Absurd as it may seem, some people treat the Bible like that. One of these takes the story of Jonah and solemnly declares on God’s authority that a man once lived three days in the belly of a fish. An intelligent study of this story shows quite clearly that it is a parable of personal responsibility, the sea being the customary symbol of trouble, the fish being the symbol of the spirit of distress, and the moral of the story teaching that one who evades a clear responsibility is bound to fall into trouble out of which he may learn to do his duty.
Or, perhaps, a very critical reader seizes upon St. Peter and St. Paul, declaring that they are not real men at all, but were types of Jewish and Gentile Christianity in conflict. The historical evidence for those apostles is as convincing as the evidence for Julius Cæsar or Constantine the Great.
The truth is that some parts of the Bible are to be taken literally, others symbolically, and still others historically. When our Lord said, “Go and baptize,” He meant precisely what the words convey, a definite thing to be done. This is made perfectly clear by the fact that the Church proceeded at once to do exactly what our Lord had said. But when the author of the book of Daniel described the strange animal with sprouting horns, there can be little question that he was writing symbolically about the rise and fall of successive kingdoms. When the Old Testament chronicler wrote his account of the Chaldean conquest of Judah, with all its horrors and atrocities, he was writing plain history—a record of something that actually happened without any suggestion that, because it appears in the Bible, anyone will ever be justified in doing the same thing again.
Occasionally one finds a passage where all three of these points of view converge. For instance, “This do in remembrance of Me.”3 It is a literal command, so recognized by His disciples, telling the Church to preserve and perpetuate a specific sacrament. It is also symbolical because it typifies the sacrifice of our Lord, giving Himself to His people for spiritual strengthening. And it is historical as well, for our Lord actually did administer bread and wine to the apostles at a certain time and in a certain place.
THE OLD TESTAMENT
The Old Testament was written in the Hebrew language. The first of such writings dates from about the ninth century before Christ. Up to that time the history of the race had been handed down by word of mouth from generation to generation in song and story, quite in the same way as the early history of any other race. These songs and stories were firmly fixed in the minds of the people, and were recited in their homes, around campfires, and on festival occasions. About the year B.C. 1000, some collections of them began to be assembled such as the Book of the Wars of the Lord and the Book of Jasher.4 From similar sources came longer poems like the Song of Moses5 and the Song of Deborah.6 These collections mark the beginning of what we now call the Old Testament.
The contents of the Old Testament were gradually assembled but it was by no means a steady process. Down to the time of our Lord it was still an open question as to precisely what books should comprise the Canon (that is, the authorized list of contents).
THE APOCRYPHA
The word “Apocrypha” means “hidden” and was originally applied to a large number of writings at the beginning of the Christian era which presented religious mysteries under a mass of symbolical expressions. As applied to those books which we now call the books of the Apocrypha, the term (according to St. Augustine) refers to their hidden origin.
Nobody knows exactly who wrote them, but they had a very wide circulation among the Jews at the time of our Lord’s ministry. As explained above, the Hebrew canon of Holy Scripture had not at that time been definitely fixed, and there was much difference of opinion in the rabbinical schools as to whether any or all of these books should be included in the Sacred Writings. When the Council of Jamnia (A.D. 90) settled the question of the contents of the Hebrew Bible, these fourteen books were all excluded. Meantime, however, the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Old Testament writings) was being produced by the liberal-minded Jews of Alexandria, and the Septuagint included the Apocryphal books.
In the first Christian centuries, various collections of the Sacred Writings were in use, some containing certain of the Apocryphal books and some containing others. Straight down to the Reformation the Apocrypha was included in the official Christian Bible through all of Christendom.
The reformers of the sixteenth century pursued a different course. Finding their exclusive authority in the Holy Scriptures, they carefully examined the question as to the relative standing of these two sets of writings. They recognized a distinction but refused to abolish the Apocrypha which had been an integral part of the Christian Bible for so many centuries. In the first complete edition of Luther’s Bible (A.D. 1534), the Apocrypha was included as a supplement to the Old Testament with the notation that they were books “which are not held equal to the sacred Scriptures, and nevertheless are useful and good to read.” Neither were they discarded in the English Bible but were retained as a separate section between the Testaments, and in the Sixth Article of Religion it was specified that the Church reads them “for example of life and instruction of manners; but yet doth it not apply them to establish any doctrine.”
Protestant sentiment, however, has run more and more to a disparagement of the Apocrypha. About a hundred years ago (in 1827), the British and Foreign Bible Society, over vigorous protest, decided to omit it entirely from their printings of the Bible. Since that time, most English copies of the Authorized or Revised Versions have circulated without the Apocrypha until many readers of the Bible today scarcely know that the books exist. This seems very unfortunate. For fifteen hundred years the Christian world cherished the Apocrypha in its Bibles. It is a fair question to ask what right any person or group of persons has to drop out fourteen books from the Bible which the Christian world used for fifteen centuries and which most of the Christian world still uses today?
THE NEW TESTAMENT
It is important to remember that our Lord wrote nothing. It is also important to remember that for many years after the Church was launched on its career there were no Christian writings at all such as we have now in the New Testament. There was no need for them at the beginning. Our Lord was called “Rabbi” and plainly followed rabbinical methods in instructing His Apostles. These consisted in reiterating to a small, intimate group brief summaries of His teachings which were carefully learned word for word. To these memorized “Sayings” were added eye-witness accounts of things which the Apostles had seen Him do. All this formed the substance of apostolic teaching—“all that Jesus began both to do and teach.”7 From place to place the Apostles traveled, repeating their story and teaching others as they themselves had learned.
These oral accounts of the Messiah circulated through Jewish communities all over the ancient world. Year after year pilgrims from everywhere came up to the Holy City for the annual feasts and sought further instruction. In Jerusalem the Apostles met these inquirers in groups—much as the boy Jesus sat “in the midst of the doctors”—and taught them to memorize the Sayings of Christ, His parables and oral accounts of His deeds. Such official teaching was carried away to all quarters and comprised the Christian Tradition referred to by St. Paul—“hold the traditions which ye have been taught.”8
Then conditions began to change. The number of inquirers became so numerous that it was increasingly difficult to care for them by the group method. These brief, concise instructions began to be written down so they could be carried home by the pilgrims. Also the growing Church brought more and more non-Jews into the fold who knew only Greek and who were unaccustomed to the rabbinical teaching by word of mouth. The Gentiles wanted it in written form. So the Sayings of our Lord, or the “Logia,” came into existence.
Then
