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Some Snippets of Astonishing Influence of the Apocrypha The following delightful snippets of
information have been sourced from the introduction pages of an old Oxford Annotated Apocrypha. Some of these bits are somewhat
astonishing, but they give us an idea of the surprising extent to which the
Apocrypha has influenced the western world.
Enjoy . . . ‘On the third day thou didst command the waters to be gathered
together in the seventh part of the earth; six parts thou didst dry up and
keep so that some of them might be planted and cultivated and be of service
before thee.’ (2 Esdras 6:42) The above passage
is taken from the Apocrypha (2 Esdras 6:42) and the words are supposed to be
the words of Ezra. However these words
were written much later, and are an inaccurate comment on the Genesis story
of creation. But in an ironic twist,
this erroneous passage came to play two vital roles in the enterprise that
resulted in Christopher Columbus discovering And some more . . . Over the years,
there has been much discussion about how well Shakespeare was acquainted with
the Bible. It is interesting to note
that two of his daughters bore the names of two of the most well-known
heroines of the Apocrypha, Susanna and Judith. But what is of greater significance, is that
contained in Shakespeare’s plays, are about eighty passages alluded to from
eleven books of the Apocrypha. Many hymn writers
have drawn inspiration from the Apocrypha, and in some cases, lines are
quoted, verbatim. For example, the hymn
‘Now Thank We All Our God’, translated from the German by Catherine
Winkworth, show the extent of borrowing – printed in italics: Now thank we all our God O may this bounteous God With heart and hands and voices, Through all our life be near
us, Who wondrous things hath done, With ever joyful hearts In whom His world rejoices; And blessed peace to cheer us; Who, from our mother’s arms, And keep us in His grace, Hath blessed us on our way And guide us when perplexed, With countless gifts of love, And free us from all ills And still is ours today. In this world and the
next. And an extraordinary one about how we now view Christmas . . . More surprisingly
still, ideas included in the Christmas hymn ‘It Came Upon a Midnight Clear’
have been traced to the Apocrypha. The
New Testament accounts of the Nativity say nothing about the exact time of
the birth of Christ, and in this hymn the concept of midnight has come from a
passage (below) found in the Wisdom of Solomon: For while gentle silence enveloped all
things, and night in its swift course was now half
gone, thy all-powerful word leaped from heaven,
from the royal throne, into the midst of the land that was doomed
. . . ( What makes this utterly astonishing
is that the verses have been taken completely out of context. The passage actually refers, not to the
Word of God becoming flesh, but to the death of all the first-born Egyptians
at the time of the Exodus! Another
incredible and ironic twist. Over the years,
many anthems, cantatas, oratorios and operas have been inspired by writings
contained in the Apocrypha, probably the most well-known today are Handel’s
oratorios ‘Susanna’ and ‘Judas Maccabaeus’, and in the early days of operatic
history, the stirring story of Judith lent itself well to many dramatic
presentations. In the nineteenth
century, Russian pianist and composer, Anton Rubenstein, published an opera
of monumental proportions called ‘The Maccabees’. Our well known hymn ‘Thine be the
Glory’ borrows its tune from part of Handel’s oratorio ‘Judas Maccabaeus’. During the
Renaissance and later, many painters chose subjects from the books of the
Apocrypha. Almost every large gallery
in Europe and Thus we glimpse a little of the
influence the Apocrypha has had on the western world over the years. Although not part of the original Hebrew
Scriptures, the Apocrypha has certainly made its mark in history! |
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