Language Studies

Aramaic Thoughts

Aramaic Literature - Part 2

The literature generally identified as apocrypha is not, for the most part, Aramaic literature. It is, however, part of that collection of early Jewish literature that originated in the period between the Old and the New Testaments. A brief survey of that material will therefore be helpful in understanding the Aramaic literature that arose in the same period.

For most evangelical Christians, the apocrypha is a somewhat mysterious collection. Those books that Protestants refer to as apocrypha are those that Roman Catholicism declared part of the Roman Catholic canon of Scripture in the decrees of the Council of Trent in the middle of the sixteenth century. Catholics commonly call these books “Deutero-canonical,” that is, “second canon.” These books were printed in the 1611Authorized (King James) Version of the Bible, in a separate section between the Old and the New Testaments. Unless otherwise noted, these works are all part of the Roman Catholic canon. These books are as follows:

1. First Esdras (actually not included in the Roman Catholic canon, but found in the 1611 AV). It duplicates material from a number of Biblical books, mostly from Ezra (Esdras is the Greek form of the name Ezra), but including material from 2Chronicles and Nehemiah as well.
2. Second Esdras. This book is included in an appendix to the Latin Vulgate. There it is referred to as Fourth Esdras. It is actually a compilation of three other works: 4Ezra, an apocalyptic work, probably from a Jewish author; 5 Ezra, and 5 Ezra. The latter two are apparently by Christian authors and date to the second-third centuries AD. As with First Esdras, it is not part of the Roman Catholic canon.
3. Tobit is essentially a work of early Jewish pious fiction. It was probably composed in Greek some time between the end of the Babylonian Exile (539 BC) and the time of Antiochus Epiphanes (around 170 BC). It tells the story of the sufferings of the righteous Tobit and his family, and how all turns out well in the end.
4. Judith is another work of pious fiction, telling the story of the title character and her crusade to destroy the enemies of Israel. Jerome claimed to have translated it for the Vulgate from an Aramiac original, but modern researchers have not been able to find any other evidence of an Aramaic or Hebrew original.
5. Additions to Esther. These sections seem to have been composed in Greek with the purpose of making up the lack of any mention of God or prayer in the Hebrew text of Esther. In Roman Catholic versions of the Bible, these materials are intermingled with the Hebrew text of the book.
6. The Wisdom of Solomon was probably composed in Greek by a Jew of Alexandria, probably after the fall of that city to the Romans in the late first century BC. It contains among other things, strong attacks on pagan cults, especially those indigenous to Egypt.

The remainder of these texts we will discuss next time.

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