Heidegger's Bible Handbook: OT Apocrypha: The Chronology and Edition of the Apocryphal Books

12.  The chronology and edition of the Apocryphal Books.  That the old Latin translation was made out of Greek Codices, and that no definite edition exists, is demonstrated.

Concerning the Chronology of the books and matters commemorated in them, and also the editions of the same, we shall relate the things necessary to be known in the Notes on each book.  In general, it is important to know, that all were written after the Babylonian captivity, after Malachi, the last of the Old Testament Prophets, and so with the genuine Canon of the Old Testament already completed and sealed by Ezra; indeed, some were even written after the times of Christ.  Neither is any Hebrew original edition of all and each extant, but only Greek, original for most, but a mere translation for a few.  That the Old Latin Translator made his version, not from Hebrew, but from Greek, from decisive arguments the Most Learned Cholinus[1] has gathered in his Epistola ad Lectorem, set before his version of the Apocrypha, of which sort are:  that the translator often left the Greek Prepositions cleaving to the subsequent expressions, as if they were one expression:  that in many places, where from the nearness of the Greek terms, by the fault of the scribes a diverse reading arose, the old Latin Translator often followed the more absurd reading, rather than the more accurate, which the sense shows to have been in the Hebrew:  that he sometimes followed the Greek constructions as closely as possible, which are not consistent with Hebraic expression, and are rare among the Latins; and set forth verbatim some Greek expressions infelicitously, which sort are not among the Hebrews.  Each of which he demonstrates in that place with the clearest possible examples, and at the same time sets before the eyes the manifold corruptions of the Greek exemplars, and various passage in the Greek text and in the translations equally distorted, corrupted, and indeed so depraved, that they are able only with difficulty to be restored, indeed are not able to restored completely (which also is complaint of Franciscus Junius in his Præfatione in Apocrypha).  Which very thing is also a most luminous argument, that these books, as no certain, authentic, and infallible edition of them is able to be shown, as πάσης ἀποδοχῆς ἀξία, worthy of all reception,[2] are not at all furnished with Canonical authority.

[1] Petrus Cholinus’ (1508-1542) translation of the Apocryphal Books was used in  Estienne’s Latin Bible of 1545.

[2] See 1 Timothy 1:15:  “This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation (καὶ πάσης ἀποδοχῆς ἄξιος), that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief.”  Thus also 1 Timothy 4:9.