Apocrypha?

Could someone tell me why these books where taken out of the bible? Or what they actually contain or are about? Just curious is all :)

God Bless,
Matthew

I'm pretty sure you can check it out for yourself @ www.ccel.org if you wish. Go to their search-engine once on the site.

mguldner on 2010/8/5 14:58:29 writes:
"Could someone tell me why these books where taken out of the bible?"

that is a Roman Catholic question. ;-)
The Protestant asks 'why were these books put into the Bible?'

It all depends how deeply you want to go into this topic. This URL may be more than you want but it might also be a good place to start.

http://www.bible-researcher.com/canon2.html

"that is a Roman Catholic question. ;-)
The Protestant asks 'why were these books put into the Bible?"

A nice little dose of British humor to start off the day never hurt anyone :)

If I remember correctly a few protestants also asked why the books of Hebrews, James and Jude were put into the bible as well!

I have tried to read the Apocrypha with little success. The shortest explanation is that I got bored.

However, I did enjoy "Bel and the Dragon" and "The Story of Susanna".

Try reading it and I do not think it will take long for you to understand why it is not included in the canon.

My opinion,
ginnyrose

I did try and read some of them to no avail :S Perhaps they were just to boring to put in the bible :)

I guess I asked out of the curiousity that they might be to my benefit but having tried to read them I just couldn't do it. So ginny you are probably right.

I read online that some of the reasons they weren't included was doctrinal problems but I honestly have no desire to read them. Oh well I guess I will just cut my loses and carry on, unless of course there is someone that has a strong opinion about reading the Apocrypha :)

Thanks for the responses.

God Bless,
Matthew

I read the book of Enoch. Jude 1:14-15 quotes 1 Enoch 60:8)

14And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints,
15To execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him.

It is full of righteous indignation of against the antediluvian world where the Nephilim reigned with soon would be drowned. Enoch lived in anticipation of a coming judgement and his rapture validated his prophesy. I think we live in such a time right now. I am not qualified to verify its validity but found it quite inspiring.

I just read it a few months ago for the exact same reason Narrow...

I found it to have said a few very powerful things as well. It seemed to me as if more than just Jude borrowed from its wording, I saw correlations to all sorts of New Testament theology. I was struck by how it seemed so messianic...but then again I am not a language scholar so I may have been getting terms mixed up. The very bizarre and awkward part of the book is the angelic cosmology. Which in some ways I have noticed that the Bible does say similar things about the Angels that Enoch speaks of, it is just that the Book of Enoch vastly amplifies certain concepts that make me a bit uncomfortable. But if it was good enough for Jude to quote from, it is certainly worth reading in my opinion.

There was one sentence in the book that I found to be intriguing.

"It was never God's intention that man should affirm his faith with pen and ink."

I can see though why Jude drew inspiration from it. It completely and totally fits the tone of Jude. As the book of Jude is the most apocalyptic of the Epistles.

Jesus did warn about the days of Noah returning...

"Could someone tell me why these books where taken out of the bible?"

To my understanding the books are not recognized by cannon (by Protestants) because of the timeframe in which they were written. The majority of them were written between the 1st-3rd centuries b.c. Protestants originally looking at the prophecy of Malachi interpreted that God would not speak again until Elijah came. From the words of Christ, we know this return of Elijah to be none other than John Baptist. Therefore, they reject the Apocrypha as inerrant and inspired. There is probably wisdom to be gleaned there, just as their is in reading a book by any other author; they are just not regared as infallible.

Could someone tell me why these books where taken out of the bible? Or what they actually contain or are about? Just curious is all :)

They were not taken out per se. You might also say that the Books in your Bible were not put in. The Scriptures have given us no standard canon, so men or groups of men (in the early centuries) decided which books they recognized as inspired. Most of the lists varied, often leaving out some books in our Bibles and adding other items that are not in our Bible.

I say all this because there are a number of Christians who recognize books outside of the Bible to also be inspired Scripture. Probably the most common is the Book of Enoch, but there are others. Nothing authoritative, apart from a vague consensus from the early centuries, has indicated which books are and are not Scripture. We have the same right as they, to evaluate documents by the Spirit of God to discern the voice of God.

One test of whether a book is Scripture is to examine whether it is consistent, true, and accurate. Jesus said, "The Scripture cannot be broken." So this test of integrity and historical coherence is one way to separate Scripture from non-Scripture.

If memory serves correct, F.F. Bruce has an excellent book that touches on this topic some called "The Canon of Scripture."

Besides some theological reasons as not including the intertestamental books into the Canon of Scripture, it is my understanding that the primary reason those books were not included in the protestant Canon is because those books were Greek writings, and never considered by Jews as part of the Hebrew Bible. Thus, while recognizing the importance and value of those books, since they were not even regarded by the Jews as canon, the protestants went along with the Jews in that regard.

But even with that said, those books were by no means of little influence with the Jews. Indeed, the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah (the festival of lights) is based entirely upon the story of the Maccabees, and the Jewish revolt, as recorded within 1 & 2 Macc. This was a festival, that while not prescribed within the law of Moses, was even practiced by Jesus, as recorded in the gospel of John. If I'm not mistaken, Jews regularly read that story at that time, even though they do not regard those books as part of the canon.

I guess one could say they venerate it like many Christians venerate Foxe's Book of Martyrs. An inspiring read, and of edifying value. But, it's not something you want to include in Canon :-)

Thank you all for the responses from what I have understood, if you can push past some of the boring stuff the Apocrypha is an edify read but should not be regarded as the Infallible Word of God as the actual Books of the Bible are.

Here is a PDF link to part of the book Jimmy mentioned; FF Bruce, The Canon of Scripture.

http://www.holyfear.net/pdf/bruce/canon_bruce.pdf