An Atheist Explores the Apocrypha Part 40: Closing Thoughts

 The Apocrypha: Closing Thoughts

 This is the last instalment of An Atheist Explores Sacred Texts (Apocrypha version).

In this series I worked my way chapter-by-chapter through the Old Testament Apocrypha, commenting on it from the point of view of the text as literature and mythology.

 For more detail, see the introductory post http://bit.ly/3aEJ6Q5

For the online KJV I use, see here http://bit.ly/2m0zVUP

And now:

I really enjoyed the majority o f those, especially the various folk tale style books, including all of those featuring Daniel, First Esdras and the finest things in life, Judith and her bloody revenge, and Tobit with its road trip and magical fish guts. Add to that the dramatic history of the Maccabees and it’s a rollicking collection of tales.

Less interesting was the Wisdom book of Ben Sirach/Ecclesiasticus – as with Kohellet/Ecclesiastes, it went on a bit, repeating the same points over and over. The Additions to Esther did nothing to add to what was already a concise and excellent book, except to try to shoe-horn old YHWH in where He wasn’t needed. But overall, I really enjoyed them. I can kind of see why some of these didn’t make the Canon; disputes aside about being able to trace Hebrew versions of them, or any fine doctrinal reasoning, they’re just not quite as weighty as the Canon books of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament.

 On another note, I started the Bible Readthrough with a minimum of Biblical knowledge, garnered only through a prior read of the New Testament and what we covered in my Primary School under the heading of “Scripture”, followed by the two years of compulsory Religious Education at Secondary School (before opting out of such stuff). This was purposeful, since I didn’t want any preconceptions about the material. Any theories or suppositions about the meaning of the text were entirely mine.

 But since then, I’ve done more research into, predominantly, historical criticism of the Bible. And to that end, there are some excellent series of lecture on YouTube that are well worth checking out.

First and foremost, I suggest the Yale diptych of lectures. Christine Hayes covers the Old Testament (https://bit.ly/31NwuUU) , followed by Dale B Martin on the New Testament (https://bit.ly/2HyOfAD).

 You really can’t go wrong with Martin’s buddy Bart Ehrman (https://www.youtube.com/user/bartdehrman) who has a host of lectures, interviews and debates on his site (although you’ll get used to the same anecdotes very quickly…) and recently I’ve been following Daniel Fleming at NYU (https://bit.ly/2TvHKRp) who has a lecture series on Ancient Israel. His lecture style takes a few lessons to get used to, but I like it; he teaches the students how to draw their own conclusions from texts (usually Biblical) to try to understand the people behind who wrote them and read/heard them.

 Talking of Ancient Near East culture, Digital Hammurabi, featuring Dr Josh Bowen and Megan Lewis is a great scholarly resource, which touches on Biblical matters from time to time.

 All of these videos approach the Bible from a secular fashion, accepting that it’s sacred to many people but not treating it as therefore inherently inviolate from critique. But there are some good approaches from the believers as well. Dr Henry Abramson (https://www.youtube.com/user/hillelabramson) has loads of presentations on Jewish history, formation of the Bible, Jewish philosophers and lots more, told from the Jewish perspective (expect plenty of good Jewish humour too – Abramson’s summary of Jewish History is “They tried to kill us, we survived, let’s eat”). Also worth checking is Rabbi Lawrence Troster (https://www.youtube.com/user/ltroster) who I understand is sadly no longer with us, but has some good lectures (audio with slides) on the formation of the Bible as well as Jewish philosophers such as Philo, Maimonides and Rashi.

 From the Christian perspective, the best resource I’ve found is Presbyterian Minister, teacher and former lawyer, Bruce Gore (https://www.youtube.com/user/GoreBruce) who has some great lecture series on The Historical Context of the Bible and The History of God’s People. Gore is an entertaining speaker, and although I never thought I’d find myself interested in 19th century missionary work in the Pacific Northwest, he really brings the stories to life. He’s also got a load of in-depth studies of the Bible, but I haven’t tackled them, having been Gored-out for a while.

 Other channels that I’ve dipped into but not really spent much time in are Religion for Breakfast (https://www.youtube.com/user/ReligionForBreakfast), Milwaukee Atheists (and their Atheist Sunday School) (https://bit.ly/37QXBT2) and what list would be complete without the utterly irreverent and yet studiously fastidious Bible Reloaded (https://bit.ly/37OZzmJ) with Hannah and Jake.

 Hours of fun for everyone! (And that’s not even including the actual reading type stuff, like the Apostolic Fathers, Philo of Alexandria, Origen, Eusebius, Tertullian, Justin Martyr and some still lined up in my Kindle.

I’l l be back to Judaeo-Christianity eventually, looking at all of the really shaky stuff like Enoch, Gospel  of Thomas and various fragmentary and heretical writings, but in the meanwhile, I’m off to India for a different set of sacred texts.

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