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The Apocrypha—of God or of Men?The Watchtower—1960 | February 1
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than of God can be further seen by its worldly wisdom and, in particular, by the writer’s low opinion of womankind. In contrast to God’s Word, which squarely blames the man Adam for our woes, he says: “Of the woman came the beginning of sin, and through her we all die.” “Give me . . . any wickedness, but the wickedness of a woman.” (But why want any wickedness?) “All wickedness is but little to the wickedness of a woman.” Yet some would place these two books on the same plane as the Bible’s “wisdom” books.—Ecclesiasticus 25:24, 13, 19.
TOBIT, JUDITH AND THE ADDITIONS
In Tobit we are asked to believe that a pious old Jew was blinded by bird’s dung falling in both of his eyes; that an angel impersonating a human became the traveling companion of his son, whom the old man sent to collect a debt; that on the way the son acquired the heart, liver and gall of a fish; that by burning the heart and liver he caused a stench that drove away a certain demon, who, in jealousy, had killed seven husbands of a certain woman; that this widow then married the son, who, after accomplishing his mission, returned home and restored the sight of his father by placing the gall of the fish on his eyes. Could anything be less creditable in the light of the Scriptures? Could this book be of God?
Proving itself also of human origin but for different reasons is the Book of Judith. It tells of a beautiful woman decapitating the leading general of the enemies of the Jews, resulting in their deliverance. While the story itself is not implausible, the details are so unhistorical as to make its location on the stream of time impossible. On the one hand it purports to tell of conditions after the Jews returned from captivity, yet it mentions Nineveh, the Assyrian armies and King Nebuchadnezzar, all of whom perished long before the Jews returned to Palestine, and even makes Nebuchadnezzar the king of the Assyrians. Authorities state that “the geographical inaccuracies are equally embarrassing,” and their censure that the apocryphal books “demonstrate that all true historical consciousness was deserting the people” applies most of all to the Book of Judith. In view of all this, what doubt can there be as to what is its origin?
What about the supplement to Esther, 10:4 to 16:24, appearing in the Apocrypha? It fares no better in the light of objective criticism. It asks us to believe that Mordecai was “a great man, being a servitor in the king’s court” in the second year of Artaxerxes, 150 years after he was taken captive the first time Nebuchadnezzar came up against Jerusalem. And in claiming that Mordecai occupied this position so early in the king’s reign it not only contradicts the canonical part of Esther but also its own reference later on to his being advanced. Profuse with references to God and acts of piety, it obviously was added to give Esther a religious tone. But references to God in themselves do not prove divine origin any more than their lack proves human origin.
The Song of the Three Holy Children reads as though one of them first offered a prayer, in the vein of those of Ezra and Nehemiah, and then the angel of the Lord “smote the flame of fire out of the oven.” After this follows the song, which is very similar to Psalm 148. The song, however, makes reference to Jehovah’s temple, priests and cherubim, which does not at all fit in with the desolated condition of Jerusalem at the time. It consists of sixty-eight verses that were interpolated between verses 23 and 24 of Daniel 3.
Susanna and the Elders, chapter 13 of Daniel, tells of two elders framing a virtuous woman because she refused to have relations with them, causing her to be sentenced to die. Youthful Daniel exposes their duplicity by questioning them separately. The elders die, Susanna is spared and Daniel becomes famous. If this actually happened to youthful Daniel, why does it appear as an appendix and why was it first written in Greek, as also were the other two additions to Daniel, when the book itself was written in Hebrew and Aramaic?
The remaining Apocryphal writing to be considered is the Destruction of Bel and the Dragon. In the first half Daniel exposes a hoax practiced by the priests of Bel in eating food set out for Bel and supposedly consumed by the idol. Commanded to worship a live dragon, he causes it to explode by feeding it a concoction made of pitch, fat and hair. For this its devotees have Daniel thrown into the lions’ den. While there an angel takes the prophet Habakkuk, who happens to be far off, by the hair to the den to give Daniel a bowl of porridge. After seven days Daniel is delivered and his enemies are thrown to the lions. Does such a tale recommend itself to our judgment as the Word of God?
As one authority summed up the case against the Apocryphal writings: “They have not had the sanction of the Jewish and the early Christian Church; . . . are wholly wanting in the prophetic spirit. . . ; not only do not claim inspiration but bewail the want of it; are characterized in many passages by an air of romance and mythology alien to the simple grandeur of the Bible; contradict themselves and some well-known facts of secular history; teach doctrines not contained in the Bible. . . ; and appear never to have been quoted as an authority by the Lord or his apostles.”—Dictionary of Religious Knowledge, Abbott, pp. 50, 51.
Truly the Apocrypha is not of God but of men. What a lack of understanding and appreciation to place its writings on the same plane as those of God’s Word, the Bible! Well can Paul’s warning against paying attention to Jewish fables be applied to the Apocrypha.—Titus 1:14.
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‘Entirely Contrary to Previous Trend’The Watchtower—1960 | February 1
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‘Entirely Contrary to Previous Trend’
In the volume Advance to Barbarism, F. J. P. Veale, an English lawyer, discusses how “the whole character of warfare and of international relations” has been completely transformed since 1914. “What is so remarkable about this development,” he writes, “is that it ran entirely contrary to the previous trend of events. Through the ages, down to 1914, with certain temporary fluctuations, manners generally had become steadily milder and in warfare, in particular, the methods of primitive savagery had become gradually modified by an increasing collection of restrictions and restraints. Compliance with these restrictions and restraints is commonly held to mark the distinction between savage and civilized warfare. . . . A code of conduct was gradually established which became formally recognized by all civilized countries. A history of warfare, written in 1913, would be a simple record of this slow and fluctuating, but on the whole steady, progress. . . . Such a sudden and complete reversal of the process of gradual ameliorating of warfare which had been going on for more than two thousand years surely calls for some explanation. Is not, for once, the overworked description of ‘epoch-making’ merited?”
The explanation for the epochal increase in woes and barbaric behavior since 1914 is, as this journal has often discussed in detail, that we are living in the “last days,” when “critical times hard to deal with will be here.”—2 Tim. 3:1-5.
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