Most people have heard about the Apocrypha, but not everyone knows what it is. The Apocrypha is a collection of books that have claimed to be canonical, but the evidence suggests otherwise. The Canon is the collection of books we have in our modern-day bibles, the Old Testament comprised of the Canon the Jews recognized, and the New Testament comprised of the books first century Christians recognized. These books are inspired by God or provided by God. Most Apocryphal books were written around 200-300 B.C. Examples of some of the most popular include 1&2 Maccabees, Judith, The Prayer of Manasseh, and Bel and the Dragon. As a side note, many Apocryphal books are accepted by other religions, namely the Catholic Church. The ones they accept were deemed canonical in the council of Trent 1545-1563. Many early English Bibles included the Apocrypha, such as the Geneva Bible of 1599 and early versions of the 1611 King James Version Bible. In these editions, the Apocrypha books were set apart, rather than mingled with the other books. Since then, most evidence suggests these books should not be in our canon and have been removed from most modern translations.
I want to look at one Apocryphal book today, and that is The Rest of Esther. The Rest of Esther is additions to the book of Esther we are all familiar with. I do not want to cover all the evidence against it being in our canon, but rather why we do not need it. There are many sources you can find that outlines the evidence against The Rest of Esther, but here is my opinion on why we do not need it, and how it ruins the beauty of the book of Esther.
In short, The Rest of Esther is extra details that we are not given in the book of Esther. It talks about a prophetic dream Mordecai had, it quotes king Ahasuerus on many occasions where the book of Esther does not such as a copy of the decree he sent out in Esther 3:13. So why don’t we have these details in the canonical Esther? God did not think we needed them. And we do not, we understand the point of the account of Esther without these details, and God knew that. How does it ruin the beauty of the book of Esther? By adding details such as “Then Mardocheus [that is, Mordecai] said, God hath done these things.” Part of the beauty of Esther is that we can read and see God’s hand throughout, but it never tells us directly that it was God’s work. We can understand that though. Think about it along with the account of Joseph in Genesis ~37-50. Many times we are told “the LORD was with Joseph,” or similar sayings. Part of the point of Esther is for us to understand that the Lord was with Esther and Mordecai, without the book directly telling us that. We can see God’s hands everywhere throughout Esther.
In conclusion, The Rest of Esther is a collection of details which are not canonical, and we do not need them to understand Esther and the beauty of the book. This is the case with many apocryphal books. We simply do not need them, and they simply do not need to be there. They are not inspired, and God did not want them to be in our Bibles. As previously stated, the intent of this article is not to provide evidence against it, but to look at the content and understand that we do not need the extra details, and God has given us all the tools we need to understand Esther and the rest of the Bible.
I hope this serves as a jumping off point, and you will do some further research on The Rest of Esther, as well as the other Apocrypha.
Further Reading:
The text of The Rest of Esther: wn.elib.com/Library/Religious/AP/Apocry_esthr.html
The books in the Catholic Canon: www.usccb.org/bible/books-of-the-bible/
Evidence of the Canon accepted by Christians: How We Got the Bible (Neil R. Lightfoot, 2003) 152-162
Evidence against the Apocrypha: How We Got the Bible (Neil R. Lightfoot, 2003) 163-172
Thank you for the great article, Jacob B.
I believe that we can get into a lot of trouble if we try and add these to our Bibles and I agree that we do not need them to understand the book of Esther (as recorded in our Bibles). But I would definitely recommend reading through the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha (another collection of Jewish writings) to understand more about what the Jews would have been reading and what would have been shaping their mindsets during the first century. And this even plays a part in some of the things we read about in the early church. Thanks again for the great article, man!
Thank you very much! I definitely agree, we should be educated on what people were reading in the first century, and what some people are reading and believing now.