"Bad" Books of the Bible Answer Man: Hank Hanegraaff on the Deuterocanonical Books
From evangelical apologist to Orthodox believer, radio's "The Bible Answer Man" helps us bridge the inter-testamental gap
In the latest episode of “Bad” Books of the Bible on Ancient Faith Radio, for what is Joel Miller’s final episode as co-host, we sat down with Hank Hanegraaff, the longtime host of the Bible Answer Man broadcast and president of the Christian Research Institute. Hanegraaff, who entered the Orthodox Church in 2017 after decades leading an evangelical apologetics ministry brought his signature blend of exegetical rigor and pastoral warmth to our discussion of the Deuterocanonical books—those writings preserved in the Septuagint and Orthodox canon but excised from most Protestant Bibles after the Reformation.
The conversation centered on how these texts fill historical gaps, enrich spiritual formation, and demand the same hermeneutical consistency applied to the protocanonical Scriptures. What follows is a summary of our conversation and Hank’s insights.
What of the 400 Silent Years?: Prophecy and Fulfillment
Hanegraaff opened with a corrective to the common evangelical narrative of a four-century intertestamental void. The Deuterocanonical books, he argued, provide the missing link between Malachi and Matthew:
“One of the beauties of the longer canon is you have contextualization that you wouldn’t otherwise have. For example, 1 and 2 Maccabees… In those books, you have the outworking of prophecies made in the 6th century before Jesus Christ come to fruition in the 2nd century before Jesus Christ.”
Daniel’s succession of empires—Babylonian, Medo-Persian, Greek—culminates in the “Old Testament Antichrist,” Antiochus IV Epiphanes, whose 167 BC desecration of the Jerusalem temple is reversed by Judas Maccabeus. Hanegraaff detailed the sequence:
Daniel’s visions (Dan 7–8, 11) forecast a ruler who “will exalt and magnify himself above every god” and “abolish the daily sacrifice”; 1 Maccabees 1:41–64 narrates the pig on the altar, the cessation of offerings, and the rise of the Hasmonean revolt.
Without Maccabees, he insisted, “you are left in the vortex of saying we have 400 silent years, but we don’t have 400 silent years. We actually have prophecy and then the outworking of that prophecy.”
This continuity shines a light on New Testament eschatology. In Matthew 24, Jesus cites Daniel’s “abomination that causes desolation” (Dan 9:27; 11:31) while predicting the temple’s destruction in AD 70:
“If you don’t have the longer canon, you don’t have a context for Antiochus IV Epiphanes coming on the scene as the Old Testament Antichrist, nor do you have a context for why Jesus Christ is using that example to talk about an Antichrist that’s going to come 40 years hence and actually… destroy the sanctuary.”
Hanegraaff stressed that the Olivet Discourse is not a cryptic roadmap to 21st-century geopolitics but a first-century warning shot, grounded in the Maccabean precedent. The “let the reader understand” parenthetical (Matt 24:15) assumes familiarity with the historical event—knowledge supplied only by the longer canon.
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Informative and Formative Principles
Hanegraaff distinguished two benefits of the Deuterocanonical corpus of books. The informative principle supplies historical data; the formative fosters spiritual growth. Both are essential, and Orthodoxy refuses to dichotomize them:
“Informative principle has to do with information… The formative principle of biblical interpretation is also helpful because… there you have the formative, the spiritual formation that takes place in the believer’s life… As Orthodox, we’re not dichotomous. We don’t make false dichotomies.”
He cited Saint Athanasius’s endorsement in Festal Letter 39 (AD 367) of these books for catechumens and shared his own practice of memorizing Proverbs daily—one chapter per day, matching the 31-day calendar. Only after becoming Orthodox did he discover comparable riches in Sirach and Wisdom:
“I never knew until I became Orthodox myself how significant books like The Wisdom of Sirach or The Wisdom of Solomon were… In preparation for doing this interview, I was reading back through The Wisdom of Sirach, Chapter 6. And in verses 6 through 10 in particular… This is wisdom that is so helpful in conducting not only your interpersonal affairs, but your business affairs.”
Sirach 6:6–10, in particular, offers timeless counsel on friendship—advice Hanegraaff now mines alongside Proverbs:
“Let those who live at peace with you be many, but let your counselors be one in a thousand. If you gain a friend, gain him in testing, and do not be in a hurry to trust him. For there’s a friend who is such to his own advantage, but he will not remain beside you in the day of your affliction.”
He likened this to Proverbs 17:17 (“A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity”) and noted its practical utility in vetting business partners or confidants. Wisdom of Solomon, similarly, expands the portrait of Godly wisdom from Proverbs 8 into a cosmic hymn that prefigures the Logos theology in John 1.
Key Takeaways from the Episode
1–2 Maccabees demonstrate Daniel’s prophetic fulfillment in Antiochus IV and Judas Maccabeus.
Deuterocanonical books are both informative (historical context) and formative (spiritual wisdom like Sirach 6 on friendship).
Apply consistent hermeneutics: Tobit’s fish-liver incense is no “weirder” than Genesis’s talking serpent when read typologically.
Tradition is the chain of custody for Scripture’s right interpretation; the Church is its guardian.
Start small: read daily, memorize a verse, meditate ruminatively—then consult the fathers or a priest.
The prophecy in Matthew 24 predicts AD 70 temple destruction using Maccabean typology, not a 21st-century end-times calendar.
Orthodoxy offers a sacramental life, a fuller canon, and the process of theosis.
From Bias to Brilliance
Hank told us that his early exposure to these books came via pre-1666 King James Bibles, which included the Deuterocanonical books between the Testaments. Yet evangelical culture bred flippancy: “You hear about Bel and the Dragon, you go, Wow, that is really weird stuff.” He confessed to planning a Complete Bible Answer Book entry dismissing the “Apocrypha”—until primary research refuted his own points. The entry was scrapped.
Tobit initially struck him as bizarre—Raphael instructing Tobias to burn fish organs to repel a demon. But hermeneutical consistency dissolved the objection:
“If you do not apply consistently the principles… of biblical interpretation to other books, you can have that same weird feeling… The serpent is not what Satan looks like, but what Satan is like. Similarly, when Satan in Revelation is described as a dragon, it’s not an indication of what Satan looks like, but it’s telling us what Satan is like.”
Re-reading Tobit revealed its narrative echoes in the New Testament: the Sadducees’ trick question about a woman with seven husbands (Mark 12:18–27) draws directly from Sarah’s story in Tobit 3 and 6–7. The book also models angelic ministry, almsgiving as atonement (Tobit 12:9), and the theology of marriage as a covenant against demonic interference—themes that surface in Ephesians 5 and 6.
Tradition as Chain of Custody
Hanegraaff likened Orthodox tradition to the justice system’s “chain of custody”—a verifiable lineage preserving the deposit of faith. The Church, not individual illumination, authenticates Scripture:
“Tradition is not an independent instance… It’s not a complementary source of faith, but it is a right way of understanding the faith… The Church is the ground and the pillar of truth.”
This framework freed him from sola scriptura’s isolation. Questions once answered by personal speculation—baptismal mode, Marian doctrine—now rest on the teachings of the Holy Fathers. The Theotokos, formerly reduced to “a sinner like all of us,” is instead celebrated as the Second Eve and new Ark—vessel of the Shekinah glory. Deification, he explained, is not a punctiliar event but a process: “It goes on in this life… through the liturgical sacramental life of the church… Even in eternity we become more and more godlike.”
Reading with Discipline and Humility
For evangelicals hesitant to “cheat” on their 66-book canon, Hanegraaff prescribed incremental discipline:
“You need to start developing a discipline… Eat the elephant one bite at a time… Set small attainable goals… The mind is like a muscle—if you memorize, you increase its ability to be useful.”
He urged memorizing a verse from Sirach alongside Proverbs, meditating “like a cow chewing its cud,” and consulting a priest when stumped. Purgatory and clericalism, he assured, are not “smuggled in the back door” as some might worry. The real safeguard is the art and science of Biblical interpretation—literal, grammatical, historical, typological—applied across the entire canon.
The Art and Science of Biblical Interpretation
Misreadings of Matthew 24’s apocalyptic imagery (“sun… darkened… stars will fall”) stem from ignoring Old Testament precedent. Isaiah 13:10 uses identical language for Babylon’s fall in 539 BC—not cosmic dissolution. Ezekiel 32:7–8 does the same for Egypt. Jesus, Hanegraaff argued, predicts the temple’s end within a generation—AD 70—while holding the final future in view:
“Jesus left the temple… Not one stone here will be left on another… He’s talking about something that’s going to happen within a generation. He’s not talking about the end of the world.”
The Deuterocanonical backdrop clarifies the typology: just as Antiochus desecrated, Titus destroyed. Yet the discourse also foreshadows the parousia, when “death and Hades” are cast into the lake of fire (Revelation 20:14).
A Bigger Bible, a Transformed Life
Decades of live call-in apologetics repeatedly taught Hanegraaff humility: “I don’t know the answer… Let me research and return.” The Deuterocanonical books now enlarge that Bible—and his ministry.
His final exhortation fused Scripture and sacrament:
“There’s nothing in my life that is [as] significant as getting into the Word of God and getting the Word of God into me… In Orthodoxy you [are] called to a lifestyle that transforms you… We’re created in the image of God. That’s our being. But we’re always becoming… more and more God-like.”
The iconostasis encapsulates this journey: Incarnation, royal doors to paradise, Second Coming. Eucharist within the Church is the tree of life that effects our deification.
A Quiet Convergence
For Joel and me, the conversation was personally enjoyable and a privilege. Living separate lives but on similar paths, we both tuned in daily to the Bible Answer Man during college—Joel driving home from class, me on a student budget as a BAM Support Team member a few years later. I met Hank once, briefly, at a conference; the handshake and quick word felt like greeting a mentor who had shaped my spiritual formation.
Years later, all three of us—grounded in the same Protestant tradition focused on apologetics and sola scriptura—independently arrived at the Orthodox Church. Not every person of sound mind and intellectual curiosity will end up where we are, but certainly our shared pursuit of Truth is what led us to the Fathers, the fuller canon, and the ancient faith we each embrace.
Today, the same voice that once filled our car radio speakers now speaks from within our shared communion, as we have converged at the same altar.
Questions Asked and Discussed
How does Scripture interpreting Scripture play in when we think about the “bad books” of the Bible as this longer canon?
How do you think about Scripture interpreting these kinds of books, or these kinds of books helping us interpret the rest of Scripture?
When you think about that imagined gap, does that contribute to people’s misunderstanding of the book of Revelation?
Is there any way that reading the Deuterocanonical books has sort of changed your view of other texts?
What was your first exposure to these books, and then how did that develop?
Your attitude about the longer canon has shifted over the years, but in what ways has it shifted? Did you have misconceptions about the books that you had to essentially re-evaluate?
How has your Orthodox faith, this allegiance you now have to a different interpretive tradition, influenced the work that you’ve done over the years? How do you weigh the work that you’ve done over the years? What has that impact been like?
You’re exposed to these books early on, you mentioned dismissing them, then all of a sudden you find yourself in a completely different environment where these books are welcomed and appreciated—what surprised you about them? What hit you as the most surprising as you started to read these books differently?
What advice might you give to people who are currently Protestant, perhaps even particularly for evangelicals, who might be a little hesitant about reading these books, feeling they’re maybe controversial or perhaps almost like they’re cheating on Scripture by reading these?
There are people who haven’t read these books before; they hear about them and they go, “Well, aren’t those the books that isn’t like purgatory in there?”—what are the challenges or landmines that might get in the way of an evangelical reading these books in particular?
Your legacy reading plan advises Christians on reading the Scripture and talks about incorporating the longer canon into that—is there any counsel that you would specifically give readers, whether they’re Orthodox and just not very familiar with them, or they’re Protestant or evangelicals who are coming to these books fresh, on how to factor some of those biases or background noise that they have in their minds?
You’ve spent decades answering questions about the Bible, and now you’ve embraced the longer canon—how has that experience of answering questions from people across the country and around the world helped you navigate your approach and your understanding of these books?
Is there any final encouragement you would give the listeners, us especially, to just inspire us toward a greater appreciation and a greater thirst for the full scope of Scripture?