Christians, are you aware of the apocrypha (books banned from the bible)?

Question

I know that many of you are because of past postings, I would like your thoughts on why you think they were banned and if you have read them did it change your beliefs in any way. I am especially curious on thoughts about Jesus's childhood, Mary's book, and Mary Magdalene.

http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/apocrypha.html

Answer 1

The holy orthodox Church includes the Apocrypha in our bibles, but the books you are asking about are not of God but of Agnostics. neither marys wrote books. These were written centuries after Christ in order to turn people away from Christ. It is call deceit. it is used by the evil one to make us think things that are not the true way to Christ. In today's scripture readings Christ warns us of false prophets and deception

http://www.oca.org/Reading.asp?SID=25&M=...

Pseudoepigrapha

At the turn from the first century, many false writings about Christ were produced. These were the so-called apocryphal writings (not to be confused with the Old Testament apocrypha), also called pseudoepigrapha. These false writings carried the names of the apostles and introduced into Christian circles many fanciful and legendary stories about the childhood of Christ, the life of the Virgin Mary and the activities of the apostles.

Apocrypha

Apocrypha may have different meanings depending on how it is applied to the Old or New Testaments and whether it is being used by Catholics, Protestants or Orthodox Christians. For the most part, the term apocrypha refers to any collection of scriptural texts that falls outside the canon. Since most English language bibles are from non-Orthodox sources, they sometimes are subtitled with Apocrypha meaning that it includes the Old Testament, so called Deuterocanonical Books that in the Orthodox Church are considered to be genuine parts of the Bible.

Since mostly all of Christianity accept the same 27 books of the New Testament, the term apocrypha is used for both apocryphal books, and pseudoepigrapha books.

Old Testament

The Apocrypha/Deuterocanonical Books are books of the Old Testament that are accepted by the Orthodox Christian Church but are not accepted by Protestants as part of its official canonical contents, but of close association with the Bible.

The word Deuterocanonical comes from the Greek words Deutero and canona meaning "second canon." The word apocrypha comes from the Greek word ἀπόκρυφα, meaning "hidden." They are included in the Orthodox Bible because they were included in the Septuagint which was in use at the time of Jesus, and the authors of the New Testament. They are not called apocrypha by the Orthodox Church.

The Books of the so called Apocrypha

I Esdras

The portion of II Esdras called the "Prayer of Manasseh"

Tobit

Judith

Portions of Esther

Wisdom of Solomon

Wisdom of Sirach (Ecclesiasticus)

Baruch

Epistle of Jeremiah

The portions of Daniel:

Song of the Three Children

Susanna

Bel and the Dragon

Psalm 151

I Maccabees

II Maccabees

III Maccabees

IV Maccabees

The Psalms are also numbered and divided up differently.

The Apocrypha in Roman Catholicism and Protestant churches

In an Orthodox Bible there are 49 books in the Old Testament canon. Roman Catholics only accept seven so called Deuterocanonical books, so their Old Testament has a total of 46 books (sometimes counted as 47). Because Protestants mistakenly reject the Septuagint altogether, their Old Testament canon has only 39 books.

True Old Testament Apocrypha

There are examples of false books from the Old Testament, there books are: Assumption of Moses, Ascension of Isaiah, Apocalypse of Elijah, Book of Enoch, Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs, and another Book of Maccabees. These books are not in the Old Testament canon of any church.

New Testament

Apocryphal

Books of the apostolic times that were not included in the canon of scripture, but may have reputed apostolic or prophetic authorship, are called Apocryphal. These writings of the early Christian church give accounts of the teachings of Jesus, aspects of the life of Jesus, accounts of the nature of God, or the teachings of his apostles and of their lives. These writings often have links with those books which are regarded as canonical. According to Orthodox teaching they may be read for personal edification but are not authoritative for doctrine.

With the pseudoepigrapha, there also appeared the false teachings of gnosticism, the Christian heresy which transformed Christianity into a kind of spiritualistic, dualistic, intellectualistic philosophy. The Christians of the Orthodox faith had to contend with these false teachings

Answer 2

You have to have faith that God would have His message preserved the way He wanted it

Answer 3

They know of their existence, but are afraid of them, because it shows another completely different truth about God, Jesus, Mary and other biblical characters.

They fear the fact that Jesus was a man, a prophet, not God himself. They don't want to understand what he tried to teach humanity, they feel comfortable with the fact that he died on the cross. They say, "Oh, don't worry, he died for us, we're saved, we should just stay and wait to go to heaven". So ignorant, so disgracefull...

The apocryphas didn't radically changed my life, it made me meditate on new teachings.

Answer 4

Yes, and with good reason.  The early Church fathers rejected these texts as poorly constructed, some with outright apparent falsities included within them, and some as merely didactic and repetitious of the better books selected for inclusion.  Good editing trumps simple writing every time.

Answer 5

They're not God's Word.  Even the OT Jews rejected them completely.  They were only added by the catholic cult many centuries after the Bible was complete in 90 AD, and true believers always removed them and rejected them.

Answer 6

As a Christian, I am aware of the apocrypha.

They were not "banned", per se, like a book that is banned from the public library, for instance.

Rather, they apocryphal books were left out because those who "canonized" the Bible felt that these were not inspired Scripture.

Don't misunderstand, I'm not saying they are bad to read; they are, in deed, good reading, just not considered at the same level as Scripture.

Answer 7

Most Christians haven't even read the bible, let alone 'the apocrypha'. They only read selected verses.

I would be curious to know what's in them as well, but there are so many. Where does one start?

Answer 8

They were written by Satan to test our faith.

Answer 9

many of the apocypha are interesting books, but they do not teach what the Bible does.  there have been a lot of reasons why things were left out or removed from the Bible.  some of the apocrypha have enjoyed great popularity in their time, although that does not make them right or valuable spiritually.  I have read the apocrypha, and I recognize the difference between men's words and the holy, inspired, providential books of the Bible.  if you want to find a good collection of apocrypha then look for "the Other Bible" edited by william barnstone.