Absolutely none. No value and definitely no divine inspiration.
i do read them. i do give them weight, but i don’t see them as inspired writings. i think there is much to learn in these books but as there is disagreement even among the Jewish people of Jesus’ day whether these books truly belonged in the canon, i would say we should respect that doubt and doubt ourselves. but i do think they are important books and have a spiritual value to them.
The Apocrypha was written in Greek. How could these gentile books belong in a Jewish bible written in Hebrew? It wasn’t until Paul that God turned to the gentiles. Even Peter was clueless for 13 years on how to interact with the gentiles until Paul straightened him out. There’s no way these books belong in the Old Testament let alone the NT.
no, they were written in hebrew and translated into greet in the septuagint. they were and are jewish books. the jews in jerusalem didn’t count them as canonical, the jews in the greek speaking area (or hellenistic jews) did count them as canonical. they were originally in hebrew though.
Why are you citing these Scriptures to support your belief that the “Apocrypha” has absolutely no value?
he’s trying to show that Jesus Himself gives them no value.
Ancient fragments of the books were found written in Hebrew over 50 years ago. The arguement that they were written in Greek first has been dropped by most credible people because it’s been disproven.
Are you wanting to know people’s opinions and experiences or is this a debate?
I would regard them as canonical, although I don’t read them often. Two reasons for this. First, they do not appear in the Bibles I normally use. Second, there is not much of a doctrinal nature to be gleaned from them, so I would not go there in search of a scriptural “position.” In fact, I know of no points of doctrine they contain except for the idea of praying for the dead in 2 Maccabees, and that is not really sound because the prayers were offered for those who died while worshiping idols. That being the case, it is difficult to imagine that these men went anywhere but straight to hell where prayers for them would be to no avail.
2/3 of the Septuagint is quoted in the NT.
That is statistically impossible, 2/3 of the Septuagint is LARGER than the NT Manny.
Have you actually took a scholarly look at this. I have.
It is a matter of math Manny. 2/3 of the OT, not even counting the Deutrocanonicals, lets say my big print Bible has 1200 in the OT and 400 in the NT. 2/3 of 1200 is 800 pages, twice as much as my NT.Have you actually took a scholarly look at this. I have.
Do your research on geocities.com/r_grant_jones/Rick/Septuagint/spindex.htm
This site is very thorough on the relationship between the Septuagint and the NT.
The one who made the website by the way is Protestant. I’m not just using Catholic resources here, you know.
Manny, you need to use precise words then. That is not the same thing. Saying 2/3 of the Septuagint is in the NT is completely different than saying 2/3 of the 300 quotes from the OT found in the NT are favorable to the Septuagint. Surely you see the difference.
Those books were written in Greek by Jews who lived outside of the Holy Land. Greek and Latin were the ‘universal languages’ of the day. All Jews, including Jesus learned them as scripture. The early Christians WERE Jews until they were thrown out after the distruction of the Temple in 70 ad. They then as a new group continued to use those books. The Jews around 150 ad stopped using them because of a distrust of anything not Jewish, and since they were written in Greek, were discarded. The Church officially made them Canon around 397 AD at the Councils of Hippo and Carthage. Jesus preached that the Word be taught to the Gentiles (nations). Therefore, those books DO belong in the Bible–it is NOT a Jewish book, it is a Christian book. It was not until the Reformation, some 1100 years after the Bible was made official, that those books were removed. See the Guttenburg Bible, printed at least 50 years before Luther–its Catholic!! The Latin Vulgate–the Bible translated by St. Jerome in the early 400s, some 1100 years before Luther–Catholic.
Perhaps, I choose words incorrectly. Let me just say that in the NT, the Septuagint are often cited but not quoted.