Apocrypha for Beginners includes over 50 different apocrypha, but there are, of course, myriad more. This is part of a series of “B-sides”: posts about apocrypha that weren’t included in the book.

Letter of Aristeas

Facts

Also known as: Letter of Pseudo-Aristeas, Letter to Philocrates

Author: Unknown, a Hellenistic Jew living in diaspora in Alexandria; attributed to Aristeas of Marmora, a courtier of Ptolemy II Philadelphus (r. 283-46 BCE)

Date written: Between about 250 BCE and 100 CE

Language: Greek

Canons: None

Discovery

The Letter of Aristeas was well known to Jewish and Christian authors in late antiquity; it was cited by the Jewish Roman historian Josephus, Philo of Alexandria, Aristobulus of Alexandria, and Eusebius. It is well attested in Greek manuscripts from the Middle Ages. Matthias Palmerius printed the first modern edition with a Latin text in 1471. Simon Schard published the first printed Greek edition was published in 1561. That remained the standard edition until Moritz Schmidt published a new edition in 1870, which was followed by various other editions in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Summary

Although titled a “letter” because it is addressed to the narrator’s (Aristeas’s) brother Philocrates, this work is more of a historical fiction with several documents (some letters) embedded within it. The main narrative begins with the Egyptian King Ptolemy II ordering the court librarian Demetrius to collect all of the books in the world for the library at Alexandria. Demetrius is especially keen to include the Jewish Law (Torah) in a Greek translation. But no such translation yet exists. The narrative is cut through with several digressions emphasizing special privileges that King Ptolemy bestows upon the Jewish people, but the main story continues to concern the translation of the Torah into Greek.

Word is sent to Eleazar, the High Priest in Jerusalem, to have translators travel to Alexandria: six from every one of the twelve tribes of Israel, for a total of seventy-two translators. The king tests the Jewish translators with a series of questions and gains their answers over seven days. Then the translation is undertaken, with each translator isolated in his own room. The translation takes seventy-two days to complete, the king lauds the men for their work, and Demetrius is ordered to take special care to preserve the translation.

Analysis

This work is not technically an apocryphon (according to standard definitions of the word, anyway), although it is often included among the “pseudepigrapha” related to the Hebrew Bible because of its relationship to other literary works of the period and its pseudo-historical narrative related to the Torah. Although most scholars agree that it is largely fictional propaganda, it is still considered to be an important source for the history of the Greek Septuagint and Jewish ideas about observing Israelite laws in diaspora. The emphasis on seventy-two translators working over seventy-two days gave way to the more standard number seventy (LXX in Roman numerals)–which carried over to the name of the Septuagint (meaning seventy).

The narrative about the translation of the Torah into Greek is the centerpiece of this work. Since it must have been written well after the first Greek translations of portions of the Hebrew Bible, it is a retrospective justification. It demonstrates that the Torah was central to Jewish belief and practice during the Second Temple period, for Jews not only in Palestine but also in diaspora. It also represents a general shift in the common language used by Jewish authors during the Second Temple period, from Hebrew and Aramaic to Greek.

Like other works composed by diaspora Jews during the Second Temple period, there is an emphasis on “piety.” This concerns is especially expressed with a focus on God as Creator, as well as the superiority of Israelite laws (the Torah) over other ways of life. At the same time, the author was clearly influenced by Hellenism. The language, literary form, and certain appeals to Greek philosophical ideas about ethics and politics all point to the author’s Hellenistic learning. It is possible that this work was meant to appeal to Jews as well as Gentiles, as a way to entice them into apologetic points about the superiority of Israelite laws. At the same time, the letter seems to appeal to Jews to embrace Greek culture. It therefore presents a syncretic ideal for both Jewish and Gentile audiences.

Want to read more? Apocrypha for Beginners is on sale now!

Apocrypha for Beginners is meant to cover many representative works, but I was only able to include so many. There are, of course, myriad more. This is part of a series of “B-sides”: posts about apocrypha that weren’t included in the book.

This particular “b-sides” post is about an apocryphon that I learned about a few years ago that still fascinates me. In large part, I’m intrigued because it is, in many ways, very different from other apocrypha–especially those concerning Jesus. This apocryphon also demonstrates the early, wide spread of Christianity out of the Near East (in this case, to China). In that way, it points us toward one of the key characteristics of apocrypha: their far-flung lives in the premodern period.

Jesus-Messiah Sutra

Facts

Also known as: Hsu-T’ing Mi-Shi-So Sutra, Sutra of Hearing the Messiah

Author: Unknown, a Christian living in China; possibly the Syriac-speaking, Persian, Christian missionary Bishop Alopen, or one of his students

Date written: Between about 635 and 638 CE

Language: Chinese

Canons: None

Discovery

On June 25, 1900, a Chinese Taoist named Wang Yuanlu came across a walled-up cave (one of many similar caves in the same area) behind a Buddhist temple in Dunhuang, China. Later deemed the “Library Cave,” this secret space held thousands of scrolls from between the seventh century and when it had been sealed up in 1000 CE. Among those scrolls were the so-called Jingjiao Documents, with evidence of early Syriac Christians in China, including the Jesus-Messiah Sutra. This manuscript is now held in the Tonkō-Hikyū Collection of the Kyōu Shooku library in Osaka, Japan.

Summary

The Jesus-Messiah Sutra is framed as a revelation of Jesus’s teachings (like a gospel) about the basic doctrines of Christianity. It begins, “At that time, preaching the laws of Hsii-po (i. e., Jehovah) who is the Lord of Heaven, the Messiah spoke thus…” (1). The Sutra as it survives contains 206 verses, but the ending is incomplete, so there must have been more. Because there are so many, it is not possible to summarize them all, but there are some notable examples.

Many of the verses are concerned with the proper beliefs and actions of those who “received the precepts” in them. Some of these verses demonstrate anxiety about those who teach or explain correct doctrine. For example, verse 71 says, “Only those who serve the Lord of Heaven can discourse on the doctrines and can compose the Sutras.” Similarly, verse 95 states, “Those who have received the Law and Teaching of the Lord of Heaven should not act contrary to the precepts.” Some of the precepts express rather simple ideas about right living, such as “These short views, however, may well teach all people what is good and what is evil” (69).

Some sayings are parallel to passages from the Bible, especially the canonical Gospels. For example, verses 14-16 are thematically similar to John 3:8, including the statements that “People in this world can know the movements of the wind. They only hear the sound thereof, but they cannot see the form thereof” (15). Some of the teachings are also similar to Jesus’s teachings in parables, such as verse 70: “By drinking and eating plentifully we may taste the essence. But by taking even a little, we can perceive whether it is tasteful or not.”

Still other sayings portray some amount of syncretism between Buddhism and Christianity. For example, verse 4 relates, “All the Buddhas as well as Kinnaras and the Superintending-devas and Arhans can see the Lord of Heaven.” Verse 13 says, “All the Buddhas flow and flux (i.e., wander here and there) by virtue of this very wind, while in this world, there is no place where the wind does not reach.”

Analysis

This Sutra (meaning “scripture” in Chinese) is a major piece of evidence for the spread of the Church of the East (sometimes known as the Nestorian Church) from Syria to China. The main purpose of the document is as a set of precepts for right belief and practice. There is, therefore, a certain amount of anxiety about the correct reception and understanding of doctrine and actions based on them.

Many of the verses translate biblical ideas as basic doctrine. This is the case with the many verses that are parallel to the Gospels and other passages from both the Hebrew Bible and New Testament. The Sutra is also influenced by other early Christian works, as it shows parallels with the Didache (verses 69, 103-11, 120-21, and 126-28). In verse 69, the teaching corresponds to the “Two Ways” (here “good” and “bad”) found in the Didache as well as the Community Rule of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Letter of Barnabas.

As already mentioned, the author(s) of the document, or perhaps a Chinese scribe helping to translate, must have been influenced by Buddhism, at least in terminology. The Sutra includes mentions of Buddhas, other figures from Buddhism, and attention to Buddhist-Christian cosmology. These precepts show how Christianity often took on and adapted elements of pre-existing religions as it spread across the globe.

Want to read more? Apocrypha for Beginners is on sale now!

Apocrypha for Beginners is meant to cover many representative works, but I was only able to include so many. There are, of course, myriad more. This is part of a series of “B-sides”: posts about apocrypha that weren’t included in the book.

Sibylline Oracles

Facts

Author: Unknown, various Jewish and Christian authors

Date written: Various, between about 180 BCE and 700 CE

Language: Greek

Canons: Not part of any canon, but popular in various Christian communities throughout the Middle Ages

Discovery

The Sibylline Oracles have been known in Greek and Latin forms from late antiquity up to the present. Xystus Betuleius published the first printed edition in Greek in 1545. Since then, numerous other editions have been printed.

Summary

Beginning in the Second Temple period and continuing for the next several centuries, various Jewish and Christian authors composed prophetic verses that were later compiled into a collection now known as the Sibylline Oracles. These oracles are organized into twelve or fourteen books of varying lengths, with a total of 4,000 verses. The shortest book is a 28-line Christian hymn. Many portions of the oracles are presented as prophecies, even though they were written after the events they supposedly foretell. It is not possible to summarize all of the details, but an overview is possible.

Many of the contents of the Sibylline Oracles include histories and supposed prophecies of the future, often with an outlook toward the Last Judgment. Books one and two form a coherent unit. Book one recounts a ten-part history of the world, with many elements corresponding to narratives in the Hebrew Bible. These include a retelling of the Fall of Adam and Eve, Noah’s life and the Flood, and Jesus’s life, ending with the dispersion of the Jews. Book two picks up where book one leaves off and then foretells an eschatological vision of history leading up to the Last Judgment, including many of the same images common to Jewish and Christian apocalypses. The beginning of this book includes a digressive series of reflections on various ethical issues with proverbial teachings on subjects like justice, mercy, moderation, money, and honesty.

Book three presents a syncretic account of history, bringing together biblical narrative and Greek mythology. Book four is concerned with the rise and fall of empires, such as the Assyrians, Medes, Persians, Macedonians, and Romans. Books five and seven are similar, with emphasis on judgment heaped upon empires and their leaders. Book eight includes political prophecies against Rome. Books eleven through fourteen present another outline of history, including biblical narratives and other elements, down to the Arab conquest of the seventh century. Interspersed throughout these books are passages with eschatological imagery of the future.

The Christian hymn of book six is comprised of praise for Jesus’s life, emphasizing his teachings and miracles, with general parallels to the canonical Gospels. The final three lines are addressed to the Cross, with imagery about its ascension into heaven.

Analysis

While a futuristic outlook and the visionary figure of the Sibyl unite the disparate verses and books, the many oracles are diverse and demonstrate a range of literary and thematic features. All of the oracles are composed in Greek epic hexameter and incorporate high literary stylistic elements. Common elements include overviews of world history, proverbs, hymns of praise, messianic expectations, sin and judgment, critiques of empire, and apocalyptic anxieties. These different expressions portray influences from Judaism, other Near Eastern cultures, and Hellenism, among others.

Some of the oracles present challenges to identifying authorship by Jews, Christians, and Jewish-Christians. In fact, while the earliest oracles were composed by Jews, some were later adapted, revised, and expanded by Christians. In some cases, earlier oracles with messianic ideas were reworked with interpolations (later additions) to align the details with depictions and teachings of Jesus in the canonical Gospels. Many portions of the oracles portray connections with other Jewish literature from the Second Temple period and works from the first several centuries of Christianity.

Want to read more? Apocrypha for Beginners is on sale now!

Apocrypha for Beginners is meant to cover many representative works, but I was only able to include so many. There are, of course, myriad more. This is part of a series of “B-sides”: posts about apocrypha that weren’t included in the book.

Letters of Christ and Abgar

Facts

Also known as: Epistles of Christ and Abgar

Author: Unknown, a Syriac Christian in Edessa

Date written: Third century CE

Language: Probably Syriac, but it survives in widespread form in Greek

Canons: None, but popular in various Christian communities

Discovery

These letters were first related in the Ecclesiastical History (I.13) by Eusebius, who claims that they come from the archives of Edessa and that he has translated them from Syriac. The letters also appear in the Syriac Doctrine of Addai, a founding document for the Edessan Christian community from the late fourth or early fifth century. The letters became widespread and well known from that time onward. The most popular form is the correspondence in Eusebius’s History, but scholars have discovered manuscripts of other versions, including translations in Arabic, Armenian, Coptic, Latin, and Church Slavic.

Summary

This legend revolves around King Abgar V of Edessa (died around 50 CE), who falls ill and writes to Jesus asking him to visit to heal him. In his letter to Jesus, Abgar relates that he has learned about Jesus’s miracles and concluded that he must be the son of God. Jesus sends a response, blessing Abgar for believing without seeing Jesus himself but says that he must fulfill his mission and cannot visit the king. Jesus relates that, after he is gone, he will send one of his disciples to the king to heal him.

The letters often circulate with added framing devices, including an extended narrative about the disciple Thaddeus traveling to Edessa. Thaddeus performs healing miracles, and King Abgar learns about him, recalling what Jesus had related in his letter. Abgar sends for Thaddeus, who visits the king and heals him after Abgar expresses his belief in Jesus and his Father. Thaddeus then preaches about Jesus’s life and teachings for the king and the citizens of Edessa.

Analysis

The story of Abgar and his correspondence with Jesus is primarily part of the founding legend for Christianity in Edessa. It is closely related to accounts of the conversion of Abgar and the Edessan community because of the missionary activity of Thaddeus (Addai in some documents), one of Jesus’s seventy disciples. For these reasons, the letters are central to Syriac Christianity. Scholars believe that the letters and larger framing narrative were meant to solidify an origin legend for Edessan Christianity, solidifying connections between the religion and state power at the time of composition. It is thus bound up with a particular ideological view of Christianity in Edessa, which became a major center for Syriac Christianity in late antiquity.

Want to read more? Apocrypha for Beginners is on sale now!

Apocrypha for Beginners is meant to cover many representative works, but I was only able to include so many. There are, of course, myriad more. This is part of a series of “B-sides”: posts about apocrypha that weren’t included in the book.

Dormition of Mary

Facts

Also known as: Assumption of Mary, Book of Rest, Passing of Mary

Author: Unknown; attributed to the apostle John in some versions

Date written: Between the second and fifth centuries CE

Language: Probably Greek, possibly Syriac; the version that is likely earliest survives in full form only in Ge‘ez, with close parallels in fragmentary texts in Syriac, Georgian, and Coptic

Canons: None, but popular in various Christian communities

Discovery

Knowledge of this work in Eastern Christianity begins in the fifth century and continues to the present, and it was well known across Christian communities East and West. Although various versions in many languages exist, William Wright published the earliest witnesses in Syriac fragments in 1865.

Summary

Many different versions exist of the “Dormition” (“falling asleep”) or “Assumption” (“taking up”) of the Virgin Mary. The earliest stories emerged sometime between the second and fifth centuries, and others were adapted and remixed from those. The earliest texts (in Ge‘ez and fragments in Syriac, Georgian, and Coptic) relate the “Palm of the Tree of Life” narrative, which is the focus here. While details differ, the stories follow the same plot about the end of Mary’s life.

An angel appears to Mary on the Mount of Olives and tells her about her coming death, offering her a palm from the Tree of Life. The angel also relates various other pieces of wisdom–about human fate after death and, in some versions, including narratives about the holy family’s Flight into Egypt when Jesus was an infant. Mary returns home to Jerusalem and gathers her friends and family to say goodbye before she dies. Miraculously, all of the apostles are divinely transported to her home from their missions to the far corners of the earth. John is first, and Mary imparts secret wisdom to him in some versions; Peter and the others follow, with a dialog between them indicating Peter as chief among them. Peter preaches to everyone gathered during the night, and Mary prepares for death the following morning. Everyone then falls asleep except for a group of virgins attending to Mary.

Jesus descends from heaven and speaks to Mary, taking her soul from her body and giving it to Michael to transport to heaven. When they awake, the apostles put Mary’s body on a bier and carry it to a tomb near the Mount of Olives. The Jewish high priests in Jerusalem plot to destroy Mary’s body, but they are stricken blind when they try to carry out their plan. One Jew who was not blinded, named Jephonias, attempts to disrupt the procession and his hands are cut off by an angel. He returns to Jerusalem and reports what has happened and many of the Jews repent and have their sight returned.

Meanwhile, the apostles place Mary’s body in the tomb. Afterward, they devolve into a debate about the true way to preach the Gospel. Several days later, Jesus returns with a host of angels and directs them to follow Paul’s teachings about the Gospel. Michael takes Mary’s body and ascends into heaven to rejoin it with her soul. Jesus takes the apostles as he follows. Mary and the apostles are then taken on a tour of heaven and hell, and the apostles return to the earth. Mary remains in Paradise.

Analysis

At the core of this narrative is a veneration of the Virgin Mary that seeks to explain her end of life as miraculous and special. This apocryphon sits among others (like the Protevangelium of James and Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew) that center Mary in the narrative of salvation and the early church. The Dormition texts also represent veneration of Mary as one of the core deeds of the apostles after Jesus’s death, resurrection, and ascension.

The different versions have various digressions in the forms of prayers, speeches, parables, and expositions on parts of the Hebrew Bible. In this way, the Dormition texts contain compilations of extra-biblical stories and teachings from early Christianity. These pieces of the Dormition texts share many features related to other apocrypha, such as the episode about Jesus commanding the palm tree to bend down to Mary in the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew and the tour of heaven and hell in the Apocalypse of Paul.

Much of the narrative surrounding the apostles situates the text within debates about the teachings of the apostles and the primacy of certain Petrine and Pauline authority. Ultimately, Peter is posed as the first apostle but Paul’s teachings are posed as the correct interpretation of the Gospel. The text therefore claims these doctrines as orthodox and authoritative, in distinction from competing claims circulating among early Christians.

Extra Bibliography

In addition to the sources I cite in the “Further Reading” section of Apocrypha for Beginners, for this post I’m especially indebted to Stephen J. Shoemaker’s book Ancient Traditions of the Virgin Mary’s Dormition and Assumption (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), which includes English translations of several of the earliest versions (in Ge‘ez, Syriac, Georgian, Coptic, and Greek) of the Dormition narratives.

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I recently had the honor of participating in a Primary Text Lab on the Protevangelium of James hosted by The Brane Collective. It was a great seasonally appropriate event and a lot of fun to think about the Protevangelium in a way I haven’t before. So I decided to post here what I presented at the event. These are speculative and not altogether formal ideas, but I enjoyed exploring them for the text lab.

First, I want to say thank you to Elizabeth Corsar for originating and curating this event, and to Julia Lindenlaub for organizing behind the scenes. I’m grateful to all at the BRANE Collective for their great work with events like these. And thanks for the chance to talk about the Protevangelium of James when I’m usually more likely to go on about the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew.

I’m going to spend my time today expanding on some ideas that I previously posed in a short article about “Apocrypha and Fictionality” in the journal New Literary History.[1] In turning to fictionality, I follow recent scholarship on the topic that chooses to trouble definitions for ideas like “fiction” and “truth claims” for more nuanced interpretive speculation. Specifically, I embrace Julie Orlemanski’s suggestion for “a hermeneutic conception of fictionality” that encourages close examinations of literary works with local contexts in mind, not based on universalizing or essentializing definitions and assumptions.[2]

At the start, I want to clarify that my goal is not to argue that the Protevangelium was intentionally composed as “fiction” explicitly (although that is a possibility I’m willing to entertain). I’m not particularly interested in trying to understand if the early Christian author thought of their work as “fiction” or “history” or something else, or in reifying the binaries inherent in that question. Obviously discourse about the complex interplays between such narrative modes is prevalent in scholarship about early Christian literature, but I’m sidestepping that approach.[3] Instead, I want to consider the Protevangelium through the framework of “fictionality” in order to think about how literary devices of fiction are used rhetorically to craft the narrative elements of this apocryphon—regardless of its intended or perceived status as “fiction” or otherwise.

I will focus mainly on the start of the Protevangelium, on the mention of “the Histories of the Twelve Tribes of Israel” (“ταῖς ἱστορίαις τῶν δώδεκα φυλῶν τοῦ Ἰσραήλ”) in verse 1. The title rests on the Greek term ἱστορία, which has been rendered into English as either “records” or, probably preferable, “histories.”[4] Incidentally, although the title of the work we call the Protevangelium in the surviving manuscripts is a tricky issue that I won’t address directly here, many iterations of the title use the same term, ἱστορία, or variants. And, also tangential but significant, the epilogue that names James as the author in the first person uses the term ἱστορία for the account, too.

After his offering is rejected, Joachim consults the same work, called in 1:6 “the Twelve Tribes of the People” (“τὴν δωδεκάφυλον τοῦ λαοῦ”) and “the Twelve Tribes of Israel” (“τὴν δωδεκάφυλον τοῦ Ἰσραήλ”)—and even though no such noun appears in the Greek text, most translations include what is presumed to be an implied phrase as part of the title, including terms like “registries of,” “record of,” “record-book of,” “genealogy of,” or “Book of.” Here we find one of what Liv Lied and her research team have investigated as “Books Known Only by Title,” often associated in some way with apocryphal literature, and possibly a “lost” source of some sort. Eric Vanden Eykel and Lily Vuong both suggest that this work might be something like the so-called Book of the Kings of Israel and Judah or Book of the Wars of YHWH mentioned in 2 Chronicles and Numbers.

I want to pose a few possibilities for these references, emerging from some big questions that I have. Could audiences have recognized a work titled “the Histories of the Twelve Tribes of Israel,” or could they have seen this reference as a literary construction? How can fictionality help us to consider these references and their place in the Protevangelium? What do we gain from considering these references with the framework of fictionality for understanding the Protevangelium more generally?

The first interpretive possibility is that mention of the so-called “Histories” is meant to link Joachim and his genealogy to Israel as represented in the Hebrew Bible. For now, I set aside the probably unanswerable question of whether this potentially “lost” source was a genuine composition or not (though I’ll return to related questions in a minute). From this perspective, references to this unidentified “source” seem to legitimate the Protevangelium in relation to other Jewish sources, and to link Joachim, Anna, and Mary to Israelite lineage. B. Harris Cowper notes that, “The author might have more properly said ‘genealogies’ or ‘records,’ as his object is simply to imitate the purely Israelitish descent of Mary’s parents.”[5] But use of the term ἱστορία might actually do more work to legitimize the narrative, as it reminds audiences of the biblical history on which the narrative rests and with which the characters are associated. With references to the “Histories,” the Protevangelium outdoes the canonical gospels, which only evoke general genealogies. This seems to be the way that many scholars have regularly interpreted these references. This explanation is where I started, too.

Another possibility, though, is that references to the “Histories” are meant to signal some amount of fictionality at the start of the Protevangelium. Again, the author did not need to intend for the gospel to be read or understood as fictional, per se—and audiences do not need to perceive it as fictional. Yet the author could have created these references to a deliberately made-up “source” to signal some of the techniques of narrative fictionality that we see in other literature from antiquity. We find this sort of signaling, of course, in other works from antiquity—as in, for example, the book of Judith, which contains such inconsistencies in historical references as to be laughable to audiences close to its contemporary context, or to scholars who know their Near Eastern history. From this perspective, references to the “Histories” at the start of the Protevangelium seem to act as a wink and a nod to knowing audiences who can recognize the play of fictionality within a narrative.

So how do we reconcile these two interpretive possibilities that I’ve posed so far? In some ways, previous work on fictionality in early Christian literature helps. Recently, Éric Rebillard has considered this sort of literary element as a narrative topos used for referential reasons, and he spins out some of the implications for early Christian literature like martyr narratives.[6] As Rebillard remarks, “a type of fictional complicity can be established through the use and recognition of topoi” and “The topos works like a signal, marking the textuality of the narrative.”[7] At the same time, Rebillard points out, such an understanding of topoi can lead to interpretive anachronism: “We should not deduce that the establishment of fictional complicity implies that the audience would assess the entire narrative as fictitious and therefore false.”[8] Ultimately, Rebillard concludes, “The truth-claims need, therefore, to be understood at the level of the narration”;[9] and, in this, his ideas are strikingly similar to Orlemanski’s “hermeneutic conception of fictionality” that encourages examining literary the elements of each work locally.

To return to the Protevangelium and its evocation of “the Histories of the Twelve Tribes of Israel” as topos, I want to consider how the two possibilities that I’ve posed need not be mutually exclusive. That is, I see the references to “the Histories of the Twelve Tribes of Israel” as both legitimizing in associating the narrative and Joachim with biblical history as well as a wink and a nod to audiences who might recognize the literary trope of a Jewish “source.”

This is where the framework of fictionality helps to blur the lines between interpretations. The evocation of a work like the so-called “Histories” as a narrative topos does lend legitimacy to Joachim’s lineage and the narrative associations with biblical history even if the source in question is wholly constructed. At the same time, if the evocation is meant to be an explicit reference to an obviously fictionalized work and not a genuine “lost” source, even as a wink and a nod to audiences, as a topos it still creates the same literary and narrative associations. In other words, the referential value of the topos works on multiple levels for the narrative, and all of these levels signify the distinctive textuality of the Protevangelium at its very beginning.

By way of conclusion, I want to gesture toward just a few ways these ideas could be pushed forward. For example, the framework of fictionality might help to reconcile other difficult interpretive possibilities for details in the Protevangelium that pose paradoxical tensions for readers. One example is Mary and Joseph’s trial with the bitter water, which is based on an actual ritual in the Hebrew Bible but seems, in its details, not all that “accurate” compared to the description in Numbers. Another example is the topos of speech in the Protevangelium, which is often posed as both authentic speech and highly stylized. Through the lens of fictionality, scholars might be able to productively reconcile some of the interpretive tensions between the evocation of historia in the Protevangelium with the world of literary fictionality it engages in its narrative devices. Thank you!

Notes

[1] Brandon W. Hawk, “Apocrypha and Fictionality,” invited contribution to a forum on “Medieval Fictionalities,” New Literary History 51 (2020): 253–57. Read the full forum here, along with Julie Orlemanski’s piece (see next citation).

[2] Julie Orlemanski, “Who Has Fiction? Modernity, Fictionality, and the Middle Ages,” New Literary History 50 (2019): 145–70, quotation at 146. (See the previous note for a link where you can read this article.)

[3] For a recent discussion, see Eric Rebillard, The Early Martyr Narratives: Neither Authentic Accounts Nor Forgeries (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2021), esp. 59–84.

[4] The term is translated “records” by Walker and Hock; “histories” by Jones, Cowper, James, Cullmann in NTA, Elliott, Ehrman and Pleše, and Vuong.

[5] B. Harris Cowper, The Apocryphal Gospels and Other Documents Relating to the History of Christ (London: Williams and Norgate, 1867), 3.

[6] See Rebillard, Early Martyr Narratives, 64. Rebillard draws on Jan Herman’s earlier conception of the topos in eighteenth-century novels.

[7] Rebillard, Early Martyr Narratives, 64.

[8] Rebillard, The Early Martyr Narratives, 64.

[9] Rebillard, The Early Martyr Narratives, 65. Rebillard’s full thoughts are helpful here: “In sum, when dealing with premodern texts, we need not assume that the establishment of fictional complicity implies a contract of shared ludic feint. A narrative that points to its textuality does not necessarily invite the audience to assume it is false. The blurring of fact and fiction and the centrality of verisimilitude make room for different types of verification. The audience acknowledges that many of the truth- claims of premodern texts are moral rather than factual. The truth-claims need, therefore, to be understood at the level of the narration…” (65).

I started drafting this piece a while back, intending to publish it somewhere, but then various things happened and I never finished it up. With the release of the first episode of The Book of Boba Fett in the last week, I decided to go back to it. It turns out that I had a mostly complete article, so I did some revisions and I’m posting it here as some of my general thoughts on concepts of canon and apocrypha related to Star Wars and the Bible. I hope you enjoy!

While reorganizing some of my books recently, I came across my copy of The Han Solo Adventures by Brian Daley. Published in 1979 and 1980 (and later collected into one volume in 1992), the three novels collected in this book defined Han’s backstory for Star Wars fans. I was rather amused to find the book now, considering that the release of Solo: A Star Wars Story in 2018 gave us a wholly new story arc for Han and Chewbacca. Coming across this book again now also reminded me of other similar books from the same era, like Tales from Jabba’s Palace, which have been abrogated in more recent Star Wars media, like the series The Book of Boba Fett.

Of course, since I read The Han Solo Adventures as a teenager, there have been many changes to the Star Wars galaxy. There has been a proliferation of media (including films, books, comics, various series on Disney+) that continue to expand the contours of the galaxy in both canonical and apocryphal ways.

Such an expansive array of media raises questions about how Star Wars stories are told and accepted. We’re confronted with a jigsaw puzzle of stories, retellings, adaptations, expansions, and appropriations threaded through the Star Wars saga since its inception. We’re confronted with how stories envelop, twist, and transcend fact, fiction, and history.

At the heart of this puzzle, we’re confronted with which stories are authoritative and which are not, which become “canon” and which become “apocrypha.” For Star Wars, canonicity is as much a puzzle to sort out as the Bible is. In what follows, I examine some connections about canonicity in both the unfolding history of Star Wars media and the history of Christianity. Related to this, scholars have recently begun to explore how contemporary fan fiction studies offer frameworks for thinking about biblical apocrypha. I won’t delve into that conversation directly, but I do want to pose some ideas about canonicity and apocryphicity by discussing the two storyworlds of Star Wars and the biblical together.

Retelling Stories

Another recent addition to the Star Wars saga, The Last Jedi, provides three versions of the story of Ben Solo’s turn to the Dark Side that leads to his self-redefinition as Kylo Ren. First, Luke Skywalker tells his bare-bones account, demonizing Ben as he turned to the Dark Side; later, Kylo Ren tells his own version, demonizing Luke’s actions; when Rey confronts Luke about the differing stories, Luke tells his story a second time, with more details and commentary.

None of these versions is a strictly factual narration. Instead, all three are told from the perspectives of subjective participants in the story. After these three versions have been told, Rey and audiences still lack any semblance of facts, left to reconcile the stories into the most credible version as a kind of middle way.

These retellings are reminiscent of Akira Kurosawa’s classic film Rashômon (1950), which offers several accounts of a murder from the points of view of different witnesses. This echo isn’t surprising, given how influential Kurosawa’s films were for George Lucas (and subsequent makers of Star Wars media), or how much classic Japanese films have become a staple of contexts for the Star Wars movies.

Closer to home in the Star Wars galaxy is another echo evoked by the stories Luke and Ren tell: a story told by another Ben, Obi-Wan Kenobi, about how Luke’s father was killed by Darth Vader. Of course, we’re told in The Empire Strikes Back that this is only one interpretation of the events leading to Anakin Skywalker becoming Vader. In Return of the Jedi, Luke confronts Obi-Wan’s Force ghost, who admits that his version “was true, from a certain point of view.”

The Last Jedi isn’t the only recent Star Wars release to highlight the power of storytelling perspectives and adaptations. Similarly, the From a Certain Point of View book series (with a direct allusion to Obi-Wan’s words) offers short stories parallel to the original trilogy from the perspectives of various minor characters, in celebration of the fortieth anniversaries of the original films. We also see more whimsical retellings of the Skywalker saga, such as the LEGO Star Wars video games and animated series. With Star Wars media, we are constantly reminded that “everything is a remix.”

From a literary approach, we must deal with mythic storytelling structures, unreliable narrators, creator’s intentionality and audience responses, as well as adaptations over time. From a historical approach, we must deal with how history and historiography are written based on available evidence, the perspective of the historian, as well as shifting history based on new evidence.

Establishing Canon & Apocrypha

The first definition of the Star Wars canon authorized by Lucasfilm is generally attributed to the inaugural issue of the magazine Star Wars Insider, which rebranded the publication previously known as the Lucasfilm Fan Club Magazine in 1994 (issue #23). In a piece about the “Star Wars Publications Timeline,” Lucasfilm employees Allan Kausch and Sue Rostoni relate that “‘Gospel,’ or canon as we refer to it, includes the screenplays, the films, the radio dramas and the novelizations…. The entire catalog of published works comprises a vast history—with many off-shoots, variations and tangents—like any other well-developed mythology.” This definition by Kausch and Rostoni as well as their evocation of the biblical Gospels are striking, and worth exploring further.

The biblical Gospel of Luke begins with a curious statement about the various stories told about Jesus. He admits that “many have undertaken to set down an orderly account of the events that have been fulfilled among us” (1:1 NRSV). This statement, at its heart, causes readers to consider why only four gospels were eventually deemed authoritative, canonical, and the exclusive gospels of the Christian Bible. For that matter, the basic issue raises questions about why four were needed in the first place, rather than only one or two. These questions are made all the more pertinent when considering the large amounts of overlap between the three Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke).

The development of the biblical canon is more complex than can be related here, and more historically complex than developments in Star Wars history between 1977 and 2014. But certain parallels exist.

From at least the second century onward, debates raged about which texts should be authoritative for Christians to read and follow. Some early Christians accepted the Hebrew Bible (mainly in the form of Greek translations now known as the Septuagint), or at least parts of it, while others rejected it wholesale with the idea that more recent revelations were more important. Some texts came to be seen as part of “the Bible,” while others came to be seen as “apocrypha.” Some Christians accepted the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, while others accepted fewer, or different, gospels. Many arguments centered around Paul’s letters, and the various letters of other apostles. Some texts, like Jude and the Revelation of John, were hotly debated.

By the fourth century, a general consensus about the contents of the Christian Bible was already emerging, but there were still debates. None of these developments of the Christian canon, however, should be understood as teleologically leading to a closed set of books as we now find it in printed versions of the Bible. In fact, closer looks at the tables of contents of different Bibles through the centuries reveal how the canon was and continues to be somewhat fluid across different Christian communities. Different Christians have continued to read and use different apocryphal works in various ways. Yet the fourth century was a definitive period for the solidification of the Christian biblical texts into a general state of canonicity.

It’s clear from definitions like the one offered by Kausch and Rostoni that critics have been thinking about issues regarding the Star Wars canon in terms of the biblical canon for a while. It’s not surprising to find fans of Star Wars and the Bible musing about relationships between notions of canon, apocrypha, and fandom across these two storyworlds.

Some attribute the idea of fictional canon to Monsignor Ronald A. Knox, in his pioneering essay titled “Studies in the Literature of Sherlock Holmes” (1911). In this satirical publication, Knox both opened the door for critical study of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s stories and humorously wrote as if the Sherlockian canon were made up of historical accounts. It’s telling that Knox was a Catholic priest who knew the Bible—so well that he had translated the Latin Vulgate version into English, while also using the Hebrew and Greek sources to inform his work. Clearly he had considered some thorny issues surrounding canonicity in multiple literary contexts.

Between 1977 and the present, the Star Wars canon has also been hotly debated as new media have emerged. To fully consider the canon would mean to go back several years earlier, to Lucas’s own notes and script drafts. Some of these may be glimpsed in books like Laurent Bouzereau’s Star Wars: The Annotated Screenplays and various other publications. Still, a simpler starting point is November 12, 1976, just months before the theatrical release of the first film, now known as Star Wars, Episode IV: A New Hope (though at the time its debut title was simply Star Wars), when Del Rey Books published the novelization titled Star Wars: From the Adventures of Luke Skywalker, attributed to George Lucas and ghostwritten by Alan Dean Foster. The following year, on March 1, 1978, Del Rey released another novel by Foster, titled Splinter of the Mind’s Eye—ostensibly the first published Star Wars fan fiction (though it was authorized at the time). With these books, the expansion of the Star Wars galaxy and questions about canon were already in motion.

Along with the releases of the films and novelizations of The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, the galaxy burgeoned with many other books, comics, video games, and other media from the late 1970s well into the 2000s. Most famous among these are probably Timothy Zahn’s novels, expanding the story of the Skywalkers and the Jedi beyond the events of the original trilogy.

In 1997 Lucas himself released his own sort of author-turned-fan-fiction-creator with the Special Edition versions of the original trilogy. Just a few years later, in 1999, 2002, and 2005, came the release of the prequels (Episodes I-III). In time, some fans came to reject these sorts of additions from the canon, despite what others might say. The canon wars were well underway.

Star Wars canon changed dramatically on April 25, 2014, when Disney, the new owner of Lucasfilm, redefined official canonicity. Under the new definition, the only canonical works created before 2014 are the six Star Wars films of the main saga (episodes I-VI), The Clone Wars animated series, and the Dark Horse Comics story Darth Maul—Son of Dathomir. All other movies, books, comics, games, and other media previously known as the “Expanded Universe” were relegated to being known as “Legends.” Curiously, according to Disney’s standards of definitions, even the novelizations of the original films are now considered non-canonical.

Suddenly, the many Star Wars stories of yesteryear became divided into canonical and apocryphal.

Conclusion

In my teenage years, my friends and I spent a lot of time with the Star Wars Customizable Card Game (CCG), produced by Decipher, Inc. between 1995 and 2001. Initially based on the original trilogy, many of the cards featured characters, settings, creatures, weapons, vehicles, and more from the Star Wars galaxy, with their details culled from Lucasfilm lore and the Expanded Universe.

I spent hours with these cards—reading the rules and supplements, collecting the cards, discussing them with friends, playing the game, and arguing about inconsistencies between gameplay and the original movies. Along with resources like the artbooks for the original trilogy and Bill Slavicsek’s A Guide to The Star Wars Universe, details from the CCG were central to my Star Wars education.

Since the Star Wars CCG wasn’t included in Disney’s redefinition of the canon, the cards are now seemingly relegated to apocryphal status. It’s hard to imagine that the details I gleaned from those cards will ever leave my memory, though. Whenever I watch the scene in the Mos Eisley Cantina, my mind recalls details about characters like the Tonnika Sisters (Brea and Senni), Ponda Baba, and Dr. Evazan. They’re all headcanon to me.

That last point demonstrates a distinct aspect of canonicity and apocryphicity: no authoritative definition, however official, will ever stop individuals from creating their own personal sense of what is considered canonical. In fact, what’s clear from both the history of Christianity and the history of Star Wars is that we all create our own notions of what we see as canonical and apocryphal, from a certain point of view.

Today I had the honor and pleasure of presenting a review response to the recently published book The Oxford Handbook of the Apocrypha, edited by Gerbern S. Oegema (2021), as part of a Virtual Book Review event through the Enoch Seminar. Below are the comments I shared with thoughts about the volume and some avenues for future studies of the deuterocanonical works.

At the outset, I want to echo what others have said already today: The Oxford Handbook of the Apocrypha is an excellent volume, and I’ve very much enjoyed reading through and thinking with it. I’m glad to see a diverse group of contributors and a wide range of different types of contributions to the book, including chapters that offer helpful overviews of key topics as well as a detailed examination of each work in the Apocrypha. I have no doubt that this volume will become a standard reference for those interested in the subject. It presents chapters relevant for scholars already well versed in the corpus of the deuterocanonical works and those just beginning their forays into these works.

In my comments, I want to use this volume to situate the Apocrypha and apocrypha studies in terms of globality, to think about the deuterocanonical works across diverse communities in the histories of Judaism and Christianity. In other words, I’m interested in the transmission and reception of the Apocrypha—not surprising, since I’m primarily a medievalist.

To start, I’m particularly interested in explicit references to “global” contexts of Judaism and Christianity in scholarship on the Apocrypha. A few of these stood out most prominently to me:

• Gerbern S. Oegema emphasizes that apocalypticism in the Apocrypha “must… be understood in a much more global context of an ancient apocalyptic mindset that influenced much of Early Judaism and Early Christianity” (7).
• Lorenzo DiTommaso suggests in a note that scholars need to foster an “appreciation of ‘apocalyptic’ in its global, historical sense” (242 n. 13).
• Sara Parks emphasizes the benefits to scholarship as “Now the voices of racialized and global scholars are finally beginning to be included in feminist studies of the Apocrypha” (482) and “as a new generation brings to the discussion more explicit theoretical frameworks, as well as more global and intersectional perspectives” to the study of women and gender in the Apocrypha (483).

In addition to these explicit references, the volume contains much that is rich for considering the Apocrypha in their global contexts. A recurring theme, of course, is Jewish diaspora, from the Second Temple period onward; and another is the notion of diversity of the authors, texts, and contexts of the Apocrypha. Some contributions gesture toward the global nature of Christianity and related issues involved with the historical study of the Apocrypha, with discussions of Armenian, Coptic, Hebrew, Slavonic, and Syriac versions of the Apocrypha. For example, Lee Martin McDonald spends a little time offering some thoughts about different versions, and Mika S. Pajunen considers the centrality of the Hebrew and Syriac witnesses for examining Psalms 151–155. These offer gestures toward the multilingual and cross-cultural afterlives of the deuterocanonical works that are worth significant consideration.

In the rest of my comments, I want to dwell on a single question: What might be gained from broadening our scope, to situate the Apocrypha within the global? I’m inspired by recent shifts in scholarship to ask similar questions, like the methodological turn toward concepts like “global late antiquity” and “the global Middle Ages.” Since I was invited to this panel as a reviewer, and I can echo praises of the volume that others have expressed, I also have some critiques—but I want to present my thoughts as starting points for future work and ways to reconsider the Apocrypha, not specifically as negative assessments of this volume, the editor, or individual contributors. Here I want to revisit what John Kampen said in the earlier panel today, about how we limit our scope and understandings as epistemological boundaries for scholarship on the Apocrypha, and what we gain from expanding those boundaries. With that in mind, I want to pose my criticisms as hopeful for the field of apocrypha studies.

Despite the few explicit references to globality that I’ve already highlighted, the global nature of the Apocrypha is not especially centered in The Oxford Handbook of the Apocrypha: there is no single chapter related to the topic, nor do Oegema or the contributors make claims to that aim, nor is it a common topic in apocrypha studies. Much of the volume tends to highlight the divide between Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Christians on the one hand and Protestant Christians on the other. There are some brief references to other views of the canon, but the majority of the contributions tend to focus on Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Protestant conceptions of the canon, as well as Greek and Latin versions of the Apocrypha. This is not surprising, for a few reasons. One reason is that the Apocrypha—both as a collection and the individual works—are most well-known and best preserved in Greek versions as they circulated in the great Septuagint pandects that were compiled by early Christians. Kristin De Troyer lays this out well in her chapter on the Greek textual witnesses. But another reason for so much framing around Protestant views versus Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox views is that the history of scholarship on the Bible and apocrypha has been largely influenced by underlying polemical battles between Roman Catholic and Protestant scholars.

Nonetheless, we might gain quite a lot from considering the Apocrypha with a shift in focus outward to other Jewish and Christian communities across geographies, cultures, and periods. None of the contributors to The Oxford Handbook mention Ethiopian Jews, who identify with the title Beta Israel, and little is said about Oriental Orthodox or Church of the East Christianity, such as Orthodox Tewahedo and Assyrian Christians. At the start of her chapter, De Troyer notes that the Apocrypha “are considered by many Christians and virtually all Jews to be non-canonical” (14). Yet Beta Israel Jews in particular pose a fascinating case, because (like Orthodox Tewahedo Christians) they do consider the deuterocanonical works to be canonical, along with several other writings considered to be apocryphal to other Jews and Christians—like Jubilees, 1 Enoch, and 4 Baruch. In fact, such a robust biblical canon recently prompted the editors of The Jewish Annotated Apocrypha to include Jubilees in their volume.[1] In that collection, Annette Yoshiko Reed reminds us of “the local diversity of long-standing lived traditions of liturgy, teaching, and textuality”; and Eva Mroczek discusses how the rhetoric of a fixed canon is a construction in the histories of Judaism and Christianity.[2]

 Geʽez versions of deuterocanonical and apocryphal works from medieval Ethiopia have recently gained increased attention from scholars, and more is warranted, since both Beta Israel and Orthodox Tewahedo communities provide important contributions to the histories of Judaism and Christianity beyond the usual suspects of European traditions. According to recent demographic data, there are around 172,000 Beta Israel Jews around the world—most prominently in Israel (~160,500) and Ethiopia (~12,000), but also in the USA (~1,000) and in diaspora elsewhere.[3] To take Beta Israel Judaism as just one example, by looking beyond familiar religious communities, we might gain a much more nuanced and complex idea about how diverse even Judaism is in its approach to concepts of “canon,” “scriptures,” and how the Apocrypha remain part of Jewish and Christian lived religious experiences even today. A few relevant research question remain to be explored. How do Beta Israel Jews incorporate the Apocrypha into their beliefs and practices today? Are there other Jews who engage with the Apocrypha today in their own lived religious experiences?

In fact, the idea of lived religious experiences opens up other possibilities for considering the role of the Apocrypha in Jewish and Christian communities around the world from their inception to the present. In his chapter on “The Apocrypha in the Context of Early Judaism” (3–13), Oegema claims about the Apocrypha, pseudepigrapha, and Dead Sea Scrolls that “unlike the Jewish or Christian Bible, none of these writings have a present-day faith community to represent them” (13). I was puzzled by this, however, because surely there are many Jews and Christians who continue to practice their faiths with the help of the Apocrypha even today. After all, the Apocrypha are considered to be part of the canonical Bible for the majority of Christians around the world: of the estimated 2.3 billion Christians worldwide, only about 35 to 40% are Protestant, while Roman Catholics make up about 50% (~1.1 billion), and Orthodox Christians make up about 12% (~260 million).[4] Even some Protestants, like Anglicans (~3.7% of Christians, ~85 million worldwide), continue to use the Apocrypha, at least for reading and edification, if not doctrine; and, as Matthew J. Korpman demonstrates in his chapter (“The Protestant Reception of the Apocrypha,” 74–93), many Protestants were historically “pro-Apocrypha” (84) even up into the nineteenth century.

In the same vein of thinking about lived religion up to the present, there are other avenues left to explore with the role of the Apocrypha. Some questions emerge, such as: What was the influence of the Apocrypha, for example, on liturgy, literature, and art in the Middle Ages, not only in Latin and Greek Christianity but also more globally, such as in Ethiopian Judaism and Christianity? Considering the expansion of Christianity with modern imperialism, how did the Apocrypha play a role in colonialism across the world in the early modern period? Closer to our own time, how do Jews and Christians worldwide incorporate the Apocrypha into religious beliefs and practices, such as collective worship or private devotion today? What do the Apocrypha have to do with Christians from the Global South, such as in liberation theology? (I’m reminded of “the voices of racialized and global scholars” that Parks mentions in her chapter.) Finally, even more broadly, how do the Apocrypha play a role in global cultures more generally, such as in literature, art, and other media in the twenty-first century?

These are just some of the questions that I began to wonder about as I thought through the possibilities for future study of the Apocrypha. Once again, I return to hope for future scholarship, for the type of generative studies that are made even more possible because of volumes like The Oxford Handbook of the Apocrypha.

Notes

[1] The Jewish Annotated Apocrypha: New Revised Standard Version Bible Translation, ed. Jonathan Klawans and Lawrence M. Wills (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020), with The Book of Jubilees at 1–50.

[2] See Annette Yoshiko Reed, “Canon,” in Jewish Annotated Apocrypha, ed. Klawans and Wills, 570–75; and Eva Mroczek, “The Incredible Expanding Bible: From the Dead Sea Scrolls to Heile Selassie,” in Jewish Annotated Apocrypha, ed. Klawans and Wills, 614–20.

[3] “The Ethiopian Community in Israel,” Israel Central Bureau of Statistics, November 11, 2020, https://www.cbs.gov.il/he/mediarelease/DocLib/2020/358/11_20_358e.docx.

[4] Data gleaned from the Pew Research Center, e.g., “Christian Traditions” December 19, 2011, https://www.pewforum.org/2011/12/19/global-christianity-traditions/; Conrad Hackett and David McClendon, “Christians remain world’s largest religious group, but they are declining in Europe,” April 5, 2017, https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/04/05/christians-remain-worlds-largest-religious-group-but-they-are-declining-in-europe/; and “Pew-Templeton Global Religious Futures Project,” http://www.globalreligiousfutures.org/.

One year ago today my book Apocrypha for Beginners: A Guide to Understanding and Exploring Scriptures Beyond the Bible was officially released. Over the past year, I have been so happy to see the book out in the world so that more people can learn about biblical apocrypha.

In the last year, more than 3,000 copies of Apocrypha for Beginners have sold. The book has received 257 total ratings on Amazon, 34 with reviews, for a 4.4-star overall rating, and it’s consistently remained in the top 100 books (sometimes top 50, and top 20 soon after its release!) in the “Christian Bible Apocrypha & Pseudepigrapha” category on Amazon. It’s also received 30 ratings, 8 with reviews, for a 3.87-star overall rating on Goodreads.

I’ve been thankful to have readers like family and friends, and their friends, colleagues in academia, students taking relevant courses, at least one church that did a study group with it, and many, many strangers. I was especially grateful for James McGrath’s in depth and thoughtful review of the book on the Religion Prof blog at Patheos. It’s been a joy to see the book reach so many people. Even more, I’m ecstatic to know how many have enjoyed the content of the book and how it has opened them up to more learning about apocrypha.

So what have I been up to since the book was released? Well, I’ve continued to enjoy working on apocrypha and introducing people to it in other ways.

• I published a series of posts related to the book, including posts about some B-sides apocrypha that I didn’t get to discuss in the book
• I was interviewed by Shirley Paulson on the Bible and Beyond Podcast
• I guest taught classes on “Canon & Apocrypha” for my colleagues Lydia Walker (Barton College) and Kisha Tracy (Fitchburg State University)
• I’ve participated in online events related to apocrypha like a Primary Text Lab on the Protevangelium of James, hosted by the Brane Collective (my remarks are available here); and a  Virtual Book Review of The Oxford Handbook of the Apocrypha, edited by Gerbern S. Oegema (2021), hosted by the Enoch Seminar (my remarks are available here)
• I’ve continued to research apocrypha, especially their transmission in the medieval and early modern periods

So it’s been a great year of continuing to study and share about what I love!

I won’t lie: Apocrypha for Beginners is not the true word of God…

but I do think that it has a lot to offer for people interested in the histories of Jewish and Christian apocrypha.

In short: thank you to everyone who has read, rated, reviewed, assigned, taught with, or told others about Apocrypha for Beginners !

In my book Apocrypha for Beginners, I introduced biblical apocrypha and highlighted a variety of representative works. But this book is only a beginning. This post contains useful resources—some of which were used in the research of my book—to further explore the world of apocrypha.

Online Sources to Read Original Apocrypha

There are many websites where you can read translations of apocrypha, and I especially recommend:

Internet Sacred Text Archive

Early Jewish Writings

Early Christian Writings

Christian Classics Ethereal Library

The Gnostic Archive

You will find many other resources, including summaries and links to translations, on:

e-Clavis: Christian Apocrypha

Sources on Second Temple Judaism

Research on many early Jewish works and the Dead Sea Scrolls discussed in this book was sourced from the following.

John J. Collins, The Dead Sea Scrolls: A Biography (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2012).

Susan Docherty, The Jewish Pseudepigrapha: An Introduction to the Literature of the Second Temple Period (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2015).

Daniel M. Gurtner, Introducing the Pseudepigrapha of Second Temple Judaism: Message, Context, and Significance (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2020).

Eva Mroczek, The Literary Imagination in Jewish Antiquity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016).

George W. E. Nickelsburg, Jewish Literature between the Bible and the Mishnah, 2nd edition (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2005).

James VanderKam, “The Dead Sea Scrolls,” in Early Judaism: New Insights and Scholarship, edited by Frederick E. Greenspahn (New York: New York University Press, 2018), 11-28. (Many of the other essays in this book are worth reading, especially those in the section titled “Early Diversity.”)

Deuterocanonical Works

Many versions of the Bible include the deuterocanonical works, but I especially recommend the following.

Michael D. Coogan (editor), The New Oxford Annotated Bible with the Apocrypha: New Revised Standard Version, 4th edition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010).

Jonathan Klawans and Lawrence M. Wills (editors), The Jewish Annotated Apocrypha (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020). See my review of this volume here.

Albert Pietersma and Benjamin G. Wright (editors), A New English Translation of the Septuagint (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), online here.

If you want a deeper dive into the details of the deuterocanonical books, check out:

David A. deSilva, Introducing the Apocrypha: Message, Context, and Significance, 2nd edition (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2018).

Second Temple Jewish Works

Second Temple Jewish works in translation can be found in the following collections.

Martin J. Abegg, Jr., Peter Flint, and Eugene Ulrich, The Dead Sea Scrolls Bible: The Oldest Known Bible Translated for the First Time into English (New York: HarperOne, 1999).

Geza Vermes, The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English (New York: Allen Lane, 1997).

James H. Charlesworth (editor), The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, 2 volumes (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1985).

Richard Bauckham, James R. Davila, and Alexander Panayotov (editors), Old Testament Pseudepigrapha: More Noncanonical Scriptures (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2013).

Louis Ginzberg, Legends of the Jews, translated by Henrietta Szold and Paul Radin, 2nd edition, 2 volumes (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 2003), including retellings of many extra-biblical narratives from the periods of the Second Temple and Rabbinic Judaism.

Orthodox Tewahedo Works

The following article is a good resource for the Orthodox Tewahedo Christian biblical canon.

Tedros Abraha, “The Biblical Canon of the Orthodoks Täwahədo Church of Ethiopia and Eritrea,” in Il canone biblico nelle chiese orientali: atti del simposio, Pontificio Istituto orientale, Roma 23 marzo 2010, edited by Edward G. Farrugia and Emidio Vergani (Rome: Pontificio Istituto orientale, 2017), 95-122.

Books on Christian Apocrypha

These books are useful for further general reading about apocrypha.

Markus Bockmuehl, Ancient Apocryphal Gospels (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2017).

Tom de Bruin, Extreme Walking: Extrabiblical Books and the Bible (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2018), on reading apocrypha along with the Bible from a Christian perspective.

Tony Burke, Secret Scriptures Revealed: A New Introduction to the Christian Apocrypha (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2013). See my review of this book here.

Bart D. Ehrman, Lost Scriptures: Books that Did Not Make It into the New Testament (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003).

Paul Foster, The Apocryphal Gospels: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009).

Philip Jenkins, The Many Faces of Christ: The Thousand-Year Story of the Survival and Influence of the Lost Gospels (New York: Basic Books, 2015).

Hans-Josef Klauck, The Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles: An Introduction, translated by Brian McNeil (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2008).

—, Apocryphal Gospels: An Introduction, translated by Brian McNeil (London: T&T Clark, 2003).

Simcha Jacobovici and Barrie Wilson, The Lost Gospel: Decoding the Ancient Text that Reveals Jesus’ Marriage to Mary the Magdalene (New York: Pegasus, 2014).

Books on “Gnosticism”

For introductions to “Gnosticism” and the Nag Hammadi Codices, I suggest the following.

April D. DeConick, The Gnostic New Age: How a Countercultural Spirituality Revolutionized Religion from Antiquity to Today (New York: Columbia University Press, 2016).

Nicola Denzey Lewis, Introduction to “Gnosticism”: Ancient Voices, Christian Worlds (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013).

Elaine Pagels, The Gnostic Gospels (New York: Vintage Books, 1989).

Collections of Christian Apocrypha

The following books are good sources of translated Christian apocrypha.

Tony Burke and Brent Landau (editors), New Testament Apocrypha: More Noncanonical Scriptures, Volume 1 (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2016).

Tony Burke (editor), New Testament Apocrypha: More Noncanonical Scriptures, Volume 2 (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2020).

Tony Burke (editor), New Testament Apocrypha: More Noncanonical Scriptures, Volume 3 (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2023).

Bart D. Ehrman and Zlatko Pleše, The Apocryphal Gospels: Texts and Translations (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011).

J. K. Elliott, The Apocryphal New Testament: A Collection of Apocryphal Christian Literature in an English Translation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993).

Edgar Hennecke and Wilhelm Schneemelcher (editors), New Testament Apocrypha, translated by R. McL. Wilson, revised edition, 2 volumes (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1992).

Marvin Meyer (editor), The Nag Hammadi Scriptures: The International Edition (New York: HarperOne, 2007).

Books on Revelations and Apocalypses

On the genre of apocalyptic literature, the following are key introductions.

John J. Collins, The Apocalyptic Imagination: An Introduction to Jewish Apocalyptic Literature, 2nd edition (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1998).

Martha Himmelfarb, The Apocalypse: A Brief History (Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010).

Elaine Pagels, Revelations: Visions, Prophecy, and Politics in the Book of Revelation (New York: Penguin, 2012).

Anathea E. Portier-Young, Apocalypse against Empire: Theologies of Resistance in Early Judaism (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2011).

The Early Jewish and Christian Biblical Canon

For a collection of early Jewish and Christian lists of the biblical canon with translations, see the following.

Edmon L. Gallagher and John D. Meade, The Biblical Canon Lists from Early Christianity: Texts and Analysis (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017).

How Apocrypha Was Defined and Categorized

The following articles discuss modern construction of definitions and categories like “apocrypha,” “pseudepigrapha,” “orthodoxy,” “heresy,” and “diversity.”

Lorenzo DiTommaso, “The ‘Old Testament Pseudepigrapha’ as Category and Corpus,” in A Guide to Early Jewish Texts and Traditions in Christian Transmission, edited by Alexander Kulik, David Hamidović, Gabriele Boccaccini, Lorenzo DiTommaso, and Michael E. Stone (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019), 258-80.

Karen L. King, “Factions, Variety, Diversity, Multiplicity: Representing Early Christian Differences for the 21st Century,” Method & Theory in the Study of Religion 23 (2011): 216-37.

Annette Yoshiko Reed, “The Afterlives of New Testament Apocrypha,” Journal of Biblical Literature 134 (2015): 401-25.

—, “The Modern Invention of ‘Old Testament Pseudepigrapha’,” Journal of Theological Studies 60 (2009): 403-36.