Fun with the Apocrypha

By Dante Stack

Have you wondered what's inside the Apocrypha, but thought it was a little too boring? Here's the thing: Jesus was familiar with the stories that are in the Apocrypha. They're the "extra" books that are recorded in Catholic and Orthodox Bibles, but not included in most Protestant texts. If Jesus had those stories floating around in the back of his mind during his ministry, why shouldn't we?

From blinding bird poop to disemboweled war elephants, the Apocrypha is rife with fascinating stories. Sadly, those stories are often hidden within a miasma of boringness.

Fun with the Apocrypha is your cheat code to knowing and understanding these ancient Jewish texts without having to trudge through the boring stuff yourself. Chock-full of pop culture references, Dante takes you book-by-book through the ancient Jewish texts, skipping over the boring parts while digesting the meaning of the stories in relation to the rest of the Bible. Whether you're a zealous believer or merely a Biblical wanderer, this is your guide to familiarize yourself with the 'extra' books of the Bible.

Come for the Biblical exegesis, stay for the jokes.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Stockade Amusement
• Release date: Sep 1, 2018
• ISBN: 9780463467312

Dante Stack

Dante is a desperate believer.He has education in religion as well as cinema arts from Biola University. He's lived with his wife in Slovenia, Russia, and America. Sometimes he makes outrageous claims like he invented the question mark. No, wait, scratch that. That was Dr. Evil's father who made that outrageous claim. Not Dante. Mr. Stack would never say that. He's much too humble.Life is best lived with a dog and a wife.

Book preview

Fun with the Apocrypha

By Dante Stack

Published by Stockade Amusement at Smashwords.

Copyright 2018 Stockade Amusement

Thank you for downloading this ebook! This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment and edification. The ebook may not be re-sold nor given away to other parties. Should you wish to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy and to discover other books from Stockade Amusement. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. Enjoy!

My Father once told me, "Never trust a book that begins with the word despite. Having now begun this book with the words, My Father", I hereby declare to you that I've successfully avoided all suspicion of being untrustworthy. Good for me. I’ve escaped literary damnation on a technicality. Phew.

Special Thanks

I'm indebted to Mindy Campbell and Jonathan Benedetti for bearing through my earliest draft as well as Mason Stoddard for his wise editing prowess. Oh yeah, and without the keen discipline of my wife, Danae Stack, the cover design would have just been scary looking mannequins. Everywhere. Just a lot of mannequins. Looking right at you. At you... or through you?

Table of Contents

Introduction

How to Read this Book

The Deuterocanon

Tobit

What the Frick Spake Zarathustra?

Diary #1: Sola Scriptura

Judith


Everybody Loves Solomon

Wisdom

Diary #2: The Boring Stuff

Ecclesiasticus

History Jam Sesh

Baruch and the Letter of Jeremiah

Diary #3: Everything is a Fun-house Mirror

Epics of Epicness

1 Maccabees

2 Maccabees

Diary #4: Teen Spirit

Additions to Esther

Additions to Daniel

Conclusion

About Dante Stack

Welcome.

Despite what the title may have you believe, what follows is not a work of tongue-in-cheekery. Far from it.

It’s a book written by an enthusiast. I am no expert in paleography, or a merchant of ancient texts. I am an enthusiast of Jesus Christ and the God I believe him to be.

Welcome, my friends and foes, to this little romp through the books often referred to as the Apocrypha, or sometimes called the Deuterocanon. These books are included in the Catholic Bible, but not the Protestant versions.

I grew up thinking of the apocryphal books as the black sheep of the family. Surely they were evil. They were imbued with meaning by some Hunchback-of-Notre-Dame-hating, red-hatted cardinals to help substantiate the claims of certain heretical, megalomaniacal Popes.

But here's the rub, my foes and friends: what if there's good stuff in those books? What if they are not works of the devil inspired by Satan himself to empower a Pope who will use the likes of these non-canon books to catapult himself to unparalleled dominion to become the once and future king Antichrist Carpathia forever amen?! What if.... and stay with me here.... what if there's something good in the Apocrypha?

Are these texts true or false? Good or bad? Perhaps those are the wrong questions. My aim is not to defend or attack the canonicity of these books. The goal is simply to understand them. There's no need for hyperbole. The Apocrypha doesn't need to be labeled good or bad.

Why read these books? Well, I love God. I love his son. So how do I get to know the people I love better? The answer, I presume, is simple: hang around them. I could devote my life to prayer, fasting, and the great process of monk-ery. By the by, never confuse monk-ing around with monkeying around. Vastly different. One revolves around long stretches of silence while the other involves fecal tossing. Different. So aside from the monastery, there remain the words written about God by his people.

Getting to know God can be tricky work. The apostle Paul calls Christians, God's inheritance, his children. Therefore, we should view Jesus as our stern Papa Bear, yet we sing songs like, What a Friend We Have in Jesus. He's our Papa Bear friend. Jesus often spoke in paradoxes. Heck, Jesus was a paradox. The God-Man. The second person of the trinity. Free determinism. While we have fancy theology to explain away the apparent contradictions, I don't think that's the point. What's the point? I don't know. But let me ask you a question. What is love? Baby don't hurt me. Don't hurt me. No more. See? Relationships are tricky! And a relationship with a god seems all the trickier.

Ultimately, if the Apocrypha is filled with stories that Jesus knew about, then why wouldn't I want to read them? When you love someone, you're not just interested in the things they do, you become interested in where they came from, who their family is, what their Mom's favorite novel is. When in love, even the smallest, stupidest factoid that's connected with your lover becomes a morsel to crave and devour.

For the Christian, the Apocrypha can be another morsel. Come with me, you friend (let's not pretend that you're my foe anymore, that's breaking my heart and I'm sorry I suggested it), and let's have a good ol' time discovering what's in these dubious scriptures.

How to Read This Book

I think it's best if you imagine me as Al Gore in the documentary An Inconvenient Truth, standing in front of a really neato PowerPoint. My expression and drawl are boring as heck, but wow! Look at the electric ladder I'm on!

Ahem, ahem. Clearing my throat; clearing my throat. Rubber baby buggy bumpers. Rubber-baby-buggy-bumpers. Check. Check check. Is this thing on? Sibilance. Sibilance. Syphilis, syphilis, 1, 2, 3. Okay. My mouth is ready. The mic is on. Let the PowerPoint begin!!

(Your inner reading voice for this section should have a slow, southern-yet-monotone rhythm to it)

This book is a patchwork of three different types of chapters: summaries, histories, and reflections.

Summaries

The bulk and heart of the book are the chapters that serve as walkthroughs of the Apocryphal books. From Tobit to 2nd Maccabees, the goal here is to entertain and inform. Perhaps you could put it this way: I've read the Apocrypha so you don't have to! It's like Cliffs Notes with jokes!

The summaries themselves can be loosely divided into four sections. The first two books explored, Tobit and Judith, are more narrative in nature than the others and deal with specific incidents. The next three—Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, and Baruch—fit into the category of wisdom literature. 1st & 2nd Maccabees are historical books, much in the vein of 1st & 2nd Kings or Chronicles. Finally, our summaries end with extra chapters that were added to the Old Testament books Daniel and Esther.

If you're already familiar with the Apocrypha, you may want to skip these chapters.

Histories

On occasion, I've inserted brief historical insights to add a little context to the narrative. Chapters on Zoroastrianism and a timeline of ancient Jewish history should help bring depth to the story summaries. See for yourself; the very next chapter explaining the distinctions of separate canon traditions also falls blithely into this category.

If you're a smarty-pants history nerd and already know everything about everybody, you may want to skip these chapters.

Reflections

Reading what may or may not be God's Word has an effect on my faith. In four diary-style chapters I internally process questions about the Bible, the canon, and my relationship with God.

If you're not into abstract feelings, you may want to skip these chapters.

So, if you know your history, don't like emotions, and aren't into Cliffs Notes, then skip to the conclusion, wherein I promise to allocate a spiritual gold star to you—because let's be honest... we're all in this thing for the gold stars.

The only question is: from whom do we seek our gold stars?

The Deuterocanon

Septuagint Babies are for Everyone

I don't want to bore you. And trust me on this, there's lots of room for boredom when you start talking about dates and processes of canonization. As you dive deeper and deeper into ancient writings, be warned! Sirens lurk round every corner, screaming to draw you further into the madness of hagiography and radiocarbon dating or some nerdtastic smarm like that. Don't give in. Resist. Let's watch that ADD-addled white rabbit with his stop watch and not feel tempted to chase him. Just tell him, Silly rabbit, Trix are for kids. Say that, and move on.

Silly rabbit, Trix are for kids.

Still, the silly rabbit persists, what is the Apocrypha, and why is it in some Bibles but not others?

Alright, stupid silly rabbit, I'll bite.

The Bible ~ According to Judaism, the Bible consists of 24 books.

The Bible ~ According to Protestants, there are two halves, two testaments; old and new. The Old Testament, though divided and numbered differently, contains the same contents as the Hebrew Bible. Protestants count 39 Old Testament books as opposed to the Jewish 24, but this is easily explained. The Hebrew Bible takes the 12 writings of the minor prophets and squeezes them into one book. Protestants outstretch them into 12 separate books. Furthermore, the Hebrew Bible doesn't have 1st & 2nd Kings, 1st & 2nd Samuel, and 1st & 2nd Chronicles, but rather, sees each of those as merely one book each. Lastly, the Hebrew Bible views Ezra and Nehemiah as one book. Do the math. It all works out. 24 = 39.

The Bible ~ According to Catholics, there are two halves, two testaments; old and new. The Old Testament, however, contains 46 books. That's 7 full books included in the O.T. canon that neither the Jews nor Protestants include. Add to that, there's some extra chapters thrown into some of the old books as well.

The Bible ~ According to the Orthodox churches, there's a gobstopping 51 books in the Old Testament. The Ethiopian Orthodox church includes even more books, and they have a term for their broader canon which includes specifically Ethiopian texts. Alas, these writings go far beyond the constraints of this book.

We've gotta take things slow.

Why the difference? Why do Catholics include extra texts? The answer is more straightforward than I expected: the Septuagint.

That funky word is a compilation translation of the Bible from its original languages into Greek. The New Testament is written entirely in Greek. This has consequences. The New Testament quotes the Old Testament (aka Hebrew Bible) a lot. They always quote it, then, using the Septuagint translation. Whenever Jesus quotes Isaiah or Deuteronomy, whether in Matthew's gospel or John's or whatever, he's quoting the Greek Septuagint.


The Septuagint is so named because it was purportedly translated and compiled by seventy Jewish translators. So the word roughly means the seventy. Anywho, the Septuagint includes various books that appear not to have been translated. These books appear to be Greek in origin. There are likely many reasons why several of the books included in the Septuagint were excluded from the Jewish Biblical canon, but the primary cause seems to be this one of language. Catholics however, felt (essentially from the beginning of the church) that almost all of the books of the Septuagint were worthy of inclusion in their Old Testament. I like to call these books the Septuagint Babies. They weren't in the conversation before the Septuagint. They are babies. Septuagint Babies.

What follows is a cursory examination of each of these Septuagint Babies. Who's healthy, who's already infected with cooties, who has the genes that indicate early onset male-pattern baldness? We'll find out!

Translations

For convenience sake, all quotes used in this book (unless otherwise stated), are taken from the New Revised Standard Version aka the NRSV. The prominent, free online resource I used most often in reading and citing the Apocrypha is: biblestudytools.com/nrsa/

Enough of such tedium. Come along now. I offer you the same marketing gimmick as the poster for Wayne's World:

You'll laugh. You'll cry. You'll hurl.

Tobit

There and Back Again… a Tobit’s Tale

Tobit is about a guy named Tobit. Tobit is about a guy named Tobit, son of Tobiel. Tobit is about a guy named Tobit, son of Tobiel, and his son, Tobias. That’s right; we’ve got a Tob-trifecta here! Tobiel, Tobit, Tobias. I’m in. I don’t care what this adventure is about, clearly this story takes place in the Shire. Our newfound friends Tobiel, Tobit and Tobias are without a doubt neighbors to Frodo and Bilbo and I’m ready to rock and roll. Let’s do this.

We begin with some words from Tobit’s perspective. He informs us that he lived in Israel and was one of the sad sacks that got carried away to Assyria when those rambunctious neighbors to the North decided to invade the upper half of the land of Moses and David. History tells us that Israel was taken captive by Assyria in 721 BCE, so Tobit’s story checks out.

Tobit then informs us of his favorite pastime: burying the dead. The dude's always digging dem graves. We’re not given an explanation for this in the book, but it clearly is important to our main man (or hobbit, as I prefer to imagine him). Tobit gives us a quick summary of how his body-burying ways got him in trouble. It turns out that the Assyrian king Sennacherib wasn’t privy to Tobit burying all-the-folk. Some rando-Ninevite rats on Tobit to the king. This forces our Tob to go into hiding. All his stuff is confiscated, and things look bleak for our little guy. But not forty days later, Tob tells us, Sennacherib is given cement boots by his own sons. The new Assyrian king chooses Tob’s nephew to be in charge of a bunch of stuff. Jackpot. Tobit's now got friends in high places and he gets all his loot back. Chapter one ends with all conflicts resolved. Everything’s fine!

But as we all know, a little bird poop ruins everything. And by ruins everything, I mean to say; leads us into a coming-of-age story we will never forget! This Christmas, one burying-obsessed man’s son will travel with a rogue angel to make a little extra dough, only to find himself marrying a girl who just can't help but kill all her husbands on the night of their betrothal. Coming to a Cineplex near you. Oh yeah! Things are about to get interesting.

Chapter two starts with a party! It’s the Feast of Weeks, more commonly known to modern Jewish people as Shavuot. When Tobit sits to eat his holiday meal, his eyes behold the bounty that his wife, Anna, has cooked, and he realizes he is but one man! There is much too much food for just him and his son, Tobias. So he sends Tobias out to round up any poor Jewish people who are mindful of God to come eat at their table. Son Tobias dutifully runs into town while, I imagine, Tobit sits at the kitchen table