Praise for Stories
Unknown
John Shuck
First Presbyterian
Church
Elizabethton,
Tennessee
July 6, 2008
On our quest to cover the Bible in 2008, we are spending
July and August with texts that may be unfamiliar to us, us being those
familiar with the Protestant tradition.
These are books Protestants call the Apocrypha. Roman Catholics refer to these books as
Deuterocanonical, meaning that they are part of the biblical canon but not
recognized as such until later.
It was the Protestant Reformation that finally narrowed the
canon of accepted books to 66 for Protestants.
Roman Catholics countered by including many of these other works. Also, Orthodox churches include some of these
in their accepted canon.
These texts were written between 300BCE and 100 CE, and are
a response, in a large part, to the conquest of Alexander the Great and the
process of Hellenization, the influence of Greek culture.
There has been an increased interest in these works, partly
in response to ecumenical dialogue between Protestants and Roman Catholics and
partly in seeking to understand the time period closer to the time of Jesus.
There are different types of literature in this collection,
history, poetry, and wisdom, and today I am going to tell the Romance
stories. These are fictional tales that
are meant to inspire individuals to acts of courage and piety.
The Apocrypha has had influence in our history. Theological concepts such as the immortality
of the soul, guardian angels, and the Jewish celebration of Hanukkah are rooted
in the Apocrypha.
William Shakespeare was fond of the Apocrypha, so much so
that he named his two daughters, Judith and Susanna. We will hear their stories this morning.
I am going to tell the stories of Judith and Tobit. Then I will tell the stories from the Daniel
tradition, which include Susanna, Bel and The Dragon, and the prayer of Azariah
and the three young men.
The story of Judith is set in the time of King
Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. What is odd
is that the author of Judith writes that Nebuchadnezzar is the King
Assyria. This is obviously wrong. It would be like saying that George
Washington was the First President of Russia.
Scholars have wondered why this author made such an obvious historical
error.
The best explanation I have found is that the author
intentionally did this as a way of showing that the story of Judith is fiction,
like modern authors will do when they invent a place or an historical figure to
give the sense of history, but to tell a fictional story.
Judith is likely written during the 2nd century
BCE during the time following the infamous Antiochus IV Epipahanes, one of the
most brutal oppressors of the Jewish people who set himself up as a god,
demanding allegiance from all people.
Judith is a story of resistance. One can imagine that this story would have
been told over and over to inspire courage and piety, and when needed,
cleverness and bold action.
1) Nebuchanezzar
wants allies to defeat Arphaxad of the Medes, modern Iran. Calls on all the
people from the West including Israel and Egypt to join him. They refuse.
Nebuchanezzar vows revenge.
2) He
defeats Arphaxad and plots his revenge against those who did not support him.
He chooses his general Holofernes to take 120,000 troops and
60,000 cavalry and plunder the West.
3) Off
he goes killing and plundering, destroying all altars as everyone must worship
Nebuchanezzar alone.
4) The
Israelites hear of this and are terrified Jerusalem and for their newly
constructed temple as they had only recently returned from exile. So they fortify their cities and prepare for
war.
5) They
also pray to the Lord. The Lord hears
their prayers.
6) Word
gets to Holofernes that the Israelites are preparing for war. He wants to know what is up with these
folks. He asks the leaders of the
surrounding countries, Moab and Ammon to tell him about them.
7) Achior
the Ammonite recounts Israelite history for them. They escaped Egypt, but since they abandoned
YHWH they were take captive in Babylon, but have returned. “As long sa they did not since against their
God, they prospered, for the God who hates iniquity is with them. But when they departed form the way he had prescribed for them, they
were utterly defeated in many battles and were led away captive to a foreign
land.” So, here is how you defeat
them: “if they sin against God, and we
find out their offense, we can go up and defeat them. But if they are not guilty, then avoid them,
for their Lord will take you out.
8) Holofornes
after deliberation says, “Who is their
god? There is only one god,
Nebuchanezzar! We will overwhelm them!” He sent Alchior to Israel with the the threat
that he would die with the Israelites.
9) The
Israelites find Alchior and he tells them about the plans of Holofernes.
10) HOlofernes advances with now 170,000 foot
soldiers and 12,000 cavalry to the mountain pass at Bethulia. The Israelites are terrified and they pray
and pray. The Assyrian army surrounds
them for 34 days and cuts off their water supply. The Israelites are fainting in the streets.
11) They begin to lose their faith and call out
against their leader Uzziah for not making peace with the Assyrians. “It would be better for us to be captured by
them!”
12) Uzziah says
“Courage! Hang in there for five more
days. If the Lord doesn’t protect us
then I will do as you say.”
13) Enter
Judith. Judith a widow, was lovely to
behold. Her husband had left her many
riches. She feared God with great
devotion.
14) When she hears
what has happened she scolds the people for putting God to the test. Trust the Lord, she says. We have not worshiped any idol. So let us give thanks to the Lord who is
testing us. Uzziah the king praises
her words and her wisdom.
15) Judith says, “I
have a plan but I won’t tell you what it is.”
Uzziah gives his approval. Judith
prays a lengthy prayer, then bathed and perfumed herself and dressed in festive
attire. She and her maid exit the town
gate.
16) When she meets
the Assyrian patrols she tells them that she is a Hebrew but is escaping from
them and wants to visit Holofernes, so she can tell him how to capture the hill
country without losing any of his men.
17) Everyone is
astounded by her beauty. Holofernes
welcomes her. Judith lies through her
teeth, telling him that Nebuchanezzar is the king of the whole earth. But she also adds that what Alchior said is
true. That they can only defeat Israel
unless Israel sins against God. But,
they are about to sin. Since they are
running short of water and food, they have planned to kill their livestock and
eat what God has forbidden them to eat.
They are going to consume the first fruits that have been consecrated
for God. As soon as they do this, they
will be defeated. When I learned they
were doing this, I fled from them. Every
night I will pray and when God tells me they have sinned, I will tell you, lead
you to Jerusalem and set up your thrown.
18) Holofernes liked
this news. Judith prays for three days
and she bathes and is very beautiful.
But she won’t eat with them. She
has brought her own food. She stays in her own tent. Holofernes gets ideas. He invites her to his tent. She accepts. Holofernes passion, says the text, “was
aroused, for he had been waiting for an opportunity to seduce her from the
first day he saw her.”
19) Holofernes gets
drunk, more drunk than he had ever been in his life. Judith doesn’t drink his wine, but drinks her
own. Holofernes and Judith are alone in
the tent. Holofernes is passed out. Judith prays that the Lord will give her
strength and on the bedpost above Holofernes head she took down his sword,
struck his neck twice with the sword and cut off his head.
20) She hides his body as best she can, puts his
head in the food bag and she and her maid quietly walk out as they were
accustomed to do for prayer.
21) They go back to
Bethulia and pull his head out of the bag.
She tells Uzziah to put the head on the wall, get everyone ready with
swords so the Assyrian army can see you.
When they go in to rouse Holofernes and see him without his head, they
will panic.
22) That is exactly what happened. The Assyrian army ran in a panic and the
Israelites attacked and slaughtered the Assyrians and took all the booty. Judith got to keep all the stuff that was in
the tent of Holofernes. She broke into
song, led a parade, and offered prayers of thanksgiving to God.
23) While many
offered to marry her, she never would.
She remained chaste, grew older and wiser, reaching the age of 105. “No one ever again spread terror among the
Israelites during the lifetime of Judith, or for a long time after her death.
That is the story of Judith.
It is the story of how a wise, courageous, beautiful, pious woman gets
ahead.
The next story is about Tobit. This is a story created write around 200
BCE. It is also a story of courage and
piety. It is set in the time of conquest
of Assyria over Israel in the 8th century.
1) Tobit
is a pious man, who makes his offerings in accordance with the laws of
Moses. He is very generous to the
poor. He has a wife, Anna, and a son named Tobias. Tobit is captured by the Assyrians and taken
to Nineveh. Even there he would not eat
the food of the Gentiles. While there he
earned the favor of the Assyrian King, Shalmanezer. He
would buy what Shalmanezer needed. Tobit
left money in Media under the care of a man named Gabael.
2) Tobit
lost favor with the king because he would provide proper burial to those
Israelites who the king would put to death against the wishes of the king. All of his property was confiscated and he
had to flee.
3) He
goes home. On Pentecost, he has a feast
and tells his son Tobias to find a poor person to share the feast. Tobias returns and tells him that an
Israelite has been murdered and is lying in the marketplace. Tobias goes out and takes the body and gives
it a proper burial.
4) That
night he goes to sleep by the wall. Some
sparrows above the wall drop their droppings into his eyes. His eyes are covered with a white film. The doctors prescribe ointments which make it
worse and he goes blind. He remains
blind for four years. He gets
depressed, snaps at his wife and finally prays that the Lord would take his life.
5) At
the exact moment that he offers this prayer, a woman named Sarah is being
scolded by one of her father’s maids. Sarah
lives in Media, where Tobit had left his money.
Sarah had been married to seven husbands. Each husband had been killed on the wedding
day by the evil demon Asmodeus. “You
kill your husbands!” said the maid. “You
take your grief out on us!”
6) Sarah
is upset and at the same time Tobias offers his prayer to die, she goes up to
hang herself in her father’s bedroom.
She changes her mind. The story
told wouldn’t sound good. She prays
instead that the Lord that the Lord would either give her a husband or take her
life.
7) Both
Tobit’s prayer and Sarah’s prayer are heard in the glorious presence of God.
8) The
angel, Raphael, is sent to heal both of them, to Tobit to heal him of
blindness, and to Sarah, that she might marry Tobit’s son Tobias.
9) Here
is how it happened. Tobit remembered the
money that he left in Media. Tobit tells
Tobias about the money and gives him a long speech about being pious and
generous. In all your conduct, “what you
hate, do not do to anyone.”
10) Tobias heads off
to Media to get the money. He looks for
someone to go with him and he meets Raphael, the angel. Tobias doesn’t know he is an angel. He introduces him to Tobit and they make a
deal for how much he will be paid to accompany Tobit.
11) Tobias and
Raphael go on their journey. And a dog
joins them. They stop along the Tigris
River. As Tobias goes to wash in the
river, a fish leaps out and tries to swallow his foot. But the angel said, “Grab the fish!” The angel says to cut out its gall, heart,
and liver. The gall, heart, and liver
are good medicine.
12) They ate the rest of the fish and continued on
their journey. Tobias asked him what
good medicine that the gall, heart and liver have? The angel Raphael says that if you burn the
heart and liver to make smoke in the presence of a man or woman afflicted by a
demon, the demon will leave and never return.
Also if you anoint a person’s eyes with the gall they will be cured of
blindness.
13) When they arrive
in Media, Raphael says that they will stay in the house of Sarah’s father. He is a relative. And you have claim upon her as your wife. Besides Sarah is brave, sensible, and
beautiful. I will talk to her father
about it.
14) Tobias says, I
have heard that she was married to seven husbands and they all died in the
bridal chamber. Raphael said,
trust. When you go into the bridal
chamber burn the heart and liver of the fish.
The demon will smell the smoke and leave. But before you go to bed, make sure you both
pray.
15) So Raphael and
Tobias meet with the family and exchange good wishes. Tobias indicates his desire to marry
Sarah. Her father says that’s great but
there is something I gotta tell ya.
Every husband dies on the wedding night.
16) They get married
and that night Tobias and Sarah are in the bridal chamber. Tobias takes out the fish heart and liver and
sets them on fire. The odor of the fish
was so nasty that the demon fled to the remotest part of Egypt. But the angel Raphael followed the demon and
bound him hand and foot. Tobias and
Sarah pray.
17) Meanwhile the
parents aren’t so confident. Sarah’s
father tells his servant to dig a grave for Tobias. They want to bury this one without anyone
knowing.
18) Lo and behold,
the maid comes out and says that Tobias survived the night. So Sarah’s father tells the servants to
quickly fill the grave before anyone sees it.
19) They have a fourteen
day wedding celebraation. Tobit tells
Raphael to get the money and they return home, because his parents are waiting
and worrying.
20) When they finally
arrive home, Raphael tells Tobias to anoint his father’s eyes with the fish
gall. He does and Tobias sees.
21) Raphael tells
them that he was their angel who planned the whole thing. He brought the prayers of Sarah and Tobit to
the Lord. When Tobit had buried the
dead he was sent to test him. Raphael
tells them pray and to acknowledge God in all things. Raphael says:
“Prayer with fasting is good, but better than both is almsgiving with
righteousness.”
22) Tobit lived to be
112. Tobias took great care of his
parents and of Sarah’s parents. He lived
to be 117.
Thus is the story of Tobit and why many people believe and
trust in guardian angels still today.
The final stories come from the Daniel tradition. Daniel is a book found in the Hebrew
Scriptures. It is purported to be about
an historical figure in the time of the exile in the 6th century
BCE. Scholars date it to the 3rd
or 2nd century BCE. It is
fiction set in the time of the Exile to encourage the people in the time it is
written to resist encroaching Hellenism and to be faithful to their Jewish
traditions and identity. It contains the
story of the handsome Daniel who refuses to stop praying to YHWH even at the
command of Nebuchanezzar who throws him the lion’s den. YHWH shuts the mouths of the lions and wins
Nebuchanezzar over.
In the Apocrypha we find three additional stories to
Daniel. The first, Bel and The Dragon is
similar to Daniel and the Lion’s Den.
Bel was an idol of the Babylonians. The king asked Daniel why he didn’t worship
Bel. Daniel said that he didn’t worship
idols. But the king said, Bel is
living. He eats and drinks. Daniel says that is a lie. So the king called the priests of Bel and
said who has been eating the food set before Bel. If you cannot tell me you will die. But if
you can prove to me that Bel eats them Daniel will die.
Daniel agreed to the contest. The 70 priests of Bel and their wives and
children prepared a feast for Bel and put it on the table in front of Bel. The priests were not worried as they had a
trap door underneath the table from which they would sneak out in the night and
eat the food.
The king sealed the door shut to the temple where Bel
was. Before he did Daniel had ash spread
all over the ground. The priests did not
know it. The next day when they went back
Daniel pointed out the footprints on the ash and the king was outraged,
arrested the priests and gave the idol to Daniel who destroyed it and its
temple.
There was also a Dragon whom the Babylonians revered. The king said to Daniel, “You can’t deny that
this is a living God!” Daniel said, “I
only worship the real God. I will tell
you what I will do. I will kill the
dragon without sword or club.” The king
gave him permission.
So Daniel took pitch, fat, and hair and boiled them together and made cakes and fed them to the dragon. The dragon ate them, and burst open.
The Babylonians were upset.
This Daniel has destroyed Bel and the Dragon. So they went to the king and told him to hand
over Daniel or they would kill the king.
The king handed Daniel over to them.
Daniel was thrown into a lion’s den for six days.
Meanwhile, Habakkuk, the prophet was in Judea. The lord told Habbakuk to go toBabylon and
give Daniel lunch. Habbakuk said he
didn’t know where Babylon was. So the
Lord pulled him by the hair and flew him over to Babylon. When Daniel saw the food, he thanked god for
not forsaking those who love him.
The next day the king came to the lion’s den and saw Daniel
still alive. The king prayed to the God
of Daniel and threw all of those who attempted Daniel’s destruction into the
lion’s den where they were eaten immediately.
In addition to Bel and the Dragon, there is the story of
Susanna which is also in the Daniel tradition.
Susanna, as you might guess was very beautiful and
pious. She was married to a man named
Joakim who was very wealthy. Two elders
were elected as judges and would hold court and Joakim’s house. But
they were very wicked.
These two elders would watch Susanna everyday and burn with
lust. Each tried to keep the other from
knowing. One day they departed each to
his own home for lunch, but each of them came back instead to have a peak at
Susanna in the garden. They found each
other, were embarrassed and confessed to each other their lust for
Susanna.
They decided that they would find a way to seduce her. They waited until her maid left and found her
and said, “Sleep with us, or we will say that a young man was with you.”
Susanna was greatly distressed, but decided to take her
chances.
So she was taken to court where the elders testified that
they had seen her alone with a young man who escaped before they could grab
them. Because they were elders, the
people believed them and Susanna was sentenced to death.
Susanna cried out to God for justice. The Lord heard her cry and stirred up the
spirit of Daniel. He shouted this is
wrong and brought them back to court.
Daniel said to separate the two elders and he would examine them
individually.
He asked one under which tree did you see them being
intimate? And the one said, under a
mastic tree.” To the other he asked the
same question. He said, “under an
evergreen oak.”
The whole assembly raised a great shout and blessed God, who
saves those who hope in him. They put
the elders to death. They praised
Susanna, who was beautiful, pious, and true.
And they praised Daniel who earned a great reputation among the people.
The Prayer of Azariah is the prayer of the three young men
who in the Book of Daniel were thrown into a fiery furnace for refusing to bow
down to the idol. This prayer is the
prayer that was said while they were in the furnace. In response to the prayer an angel comes down
and cools the flames and the three burst in to songs of praise to God.
It is the story we know as Shadrach Meshak and
Abednego.
Here is the version in song by “The Fairfield Four.”
The main characters are Shadrach, Meshak and Abednego
King Nebuchanezzar, the idol, the fiery furnace, and the
angel of the Lord.
