A Bluffer's Guide to the Apocrypha Quiz

Answer: 200

The books of the Apocrypha, as defined by the King James version of the Bible are: 1 & 2 Esdras, Tobit, Judith, Esther, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch and the Epistle of Jeremy, Song of the Three Children, Susanna, Bel and the Dragon, Prayer of Manasses, 1 & 2 Maccabees.

These books come from a time when the "official" stance was that God had stopped speaking directly to his people. It was also a time when Greek culture and then Roman culture was spreading across the known world. A key question for the Jews, therefore, was the question of compromise. What do you do in such a situation if you have a message you feel people need to hear? What these authors did was to place their stories in a time when God had been speaking. Thus, most of these books relate to historical characters from much earlier periods, but the themes raised are very much those of the Jews in the 1st and 2nd centuries BC - faithfulness, identity and purity.

Answer: Tobit

Tobit, a faithful Jew in Nineveh, prays that God will help him to die. At the same time, in Media, a woman calls Sarah prays the same prayer. She is the one who has had seven husbands and each has died on the night of the wedding. God hears both prayers and sends the angel Raphael to sort things out.

Tobias is the son whom Tobit, thinking himself to be dying, sends on the journey. This is the only book that I can recall in scripture to mention a pet dog: "So Tobias and the angel started out toward Media, taking Tobias' dog along with them." (Tobit 6 v. 1)

To cut a long story short, Tobias ends up marrying Sarah and everyone lives happily after, especially Tobit who survives a further 50 years.

Answer: Solomon

The book of Wisdom, aka the Wisdom of Solomon, dates from the 1st or 2nd century BC.

The idea, found sometimes in literature, that Jesus was born at midnight, comes from a verse in Wisdom: "For while gentle silence enveloped all things, and night in its swift course was now half gone, your all-powerful word leaped from heaven, from the royal throne." (Wisdom 18 v. 14-15)

Answer: Judith

Judith (or "Jew-dith") is a young widow living in a small Israelite hill-town that is being besieged by a massive Assyrian army. The story is filled with irony. Having approached the enemy front line, attired in alluring dress, she and her servant are escorted by no less than 100 soldiers to the tent of Holofernes, the Assyrian commander. No doubt this is two pressed men and 98 volunteers!

Holofernes is so full of himself that he comes out with the following wonderful line: "It would be a shame to pass up an opportunity to make love to a woman like that. If I don't try to seduce her, she will laugh at me." (Judith 12 v. 12)

Judith does, of course, laugh at him, but only as she's carrying off his head in her handbag.

Answer: She wanted God to help her lie.

Holofernes wanted to lie with Judith. She wanted God to help her lie to him. Her prayer is expressed in these words:
"Hear my prayer and let my deceitful words wound and kill those who have planned such cruelty against your covenant and your holy Temple, against Mount Zion and the land you have given your people." (Judith 9 v. 13)

Can God bless somebody's lie? It's not something you need to worry about if you're the bluffer. Ask the question and let others do the hard work.

Answer: The rest of Esther

Esther is very similar to Judith in that it tells the story of a woman who uses her beauty to save her people. The version found in the Old Testament is noted for being the only book in the Bible not to mention the name of God. This is corrected in the Apocrypha.

Answer: Daniel

Daniel turns out to have been a prototype Sherlock Holmes. He saves Susanna by cross-examining the elders individually and asking them which tree they had seen her under. Both gave different answers and, to add to the humour, one named a large tree, the other a small tree.

The other two books that link with Daniel are "Bel and the Dragon" and "Song of the Three Children". "Bel and the Dragon" is a short work consisting of three individual stories. The first of these takes the form of a detective story set in Babylon. Daniel complains to the King about the people's worship of the idol, Bel. The priests of Bel maintain that the idol is a real life creature that, each night, consumes the food that has been left as sacrifices. They strike what will turn out to be an unwise deal. The King is to inspect the food left one evening and then seal the chamber from the outside. If the food is gone in the morning, Daniel will be put to death. If not, the priests will die. Daniel and the King place the food and, before withdrawing to lock the doors from the outside, Daniel does something that will ensure his survival in the morning. I shall make you scroll down for the answer for the sake of those who may wish to ponder.
















There is, of course, trickery involved here. The priests have a secret trap door under the altar through which they come at night to eat the food. Daniel exposes them by spreading a layer of ash on the floor. They don't see this in the dark but their footprints are clearly visible in the morning.

Answer: 2 Esdras

"Address" does, of course, have two ds where only one is needed for Esdras, so use that to remember that it's 2 Esdras you're after. The verse in question is 2 Esdras 6 v. 42: "On the third day you commanded the waters to be gathered together in a seventh part of the earth; six parts you dried up and kept so that some of them might be planted and cultivated and be of service before you."
Columbus argued that, if the world is six parts land and only one part water, no sea journey could be overly long.

Answer: Septuagint

"Sept (French for seven), you agent!"

OK, I admit it was fairly dire but you try coming up with a memory aid for Septuagint. The proof, of course, is whether you can still remember it in 24 hours time.

The name is derived from the Latin, "Interpretatio septuaginta virorum", meaning a translation made by seventy translators. Its origins are not entirely clear but the "Letter of Aristeas", from the second century BC, claims that it began with a commission to translate the Torah (first five books of the Old Testament) into Greek. Ater this was completed, further books were translated and the term Septuagint came to be used for the entire collection, certainly in early Christian circles. Various writers, including the first-century philosopher, Philo of Alexandria, write about the miraculous writing of the original, coming through 72 different writers, locked in 72 different rooms for 70 days, and all producing the same translation.

Answer: 2 Maccabees

The verse in question is found in the second book of Maccabees (or "MaccaBEES"):
"He then took up a collection among all his soldiers, amounting to two thousand silver drachmas, which he sent to Jerusalem to provide for an expiatory sacrifice. In doing this he acted in a very excellent and noble way, inasmuch as he had the resurrection of the dead in view; for if he were not expecting the fallen to rise again, it would have been useless and foolish to pray for them in death. But if he did this with a view to the splendid reward that awaits those who had gone to rest in godliness, it was a holy and pious thought. Thus he made atonement for the dead that they might be freed from this sin." (2 Maccabees 12 v. 43-46)

The Protestant reformers were also unhappy at the Catholic Church's stress on salvation by almsgiving, based partly on allusions in Ecclesiasticus and Tobit.

The response of the Catholic Church was to swing the other way and, at the 1546 Council of Trent, they confirmed the Apocrypha to be unequivocally part of the Bible: "He is also to be anathema who does not receive these entire books, with all their parts, as they have been accustomed to be read in the Catholic Church, and are found in the ancient editions of the Latin Vulgate, as sacred and canonical."