, this is kind of so obvious for people that have studied it,

so I don't want to insult people's intelligence, but the Apocrypha is not written by Catholics. The whole Catholic church didn't exist when these books were being written. Real quick, just because you did bring it up, I'm sure there's some people that have questions about moratorium canon, first canon. What does that even mean? Because now we're jumping ahead a little bit, the first few hundred years after the New Testament. But maybe give us just an elevator pitch description of canonization of the New Testament or the Bible in the first few hundred years. Because it's a lot more messier than people understand it to be. Yeah, right.

So the Jews were already having discussions on canon. So the council at Jamnia in 90 AD, they're trying to figure out what exactly is our canon. We even see in the later New Testament, Paul referring to all scriptures being theopneustos, God breathe. Is he including his own works? Is he including gospels at that point? Peter is going to talk about Paul and how he writes himself that are really hard to understand. And all of the Pauline scholars stood up and said, amen. But he also connects it with scripture as well. And so there already was this idea that some of these works of the New Testament are scripture.

There's debate regarding whether it's the chicken or the egg. But there's a dude named Marcion that was like a proto-proto-gnostic who was very popular. And he developed his own, really maybe the first canon, that was very anti-Semitic. He really liked some passage, and it was kind of cut and paste. And so one control is that the early church fathers, the proto-proto-Orthodox fathers got together and said, no, no, no, don't go with Marcion's canon, go with our canon as well. And this kind of continued that discussion of what is the canon. And often there are three and or four categories that led to our final canon that we have. One, could it be testified by the eyewitnesses? So there's no school like the old school. And so how old is it? And so there were some of these works

that they were valuable. They were considered great, like perhaps the Didache or the Shepherd of Barnabas, the Epistle of Barnabas or the Shepherd of Hermes that were considered really, really good. The other one was, does it flow with the rest? Does it gel with what we do know for these other works? And so is it associated with the eyewitnesses, the apostles? And is it consistent with what we see with everything else? And a third one was popularity. So was it popular in the East side and the West side? Was it popular among the, and so almost the creme de la creme. And so these books that kind of came to the top and really the discussion wasn't so much what is inspired, but what is that which is going to be that which is going to guide us, what is going to be

the rule of orthodoxy for the church. And so, I think that there may be some works that they considered were inspired, but they weren't necessarily canon. Of course, all the works of the canon were considered inspired. I know that may be somewhat controversial there, but yeah, so those were the works that came. And between there and, so that's early second century there and the fourth century around 395 at the Council of Carthage, they finally put the final stamp of approval on what we consider our New Testament today. But what's fascinating is that after that, we have two of our oldest manuscripts, Sinaiticus and Alexandrinus and then Vaticanus, that even after that has happened,

they still don't follow the exact list. And so they include the Wisdom of Solomon, for example. And if I remember correctly, they don't include Hebrews. Hebrews had a hard time getting into the canon. But yeah, so that may be a bird's eye view. Yeah. See, after the first few hundred years after the closing of the – well, not even closing. The first few hundred years of the early church, it was a bit messy.

It's not like they had this Bible cover to cover that they walked around with and went to synagogue or church with. I mean, it was kind of the spectrum of writings. I mean, there were some that were immediately deemed inspired scripture. If I remember correctly, 20 or 21 of the 27 New Testament books were not disputed at all. The four gospels, Acts, most of Paul's letters, not all of them. Um, and then, uh, first Peter, first John, I think were some of those, but, um, so there was kind of a Canon within the Canon by which people measured some of

these other new Testament books, but also some other books like the Didache apocalypse of Peter, if I remember correctly. What else? Shepard of Hermes was another one. Yeah, very popular in the early church. I tell people like, you were this close away from doing your devotions in the Shepard of Hermes this morning.

Yeah. Freaks people out. It's like the silver medalist in the Olympics. Like, ooh, so close. But so all of those, so that's kind of, I mean, all that's kind of background to what we're even talking about with the Apocrypha.

Because the Apocrypha, written a few hundred years before that, written by Jews, not Christians. So what are the books in the Apocrypha? I know there's different traditions, right? The Eastern, the more Roman tradition of what constitutes the Apocrypha. So what are these books? And if you can maybe give a snapshot description of each one, if you can. I know I'm putting it off. Just so the audience knows who's not watching this, if you're listening, Joey's got no notes in front of him, and there's been no preparation for this.

So whatever he says is part of his DNA, which is pretty remarkable. Yeah, and I encourage you to be Berean. So if I say something that doesn't seem right, please go back and check me. say something that doesn't seem right, please go back and check me. So maybe a good segue between those is that the Old Testament for many of our New Testament authors, if not all of them, was the Greek translation of the Old Testament. And so now our Hebrew Old Testament canon follows the Masoretic text, the Hebrew version, but that wasn't necessarily the Bible that our New Testament apostles were reading. And the Old Testament, Greek translation of the Old Testament included these apocryphal works. And so I think Protestants have like 14. And maybe as we talk about the canon

as well in the early Christianity, the apocrypha was part of the canon up until Luther. And so, and Luther's problem wasn't so much the Apocrypha, it was the Roman Catholics' interpretation of the Apocrypha, especially works in Sirach, Baruch, and 4 Maccabees. And so, he kind of throws out the Apocrypha because of maybe some bad interpretations of the Apocrypha. However, even though he kicks it to the curb, he goes back and he brings it back in the house and puts it in the garage. And so he still includes the Apocrypha in his Bible, but he just puts it at the end.

Luther does. Even Luther does, yeah. So as hostile as Luther can be, I mean, Luther has two speeds, full love or full hate, but the Apocrypha is going to be an exception to the rule. And so, you know, he hates the book of James and the Apocrypha he includes. And so it's quite interesting.

And so even in the Lutheran tradition, the Apocrypha is part of its Bible. It's just kind of put on that second tier. Real quick, I heard that up until the mid-1800s, every Protestant translation included the Apocrypha at the end. It's really a very, very new recent thing, even within Protestantism, where we don't even have the Apocrypha anywhere in the Bible. That's either exciting or disturbing, depending on how you look at it. Yeah, well, we have so few Christians that actually read the Bible that we have. So we need to make sure they read.

We can't be adding more books to read. But for those who are reading, and we'll talk about this in a moment, to help us understand both the New Testament and early Christianity, reading the Apocrypha is very valuable to see the lenses to which they read the Old Testament. And so just like we as Protestants have a hard time reading the Bible without the Reformation lenses, without Luther and Calvin just whispering in our ear, the New Testament apostles, as they're reading back in the Old Testament, they have those 400 years of these works that is going to influence how they're reading the Old Testament. All right. So give us a quick overview of each book of the Apocrypha. Which one is it? What's

it called? What's the content? Yeah. Yeah. So usually with the Protestants, we have 14, but I don't know if we have time. I'm not very good at summarizing. So I'll pick out some of my favorites there. And we'll start out with some of those that have just extra. And so like in our Masoretic text, there's stories, sorry, the Hebrew Bible, there's stories about Daniel that aren't there that are in the Greek Old Testament. And so for example, there's a story about this woman named Susanna. Susanna is this beautiful woman and there's these two dirty old men, elders who see her. They find out that both of them are infatuated with her. And so they devise

a plan. They are going to wait till she's all alone. And then they're going to accost her and tell her that she has to do a menage a trois with both of them, or they are going to accuse her of committing, having sexual immorality with a young man. And so she's at this debate, do I capitulate to these two dirty old men, or do I let them accuse me of this, and knowing that according to law, if she's found in sin, that she'll be stoned. And of course, Susanna, being the virtuous woman that she is, says, I'm sorry, I will not get with you guys. And so they scorned, decide, okay, we're telling everyone. And there's two witnesses that they have. If you remember Old Testament long, you have to have two or three witnesses. And so they tell everyone, hey, we came in and

we saw her capitulating, net bleaching and chilling with this young man underneath the tree. And so she needs to be stoned. And of course, everyone says, all right, two witnesses. These are elders. They grab their stones. They come around getting ready to put her to death. And all of a sudden, here Daniel comes. Here I come to save the day. And Daniel comes in and says, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Wait, before you cast the first stone, let's question these elders more. And so Daniel gets them individually and says, so you said you walked in and she was hooking up with a young man. Where's the young man, first of all? And secondly, which tree was it? Was it the oak tree or was it the pine tree? And the first old man said,

well, you know, we can't, we tried to catch him, but he got away and it was under the oak tree. They were hooking up under the oak tree. So Daniel said, oak tree. He's like, yeah, yeah, definitely the oak tree. And so then they get the other guy to come in and say, well, I got a question for you. Where were they hooking up? Was it the oak tree. They were hooking up under the oak tree. So Daniel said, the oak tree. He's like, yeah, yeah, definitely the oak tree. And so then they get the other guy to come in and says, hey, well, I got a question for you. Where were they hooking up? Was it the oak tree or was it the pine tree? And the guy's like, definitely the pine tree. And so at this point, they've been exposed as liars. And Daniel saves the day.

The woman is reinstated, and they stone the elders instead. And so, man, it's a great book. And in light of all of the Me Too movement and the sexual abuse that we've had in the evangelical church, I put my vote in that we raised the canonical status of Susanna at this point. Wait, when you say that,

would you say it is actually part of the breathed out scripture, the 2 Timothy 3.16? Would you not go that far? Or would you just say, I'm not sure? I would say I'm not sure. We're not quite sure what Paul is meaning when he says all scripture. Does scripture, is he referring to the Old Testament canon, the Greek Old Testament canon, or is he referring to the Masoretic canon? And did he even know that there was a difference? I mean, in his Bible, that Susanna was extra.

And so that's one example. And of course, that also helps us understand the background of Jesus and the woman caught in adultery. As you remember, according to law, it's not supposed to be just the woman brought together before the trial, but it's supposed to be the man and the woman. And in both Susanna's account and in John, there's no man. So where is this woman? And whereas Daniel saves and rescues this woman from being stoned, Jesus stands up.

So he's kind of like a new Daniel in this story. So theologically and ethically, it lines up. I mean, as far as the content goes, there's no reason why this shouldn't be in. Maybe the question would be, well, how do we know the story even happened? But it's like, but that's, I don't know, you have like extended, even if it was a parable, we have, I mean, I take Job as more of a parable with a historical kernel, but Jesus told parables all over the place. And that doesn't mean, like something did not need to happen

in its historical literal, in its literal historicity for it to be true and good. And, you know, so even the question of, did this story actually happen the way it said, it almost like maybe, maybe not, but that doesn't determine whether it should be in the canon or not. I don't know. Yeah. Wow. If you like Daniel, well, oh, by the way, if we make that connection back with John's gospel, the woman called in adultery,

if you remember that passage is not in our original Greek text. And so some might even say that that's apocryphal. And even when it does occur in some of our Greek texts later on, it's different places in John. And so both of these are deutero in a sense, but show really early Christianity, these Christian godly leaders standing up for these women who were oppressed, where everyone took men's word for it. Um, and so, yeah, I think, um, it makes me love Jesus and Daniel more. So that what's that, is that called, uh, the additions to Daniel or, or, Oh yeah, there's sure. Yeah. So you have Susanna and then you have other additions of Daniel called bell and dragon. Right. So very, also really cool stories. We need, uh,

we need it for, if you have any filmmakers in your audience, uh, we need these stories stories put on film. And so Bell and the Dragon, the king comes to Daniel. He's like, yo, Daniel, why don't you worship our God? Our God is a real God. He's an awesome God. And Daniel's like, man, your God is fake. And the king's like, no, no, no.

Every night I go and I put this feast in front of his idol. And when I come back the next day, the food is gone. And Daniel says, I tell you what, let's go in there and let's lock the doors. And you put the food there. We'll lock the doors. We come back tomorrow and the food is gone. Then I will worship your God. I will abandon the God of Israel and I'll worship your God. And the king's like, bet, we got it. And so they go in, they put the feast down. The king's getting ready to lock the door and Daniel's can't be found. Like where did Daniel go? And then finally they find Daniel.

They leave. The next day they come, and the food is gone. The king's like, yeah, I told you. Get you some of that. Let's go. And Daniel's like, hmm, that's interesting. And the king's like, well, the door was locked. And Daniel said, yeah, yeah, yeah. But you know what?

While you were locking the door and putting the food out, I got some of this white powder, flour, and I put it all around the floor. And look, and all of a sudden they look down and there's all these footprints. And the footprints go to a trap door. They open the trap door and it leads to the home of the false prophets and priests. And at this point, they realize that the priest and their wives and children were eating the food every night. And so at this point, the king converts and begins to worship the God of Israel. Similar type story. There's this dragon, maybe like a large alligator crocodile. We're not quite sure.

And they're like, Daniel, how could you not worship that thing? Look at it. It's a beast. And Daniel's like, well, I'll tell you what. And so Daniel makes like this little bomb, this tar bomb, and he feeds it to this dragon. And all of a sudden, the dragon like blows up and then it was like, that's your God. I'll take your God out. And so you have that type of stories. And you also have, uh, the prayer of the three brothers when they're in the fire. Um, and so it gives those.

And so, yeah, so sometimes, uh, these apocryphal works are just additions. Uh, so if you like Esther, uh, there, there's more books in Esther in the Greek version as well. That gives you more detail. Right. Well, even going back to our, you know, your John 8 example, we have these things in our established Protestant canon. I hate to say it, but the book of Jeremiah is a kind of a train wreck when it comes to the canon and which one to follow because in the Hebrew version, which all of our English translations go to follow the Hebrew version. And yet first century Christians, as you said, typically follow the Greek version. Well, the Greek version, I think, is 20%. Is it shorter or longer? The book of Jeremiah, it's in different order. Like the Greek version of Jeremiah, Hebrew version is, I'm not going to say two completely different books

at all, but there's some serious differences between the two in addition. So even within our Protestant, because so some people, you know, if you're like an Enneagram, uh, eight or a one, you might be like, you know, no, no, no, no. And I need like, I'm, I'm, I'm, I need more security in my Canon. It just doesn't, you can close the door on Apocrypha and all this stuff. And that's, I get that. But even within our established Canon, there, there's some messiness there, but, um, yeah. What are some other, so, uh, Mac Maccabees, those are kind of be the ones that even Protestants who hardly know what the Apocrypha is, they probably heard of the book of Maccabees. What are those all about? Yeah. So we have four Maccabee books. And if you like Joshua, I think you'll like Maccabees. So

it gives, honestly, if you like Acts, I think you'll like the Maccabee books, because it kind of gives us this idea of ancient historiography, this genre, and ancient historiography, the genre, like we would go into the Scrolls of a Million or Barnabas and Nobles in the first century when the New Testament was being written. One of the big placards would say ancient historiography. And we would see that these works often start out with either one single event, and we see the ramifications of that, or it would be how a group of people came to be the people that they are, or it would be looking at how God works in history. So it's not that cheesy, campy, it's not history, it's his story. But Maccabees is like that. I mean, it's not just this humanistic, be by the revolution of the Jews, but it's how God is working these miracles there.

And so, for example, one of my favorite stories is there's this dude named Apollyonus who is coming to take out the temple. He's coming to persecute the Jews because they're not obeying the law. He's going to go to the temple. He's going to get all the valuables out of it. And on his way, all of a sudden, there's a bright light that strikes him down. And there's these two angels with fiery swords, and they strike him down, and they're about to kill him. And at this point, there's Aeneas, the high priest, who, even though this guy is persecuting, he prays and intervenes because the guy who's been struck down blind prays and repents. And so, Ananias prays for this guy,

and he prays that God would restore him so that the proclamation, the good news of Israel's God, would be proclaimed throughout all of the kingdoms. And so, it's very similar to my boy, Paul, when God knocked him off his donkey. And the you know, and the same thing we have Ananias who is praying for him so that the gospel of God is going to use Paul as his chosen instrument. And so you have that intervention. Maybe another connection is one of the bad guy, the joker or Hamilton's king, you know, in this story is Antiochus Epiphanes. And you have the story of the abomination of desolation that Jesus refers to. And they go into the Holy of Holies. They have orgies.

They get a pig because a pig's a dirty animal. They slaughter it on the altar. They put an idol of Zeus there. And this is what leads that Maccabean revolt. an idol of Zeus there. And this is what leads that Maccabean revolt. We also see the great persecution of the Jewish people during this time that wouldn't, you know, the Greeks wanted them to read Plato rather than the Torah. They wanted them to undo their circumcision and they wanted them to eat bacon. And the faithful, the pious Jews refused to do that. And there's stories and, you know, you've taught this in your own classes, Preston.

But there are times where the Greeks would come in and they would slaughter the Jewish armies on the Sabbath because they couldn't fight. They get the women who had circumcised their kids and their babies, and they hang the women up with their babies hanging at their, being hung from their neck. It's very a handmaid's tale. And then you have one of the most popular stories that I think the author of Hebrews draws upon and maybe revelation is the story of Eleazar, the seven brothers and their mother. And so we're going to see this in first Maccabees, but we see it more explicitly in four Maccabees.

And I can talk about that more if you're interested, if you want to transition to four Maccabees, but we see it more explicitly in 4 Maccabees. And I can talk about that more if you're interested, if you want to transition to 4 Maccabees. How do you reverse a circumcision? That sounds painful and impossible. Yeah, I'm not sure where they get the skin from to put over that. But of course, you know, the Greeks, they wrestled naked, they ran naked. They went to the baths. And so there were a group of Greeks, of Jews, who wanted to be Greek. And so they wanted to assimilate. And then you had those like the Maccabeans and Judas Maccabeans.

The fact that we don't have a great Maccabean movie. I know. Come on, Hollywood. Do I really need another version of X? Give me the Maccabeans. I know. You just call it the hammer. Gosh, it would be so exciting.

I mean, you know, it'd be like the Jewish version of Braveheart. Yeah. You know? They can take my life, but they never take mine. I mean, honestly, if there's any two books in the Apocrypha to read, first and second Maccabees in particular, it's hard to put down. You said it's like Joshua. It so resonates with how the Old Testament history books are written. I mean, it feels very similar. I mean, 1 Maccabees, I think, isn't very miraculous at all. And 2

Maccabees does have a lot more miracles. Isn't that kind of one of the distinctions? One of my favorite stories in second Maccabees, I'm going by way back. So I hope I don't, I think it's toward the end of second Maccabees where the Jews are kind of locked up in a tower and all the Romans, these Gentiles are kind of surrounding the tower and like all the Jews go to the top. They're starting to light fire to it. They're going to burn the thing down. Like we don't want to be killed by these Gentiles. Cause that was a huge thing of dishonor, right? To have a Gentile actually kill you. So one of the dudes is old dude throws himself down like he's going to say I'm

going to kill myself. I'm going to take out a few Romans in the process. Well, he smacks the ground like all the people kind of back away and he smacks the ground, but he doesn't die. I'm not dead yet and he gets up and he's like guts are pouring out. He's pulling out his guts throwing him at the Romans,

saying, praying, God, give these back to me in the resurrection. So it's just like gruesome resurrection story. But it's like this old dude throwing his guts. I shouldn't be laughing, but it's like, wow. But yeah, I mean, these are books that are not, these are not hard books to read. They're very hard to put down. These are not hard books to read.

They're very hard to put down. And as far as I know, when we talk about intertestamental Jewish history or early Jewish history, Second Temple Judaism, we're relying almost exclusively on 1 and 2 Maccabees for a good chunk of that history, right? Because even Josephus, who's our other source, he's relying on Maccabees, right? Like he just kind of summarizes. Is that true? Like if we didn't have first and second Maccabees, we wouldn't know about probably about 100 years of history of what went on from about 200 to 180 or BC. Are there any other sources that kind of fill that in? Possibly, probably. probably yeah i can't i can't give an answer with surety on that but that's those those are the main sources that i know so and then you have three and four maccabees that are more are they more philosophical works

or yeah tell us about four maccabees is totally that um maybe one other point so when we get to the new testament we we have these ph these Pharisees and Sadducees. Where in the world did these guys come from? The Maccabees help us understand them and the relationship with the temple and also some of the hostility towards them. Because there were hundreds of Pharisees that were crucified, if you remember that story in the Maccabees. And so, yeah, it also helps us understand them. And also when we get to the New Testament, there's these Romans in town and we're just going with the Old Testament, the Hebrew version of the Old Testament. Then we end with what the Persians, you know, and so but between the Persians and the Romans, you have the Greeks and the Medes.

But yeah, so it helps us know how the Romans got in power over Palestine. Yeah. Yeah. So go ahead. No, no, you go ahead. So 4 Maccabees is going to be the most philosophical of them and also the goriest. And so when I have my students read 4 Maccabees, I have to give like a trigger warning because it is just so gory. a trigger warning, because it is just so gory. And yeah, so when you talk about them pulling out his flesh and throwing it, what you see in glimpses of that in 1 and 2 Maccabees, it's almost

the entire extent of 4 Maccabees, just the gore as we see these people being tortured. But 4 Maccabees is going to be, in a sense, a third way where you had some that said, yeah, let's all become Greeks. Others would come and say, no, let's kill the Greeks. Let's be set apart from them. For Maccabees is going to have a third way. And it's going to focus on, you know, let's out Greek the Greeks. The Greeks have philosophy, but we don't need their philosophy because we have the law. And those who obey the law are greater than the greatest philosophers. So the law abider's wisdom is

greater than any, the law abider's foolishness is greater than the wisdom of the Greeks. And so he's going to really cohere with what Peter says. God has given us all that we need for life and for godliness. And for the author for Maccabees, that's the law. And so similar to what we see in Galatians, where Paul says, walk by the power of the spirit, you will not fulfill the desires of your sinful nature. The author of 4 Maccabees is going to say, hey, walk by the power of the law and you will not fulfill the desires of the sinful nature. And it's interesting, 4 Maccabees was likely written in Antioch. And if you remember, Peter and Paul go to maybe rhetorical fisticuffs over the issue of eating food. Paul go to, maybe rhetorical fisticuffs over the issue of eating food. And so, but yeah, so with the poor Maccabees, he starts off with this old man named Eleazar who refused to eat pork. No bacon

for me. And the king's like, but bacon tastes good. Pork chop tastes good. And so the king, Eleazar says, no, I will not because even if I take a bite right here, it's like breaking the entire law. So failing in the law in one aspect is breaking the entire law. Sounds a lot like James, right? And so they begin to torture him. And again, even though we're in theology of the law, I'm embarrassed to even give the pictures of what's happening to him like the poor Maccabee author does. of what's happening to him, like the poor Maccabee author does. And actually the torturers who, these guys were born and raised as torturers, they have pity on this old man. Like, hey,

you don't have to eat it. Just put it to your lips and pretend that you're eating it. And we'll tell him that you did it. And he's like, oh, heck to the no, no, to the no, no, no, I will not do that. And so he dies. But in giving up his death, his death is considered a hilasmos or hilasterion. So for your audience not familiar with Greek, these are the words that we see in Romans chapter three and first John chapter two, referring to the life of Jesus as a atoning sacrifice or mercy seed or propitiation for the nation, for the people. And so Eleazar saw his torment as bringing atonement for Israel. And so before this time, you're the Leviticus guy, so you can correct me, but before this time, Helasmos and Heliosterion was always referred to the blood of animals. But this is the first time that we have it referring

to people. So people say, well, wait, wait, how am I supposed to make sense of this? And I think the best way to do it is just say that a lot of these theological categories in the New Testament were already brewing and being kind of opened up between the Testament so that when the New Testament gives a theological point, it's not like that was made in a vacuum. It's not that they're copying or whatever. It's not that's, that's besides the point. It's that when we have the blood of a human or Jesus or God, whatever, um, correlating with old Testament sacrifices,

we already have these bridges being laid down with some of these stories. There's a story also in the Dead Sea Scrolls. And just to clarify, Dead Sea Scrolls are not part of the Apocrypha. story also in the Dead Sea Scrolls, and just to clarify, Dead Sea Scrolls are not part of the Apocrypha. It's a whole different set of literature, but I think it's 1QS, the community rule where, well, it's been so long, maybe it's not that, but where they talk about when the Messiah comes, his followers will sit down and have a meal together and they'll eat bread and drink wine and the Messiah will bless it. This is like 150 years before the Last Supper, right? And people, you know, some people are troubled by that. Like they want uniqueness in the New Testament.

They don't want anything outside the New Testament to kind of correlate it. For me, it's the opposite. It's like, no, this makes sense that people were anticipating the Christ, the Messiah to break bread and drink wine with his disciples. And like when that happened, there was something in the air, right? That people knew kind of the significance of this kind of

event. So, um, this, this happens a lot, right? In the Apocrypha and other Jewish literature, you see these categories being opened up and explored that help us to make more sense of the New Testament. Um, your, your, your book, uh, the wisdom ofdom of Solomon. So Joey did his PhD comparing Romans with this apocryphal book, The Wisdom of Solomon. So I know you have a special place, this book has a special place in your heart. You do your devotions in it and so on. But tell us about that book. That's actually a really significant apocryphal book, a book in the apocrypha that really helps us understand a lot of things about the New Testament. Good. Yeah. Last time you said that about Seneca. So I don't know when I have time to read my Bible. I'm reading Seneca and Wisdom Solomon all the time. Yeah. And maybe we'll come back to some of those categories that poor Maccabees open up as well. Yeah, Wisdom of Solomon is one of my first loves.

As you remember, my expertise is the interpenetration of Judaism, Greco-Roman philosophy, and early Christianity, and have a dialogue partner in each one of those. And so it's Seneca, as we've just referred to, and the Greco-Roman philosophy. It's Paul in the New Testament. And it's really the Wisdom of Solomon is where I spent most of my time for the early Judaism, second temple Judaism. But one of the great categories that we have in the wisdom of Solomon is lady wisdom, which is also referred to as a logos through which God created the entire world. And the logos comes down and stands on the earth. And what's interesting in Wisdom of Solomon is you basically have the first type of a trinity. You have masculine, feminine, and neuter referring to God's virtue. So masculine is going to be the Lagos. And Lagos sustains himself. Wisdom

sustains herself in the Wisdom of Solomon, which is very interesting to have. Abstains her? Wait, what do you mean? Sustains. Oh, sustains herself in the wisdom of Solomon, which is very interesting to have. Abstains her? Wait, what do you mean? Sustains. Oh, sustains. Yeah. So, you know, we see in Hebrews and we see in Colossians that the word Christ sustains all things. But here you have Lady Wisdom who is self-sustained, which already is a discussion of divinity.

And we see even Philo who is struggling with this. Philo is not in the Apocrypha, but he's writing around the same time. And he says, whoever this Lagos is, this word, it's greater than the angels, but it's not exactly God. And we see the same type of wrestling in the Wisdom of Solomon. The Wisdom of Solomon is going to make the Lagos and the Holy Spirit, which he's going to use the phrase Holy Spirit as well, and Lady Wisdom are all kind of the same. Lagos is masculine for your audience who maybe not be, doesn't know Greek. Wisdom, Lady Wisdom is feminine, and Spirit is neuter.

And so we see how God is working through these ideas. The Wisdom of Solomon is also called the Book of Wisdom, but it's written for the people to pursue righteousness that comes from above. There's a story at the very beginning of Wisdom of Solomon where death kind of sneaks in the back door and separates the righteous from the unrighteous. And the unrighteous find this one guy who's claiming to be a son of God. And they say, hey, let's test him. Let's see if he matches his words. And so they grab him and they give him put him forth in a shameful death. And but he doesn't he doesn't respond negatively to them. But instead, in his death, the shameful death, it's proven that God is his father, that he truly was a son of God.

And later on, he reappears to them and they're like, oh, snap. If we'd have known that he was the son of God, then we would not have have put him to a shameful death. And so you can imagine the early church drawing upon this Jewish work to say, hey, this is a prophecy of Jesus Christ and his second coming. his second coming. But yeah, so the wisdom of Solomon is going to use, it's going to draw specifically on like what we see in Proverbs 8 of this lady wisdom who was there and how God used wisdom to create the world. And so whereas 4 Maccabees is going to say the law, that's what we want to focus on. The wisdom of Solomon similarly is going to be kind of in the same huddle, but the focus is not going to be on the law. I mean, basically the author of the wisdom of Solomon doesn't really talk about the law at all.

But instead, this divine spirit, the divine logos, lady wisdom, which is going to separate the faithful Jews, the godly from the ungodly Gentiles. And it's it's there's a lot of similar themes, in particular with the Book of Romans, which is the topic of your dissertation. particularly with the book of Romans, which is, you know, the topic of your dissertation. Do you think that Paul had this book, this book in the Apocrypha in mind when he wrote the book of Romans? Like what's the interaction there between these two books? Yeah. So going back to the 18th century, the New Testament scholars believe that when Paul's writing Romans, that the wisdom of Solomon or the book of wisdom is somewhere on the desk. Scholars debate whether it's in the middle of the desk when Paul is writing this or is it on the margins? Some even believe, for those of you who are familiar with Romans, Paul has this diatribe, this imaginary opponent in Romans.

And, you know, like, what about you, old man? opponent in Romans. And, you know, it was like, what about you, old man? And so there are a number of Roman scholars who believe that the you, old man that Paul is responding to is the author of the wisdom of Solomon or someone who's very similar to the wisdom of Solomon. The wisdom of Solomon was very ethnocentric. And Paul's kind of, and so those boundaries that are going to separate the walls of racism that separate the Jews from the Gentiles, the author of wisdom is going to be one who's going to build those up. And so some believe that even that is the case, especially Romans 1 and 2 in comparison with wisdom chapter 13.

And so John Thelenbal at Cambridge, Francis Watson at Durham are two who have written very extensively on this. And even Doug Campbell in his book, he's going to see that. But going back to the old ICC commentary, Sandy and Hedlum, they're going to be the ones who kind of expand that. But again, yeah, so most people think that Romans is at least on the table, that Wisdom of Solomon is at least on the table, but it's debated on how central it is. I was thinking almost, yeah, Romans 1 and 2, but also 9 to 11. From the little I know about wisdom of Solomon, it's like,

man, you can almost imagine a scenario where Paul is trying to correct what he sees as a wrongheaded, ethnocentric view of Israel and God's plan. Basically, like if you're born an Israelite, you're in God's favor, right? Or he seems to kind of wean people off of that. Is that way? I don't want to misrepresent wisdom. Would that be? No, totally. Yeah. John Barclay has two essays, articles comparing Romans 9 through 11 with the wisdom of Solomon that both are just absolutely fantastic. I might've read them.

I'm sure you did. We're old, man. Joey and I have a running joke. Well, he mocks me for it that I review books and I don't read the whole thing before I review it. He's like, hey, did you read this book? I'm like, no, but I reviewed it. I shouldn't say that out loud.

Yeah. Some people are like, wait, he reviewed my book. All right. So we have have let's go back so we have first second third fourth Maccabees we've got wisdom of Solomon we have additions to Daniel which includes Susanna bell and dragon and then additions

to Daniel the prayer of Azariah is that part of the additions to Daniel is that the one you mentioned Azariah and the that part of the additions to Daniel? Is that the one you mentioned? Okay. Azariah and the fire. You also have an extra Psalm, right? Psalm 151. Is that? That's right. Yeah. Additions to Esther. What else? What am I missing? Oh, Ben Sirah, Ecclesiasticus. Yeah. The Barbarian Additions, we also can look at the additions to Jeremiah. By the way, I had lunch with a former Muslim yesterday,

and she got saved, became a Christian from reading Jeremiah. What? Yeah. She's like, I met Jesus through Jeremiah. I've never heard that before, but it's absolutely amazing. But it's beyond what we're talking about here, but just how God can use Jeremiah. And so Jeremiah, often in evangelical circles, we kind of raise Isaiah up and he's amazing, kind of almost like a fifth gospel. But Jeremiah was just as popular as Isaiah in the early church. And we see this in the extensions. And so almost like, hey, Jeremiah's not enough. We want more. And so we have Baruch, who is Jeremiah's scribe.

All right. And so we have the book of Baruch. That's another apocryphal book, yeah. Yeah, that's right. And if I remember correctly, Baruch is a guy who's like, Adam, Adam, Adam, all you guys are blaming Adam for your sin, but each of you have become your own Adam, which sounds very Romans 5, 12-ish. But yeah, so we have Baruch that is extending Jeremiah.

We also have the letter of Jeremiah that is just a man. It's just smack talking on the idol worshipers. And it's quite funny. It has this one line that worshiping an idol is like a eunuch holding a young maiden. There's nothing happening right there. And so, yeah, it's basically just this big smack talk to the idol worshipers that we have. But yeah, so Baruch, so if you like Jeremiah, check out Baruch. And if you like smack talking, prophet smack talking, similar to like Elijah on Mount Carmel, check out the

letter of Jeremiah. And Ben Sirach or Sirach or Ecclesiastes, these are all the, there's three, like three different names for one book, Ben Sirach, Sirach, and Ecclesiasticus. That's more like almost like the Proverbs kind of, like a lot of proverbial kind of things. Very much. Yeah. Yeah. So you talk about how different categories are opened up between Malachi and Matthew, but there's also different genres that are opened up as well.

And so we see Lady Wisdom is more personified, more extended in the wisdom of Solomon. And in Ben Sirach, what we see in Proverbs, it's extended. And so Ben Sirach is going to be somewhere between Proverbs and James. So really, I would say it's actually more like James than it is like Proverbs. And also in Sirach and Baruch, we have the great hall of faith, like what we see in Hebrews 11. We're going to see the hall of obedience, the hall of the great men and women of Israel. And so that type of genre that we see in Hebrews chapter 11 that we love so much, we also can see in the Apocrypha. I just remember in Ben, Ben Surak, some pretty misogynistic kind of statements. Um, but that's not foreign to the old Testament as a whole. So it's not like you can, I don't think you could say therefore it shouldn't be in the canon

because it's like, well, we got loads of questions about statements on women and, and I mean, the old Testament and to some extent the new too. I think we can overcome those, but is that right? I remember hearing some parts where I'm like, whoa, dude, like that's pretty. This is so good. And other stuff where he's like, ooh, cringing. I want to say that often when he's referring to women, it's almost like how John refers to the Jews. We know he's not against all the Jews,

but these specific type of Jews that are obstinance and resistance and persecuting. I think when sometimes when Sirach refers to women, it's not all women, but this certain type of promiscuous women that are doing that. But that made me just me trying to ameliorate Sirach on my own. For your friends, for your fans that watch Pollyanna, if you've ever seen Pollyanna, after Pollyanna, after she converts the priest of the church, if you remember, he gets up and rather than his hellfire brimstone sermon, he gives up and has a happy sermon. He quotes Ecclesiasticus. He quotes, quotes Thera. So there's an example of the Apocrypha coming in to Disney. Yeah. So what's, okay, let's, let's, let's round third base now.

I, I have two questions trying to think of the order. I guess, let me just start with the first one that came to mind. Like if Christians are like, man, I want to know more about this. Maybe I should read through it. Would you recommend just getting an Apocrypha and reading through it? Are there certain books you would prioritize over others or how should people gain, Protestant Christians gain a better understanding of the Apocrypha? Yeah. To use the words of Augustine, take it and read it, take it and read it. And you can get a free apocrypha. The very first one I had, I just got a Catholic Bible from a charity shop in Aberdeen, and it just reeked of smoke. Whoever owned it before, they must have smoked like a chimney.

They're talking about to open up the wisdom of Solomon. But it's a free one. You can see it online. Even your Bible apps are probably going to include the Apocrypha. Lexham has a translation that's pretty good. The NRSV has a translation. And like I said earlier, the Lutheran Bible is also going to have a translation. It's going to be very King James-ish. And so we have King James. It's KJVA that's going to have the Apocrypha. But as far as which ones to read first, you can read them in order. Or like I said, if there's a specific type of genre that you like.

So there's Tobit that we didn't mention. Oh, right. Tobit, too. That's a great story. That's right. Yeah. And that introduces to some of the angels, the names of angels that we have when we get to the New Testament.

But yeah, so if you like kind of a romance, Tobit with angels and demons, Tobit's a good one for you. Vampire romance. Yeah. So yeah, if you like Colossians or maybe like Glaive, some of Paul's letters and like Wisdom of Solomon for Maccabees may be a good one. If you like history, check out the first three Maccabees. I would almost say that whoever wrote the author, whoever the author for Maccabees is, that that's that whoever wrote the author, whoever the author of 4 Maccabees is, that that's who the Judaizers are in Galatians. And so they would like point to 4 Maccabees. And so if you, with Paul, we only have like one side of the phone conversation for the most part. And then even when he imitates them, how faithful is that? And so if you want the other side of the

coin for what's happening in Galatia, probably read 4 Maccabees. And it helps us understand why, even 1 through 4 Maccabees helps us understand why the Jews had such a hard time moving away from the law and the food laws and the Sabbath. And so it may help us understand that struggle. Why even when the Jerusalem church realizes that, hey, Cornelius has the Holy Spirit and God can save the Gentiles. Wow, what amazing. They still want them to abstain from certain types of meats. And it helps us understand kind of Romans 14 and 15 and what's going on in the church. So I guess that's kind of my next question is like, what's the payoff? Like why read the Apocrypha if you're like, no, I just want to understand the Bible.

It's like, well, yeah, that's why we're saying it's good to study and read it. Whatever you think about it, it's canonization. It's canonical place. If you think, no, it's completely not inspired by God. It's just inspiring literature. Well, it's still inspiring literature, but it also helps us understand the New Testament. That would be a good, that's one of many reasons why it's helpful. Like if you just, say you just came at the Apocrypha with just the Old Testament in mind

and read it through the lens of these are faithful, God-fearing Jews upholding Old Testament ethics in the face of persecution and hostility. So when you read the Apocrypha, you're on their side. Only then can you understand the very real tension that Acts 10 to 12 presents, Galatians, obviously most of Paul's letters. And you can appreciate why circumcising Gentiles and eating pork was such, such a huge, huge deal, you know? Would that be a good, I mean, it seems like that's probably one of the main. Yeah, you answered the main question. That answer is great. So just retweet on that. There are other times where the New Testament writers seem to be tipping their hat possibly

towards things in the Apocrypha, whether it's, although this is not in the Apocrypha, but when Jude talks about Michael fighting against Satan for the body of Moses, and it's like, there's just head tips. In Revelation 12, you have this woman who's surrounded by the seven stars, and in 4 Maccabees, the mother is over the moon, and she's surrounded by her sons who are set firmly in heaven, and they're shining like the stars. And of course, if you continue to read on Revelation, they overcome Babylon, these Gentiles are trying to oppress them, by their testimony and the blood of the Lamb. And so, very similar ideas. And so, I think when John is writing Revelation 12, he's tipping his hat back

to, uh, for Maccabees and for Maccabees, the mother represents Israel as well. And she's more manlier than men and more virtuous than Daniel. And so, yeah, you have, um, these times where the New Testament writer is going to kind of tip their hat. Colossians one, the Christ in Colossians one, what we see in first Corinthians also seems to have Paul tipping his hat to like Wisdom of Solomon chapter seven. And then other times, again, kind of rhetorical fisticuffs where they are going to overturn or push back

at some of the works. Let me, oh, there it is right here. Hold on, give me one second. I don't wanna take too much time because that's weird. But this is the version that I liked. Let's see. I'm gonna show it for the YouTube. Yeah, if you're just

listening to this on audio, I do have a YouTube version. So this is the Cambridge Annotated Study Apocrypha edited by Howard Clark Key. What's great about this is there's all kinds of space to take notes. And then there's little, it's almost like a little commentary throughout where it explains different things going on. So this is the one in my PhD that I read. Oh, there's Susanna right there. I thought this was really helpful. It's an NRSV translation. Gosh, this thing's marked up more than my Bible is. I feel like for both of us, man, I spent more time in Jewish literature in my PhD than I did in the Bible at some point. As far as a secondary literature that helps us understand the Apocrypha, David DeSilva has, is it called the Invitation to the Apocrypha? It's probably old now. I don't know if there's probably been a lot of stuff that's been written since then.

Yeah. Is that the title? Is it introduction to the Apocrypha? Maybe introduction. There's Daniel Harrington that has a similar, but yeah. Oh, right. Yeah. The syllabus is fantastic coming from a Protestant perspective. Harrington comes from a Catholic perspective, but it's shorter. Okay. And then you have, I grabbed one too,

Invitation to the Septuagint, Karen Jobes. Oh yeah. That, I mean, it, Invitation to the Septuagint, Karen Jobes. Oh, yeah. I mean, it's going to be the Septuagint, but it's also going to include some of the Apocrypha works. But yeah, I think going back to David of Silbo would be kind of the first stop in looking at the background of those letters. It may have more information than you want, but it's better to have more than not enough. Well, Joey, thanks so much for the overview and the engaging conversation. And yeah, I would encourage everybody to read the Apocrypha. And I'll have to have you back on

to talk about the Old Testament pseudepigrapha. The Apocrypha is 14 books, the pseudepigrapha, which is written over a broader span of time, but largely the same kind of time period. I think it's over 50 books or whatever that we have in our pseudepigrapha. And that could keep you busy for a while. We can talk about the Testament of Solomon where he finds this magic ring

that calls forth the demons and he has these conversations with the demons and then he uses the ring to make them build the temple. That's a fascinating book. Oh, man. With Sauron in that book. The Elzebub and Beliar and Azima. We get all the names of these demons. So really fun. So stay tuned for part two. Real quick, I want to give a shout out, an unsolicited,

unpaid shout out to Denver Seminary. If you're at all excited about what you're hearing from Joey, Joey is a professor at Denver Seminary. so you can check out the website for both on in-person classes. And also you guys have some distant learning options too, for people to like, no matter who you are, you can tap into Denver Seminary and engage the Bible further. Where can people find you, Joey? You got a website or I know you're on social media. Yeah, just social media at Jrrdodson so jrr like token and then d-o-d-s-o-n on twitter and instagram cool thanks so much for being on the show bro we'll see you again thanks I'm love you dude peace Thank you.