Does the Orthodox church accept the old testament apocrypha as canonical?

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Vinny213

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Does the Orthodox church accept the old testament apocrypha as canonical?
 
I’m not an expert, but as what I know that they have the Catholic OT and 2 extra (3 Maccabees and 1 Esdras). Also, Baruch is divided into 2 books. which makes the OT into 49 books.
 
Don’t fall pretty to the mistake of calling the Derterocannon “Apocrypha”
That word means “false writings” and belongs to books that claim to be Scripture but aren’t

Examples aer the Gospel of Thomas, the book of Jubilees and other similar books.
Some of these are referenced in the Bible others are not.

The various Orthodox Churches: greek, Russian, eastern, Oriental, Coptic etc. Do recognise variously differing canons in the Duterocanonical books. The typical Protestant Bible with Apocrypha tend to include all these books without any discrimination. Irrespective of which churches recognise them.
 
anruari said:
Don’t fall pretty to the mistake of calling the Derterocannon “Apocrypha”
That word means “false writings” and belongs to books that claim to be Scripture but aren’t

Examples aer the Gospel of Thomas, the book of Jubilees and other similar books.
Some of these are referenced in the Bible others are not.

The various Orthodox Churches: greek, Russian, eastern, Oriental, Coptic etc. Do recognise variously differing canons in the Duterocanonical books. The typical Protestant Bible with Apocrypha tend to include all these books without any discrimination. Irrespective of which churches recognise them.
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The word apocrypha does not mean “false writings.” It means “secret” or “hidden.”
 
How many books are there in the Old testament of the Orthodox church?
 
It depends on which Orthodox Community you are referring to.
 
RyanBlack said:
The word apocrypha does not mean “false writings.” It means “secret” or “hidden.”
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Sorry but your just plain wrong there. It means false.
Ocult is the word that means"Hidden"
A quick look into any dictionary will confirm this. I just looked in 3 so I didn’t make an idiot of myself with this post.

I will concede that the latin and Greek origins of the word derive from a meaning of ‘hidden’ but we’re speaking English not late Latin or 1st century Helenistic Greek
 
I mean the Greek Orthodox church. Did not the Synod of Jerusalem settle the canon for the Orthodox Church?
 
anruari said:
Sorry but your just plain wrong there. It means false.
Ocult is the word that means"Hidden"
A quick look into any dictionary will confirm this. I just looked in 3 so I didn’t make an idiot of myself with this post.

I will concede that the latin and Greek origins of the word derive from a meaning of ‘hidden’ but we’re speaking English not late Latin or 1st century Helenistic Greek
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If we were discussing English word usage you’d be correct, but we’re talking about religious nomenclature. Apocrypha traditionally refers to non-canonical books which were never considered canon and were less common (thus “hidden”). These books ranged from the rather orthodox Epistles of Clement, to the heretical Gnostic gospels.

Protestants began to use the term apocrypha for these books in order to demonstrate they were of lesser value than the canon.

By the way, Helenistic means Greek. You mean Koine Greek. 😉
 
anruari said:
Sorry but your just plain wrong there. It means false.
Ocult is the word that means"Hidden"
A quick look into any dictionary will confirm this. I just looked in 3 so I didn’t make an idiot of myself with this post.

I will concede that the latin and Greek origins of the word derive from a meaning of ‘hidden’ but we’re speaking English not late Latin or 1st century Helenistic Greek
Click to expand...
Uh, RyanBlack is correct. The Latin apocryphus was derived from the Greek ἀπόκρυφος, and means essentially what he noted - hidden. The term has been used to describe disputed books since Jerome’s time. Whatever meaning you have ascribed to the English is, frankly, incorrect - not to mention irrelevant, since English didn’t exist in 400 AD…
 
Vinny213 said:
Does the Orthodox church accept the old testament apocrypha as canonical?
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Just as the Protestants have a smaller Old Testament than Catholics; Catholics have a smaller Old Testament than the Orthodox Church.
 
Vinny213 said:
Does the Orthodox church accept the old testament apocrypha as canonical?
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Just as the Protestants have a smaller Old Testament than Catholics; Catholics have a smaller Old Testament than the Orthodox Church.
 
Aren’t there a few variations among the different Orthodox canons?
 
We have a few more books than the roman catholics do and we wouldn’t call them “apocrypha.”
 
Interesting thread.

This is a topic that has interested me some. Glad to get the insight into the variations among our eastern brethren.

In the past I have used the fact of this variation among the ancient churches as evidence against the notion of Sola Scriptura as applied by some of our protestant brethren - meaning the more strict “Solo Scriptura” variety of protestant.

For when such person comes at me with a “where is that in the bible” or “its in the bible” type of arguments - I have been known to reply “which bible”…and then explain that the bible canon has always varied in the ancient churches (RC and EO) and that this variation was never seen as important enough to split up over…The east / west split was the result of other issues.
So - I ask them - what does that say about the relative importance of “Scripture” and “Church” in the early days?

Boy THAT leads to some interesting discussions…

Sorry to get off topic…just thought I’d share…

Peace
James
 
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