"Apocrypha"

[RaiseMeUp]

Ok, so the pastor of the program im in ( which is a mandatory program that I must complete - not by choice & is unfortunately a Pentecostal Program ) gave my friend a print out on why the Apocrypha is rejected. Honestly, after reading it I came to the conclusion that it wasn’t saying much more than one Protestant’s personal opinion - even in fact contradicted himself being that the title of the essay was titled “Why I reject the Apocrypha” and in his concluding paragraph says " These books are good reads for Christians and I enjoy reading them because there are things that can be learned from them." But what I’m most curious about is the historical errors in like Judith. Are there any other books that are just stories with a spiritual message behind them? That’s basically what the book of Judith is right?

 

[pablope]

Ok, so the pastor of the program im in ( which is a mandatory program that I must complete - not by choice & is unfortunately a Pentecostal Program ) gave my friend a print out on why the Apocrypha is rejected. Honestly, after reading it I came to the conclusion that it wasn’t saying much more than one Protestant’s personal opinion - even in fact contradicted himself being that the title of the essay was titled “Why I reject the Apocrypha” and in his concluding paragraph says " These books are good reads for Christians and I enjoy reading them because there are things that can be learned from them." But what I’m most curious about is the historical errors in like Judith. Are there any other books that are just stories with a spiritual message behind them? That’s basically what the book of Judith is right?

It would help if you read the history of the Bible:

catholicapologetics.info/apologetics/protestantism/wbible.htm

Why these were removed: It started with the printers in the 1820s or so:

The Apocrypha were excluded from most Bibles following a withdrawal of subsidies by the British and Foreign Bible Society in 1826, which resolved
That the funds of the Society be applied to the printing and circulation of the canonical books of Scripture, to the exclusion of those books and parts of books usually termed Apocryphal
The society revised its position in 1966.

British and Foreign Bible Society House,
London, February 10, 1826.

We beg leave to inform you that important reasons have induced the Committee of the British and Foreign Bible society to adopt the subjoined Resolution:—
“That the funds of the Society be applied to the printing and circulation of the Canonical Books of Scripture, to the exclusion of those books, and parts of books, which are usually termed Apocryphal; and that all copies printed, either entirely or in part, at the expense of the Society; and whether such copies consist of the whole or of any one or more of such books, be invariably issued bound; no other books whatever being bound with them: and further, that all money grants to societies or individuals be made only in conformity with the principle of this regulation.”
While the Committee of the British and Foreign Bible Society have adopted this Regulation for their own guidance, nothing is further from their intention than to interfere, in the smallest degree, with the religious views and opinions, or with the rites and usages, of foreign churches; —they respect that liberty of conscience in others which they themselves so happily enjoy.
The Committee of the British and Foreign Bible Society embrace this opportunity of assuring all their continental brethren of their most unfeigned Christian regard, and of their anxious desire to contribute as liberally as possible to the Foreign Societies consistently with their present Resolution; and they shall deem it their privilege and happiness invariably to maintain that pleasing bond of harmony and union which has so long and so beneficially subsisted between the British and Foreign Bible Society and the kindred Institutions of the Continent.

We remain, respectfully,
Your obedient humble Servants,
(Signed) A. BRANDRAM,
Jos. HUGHES,
C.F.A. STEINKOPFF [Secretaries]

handsonapologetics.com/King_James_Bible.htm

Now You Read Them, Now You Don’t…

Those who viewed the “Apocrypha” as somehow being the last vestige of “popery” pressed for the Apocrypha appendix and its cross-references to be removed altogether from the Bible. In 1615, George Abbott, the Archbishop of Canterbury, went so far as to employ the power of law to censure any publisher who did not produce the Bible in its entirety (i.e. including the “Apocrypha”) as prescribed by the Thirty-nine Articles. However, anti-Catholic hatred and the obvious financial advantages of printing smaller Protestant Bibles began to win out against the traditionalists who wanted the Bible in the form that was given in all previous Protestant translations up until that point (in the form of Luther’s Bible - with the Apocrypha between the Old and New Testaments). The “Apocrypha” remained in the King James Bible through the 1626, 1629, 1630, and the 1633 editions. By 1632, public opinion began to decidedly turn against the “bigger” Protestant Bibles. Of the 227 printings of the Bible between 1632 and 1826, about 40% of Protestant Bibles contained the “Apocrypha.” The Apocrypha Controversy of the early 1800’s enabled English Bible Societies to flood the bible-buying market with Apocrypha-less Protestant Bibles and in 1885 the “Apocrypha” was officially removed with the advent of the Revised Standard Version, which replaced the King James Version.
It is hard to pin point the exact date where the King James Bible no longer contained the “Apocrypha.” It is clear that later editions of the KJV removed the “Apocrypha” appendix, but they continued to include cross-references to the “Apocrypha” until they too (like the Geneva Bible) were removed as well. Why were they removed? Was it do to over-crowded margins? The Anglican scholar William H. Daubney points out the obvious:
“These objectionable omissions [of the cross-references] were made after the custom arose of publishing Bibles without the Apocrypha. These apparently profess to be what they are not, entire copies of the Authorized Version … Plainly, the references to the Apocrypha told an inconvenient tale of the use which the Church intended should be made of it; so, either from dissenting influence without, or from prejudice within the Church, these references disappeared from the margin.” [The Use of the Apocrypha In the Christian Church (London: C. J. Clay and Sons, 1900), 17]

 

[pablope]

Ok, so the pastor of the program im in ( which is a mandatory program that I must complete - not by choice & is unfortunately a Pentecostal Program ) gave my friend a print out on why the Apocrypha is rejected. Honestly, after reading it I came to the conclusion that it wasn’t saying much more than one Protestant’s personal opinion - even in fact contradicted himself being that the title of the essay was titled “Why I reject the Apocrypha” and in his concluding paragraph says " These books are good reads for Christians and I enjoy reading them because there are things that can be learned from them." But what I’m most curious about is the historical errors in like Judith. Are there any other books that are just stories with a spiritual message behind them? That’s basically what the book of Judith is right?

catholicdefense.blogspot.com/2012/06/defending-deuterocanon-book-by-book.html

catholicdefense.blogspot.com/2012/03/mark-driscoll-and-canon-of-scripture.html

catholicdefense.blogspot.com/2010/06/st-jerome-on-deuterocanon.html

 

[triumphguy]

Ok, so the pastor of the program im in ( which is a mandatory program that I must complete - not by choice & is unfortunately a Pentecostal Program ) gave my friend a print out on why the Apocrypha is rejected. Honestly, after reading it I came to the conclusion that it wasn’t saying much more than one Protestant’s personal opinion - even in fact contradicted himself being that the title of the essay was titled “Why I reject the Apocrypha” and in his concluding paragraph says " These books are good reads for Christians and I enjoy reading them because there are things that can be learned from them." But what I’m most curious about is the historical errors in like Judith. Are there any other books that are just stories with a spiritual message behind them? That’s basically what the book of Judith is right?

Judith isn’t a historical book, and it doesn’t make historical errors.

By mixing up the Assyrians and Babylonians the book is talking about the perfect storm, the worst of scenarios; its as if someone were to write a scenario today where Bin Laden is in charge of Iran, but has the backing of Saudi money, and Soviet Russia nuclear weapons.

And Judith wins anyway!

 

[Aelred_Minor]

I’m not necessarily endorsing it, but I’ve encountered the claim that some Old Testament books, such as Judith, Tobit, and Jonah, and in a different way Job, are basically religious fictions. Their plots are not meant to be taken as having actually happened. It’s the messages conveyed by the stories that are the truths actually asserted by the human and divine authors. At least that’s the idea.

This as opposed to books like Exodus where the whole point is the great deeds that God actually did in real life history to save His people, an idea that anticipates the concrete reality of the Incarnation.

 

[powerofk]

There’s a saying that all stories (esp. all Biblical stories) are True, and some actually happened. In other words, just because the author of Judith mixes up the Assyrians (the ancient nemesis of the Israelites), Babylonians (Nebuchaddnezer was the Babylonian king that exiled the Kingdom of Judah), and Persians (as the book supposedly takes place after the return from exile - after the Babylonians were conquered by Persia), that’s not the point of the book and does not detract from its divine inspiration. Even before the exile, the tribe of Simeon had pretty much been absorbed by the tribe of Judah anyway.

The actual reason why the deuterocanonical books had been removed by the reformers in the first place was because they were not included in the Hebrew Canon, though they were included in the Septuagint (the Greek version of the Old Testament). Martin Luther thought that the early Christians used the Hebrew Canon simply because many lived in Judea. Unfortunately, this is not true, as many Jews (the “Hellenists” spoken of in Acts)spoke primarily Greek during the New Testament times. Also, the question of the resurrection posited to Jesus by the Sadducees and the Pharisees was actually a reference to Sarah from the book of Tobit (before Tobias, she had 7 husbands, all brothers, who died before consummating the marriage) - and both the Pharisees and Jesus believed the book to be canonical.

 

[chero23]

Protestants supposedly don’t account those books for 2 reasons, 1, bc the New Testament characters never quote from them, and 2nd bc the books were not written in the native language.

 

[po18guy]

Such thinking should also reject Jesus’ parables, since they did not involve actual persons or situations. I note that His parables were also good to listen to. Basically, the pastor is rejecting the Deuterocanon simply because he also rejects the Catholic Church.

I’ll bet that he has no idea that the Eastern Orthodox Churches, the Oriental Orthodox Churches and the Assyrian Church of the East have also used those same books for 2,000 years.

 

[Aelred_Minor]

Protestants supposedly don’t account those books for 2 reasons, 1, bc the New Testament characters never quote from them, and 2nd bc the books were not written in the native language.

There are two other reasons in addition to this, the fact that these books were controversial in the early centuries of the Church and the fact that modern Jews reject them.

Of course none of these reasons hold much water. There are (I think; if you call me out on it I don’t have the info handy to back it up right now) undisputed OT books not quoted by the NT, plus at least allusions to deuterocanonical books in the NT (as well as to truly apocryphal books, so it really doesn’t prove anything one way or another). Some of the deuterocanonical books were indeed originally written in Hebrew or Aramaic, and even for those that were not, so what? The New Testament is written in Greek too.

As for being controversial in the early Church, the same can be said of several NT books accepted by Protestants and Catholics alike such as Hebrews, 2 Peter, and Revelation. These are what we Catholics call the New Testament deuterocanonical books, quite analogous to the Old Testament ones that most Protestants reject. And, of course, modern non-Christian Jews reject the entire New Testament, so they are not exactly an authority for Christians to follow on matters like the Biblical canon.

 

[Cyklist]

Great posts, powerofk and Aelred Minor!!!
I had never realized/read that about the book of Tobit, many thanks!!

Regarding the Epistle to the Hebrews in the NT, I reject 9:15-13:25 because those verses are not in one of the major oldest manuscripts! And I reject Apocalypse (Revelation), 2 Pt and Mt 11:27 (according to Ulrich Luz in the Hermeneia commentary, a very scholarly and leading volume, that verse was inserted in the Bible by the Post-Easter Church, the Arians used and the United Church of God uses that verse to refute the Trinity - they actually don’t use the parallel verse in Lk).
2 Mc is a very important book.
1 Mc is even more accurate historically than 2 Mc, only thing the author has exaggerated is a few numbers, but I don’t think that’s offensive as most people don’t grasp how big big numbers are anyway

Sirach was read very much in the Second Temple Era, in Early Christianity, and in the end of the 15th century throughout the 18th century. 4 Ezra was read very much in Early Christianity.

I reject the other additions by the Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox and Assyrian Church of the East.

And I reject the other books of the OT Deuterocanon.

But the books I don’t reject I give the same canonical status as the rest of the OT and NT.

If You want a Bible with the full canon including these books that I recommend and hold as canon, there are not many options, the very best of them being the 1989 Revised English Bible.
The Apocrypha can be purchased separately as printed matter. Search for REB Apocrypha. It has a green hardback cover and is printed in 2010 and is still in print of course.
The complete REB is in Logos, hurry to order it before the price goes up about a few days from now!: www.logos.com/product/24537/the-revised-english-bible-with-the-apocrypha.
And REB is also in Accordance. www.accordancebible.com.

 

[Aelred_Minor]

Great posts, powerofk and Aelred Minor!!!
I had never realized/read that about the book of Tobit, many thanks!!

Regarding the Epistle to the Hebrews in the NT, I reject 9:15-13:25 because those verses are not in one of the major oldest manuscripts! And I reject Apocalypse (Revelation), 2 Pt and Mt 11:27 (according to Ulrich Luz in the Hermeneia commentary, a very scholarly and leading volume, that verse was inserted in the Bible by the Post-Easter Church, the Arians used and the United Church of God uses that verse to refute the Trinity - they actually don’t use the parallel verse in Lk).
2 Mc is a very important book.
1 Mc is even more accurate historically than 2 Mc, only thing the author has exaggerated is a few numbers, but I don’t think that’s offensive as most people don’t grasp how big big numbers are anyway

Sirach was read very much in the Second Temple Era, in Early Christianity, and in the end of the 15th century throughout the 18th century. 4 Ezra was read very much in Early Christianity.

I reject the other additions by the Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox and Assyrian Church of the East.

And I reject the other books of the OT Deuterocanon.

But the books I don’t reject I give the same canonical status as the rest of the OT and NT.

If You want a Bible with the full canon including these books that I recommend and hold as canon, there are not many options, the very best of them being the 1989 Revised English Bible.
The Apocrypha can be purchased separately as printed matter. Search for REB Apocrypha. It has a green hardback cover and is printed in 2010 and is still in print of course.
The complete REB is in Logos, hurry to order it before the price goes up about a few days from now!: www.logos.com/product/24537/the-revised-english-bible-with-the-apocrypha.
And REB is also in Accordance. www.accordancebible.com.

Not many people, even Protestants, would be willing to open the Pandora’s box of trying to put together one’s own personalized canon.

 

[pablope]

Great posts, powerofk and Aelred Minor!!!
I had never realized/read that about the book of Tobit, many thanks!!

Regarding the Epistle to the Hebrews in the NT, I reject 9:15-13:25 because those verses are not in one of the major oldest manuscripts! And I reject Apocalypse (Revelation), 2 Pt and Mt 11:27 (according to Ulrich Luz in the Hermeneia commentary, a very scholarly and leading volume, that verse was inserted in the Bible by the Post-Easter Church, the Arians used and the United Church of God uses that verse to refute the Trinity - they actually don’t use the parallel verse in Lk).

I reject the other additions by the Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox and Assyrian Church of the East.

And I reject the other books of the OT Deuterocanon.

But the books I don’t reject I give the same canonical status as the rest of the OT and NT.

If You want a Bible with the full canon including these books that I recommend and hold as canon, there are not many options, the very best of them being the 1989 Revised English Bible.
].

So did God give you the authority to determine what you want in your own Bible?

And if God did not…where is it in the Bible that you can determine what should be included in the Bible or not?

 

[JohnR77]

Saving Judith and Tobit
By Jimmy Akin

“For example, in 1:1, Nebuchadnezzar is said to be the king of the Assyrians. “How can we take Judith seriously,” the opponent may ask, “when everybody knows that Nebuchadnezzar was king of the Babylonians, not the Assyrians?”

“That is precisely the point,” one may reply. “Everyone, and certainly every literate Jew of the period, knew which nation Nebuchadnezzar ruled. The reason he is presented as king of Assyria in the very first verse of the book is that the author wants to telegraph to his audience, right from the beginning, that they are not reading ordinary historical writing.” …

Thus the charge of historical error is rooted in a fundamental misunderstanding of the book’s genre. The supposed “errors” are actually cues to the ancient audience to tell them what kind of literature they were reading.

Read more at
file:///C:\Users\John7\AppData\Local\Temp\msohtmlclip1%between%1\clip_image002.png catholic.com/thisrock/2003/0307bt.asp

Notes from hard drive:

Some equally difficult passages occur in the Books that Protestants agree belong in the Bible:

Job mentions that the earth is supported by pillars. Job 9:6

Jesus says that the mustard seed is the smallest seed in the world. Mark 4:31

Some “errors” (like the mustard seed) are because Jesus is just using
the commonly-held understanding, and if He were to be more specific and say (“well,
really, there are spores…”), it would just serve to confuse, rather
than to teach.

It is not that the Bible teaches error it is just that we would be wrong to interpret everything in the Bible to be a literal teaching. Some everyday common expressions and understandings were used, without passing judgment on whether they were literally true or not. This was done to teach the really important things, that is, spiritual matters, salvation, etc. God could have spent a lot of time clarify that the earth really goes around the sun and given us volumes of encyclopedias about science but He knew that would not save us. Getting a doctors degree in physics does make a person necessarily closer to God.

Ask your professor why he does accept the 27 New Testament Books.
The earliest list that matches exactly our 27 books only goes back to 367 AD.

Judith was in the Bible before the reformation

Read more at

defendingthebride.com/bb/deuterocanonical.html

So sorry this pictures are too big.
I tried to make them smaller but it didn’t work.
John

 

[JohnR77]

I tried to make them smaller but it didn’t work.
John
*Last edited by Michael Francis; Today at 1:57 am. Reason: removed oversized and needless images per CAF policy *

Sorry Michael Francis about my oversized and needless images.
Is there a way for me to link them into a smaller sized and contained bracket in the future ?
Thanks,

Anyway, if anybody wants to see them look here

defendingthebride.com/bb/judith.html

John

 

[The_Serpent]

Ok, so the pastor of the program im in ( which is a mandatory program that I must complete - not by choice & is unfortunately a Pentecostal Program ) gave my friend a print out on why the Apocrypha is rejected. Honestly, after reading it I came to the conclusion that it wasn’t saying much more than one Protestant’s personal opinion - even in fact contradicted himself being that the title of the essay was titled “Why I reject the Apocrypha” and in his concluding paragraph says " These books are good reads for Christians and I enjoy reading them because there are things that can be learned from them." But what I’m most curious about is the historical errors in like Judith. Are there any other books that are just stories with a spiritual message behind them? That’s basically what the book of Judith is right?

The Jewish historian Josephus has a relevant passage about Nebuchadnezzar. In “The Antiquities of the Jews,” Book 10 Chapter 6; it is told that Nebuchadnezzar fought against Neco, King of Egypt for control of Syria and won! He ruled over Syria as far as Pelusium, and extracted from the Jews a tribute by his threatening. Looks like Judith is right!

 

[zdf21]

The word apocrypha means,“empty.” The reason Protestants do not accept the apocrypha as the inspired word of God is because ancient Jews did not either, as well as Jews today. When the OT was translated into Greek from Hebrew the apocrypha was translated after the OT book Malachai. Malachai from what we know from OT scripture was the last prophet in Israel before Jesus Christ would appear on the scene around 400 years later.

 

[patrick457]

The word apocrypha means,“empty.” The reason Protestants do not accept the apocrypha as the inspired word of God is because ancient Jews did not either, as well as Jews today. When the OT was translated into Greek from Hebrew the apocrypha was translated after the OT book Malachai. Malachai from what we know from OT scripture was the last prophet in Israel before Jesus Christ would appear on the scene around 400 years later.

Welcome to CAF! First off, Apocrypha means ‘obscure’ or ‘hidden.’

 

[zdf21]

Thanks for the correction, my mistake. It’s always good to fact check. What about the accuracy of the other info? Any insight patrick457?

 

[QNDNNDQDCE]

The word apocrypha means,“empty.” The reason Protestants do not accept the apocrypha as the inspired word of God is because ancient Jews did not either, as well as Jews today. When the OT was translated into Greek from Hebrew the apocrypha was translated after the OT book Malachai. Malachai from what we know from OT scripture was the last prophet in Israel before Jesus Christ would appear on the scene around 400 years later.

Let me ask you some basic questions.

Do you mean that there were no Ancient Jews whatsoever who accepted any of the Apocryphal books as scripture?

Do you reject the New Testament since the Jews have always rejected it as non-canonical too?

How do you know that the apocryphal books were translated into Greek (ignoring those books which were originally composed in Greek) after Malachi?

Where does Scripture say that Malachi was or would be the last prophet before Christ? Moreover, where does this leave someone like John the Baptist?

 

[powerofk]

The reason the Jews originally cut out the Deuterocanonical books in the first place has more to do with the fact that they could not find existing Hebrew versions of the books at the time the Hebrew Canon was finalized - which was after the second Jewish revolt - than anything else. For instance, the only place in the Bible where Hannukah’s origins are mentioned are in the deuterocanonical Books of Maccabees, which cover a very important time in Jewish history, but the books were only found in Greek. The Septuagint (Greek) translation was apparently made between the time the original writings were composed and the time they were lost. This translation was made by 70 Jewish scholars living in Alexandria for the Jewish diasopra, and included the deuterocanonical books. The Septuagint is the Old Testament translation cited in Paul’s letters and the Letter to the Hebrews in the New Testament. Also, fragments of Hebrew versions of some of the Deuterocanonical books were found in the Dead Sea scrolls, which proves that many Jews did consider them canonical.