JY: Welcome to GearTalk, a podcast on biblical theology. Today we’re not focusing exclusively on the books in the Bible. We’ll be talking about the Apocrypha. How should Christians think about these ancient writings? Today, Jason and Tom welcome Brian Tabb to the podcast. Brian is not only the president of Bethlehem College and Seminary in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He is also well versed in the Apocrypha. He’s going to help us think about these ancient words. After our all-too-short interview with Brian, Jason and Tom conclude the show with some final thoughts. When you’re done listening, be sure to go to our show notes for links to some of Brian Tabb’s work, including his excellent summaries on the Apocrypha in the Dictionary of the New Testament Use of the Old Testament.

TK: Welcome to GearTalk. I’m Tom. I’m in Wisconsin today. But Jason, you are not in Wisconsin and you have somebody with you who also, well, he should be in Minnesota, but he’s not.

JD: This is right. It’s my dear, dear brother, Brian Tabb, who serves as a long-time colleague of mine. I mean, he was a colleague of mine for ten full years while I was at Bethlehem College in Seminary, and he now serves as the President of Bethlehem College in Seminary, and Professor of Biblical Studies. By God’s grace, the administration at Midwestern Seminary was able to bring him down to share with our doctoral students and speak and chapel today, and now he gets to bless our GearTalk listeners. So I’m delighted to have my good brother, Brian Tabb, with us.

TK: Hey Brian, before we start, can you just give us a window on your family and where you grew up and your schooling? And we don’t have a ton of time, so obviously there’s a long story here, but just briefly put yourself on the map for us.

BT: Happy to do that. Thanks for the invitation. I grew up in Norman, Oklahoma. I went to college at Wheaton in Illinois, fell in love with the local church and with the Bible there at Wheaton. Eventually, I’m at Kristin, my now wife of almost 20 years. And as part of a call to give my life to study in the Bible and serving the church, I wanted to get further equipped. So I went to Minneapolis to be a part of a pastoral apprenticeship program at Bethlehem Baptist Church and the Bethlehem Institute. And I’m still there after about 20 years. I’ve came as a student, started teaching part-time then full-time, had a few different hats over the years, and for the last year I’ve been serving as president of Bethlehem College and Seminary. The Lord’s Blessed Kristin and me with four kids who are now ages 15 down to 10.

JD: Brian and I surfaced together for several years in the makeup of our building at that time, the office building. We had walls, but no ceiling. So there was a roof, but it was much higher, so we could throw a soft baseballs over the walls and talk to each other. He served as my boss for multiple years, first as assistant dean, and then as the head academic dean and such a dear, gifted brother. He’s also served for over a decade as the managing editor and now general editor of the Themelios Journal, which is a free online journal for pastors. And Brian himself has served as a pastor at Bethlehem for multiple years. Taking on this presidential role, he’s stepped down from that, but he is active in the local church. He is one of the leaders of a kid Sunday School class on a regular basis. And I just love that I have a brother who is just grounded in Jesus and we get to talk to him today.

TK: Well, Brian, what are we going to talk about today? Because it’s not one of the, we’re not talking about specifically, even though it touches on it, the books in our Bible, are we?

BT: You guys wanted to talk to me about the Old Testament Apocrypha, which I’m glad to do. I’d be glad to talk about the Old Testament or the New Testament as well. Those are my main loves. But I do think that it’s helpful and important to give time to other things that are not bound in our Bible, sometimes it helps us to appreciate what’s in there even more. So Apocrypha, we’re actually talking about real books, some of which were even influencing the New Testament authors. So these are books that were written between the close of Malachi’s prophecies—so he was the last Old Testament prophet chronologically—and then the coming of John the Baptist. So books that were themselves reflecting on the Old Testament during the period when the Old Testament was finished and the New Testament hadn’t yet started to be written.

BT: That’s right. And so you could call this the Intertestamental Period. Sometimes it’s called the Second Temple Period, because this is after Cyrus orders that the temple be rebuilt and eventually that happens. And then that’s the temple that’s standing through the New Testament. The one that Jesus says is going to be torn down. Sometimes this is also called the Silent Period. And I think that’s another helpful category. That’s in part taken from a few different sources. Josephus talks about that way.

JD: And Josephus was a historian.

BT: Josephus is a Jewish historian, writing in Greek from Rome. He was an eyewitness to the destruction of Jerusalem and a participant in the Jewish war with Rome. And then he was captured and is famous as one of the really great historians of antiquity. And so he, one of his main big projects was a, basically a retelling of the history of the Jewish people. It’s called the Antiquities of the Jews. And he starts with creation, and he goes up to his day, really. He even mentions Jesus and John the Baptist, though he doesn’t believe Jesus was the Messiah. But anyway, he refers to some of the events that are included in the Apocrypha. Some of the interesting stories like the battle of the wits between three of the king’s bodyguards. And this is a story that’s preserved in 1 Esdras in the Apocrypha. And it’s meant to show the rise of a really important leader in the post-exilic community Zerrubabel, who was the wisest of the King’s bodyguards. Anyway, the Apocrypha is reflecting what we would call the silent period by which we don’t mean that people were silent. It means that God wasn’t giving new revelation to his people. And the Jews even recognize that. They did. And there are several references in the book of 1 Maccabees, which is probably the most important historical book among the collection of the Apocrypha. And they say on several times that they’re going to just put a pile of stones here or they’re going to wait until the Lord sends a prophet to tell them what to do. And so they’re sort of absent new revelation from God, they’re trying to be faithful to what he has already revealed in a pretty dark and difficult period. And there are really two historical issues that the Jewish people are wrestling with. These are sort of meta issues that flavor most of the Apocryphal books. And one of those—

TK: By the way, how many are there?

BT: It depends on how you count it. The books that I would include all would be preserved in at least one of the major Septuagint codexes. So they would be preserved in Greek, bound together with some New Testament books, with some Old Testament books translated from Hebrew and Aramaic into Greek, in their sort of compendium, in a sense. And there are several major collections of these Septuagint books. We call them codexes. And those are from like the fourth and fifth century AD. So early manuscript support from these. There are other Jewish writings from this period. But the Apocrypha is kind of the mainstream stuff. If that’s a helpful way to think about it. They’re all going to be preserved in Greek. One of the books, we know that it was written originally in Hebrew and then translated by the author’s grandson. All the other ones sure seem to be either original Greek, or if they were translations, you don’t have Hebrew original. So these books are the four books of the Maccabees. And this is sort of a historical spine, in a sense, of the Apocrypha. First Esdras has some overlap with Ezra-Nehemiah. And then it has some additional material. There’s a Greek version of Esther, which has some new material and it’s rearranged. Judith and Tobit are really beautiful stories. There’s probably a combination of history and legend involved in these. There are two very short poems, the Prayer of Manasseh, which doesn’t actually mention Manasseh, but is associated with the wicked king who repents. Psalm 151, the Wisdom of Solomon and Sirach, or the Wisdom of Ben Sira are lengthy wisdom books. Two of the most important in the collection to be sure. There’s a couple of books then that are associated with the books of Daniel and Jeremiah. And so on the Daniel side, these are basically expansions or legends associated with Daniel and his friends. And they’re preserved within the Greek translation of Daniel. The book of Jeremiah is also associated with a book called Baruch. And then a book that sort of misnomer letter of Jeremiah, it’s not really a letter. It’s more like a polemic against idols. But anyway, those are the books that I would consider to be part of the Apocrypha. Sometimes one or two of those might be added or there might be other ones. But I think objectively it’s helpful to see each of these is preserved in one of those major Septuagint codexes and so has sufficient kind of manuscript support for it.

JD: Now let me just hop in here because a number of our readers or listeners rather, they hear us talk Apocrypha and they’re like, I’ve never heard of these books. I didn’t even know they existed. But then you begin to list some of them and they may be like, “Huh, I remember a Bible in the house I grew up in that actually had some of these in it.” So why? you just mentioned that there’s some ancient books from around the fourth century AD that would have included them. How might our modern day listeners be more familiar with the Apocrypha? What contexts do they show up even among contemporary religious circles?

BT: If a Protestant Christian has any friends that are Roman Catholic or Orthodox, their Bible would have at least most of these books. One of the first times I remember hearing the Apocrypha read in the context of a liturgy was at a friend’s Roman Catholic wedding. And the book of Tobit was read. There’s a beautiful love story in the book of Tobit. And as a part of this story, there’s a quotation of the book of Genesis. Man will leave his father and mother hold fast to his wife. The two become one flesh. There’s this prayer of consecration that Tobias and his wife are making. And so that’s a story that is commonly referred to in the context of a Roman Catholic wedding. Some other contexts where you may come across the Apocrypha, it may just be referenced in passing. There may be events like the intense period of persecution for the Jews under the evil tyrant, Antiochus IV. This is one of the kind of crucial events that flavors much of the book, much of these books. Or there’s another huge issue is the tension that Jewish people are facing during this period with a majority culture that is speaking Greek and is also bringing in other Greek customs and religion and worldview. And they’re trying to figure out how do we survive and remain faithful to God in these changing times. So even the fact that these Jewish books are written in Koine Greek, common Greek, the same style of writing that you have in the New Testament, reflects there’s been a change from the Old Testament where things are written mainly in Hebrew, a few things in Aramaic, to now this whole collection in Greek. What happened? Well, some things happened in the world, like Alexander the Great swept from West to East and conquered from Europe to Persia, uniting East and West with language and cultural influence. And so that’s a huge factor that Jews around this period are wrestling with and trying to hold fast to the truths that have been passed down from generation to generation, which is particularly difficult if there’s a Gentile tyrant that’s going to execute you, if you circumcise your children, if you refuse to eat pork, if you try to stop desecration of the sanctuary and those sorts of things. This is one of the darkest days in Israel’s history during this time of Antiochus IV’s rule.

TK: So, Brian, what would be if we had you mentioned Orthodox Roman Catholic Church saying that these things would be found in the canon, and maybe you could briefly just define for us what that would, what canon is, but Protestant churches would say they’re not, how was that, how were those determinations made?

BT: I think canon is a really crucial category that we need to think about. So, a canon means a rule, in terms of its, the original term in Greek, you could think of that as a rule of faith. We come to talk about it in terms of a collection of authoritative books, and that’s fairly straightforward in the Old Testament and the New Testament, though there were some questions along the way at different times. We talk about the Law, the Prophets, the Writings in the Hebrew ordering of the Old Testament, or in our Protestant ordering. You have the Law, the historical books, the Wisdom books, and then the Prophets. In the early church, there were questions about what to do with these books that we would call the apocrypha. These books were known. Some of the—they were providing historical color. They were providing stories that some people found to be edifying or encouraging. And there were questions and debates even about whether or not these should be considered scripture or supplementary to scripture. On one side, you have someone like Augustine who was more comfortable treating these books with something like scriptural status. And then Jerome was more cautious about that. He still translated these into Latin, but he noted in the translations and in some of his comments and letters that he regarded them differently than the authoritative scripture. Around the time of the Reformation, as the church was kind of recommitting itself, I think, to the faithfulness, to the Scriptures, there was also important clarification that was happening. As people were going back to the sources, reading these in Greek and Hebrew, not just Latin translation. As people were reading it in their own mother tongues, thanks to translators like William Tyndale and Martin Luther and others. There was a, there was a clarification happening about which of these books were authoritative scripture and which were maybe useful, edifying, but of a different category than God breathed scripture. And you have, you have a clarification by the Protestants. You then have a sort of counter clarification by the Roman Catholic Church establishing these books as a deuteron-canon, or a ceutero-canonical collection. And so that’s why a Roman Catholic Bible will have these bound either in between the Old New Testament or at the end.

JD: It’s interesting that historically the Catholics still use that language. It’s not just the canonical books. These apocryphal books are specifically called the deutero-canonical books, like the second canon. Even, even the Catholics are recognizing there is a different level of authority. And yet the Protestants would make clear, and this is vitally important for all that we are regarding sola scriptura, that we say scripture has the 66 books that are found in our English Protestant Bibles. Those alone came from the Great King. The rest is legitimate reflection in the same way that here, you and I sit here in my office and it were surrounded by all these books, many of which you and I would consider quite significant. And we would appreciate them, and we’ve been influenced by those who are reflecting on the Scriptures and on the history of Christianity, the history of God’s work from creation, all the way to consummation. We would distinguish even things that you and I or Tom are writing. We must distinguish those things from the Word of God itself. And we would test our words, the validity of our words and our claims to truth based on the objective, unchanging Word of God, and we wouldn’t put these apocryphal books in that category.

BT: Correct. Objectively, I think that there are several clues to distinguish these books that we would call the Old Testament Apocrypha from the Old Testament books, the Law of the Prophets, the Writings, and then the New Testament. One of those is that these books are not claiming themselves to be Scripture. In fact, you have statements like I mentioned earlier in First Maccabees where they’re waiting for God to give further revelation to send a prophet. Second, as I mentioned, the Old Testament books are written in Hebrew and Aramaic, and Josephus and many others noted, but there’s a difference once you get to the Greek period. These are, there’s a different era here. And then I think a third one that’s more theological is that there is a self-authenticating quality, a sort of ring of truth. You might say where God’s Spirit is sort of testifying along with his Word, “This is my words.” And many Christians throughout time have recognized that there is a difference about this collection in contrast to other books that would be, say, kind of in the post-exilic period. Some of the prophets like Hagai, in Zechariah, the books like First and Second Chronicles, Ezra-Nehemiah, even Esther, one of the more controversial books of the Old Testament. But there’s still a different flavor, a different character. There’s other factors, but I think those are some of the main ones to keep in mind that it wasn’t arbitrary that some Christians along the way just decided to cut out these books that were biblical, but they just didn’t like them. It wasn’t that. There were objective criteria along the way in terms of why they aren’t considered canonical Scripture for Protestants.

JD: It’s just, I mean, our time is ticking, but I would love if we could take one topic that you’ve wrestled with a lot, the topic of suffering. I think of the book of Acts, it opens with the reality of Jesus having just endured massive suffering. The recognition in a sermon like Peter’s at Pentecost declaring all the prophets foretold the sufferings of Christ. Jesus, the resurrected Christ showing up before Paul in saying, “God has purposed that you would take my light to the Gentiles and know this, you will suffer much for the sake of my name.” That the church as we’re seeing it develop in the book of Acts is growing in the context of suffering and we’re really getting a biblical theology of suffering. Compare that to a vision of suffering in one book from the apocryphal. Just compare a vision of suffering from one of the Maccabees collection to the vision of suffering in the book of Acts. You’ve thought about this a lot because it’s actually what you wrote your doctoral dissertation on and then comparing it with one other Greek voice. We know for example, in Acts 17, Paul speaks of Athenian poets. He’s not just bathed in the Old Testament, Paul is aware of what’s going on in Greek culture. In Titus, he speaks of a prophet of Crete. In Jude, he actually mentions the book of Enoch in a testimonial prophecy that appears Jude believes was authentic from the historical figure Enoch that’s been retained in that book in the book of Jude 14 and 15. We know the New Testament authors were aware of this intertestamental literature as well as aware of other literature that was rising in the same period from the Greeks. Take the theme of suffering and just compare and contrast of the vision as we see it in the New Testament compared to something you might see in the Apocrypha.

BT: A really important category to have in mind at the outset is the category of covenant. The historical books of the apocrypha, by and large, are reading history and interpreting their times in light of what is written in the past in the authoritative scriptures. And so, think, for example, of Leviticus and Deuteronomy, these blessings for obedience and curses for disobedience. So, the people who are facing Gentile tyranny and foreigners coming into their land and oppressing them or scattering them, the faithful are understanding that there’s a disciplinary role here. And they’re wanting to get back to the blessing side. And so, they’re in 2 Maccabees and 4 Maccabees, some of the clearest statements outside of the New Testament for this idea of human sacrifice atoning for sins, the righteous suffering on behalf of the unrighteous. And so, in these—in 2 Maccabees, chapter 6 and 7, and then this account is expanded and dramatized in most of the book of 4 Maccabees. It’s the account of these seven brothers and their mom and a faithful priest named Eliezer, who suffer horrendous torture and execution under Antiochus. And their deaths are presented as, in some way, a swaging God’s anger. Turning his heart towards his people and from a frown to a smile. And so, their deaths are also seen as exemplary, like they believed God’s promises so much, they trusted him and the goodness of his law so much that they wouldn’t compromise even unto death. So, they’re a model in that sense, but their deaths accomplish something. And in Second Maccabees, particularly, there are statements that sure sound like a hope of resurrection, which we would of course see amplified tremendously in the New Testament as one of the central things that we, as Christians, are proclaiming with Christ’s victory over the grave and then our hope when he comes again. So, they’re viewing suffering as God’s chastisement of his people, but also the faithful endurance of suffering as the way of sort of accomplishing salvation or deliverance from this time of testing or trial. And there are some parallels that some people have noticed between some of these martyr accounts and how the apostle Paul will talk about the death of Jesus, for example, being a propitiation for our sins. That’s the language that’s coming from the Word of—

JD: God’s wrath.

BT: Yeah, that’s right. Literally, it could be the place of propitiation, the place where God’s wrath is assuaged. The language that’s drawn from the Greek Old Testament of the mercy seat, but then it’s applied to these martyrs in several places in 4 Maccabees and come by extension in 2 Maccabees. And Paul is saying, Jesus is that he is our Hilastarian, our mercy seat, our place where God’s wrath is dealt with, where it turns from frown to smile because of his righteous suffering in our stead. And so that’s a pretty important category and even development as they’re reading their Bibles, trying to understand what God might be doing here that we see in these books. Now, there’s other places in the Apocrypha where you would see suffering. For example, some of the expansions to the book of Daniel, you have Daniel’s three friends give two songs. So, in the Greek version, when Nebuchadnezzar is going to throw them into the fiery furnace, it’s pretty brief account. It keeps moving in Hebrew, but in Greek, there’s this extensive prayer from the furnace. And they’re confessing sin on behalf of Israel. So, prayers like in Daniel 9 become really important at this period of time. They’re sort of models. You see that in the song of the three young men, one of the expansions of Daniel. You see it in the book of Baruch. Where they’re thinking about their plight, their struggle, and wanting to draw on biblical resources to find help. And so, confessions like Daniel 9, where you have the righteous prophets and we have sinned. And your judgment has come upon us. Or think about Ezra and Nehemiah, some of the confessions there. Those become really important at this period of time as they’re really calling one another to renewed faithfulness to God and his Word, even when it’s difficult. Even when that might cost them something for holding fast to what they believe is true.

TK: Brian, as we move forward here, just because we’re getting close to a time where I know you got places to go. What would you say to a pastor who is feeling ill-equipped in this area? Just how would you counsel somebody? he says, I got people who are saying you need to know the Apocrypha or something like that. I don’t know what to do. He’s thinking I was never trained in that. How would you counsel encourage somebody?

BT: I think it’s wonderful for every pastor and every Christian to be lifelong learners. Fundamentally, though, a pastor is charged with knowing the Bible, the Old and New Testaments, and applying that from the pulpit in the classroom, in the home, in various contexts. That’s your area of focus. At the same time, though, as questions come up in the life of your church, it’s good to try to look for good resources on those and try to be informed and have an answer. And there are questions that have thought about and written about these books before. That’s one of the areas that I’m trying to do some writing and thinking about. In part, even to help my own students, my own kids, who have questions about these hidden books. A place I might even suggest going is to just notice that there are a couple of historical events that the New Testament references that would be introduced in the Apocrypha. So, for example, the Feast of Hanukkah, or the Temple of Dedication, that’s the setting of Jesus’ great shepherd discourse in John 10. And that’s significant in part because you have in the Maccabean period some false shepherds that lead Israel to compromise, to forsake God’s Word, to try to get in good with the ruling powers, and disaster results. In contrast, Jesus is a good shepherd. He’s not like those kinds of shepherds. And so that’s just one example of how the Apocrypha serves as a kind of historical context to inform some of the events that are going to show up in the New Testament, even the different factions within Israel, like the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the people out in the wilderness. Those are, in some ways, responses to some of the events that are taking place in this time.

JD: Those weren’t leader titles in the Old Testament period. These are all arose during that intertestamental period, and we read about them in these apocryphal books.

BT: Yeah, that’s right. So, even picking up a good dictionary article in an evangelical dictionary, some study Bibles have short articles that would be on the Apocrypha in the intertestamental period. I’m, Lord willing, going to work on an accessible book that’s firm on a Protestant view of canon that’s going to still address the question, what is the apocrypha? Why does it matter for us? But for a pastor feeling inadequate, I would just say your sufficiency is in Christ and your authority comes from knowing his Word and applying it in the power of the Spirit. And there’s lots of other things that you won’t be an expert in, but if you can be a man of the book, that’s going to go so far.

JD: That’s so good, Brian.

TK: That’s really helpful.

JD: The greatest influence on the New Testament authors is unquestionably the Old Testament itself. If you can be a Bible man, a Bible woman, that’s ultimately what’s going to serve your people. It’s what we’re saved by. We are born again through the living and abiding Word of God, and that’s why being able to distinguish our true Scripture from secondary, important, but nevertheless secondary materials from the ancient world is very important. Brian is a leader in this area. He has written for very helpful essays in the new Dictionary of the New Testament Use of the Old that we will add to our notes, just telling you where you can find these. And it would be a great introduction if you are a shepherd and want to know more about the significance of these non-canonical, non-scriptural materials that were written between the periods of the Old and the New Testaments that were even influencing the New Testament authors. This would be a great place to start. Dr. Tabb, my dear brother, Brian, we’re delighted that you joined us today on GearTalk. Thanks for introducing our listeners to this fascinating area that so few of us know much about. Thank you also for being able to clarify the difference between the Word of God and the secondary material. So important, such an important distinction. And yet, we also want to recognize these are useful books in the same way that we would point authors to a book by Don Carson, or Greg Beale, or voices that today we hold dear. There were many of those voices during this intertestamental period, and a number of them are among these counted as Old Testament Apocrypha. They were reflecting on the Scriptures as Jews, and some of them truly hoping in the coming of the Messiah. And so they can be valuable for us historically and filling in gaps, but still not Scripture itself. Until next time, brothers and sisters, thanks for joining us today on GearTalk. Thank you, Brian.

BT: Thanks for having me.

TK: All right, Jason, that was a help from an expert in the field. I would not call myself that. But as I was just thinking about what we’ve just heard, and obviously Brian didn’t, he had to run, so he didn’t get to share everything that he would have shared. But how would you wrap this up, or what would be things that you’d say, OK, as I summarize thinking about the Apocrypha, here’s things I would want to say to a Christian pastor, or a mom or a dad, or a young person. And one thing I thought of people can have certainly in our age is with so many people thinking things about there’s something hidden or secret going on that they’re trying to keep good stuff away from us, and should I be thinking of it in terms of that at all? “Hey, they’re trying to keep books that should be in the Bible out.” How would you answer that, Jason?

JD: Oh, handful of questions there, Tom. I’m delighted that Brian was able to give us some moments. It was a rushed discussion, but as an attempt to wrap up this reflection on the significance of the Apocrypha, I just want to reiterate some things that Brian said and then build upon some things that he has written elsewhere that he actually didn’t say here. But we’re talking about a collection of books roughly the size of the New Testament. He mentioned 12 different books or he mentioned two poems included in that list, including 151st Psalm. So we’ve got 150 Psalms in the Bible, and here’s 151 that is added on, and yet historically the Christian church, the gospel-centered church that we now call the Protestant church has not counted these books as canonical. We haven’t recognized them as coming from God. Instead, these are mere human works. So the Bible is 100% from God, 100% from man, and yet while it includes all the characteristics of individual humans with different use of genre, different use of vocabulary, different styles in grammar, even two different languages that are grounded in history, Hebrew and Greek. We also believe all that is scripture, recognized as scripture, is it wasn’t something that the church decided, which books were in, which books were out. Instead, the canon was something that the church recognized. They were able to recognize that there were certain books that came from God. And then there are other books that are merely from man and they weren’t recognized as scripture even if they were good books. I think your new dissertation, Tom, is a really good book. And we hope that it’ll get published and be available on Amazon, but neither of us ever want that book to be viewed with the authority that scripture has. Indeed, scripture itself is going to be the test to whether and what in your book is worth listening to. And so the apocrypha, I would just want our listeners to be thinking about, like when you go to do your devotions or you go to prepare a woman’s Bible study or a sermon for Sunday morning, up on your shelf is your Bible. And we hope you use it as the foundation for your message, but then there’s other books. There’s, say, a systematic theology by Wayne Grudem or by Stephen Wellum or there is a good commentary from Tom Schreiner or Doug Moo or Greg Beale. And all of these tools are going to be used to prepare your message, but there’s a massive distinction between our responsibility to speak as if speaking the very words of God and using other resources to help us do that well. And the Apocrypha would have been among other resources that were simply Jewish reflections on the Old Testament and Jewish reflections on the significance of Old Testament theology for the history of their era. When we’re talking about the Apocrypha books, we’re talking about wisdom literature, historical writings, historical stories, and then supplements to biblical books that, as I said, shape a collection about the size of the New Testament. But these would have been helpful resources that I believe every Jew would have been distinguishing from the sacred writings, from the scriptures themselves.

So the first takeaway for our listeners is that this is in a group of hidden, authoritative materials that have been just kept away. No, actually, they’ve always been there. Since our, I mean, our early days, for you and me reaching back to the 60s or 70s, these Apocrypha were available, but they are just ancient writings, alongside of a number of other ancient writings that we know about that stand alongside of but in distinction from the sacred text itself. And that’s helpful. So that’s the first takeaway.

The second takeaway that Brian, he wasn’t able to fully develop, but he has developed in a number of his writings. So I just want to build on some things that he’s written and highlight them for our listeners. We could dive into the 12 apocryphal books that he mentioned, Old Testament apocryphal books, and consider themes that are apparent in our biblical text, humanities, creation and fall, the design of marriage between a male and a female. The righteousness of Abraham, a righteousness that Genesis 15:6 says was declared by faith, and yet a righteousness that was proven in his willingness to offer up his son, Isaac, in Genesis 22, commands like, “you shall not covet,” or the promise that stems from Genesis 3.15 and is built upon by promises given to the patriarchs, and then added to, in the rest of the Pentateuch, by Moses, and then by the prophets, this promise of a coming king. We could dive in and assess the new exodus, the anticipation that in light of the first exodus, it foreshadows, anticipates, and even greater exodus. Or the promise of a coming Elijah. These are all built within Scripture, and they’re all major elements that both the New Testament and the Apocrypha are reflecting on. And in one of the articles in the Dictionary of the New Testament use of the Old Testament, that Brian writes on.

TK: And we’ll again put a link to that work in our show notes.

JD: Yes, yes we will. He offers reflections on how the apocrypha’s handling of the Old Testament compares to the New Testaments, engagement with the Old Testament, specifically on those various themes that I just mentioned. And he notes that Jewish and Christian writings, wrestling with the Old Testament Scriptures, equally, they’re meditating in the same themes. They affirm that God is faithful to his covenant promises to David. He’s going to bring a king. The Apocrypha anticipates a new Elijah that is coming. The Apocrypha is convinced that Israel will be saved. This is things that the Old Testament teaches, and the Jews of the intertestamental period are affirming it. But when it comes to the New Testament, there’s distinctions that rise. The New Testament stresses that God has already begun to fulfill these promises of a new Elijah and the coming of a new David. God’s faithfulness to save Israel. The New Testament says, and standing against so many of the Jews of his day says, Jesus is the one through whom all those future hopes are in breaking into space and time. The future is entering into the middle of history with Jesus. He is the long-awaited Son of Abraham and Son of David. He is the one that he’s the new Moses. He’s the one who’s leading a new exodus. The forerunner to Jesus, John the Baptist, was the new Elijah. The New Testament just goes out of its way to say that a number of these elements that the Apocrypha affirms about the Old Testament are now being realized in the person of Christ. And that’s new and distinctive about the New Testament writings.

Another thing that in one of the other essays in that same Dictionary of the New Testament Use of the Old Testament that Dr. Tabb draws attention to is that while there are some similarities of world view in relation to the concepts of forgiveness or that for God’s wrath to truly be appeased, human blood has to be sacrificed. Humans have sinned, so humans have to die. And we got a sense of that when he was talking about how in Second Maccabees and fourth Maccabees, they talk about the seven martyrs. That idea that not only are they providing examples of sustained faith, but there is that clear view in those apocryphal works that in some way the blood of the martyrs was appeasing the wrath of God. And that actually stands counter to how the New Testament talks. So here’s some differences of theology and ethics that stand against certain perspectives that are presented in the apocryphal material. Jesus’ death alone appeases the wrath of God.

So for some, God does call Christians to martyrdom. Revelation 12 declares that they stood against the dragon, that great serpent evolved the devil because of the blood of the lamb and the word of their testimony that they were willing to remain faithful even to the point of death. May God help us be those people who were willing to live for Christ even to the point of our death, whether that’s through martyrdom or old age, whether God takes us home by sickness or by a sword. Those are the kinds of Christians that show they are truly in Christ, but it is against Christian theology to say that in some way our death is appeasing God’s wrath that somehow our death becomes the ultimate good work that will finally save us or make us right with God. No, Christianity declares on the basis of Scripture alone that it is by faith alone in Christ alone that it is his blood and righteousness alone by which we stand right with God. We need that great exchange that no mere human could provide but the ultimate God-man could provide. That our sins are placed on him and his perfect obedience is counted for us and by that alone are we declared right. That’s a distinction between apocryphal theology and biblical theology and we could stop there but we can go further. The very charge that Jesus makes love your enemies, stands against the ethics of someone like Ben Sira in Sirach 12:6–7. Jesus is called to bear his yoke alone to find our rest in these last days is far more radical than what we see in the works of Ben Sira in the apocryphal materials that says take on the Torah’s yoke, take on the yoke of the law in order to find rest. Now the New Testament would say if you try to bear the yoke of the law you will fail every time and it will bind you in curse and the history of Israel proves it. And so what we need is Jesus who perfectly obeys and now we need to simply rest in him and let him be our guide, let him control our actions and only in that context do we find life and rest.

These are just some examples, Brian draws attention to a number of similarities and a number of contrasts in his four articles in the Dictionary of the New Testament Use of the Old. And so maybe I’ll just stop there and just point readers to those articles. It would be a very helpful tool to have in your libraries. Some of the articles are more technical than others, but it’s a very useful tool. If you want to dig deeper it would be a great resource. The Dictionary of the New Testament Use of the Old to read in just like a four-page article a summary of very helpful theologically grounded conservative perspectives on a host of different issues. So there’s some reflection, Tom.

TK: I think that’s really helpful and I think Brian Tabbs work here in this Dictionary of the New Testament Use of the Old Testament. Maybe you’re feeling like I don’t have, I want to know something but I don’t have time to be fully versed and really give myself to a in-depth study of this topic. Having some articles you can read just to get acquainted and get you pointed in a right direction have some references to real help. So Jason I’m really glad we were able to tackle this today and I pray it really does serve you who’ve listened and won’t bless me.

JD: Awesome. Thanks, Tom.

JY: Thank you for joining us for your talk. Go to our show notes for links to Brian Tabbs work. In regard to today’s topic take a look at Brian Tabb’s helpful articles in the Dictionary of the New Testament Use of the Old Testament. For works connected to biblical theology visit handstotheplow.org and jasonderouchie.com