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Apocrypha: American Apocrypha
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A welcome by-product of the nineteenth-century debate on the worth of the Apocrypha was a spurt of scholarly activity on text and interpretation. A precipitate of this activity, still highly useful, is available in R. Charles, Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament in two quarto volumes (Oxford, 1913). The handiest modern Greek text is Alfred Rahlf's Septuaginta (Stuttgart, 1935 and reprints). Series of translations of individual books of commentaries are published by Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish organizations. The three most useful introductions to Apocryphal literature are by American scholars. The most technical is C. C. Torrey, The Apocryphal Literature (Yale University Press,1945); the most devout is Bruce M. Metzger An Introduction to the Apocrypha (Oxford University Press 1957).
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Collaboratively compiled and edited by Dan Vogel and Brent Lee Metcalfe, American Apocrypha is a selection of nine scholarly essays that focus on the Book of Mormon, scrutinizing the testimonies of witnesses and carefully evaluating historical context. It is a carefully researched, meticulously presented, and highly methodological collection— a welcome, seminal contribution to Mormon history that will supplement reading lists and academic reference collections.
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John R. Kohlenberger, ed., The parallel Apocrypha : Greek text, King James Version, Douay Old Testament, the Holy Bible by Ronald Knox, Today's English Version, New Revised Standard Version, New American Bible, New Jerusalem Bible. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997).
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Noteworthy among American writers who have drawn upon the Apocrypha for themes as well as subject matter is Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. His New England Tragedies contains references to 1 and 2 Maccabees, and the chief episodes of the courageous Maccabean uprising are included in his poetic dramatization, Judas Maccabaeus.
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American Apocrypha is the latest in Signature Books's excellent Essays on Mormonism Series. Well produced, edited by serious scholars, and containing essays by nine well-informed authors, this study of the Book of Mormon makes an essential contribution to the understanding of the complexities of Mormonism.
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Even after the Reformation excluded the Apocrypha from the canon, it continued to be recommended as "useful for instruction" and selections were read in public worship. But as early as the time of Elizabeth, Puritans objected to the public reading of these "inferior" writings, and complaints became more vocal during the eighteenth century. But the ordinary editions of the English Bible included the Apocrypha. The British and Foreign Bible Society, founded in 1804, included the Apocrypha in the English and foreign language Bibles it subventioned, but the practice was vigorously protested, especially by the Edinburgh branch of the Society. The protesters had their way, and in 1826 a rule was formally adopted: "The Principles of the Society exclude the circulation of those Books, or parts of Books, which are usually termed Apocryphal." The action of the London society confirmed the American Bible Society (founded at New York in 1816) in its own practice, and commercial publishers naturally followed the same practice.
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American Apocrypha