# Apocryphal Books as Canon



## D. Paul (May 9, 2004)

The Apocrypha was kept as part of virtually every Bible scribed or printed from these early days until just 120 years ago, in the mid-1880's, when it was removed from Protestant Bibles. Up until the 1880's, however, every Christian... Protestant or otherwise... embraced the Apocrypha as part of the Bible, though debate continued as to whether or not the Apocrypha was inspired. There is no truth to the popular myth that there is something "Roman Catholic" about the Apocrypha, which stemmed from the fact that the Roman Catholics kept 12 of the 14 Apocrypha Books in their Bible, as the Protestants removed all of them. No real justification was ever given for the removal of these ancient Jewish writings from before the time of Christ, which had remained untouched and part of every Bible for nearly two thousand years.

This is from www.greatsite.com which also states that Spurgeon, Edwards, Whitefield et al used bibles containing the 12 Books. This is the first I've ever heard this. Does anyone have further historical insight?

:book:


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## Bladestunner316 (May 10, 2004)

I think the reformers said they were only beneficial as reading material but not for faith building.

blade


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## Contra_Mundum (May 10, 2004)

*EQUIVOCATION ALERT*

How do the various parties to the question define the phrase &quot;part of the Bible.&quot; 

The Apocryphal books gained an entrance into the Latin (western) church in the Vulgate. Jerome had left them out as non-canonical material, and the bishop of Rome insisted that they be included for tradition's sake. The Septuagint (ancient Greek O.T. translation pre-dating the days of Christ) was scrolled together with additional Jewish religious matter. It was a way (I think) of attempting to maintain additional continuity, beside religion, between the Diaspora (scattered Jews around the Mediterranean) and the Jewish culture of Palestine. This material was never accorded canonical status by the Jews, either before the N.T. era or after. And the early church didn't consider this material Scripture either. 

&quot;Part of every Bible,&quot; indeed! How about the ancient Syriac Bibles? That mss tradition goes back to a day nearly contemporaneous with early Greek N.T. mss., does it not? How do their O.T.'s read? And the Greek (eastern) church--did they keep the Apocrypha? Certainly not as Scripture, even if they have kept the text. Have they? And did they follow Rome and Tridentine declarations? Laughable.

Rome didn't canonize the Apocrypha herself until Trent (post-Reformation). She had to, because only there could she gussy up some inscribed &quot;authority&quot; for the doctrine of Purgatory. Given the intractable difficulties of messing with traditions, even bad ones, I for one am not surprised if it took the Protestant church an additional couple hundred years to thoroughly purge her Bibles of these uninspired accretions. Even then, I am not at all convinced by the claim that the Apocrypha was an integral [i:9be89cc935]printing[/i:9be89cc935] component to all or most English Bibles (not to mention the rest of the world) through the days of Spurgeon. Prove that to me by the testimony of someone without an ax to grind. Fancy &quot;church Bibles&quot; maybe ...

It certainly is true that the Reformation faith, in harmony with the actual [i:9be89cc935]tradition of usage and faith of the church[/i:9be89cc935] from ancient times consistently rejected the belief and use of the Apocrypha as Scripture. Here &quot;tradition bound&quot; Rome proves once again to be the innovator. Yes, there is something deeply &quot;Roman&quot; about the Apocrypha--for them it is a Part of the Bible, in every authoritative sense that a Bible can be authoritative which derives its &quot;authority&quot; from the magesterium. 

But not for the 2000 year old church.

[Edited on 5-11-2004 by Contra_Mundum]


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## dado6 (May 11, 2004)

The 1599 Geneva Bible did not contain the Apocryphal/deuterocanonical books.

Rob


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## sundoulos (May 19, 2004)

...and early KJV were available with and without. I have several early to mid-1800's KJV without.

The reason they were removed is because anyone above the third grade level (in those days) recognized they were not canonical. :bs2:


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## fredtgreco (May 19, 2004)

[quote:29d18df909][i:29d18df909]Originally posted by D. Paul[/i:29d18df909]
The Apocrypha was kept as part of virtually every Bible scribed or printed from these early days until just 120 years ago, in the mid-1880's, when it was removed from Protestant Bibles. Up until the 1880's, however, every Christian... Protestant or otherwise... embraced the Apocrypha as part of the Bible, though debate continued as to whether or not the Apocrypha was inspired. There is no truth to the popular myth that there is something "Roman Catholic" about the Apocrypha, which stemmed from the fact that the Roman Catholics kept 12 of the 14 Apocrypha Books in their Bible, as the Protestants removed all of them. No real justification was ever given for the removal of these ancient Jewish writings from before the time of Christ, which had remained untouched and part of every Bible for nearly two thousand years.

This is from www.greatsite.com which also states that Spurgeon, Edwards, Whitefield et al used bibles containing the 12 Books. This is the first I've ever heard this. Does anyone have further historical insight?

:book: [/quote:29d18df909]

This is so laughably false that it pains me to point it out. For brevity sake, here what the Westminster Confession says on this subject:

[quote:29d18df909]
2. Under the name of Holy Scripture, or the Word of God written, are now contained all the books of the Old and New Testaments, which are these,

OF THE OLD TESTAMENT

Genesis Ecclesiastes
Exodus The Song of Songs
Leviticus Isaiah
Numbers Jeremiah
Deuteronomy Lamentations
Joshua Ezekiel
Judges Daniel
Ruth Hosea
I. Samuel Joel
II. Samuel Amos
I. Kings Obadiah
II. Kings Jonah
I. Chronicles Micah
II. Chronicles Nahum
Ezra Habakkuk
Nehemiah Zephaniah
Esther Haggai
Job Zechariah
Psalms Malachi
Proverbs

OF THE NEW TESTAMENT

The Gospels according to Thessalonians I
Matthew Thessalonians II
Mark To Timothy I
Luke To Timothy II
John To Titus
The Acts of the Apostles To Philemon
Paul's Epistles to the Romans The Epistle to Hebrews
Corinthians I The Epistle of James
Corinthians II The first and second Epistles of Peter
Galatians The first, second and third Epistles of John
Ephesians The Epistle of Jude
Philippians The Revelation of John
Colossians

All which are given by inspiration of God to be the rule of faith and life. (Luke 16:29,31, Eph. 2:20, Rev. 22:18-19, 2 Tim. 3:16)
[b:29d18df909]3. The books commonly called Apocrypha, not being of divine inspiration, are no part of the canon of the Scripture, and therefore are of no authority in the Church of God, nor to be any otherwise approved, or made use of, than other human writings.[/b:29d18df909] (Luke 24:27,44, Rom. 3:2, 2 Pet. 1:21)[/quote:29d18df909]


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## Bladestunner316 (May 19, 2004)




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## jfschultz (May 20, 2004)

[quote:4ac01ffdf0][i:4ac01ffdf0]Originally posted by dado6[/i:4ac01ffdf0]
The 1599 Geneva Bible did not contain the Apocryphal/deuterocanonical books.

Rob [/quote:4ac01ffdf0]

What is your basis for this? Is it the L.L. Brown facsimile copy? 

Mine lists them but does not have them. It may be that they were left out in the facsimile copy. One would have to check an original to see if they were there or not.


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## dado6 (May 20, 2004)

John,

This was based on a copy (modern) I had seen about 10 years ago. It may have been a Brown publishing copy but I don't know for sure.

That said, it appears that the most recent L. L. Brown facsimiles now DO contain the Apocrypha. That is it appears to have been added.... presumably to bring the copy closer to the original?

I guess I was mistaken.

http://globalcorp.com/geneva-bible/

Thanks,
Rob


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## WrittenFromUtopia (Jul 8, 2004)

The Jews loved the Apocrypha because it showed their trimph over times of distress when the Maccabees helped re-take Jerusalem and reconsecrate the Temple.

The Jews only removed it because the early church (who used ONLY the Septuagint w/ Apocrypha) used it (the apocrypha) to prove the deity of Christ! Now, isn't THAT interesting 

Furthermore, the Reformers were against it because the RC church used it to prove purgatory and indulgences from some sentence fragments taken way out of context... which, in my opinion, is another bad reason to discredit something.

Should we throw out the Bible because of Mormons, JW's and Methodists? (jk about the Methodists part.. sort of)


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