Prayer of Manasseh

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The Prayer of Manasseh is a short, penitential prayer attributed to king Manasseh of Judah.

Contents

The majority of scholars believe that the Prayer of Manasseh was written in Greek (while a minority argues for a Semitic original) in the second or first century BC. [1] [2] It is recognised that it could also have been written in the first half of the 1st century AD, but in any case before the Destruction of the Second Temple in 70 AD. [2] Another work by the same title, written in Hebrew, was found among the Dead Sea Scrolls (4Q381:17). [1]

Origin

Manasseh is recorded in the Bible as one of the most idolatrous kings of Judah (2 Kings 21:1–18; 2 Chronicles 33:1–9). The second Book of Chronicles, but not the second Book of Kings, records that Manasseh was taken captive by the Assyrians (2 Chronicles 33:11–13). While a prisoner, Manasseh prayed for mercy, and upon being freed and restored to the throne turned from his idolatrous ways (2 Chronicles 33:15–17). A reference to a penitential prayer, but not the prayer itself, is made in 2 Chronicles 33:19, which says that the prayer is written in "the annals of the kings of Israel".

Canonicity

The prayer's canonicity is disputed. It appears in ancient Syriac, [3] [4] [5] Old Slavonic, Ethiopic, and Armenian translations. [6] [7] In the Ethiopian Bible, the prayer is found in 2 Chronicles. The earliest Greek text is the fifth-century Codex Alexandrinus . [3] A Hebrew manuscript of the prayer was found in Cairo Geniza. [8] It is considered apocryphal by Jews, Catholics and Protestants. It was placed at the end of 2 Chronicles in the late 4th-century Vulgate. Over a millennium later, Martin Luther included the prayer in his 74-book translation of the Bible into German. It was part of the 1537 Matthew Bible, and the 1599 Geneva Bible. It also appears in the Apocrypha of the King James Bible and of the original 1609/1610 Douai-Rheims Bible. Pope Clement VIII included the prayer in an appendix to the Vulgate.

The prayer is included in some editions of the Greek Septuagint. For example, the 5th century Codex Alexandrinus includes the prayer among fourteen Odes appearing just after the Psalms. [6] It is accepted as a deuterocanonical book by Orthodox Christians. [9]

Liturgical use

The prayer is chanted during the Eastern Orthodox Christian and Byzantine Catholic service of Great Compline. It is used in the Roman Rite as part of the Responsory after the first reading in the Office of Readings on the 14th Sunday in Ordinary Time (along with Psalm 51). In the Extraordinary Form, in the Roman Rite Breviary; in the corpus of responsories sung with the readings from the books of Kings between Trinity Sunday and August, the seventh cites the Prayer of Manasseh, together with verses of Psalm 50, the penitential Psalm par excellence. [10] It is used also as a canticle in the Daily Office of the 1979 U.S. Book of Common Prayer used by the Episcopal Church in the United States of America, and as Canticle 52 in Common Worship: Daily Prayer of the Church of England.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Apocrypha</span> Works of unknown authorship or of doubtful origin

Apocrypha are written works, often of unknown authorship or doubtful origin. In Christianity, the word apocryphal (ἀπόκρυφος) was first applied to writings which were to be read privately rather than in the public context of church services—edifying Christian works which were not considered canonical Scripture. In the wake of the Protestant Reformation, the word apocrypha came to mean "false, spurious, bad, or heretical".

The deuterocanonical books are books and passages considered by the Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Oriental Orthodox Churches, and the Assyrian Church of the East to be canonical books of the Old Testament, but which Protestant denominations regard as apocrypha. They date from 300 BC to 100 AD, mostly from 200 BC to 70 AD, before the definite separation of the Christian church from Judaism. While the New Testament never directly quotes from or names these books, the apostles most frequently used and quoted the Septuagint, which includes them. Some say there is a correspondence of thought, and others see texts from these books being paraphrased, referred, or alluded to many times in the New Testament, depending in large measure on what is counted as a reference.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Septuagint</span> Greek translation of Hebrew scriptures

The Septuagint, sometimes referred to as the Greek Old Testament or The Translation of the Seventy, and often abbreviated as LXX, is the earliest extant Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible from the original Hebrew. The full Greek title derives from the story recorded in the Letter of Aristeas to Philocrates that "the laws of the Jews" were translated into the Greek language at the request of Ptolemy II Philadelphus by seventy-two Jewish translators—six from each of the Twelve Tribes of Israel.

1 Esdras, also Esdras A, Greek Esdras, Greek Ezra, or 3 Esdras, is the ancient Greek Septuagint version of the biblical Book of Ezra in use within the early church, and among many modern Christians with varying degrees of canonicity. 1 Esdras is substantially similar to the standard Hebrew version of Ezra–Nehemiah, with the passages specific to the career of Nehemiah removed or re-attributed to Ezra, and some additional material.

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The Book of Odes is a book of the Bible found only in Eastern Orthodox Bibles and included or appended after the Psalms in Alfred Rahlfs' critical edition of the Septuagint, coming from the fifth-century Codex Alexandrinus. The chapters are prayers and songs (canticles) from the Old and New Testaments. The first nine of them form the basis for the canon sung during matins and other services.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Biblical apocrypha</span> Ancient books found in some editions of Bibles

The biblical apocrypha denotes the collection of apocryphal ancient books thought to have been written some time between 200 BC and AD 400. The Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox churches include some or all of the same texts within the body of their version of the Old Testament, with Roman Catholics terming them deuterocanonical books. Traditional 80-book Protestant Bibles include fourteen books in an intertestamental section between the Old Testament and New Testament called the Apocrypha, deeming these useful for instruction, but non-canonical. To this date, the Apocrypha are "included in the lectionaries of Anglican and Lutheran Churches". Anabaptists use the Luther Bible, which contains the Apocrypha as intertestamental books; Amish wedding ceremonies include "the retelling of the marriage of Tobias and Sarah in the Apocrypha". Moreover, the Revised Common Lectionary, in use by most mainline Protestants including Methodists and Moravians, lists readings from the Apocrypha in the liturgical calendar, although alternate Old Testament scripture lessons are provided.

The Old Testament is the first section of the two-part Christian biblical canon; the second section is the New Testament. The Old Testament includes the books of the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) or protocanon, and in various Christian denominations also includes deuterocanonical books. Orthodox Christians, Catholics and Protestants use different canons, which differ with respect to the texts that are included in the Old Testament.

Biblical languages are any of the languages employed in the original writings of the Bible. Partially owing to the significance of the Bible in society, Biblical languages are studied more widely than many other dead languages. Furthermore, some debates exist as to which language is the original language of a particular passage, and about whether a term has been properly translated from an ancient language into modern editions of the Bible. Scholars generally recognize three languages as original biblical languages: Hebrew, Aramaic, and Koine Greek.

A biblical canon is a set of texts which a particular Jewish or Christian religious community regards as part of the Bible.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Protestant Bible</span> Christian Bible whose translation or revision was produced by Protestants

A Protestant Bible is a Christian Bible whose translation or revision was produced by Protestant Christians. Such Bibles comprise 39 books of the Old Testament and 27 books of the New Testament, for a total of 66 books. Some Protestants use Bibles which also include 14 additional books in a section known as the Apocrypha bringing the total to 80 books. This is in contrast with the 73 books of the Catholic Bible, which includes seven deuterocanonical books as a part of the Old Testament. The division between protocanonical and deuterocanonical books is not accepted by all Protestants who simply view books as being canonical or not and therefore classify books found in the Deuterocanon, along with other books, as part of the Apocrypha. Sometimes the term "Protestant Bible" is simply used as a shorthand for a bible which contains only the 66 books of the Old and New Testaments.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lamentations 5</span> Book of Lamentations, chapter 5

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">1 Chronicles 5</span> First Book of Chronicles, chapter 5

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References

  1. 1 2 James D. G. Dunn (19 November 2003). Eerdmans Commentary on the Bible. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. p. 859. ISBN   978-0-8028-3711-0.
  2. 1 2 Charlesworth, James H. (2010). The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha. Peabody, Massachusetts: Hendrickson Publishers. pp. 625–627. ISBN   9781598564907 . Retrieved 5 January 2021.
  3. 1 2 J. H. Charlesworth, The Prayer of Manasseh (Second Century B.C.-First Century A.D.). A New Translation and Introduction, in James H. Charlesworth (1985), The Old Testament Pseudoepigrapha, Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company Inc., Volume 2, ISBN   0-385-09630-5 (Vol. 1), ISBN   0-385-18813-7 (Vol. 2), p. 625.
  4. ↑ Syriac manuscripts are preserved in the Mediceo-Laurenziana Library in Florence, Italy (9aI) and in the Syriac manuscripts of the Didascalia Apostolorum (especially 10DI and 13 DI). There exist also a tenth-century Syriac manuscript in the Saltykov-Shchedrin State Public Library in Leningrad; it is Syr. MS, New Series 19, and is abbreviated 10tI.
  5. ↑ Ariel Gutman and Wido van Peursen. The Two Syriac Versions of the Prayer of Manasseh. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press.
  6. 1 2 NET Bible
  7. ↑ The shorter books of the Apocrypha: Tobit, Judith, Rest of Esther, Baruch, Letter of Jeremiah, additions to Daniel and Prayer of Manasseh. Commentary by J. C. Dancy, with contributions by W. J. Fuerst and R. J. Hammer. Cambridge [Eng.] University Press, 1972. ISBN   978-0-521-09729-1
  8. ↑ Leicht, Reimund (1996). "A Newly Discovered Hebrew Version of the Apocryphal "Prayer of Manasseh"". Jewish Studies Quarterly. 3 (4): 359–373. ISSN   0944-5706.
  9. ↑ Coogan, Michael D.; et al., eds. (2018). "The Canons of the Bible". The New Oxford Annotated Bible: New Revised Standard Version: An Ecumenical Study Bible (5th ed.). New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 1839, 1841. ISBN   978-0-19-027605-8. OCLC   1032375119.
  10. ↑ Gregory Dipipo (2017). "Actual Apocrypha in the Liturgy" New Liturgical Movement (blog).
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