Jonathan Klawons: What If the Apocrypha Had Not Been Preserved?

Jonathan Klawans, “Jewish Theology and the Apocrypha,” in The Jewish Annotated Apocrypha (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020), 640-641.

If by some ill twist of fortune none of the books of the Apocrypha had been preserved, we would still know two significant things about Jewish religion in the late Second Temple period. We would know, simply by comparing rabbinic literature with the Hebrew Bible, that Jewish theology experienced significant development. Beliefs hardly mentioned in scripture – such as the eschatological resurrection of the dead – emerge full-force in rabbinic literature. We would also know, from Josephus and the New Testament, that many important aspects of late Second Temple Jewish theology were subjects of dispute. According to both of these sources (Josephus, [Jewish War] 2.162-66; Acts 23:6-8) the Pharisees affirmed the afterlife, while the Sadducees denied it. Acts goes on to claim that the Pharisees believed in angels – while Sadducees denied their existence (23.8). Moreover, Josephus tells us that the Sadducees were advocates of human freedom ([Jewish War] 2.164-65), while the Essenes believed that human actions were controlled by fate ([Jewish Antiquities] 18.18). The Pharisees, Josephus explains, believed in both human freedom and divine control ([Jewish War] 2.162-163; [Jewish Antiquities] 18.13). Fortunately, however, the books of the Apocrypha do survive, and they allow us to understand better many key points of Jewish theological dispute and development.

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