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neilrcoulter's review against another edition
3.0
I’ve been a Protestant Christian for much of my life, and most of my experience has been in traditions that don’t say much about the apocryphal literature. I’ve known something about some of the books, and I’ve read parts of it here and there, but when I follow the Anglican lectionary and a section of an apocryphal book comes up, I really don’t know where it fits into the big story. Earlier this year in our evening Bible study group, we discovered that we all had similar experience. So we decided it would be fun to work through these mysterious books together. As the leader, I knew I’d need a good guide to help me with the background and context, and I found a lot of recommendations online for this book, Invitation to the Apocrypha, by Daniel J. Harrington.
I was particularly intrigued by a line in the back-cover blurb: “A distinctive feature of this primer is its focus throughout on the problem of suffering. . . . Harrington shows how each book makes a valuable contribution to our understanding of this universal human experience.” But I didn’t see this theme in the chapters. Instead, after a brief introductory chapter, Harrington proceeds book by book, each chapter presenting the context for the book (the time in which it was written and the time in which its story is set), a summary of the book, and the significance and some of the major issues. Basically, then, it’s like a lot of books that give a similar kind of overview of the Bible. That’s fine, and it’s what I needed for the group’s study, but I had expected something more unifying through all the chapters. Because of that, the book was helpful, but not particularly remarkable. I do recommend it to others who want to get to know the Apocrypha, but the most important parts for me were the introductions to each book’s context and significance; I found the summaries less helpful, as the books themselves are generally not very difficult to read and understand.
I was particularly intrigued by a line in the back-cover blurb: “A distinctive feature of this primer is its focus throughout on the problem of suffering. . . . Harrington shows how each book makes a valuable contribution to our understanding of this universal human experience.” But I didn’t see this theme in the chapters. Instead, after a brief introductory chapter, Harrington proceeds book by book, each chapter presenting the context for the book (the time in which it was written and the time in which its story is set), a summary of the book, and the significance and some of the major issues. Basically, then, it’s like a lot of books that give a similar kind of overview of the Bible. That’s fine, and it’s what I needed for the group’s study, but I had expected something more unifying through all the chapters. Because of that, the book was helpful, but not particularly remarkable. I do recommend it to others who want to get to know the Apocrypha, but the most important parts for me were the introductions to each book’s context and significance; I found the summaries less helpful, as the books themselves are generally not very difficult to read and understand.
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