Biblical Apocrypha

[Miz KJV Only]

Biblical Apocrypha


The Biblical Apocrypha from the Ancient Greek: ἀπόκρυφος, denotes the collection of apocryphal ancient books thought to have been written sometime between 200 BC and 400 AD. Some Christian Churches include some or all of the same texts within the body of their version of the Old Testament.

The seven books which compose the Protestant Apocrypha, first published as such in Luther's Bible (1534) are considered canonical Old Testament books by the Catholic Church, affirmed by the Council of Rome (AD 382) and later reaffirmed by the Council of Trent; they are also considered canonical by the Eastern Orthodox Church and are referred to as anagignoskomena per the Synod of Jerusalem. The Anglican Communion accepts "the Apocrypha for instruction in life and manners, but not for the establishment of doctrine.

King James Version

The English-language King James Version (KJV) of 1611 followed the lead of the Luther Bible in using an inter-testamental section labelled "Books called Apocrypha", or just "Apocrypha" at the running page header. The KJV followed the Geneva Bible of 1560 almost exactly (variations are marked below). The section contains the following:

1 Esdras (Vulgate 3 Esdras)

2 Esdras (Vulgate 4 Esdras)

Tobit

Judith ("Judeth" in Geneva)

Rest of Esther (Vulgate Esther 10:4 – 16:24)

Wisdom

Ecclesiasticus (also known as Sirach)

Baruch and the Epistle of Jeremy ("Jeremiah" in Geneva) (all part of Vulgate Baruch)

Song of the Three Children (Vulgate Daniel 3:24–90)

Story of Susanna (Vulgate Daniel 13)

The Idol Bel and the Dragon (Vulgate Daniel 14)

Prayer of Manasseh (Daniel)

1 Maccabees

2 Maccabees

Modern editions
All King James Bibles published before 1666 included the Apocrypha,[41] though separately to denote them as not equal to Scripture proper, as noted by Jerome in the Vulgate, to which he gave the name, "The Apocrypha. In 1826,the National Bible Society of Scotland petitioned the British and Foreign Bible Society not to print the Apocrypha, resulting in a decision that no BFBS funds were to pay for printing any Apocryphal books anywhere. They reasoned that not printing the Apocrypha within the Bible would prove to be less costly to produce. Since that time most of the modern editions of the Bible and re-printings of the King James Bible omit the Apocrypha section. Modern non-Catholic re-printings of the Clementine Vulgate commonly omit the Apocrypha section. Many re-printings of older versions of the Bible now omit the apocrypha and many newer translations and revisions have never included them at all.

 

[Siloam]

To give some additional information regarding the Apocrypha:

R.C. Sproul wrote in his book Everyone's a Theologian:

A dispute arose in the sixteenth century between the Roman Catholic Church and Protestants over the scope and extent of the Old Testament Scriptures, specifically over the Apocrypha, a group of books produced during the intertestamental period. The Roman Catholic Church embraced the Apocrypha; the Reformation churches, for the most part, did not. The dispute centered on what the first-century church and Jesus Himself had accepted as canonical. All the evidence from Palestine indicates that the Jewish Palestinian canon did not include the Apocrypha, whereas many in Alexandria, the cultural center for Hellenistic Jews, did include it. However, more recent scholarship suggests that even the Alexandrian canon recognized the Apocrypha only at a secondary level, not at the full level of biblical authority. So the question remains as to who was right—the Roman Catholic Church or the Protestants? In other words, by what authority do we determine what is canonical?​

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According to the Protestants, each book found in the Bible is an infallible book, but the process undertaken by the church as to which books to include was not infallible. We believe that the church was providentially guided by the mercy of God in the process of determining the canon and thereby made the right decisions, so that every book that should be in the Bible is in the Bible. However, we do not believe that the church was inherently infallible, then or now. By contrast, the Roman Catholic formula says that we have the correct books because the church is infallible and anything the church decides is an infallible decision. In the Roman Catholic understanding, the formation of the canon rests on the authority of the church, whereas in the Protestant understanding, it rests upon the providence of God.​

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Sproul, R.C.. Everyone's a Theologian . Reformation Trust Publishing. Kindle Edition.​