John Main Meditation
THE BOOK OF ‘ECCLESIASTICUS’ FROM THE APOCRYPHA
FROM THE NEW ENGLISH BIBLE* The Apocrypha consists of the books that are found in the Greek version of the Jewish Bible – the ‘Septuagint,’ the earliest complete version of the Bible we possess – but that were not included in the final, canonical version of the Hebrew Bible. For this reason, they were called Apocrypha, the hidden or secret books, and while they formed part of the original King James version of 1611, they are no longer included in modern Bibles. Yet they include such important works as ‘The First Book of Maccabees,’ the ‘Wisdom of Solomon,’ ‘Ecclesiasticus,’ and the stories of ‘Susanna, Tobit, and Judith,’ and other works of great importance for the history of the Jews in the period between the rebuilding of the Temple and the time of Jesus, and thus for the background of the New Testament. These works have also had a remarkable impact on writers and artists. Beyond this, they are often as powerful as anything in the canonical Bible. Download: Preface to the New English Bible, Introduction to the Apocrypha, and the Book of ‘Ecclesiasticus’ *New English Bible (University of Oxford Press, 1970), John Main’s preferred version