# apocrypha



## Weston Stoler (Sep 27, 2011)

I searched through the puritan board and could not find a reason that was easy to explain as to why we do not use the apocrypha. Quotes from early church fathers in context would be helpful as well.


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## Weston Stoler (Sep 27, 2011)

I would like a way to explain this to a Catholic without using the WCF because he would not submit to it. He would just say we took it out to fit our own doctrines and creeds.


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## Philip (Sep 27, 2011)

The question is why the books of the apocrypha are included in the Greek Septuagint, but not in the Hebrew Canon.


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## Weston Stoler (Sep 27, 2011)

Joshua said:


> Weston Stoler said:
> 
> 
> > He would just say we took it out to fit our own doctrines and creeds.
> ...



amen indeed!


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## TimV (Sep 27, 2011)

You can tell him the historic Reformed position is that they may very well include useful teachings, which is why the original King James Bible and Luther's version included them, but they get a second tier status. So while we don't consider them inspired, we have, through the centuries, benefited from them, and you have no interest in mocking them.


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## Prufrock (Sep 27, 2011)

Though this particular question does have some semblance of legitimacy, nevertheless, in its basic form, it is a misleading question of the type in which Romanists conjure up a problem to which they have a ready made solution (how convenient!) - only it's mere sleight of hand, in which the interlocutor attempts to keep his listener/reader so focused upon producing an answer that he will fail to notice the question is not even necessary in the first place. The question demands an answer - but only if the pilgrim must actually pass through that question to remain on his path.

As I said above, though circumstantially this question has some legitimacy, in its basic form it is akin to "Why _don't_ you consider _____ (insert anything at all - the Didache, the Epistle of Barnabas, the Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs, the Apocalypse of Peter, the Epistles of Polycarp, Ignatius and Clement, John Calvin's Institutes, the Book of Mormon or the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy) the infallible and certain rule or norm of faith and practice?" The question which is far more legitimate is "Why _is this_ our infallible rule?" We can give account for our own Canon - and this is where we ought to start to assure the hearts of our brethren. We are ourselves persuaded, chiefly, by the witness of the Holy Spirit, both to our own hearts and to the confessing church throughout history; we can rely upon the New Testament's own witness to the Old Testament canon (which it does in many ways); we can support our faltering faith with reasons both historical and textual. The question, if it is considered in its most honest form, is a question for the one claiming the Apocrypha is an additional part of our infallible rule of faith and practice - why do _they_ so recognize it?


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## Phil D. (Sep 27, 2011)

Here is a good overview of why Protestants deny the canonicity of the  Apocrypha at A Puritan's Mind.


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## jwithnell (Sep 28, 2011)

It might be worth noting that some reformed theologians prior to the 1930s or so seemed well acquainted with these writings and would draw on them when trying to discern word usage and historical context. They were not considered authoritative but certainly useful. Question: it is in the back of my mind that even the Roman church took a while to accept them? That this is a later innovation?


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## Phil D. (Sep 28, 2011)

jwithnell said:


> Question: it is in the back of my mind that even the Roman church took a while to accept them? That this is a later innovation?



Some early and medieval churchmen (both Catholic and EO) considered some or all of the apocryphal books to be canonical, while others did not. The Catholic church didn't officially declare their full canonicity until the council of Trent in 1546 - which was in response to the specific Protestant rejection of them as Inspired scripture.


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## pianoman (Sep 28, 2011)

Dear Weston, John Piper doesn't use the apocrypha so there is the standard. lol


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## nwink (Sep 28, 2011)

Read William Whitaker's "A Disputation On Holy Scripture," and you'll see why the members of the Westminster Assembly only listed the books they did (as being part of Holy Scripture). It is excellent and should satisfy your questions.

http://books.google.com/books?id=zz...ion holy scripture&pg=PR5#v=onepage&q&f=false


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## yeutter (Sep 29, 2011)

*St Jerome's view of the apocrypha*

The Eastern Orthodox include more books then the Church of Rome does. The EO view the Septuagint as authoritative. St Jerome sought the best texts in Hebrew when he translated the Old Testament into Latin. He made note of the fact that Hebrew support was lacking for the apocrypha. Thus the reformation is seeking to be true to St. Jerome


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## Elimelek (Oct 2, 2011)

Dear Weston Stoler

The Old Testament Apocrypha known by the Roman Catholics as the Deutero-Canonical books were discarded by Reformers during the Reformation as a movement was started to go back to the original languages of the Bible (Greek for the New Testament and Hebrew with parts Aramaic for the Old Testament). You might remember that at that time the whole Church in the West read the Bible in Latin. The Vulgate was the general Bible. When the Reformers decided to go back to the original languages of the Bible, certain books that was part of the Vulgate and even the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament, was not attested in the original Hebrew. There was questions about these books being inspired. 


More or less 4 centuries later, with the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls (1946/7) portions of the Hebrew/Aramaic "vorlage" of some of the Greek apocrypha were discovered. We now have the following texts in Hebrew or Aramaic - Tobit, The Wisdom of Jesus ben Sira, the Letter of Jeremiah and Psalms 151A & 151B.

I recent times researchers has conjectured that the Septuagint was the Bible for the Hellenistic Jews, just as the Tanach and the Targums/Targumim were the Semitic Jews' Bible. We know that certain Apocrypha definitely aren't translations of Hebrew or Aramaic originals. The Second book of the Maccabees is a good example. After 70 AD, when the Jews gathered at Yavneh/Jamnia to purify the Jewish religion, certain books were decided not to be copied any more as part of the then still loosely associated canon (the Law or books of Moses was already authoritarian). Thus the Jews didn't add the Apocrypha to their canon, also other "Jewish sects" like the Essenes' Codex Damascus wasn't copied.

One of the reasons for this decision is the fact that the believe in an afterlife and resurrection is well attested in some of the apocrypha, like the Wisdom of Solomon and 2 Maccabees.

For Protestants today, the Deutero-Canonical/ apocryphal books are acceptable to read for private use and even where it supports the rest of Biblical doctrine meditate on it, but it should not be used in public or be assigned the same status as the rest of the Canon.

Kind regards


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