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The Apocrypha

The following quotation is taken from the Westminster Dictionary of the Bible, page 33, article Apocrypha.

• “The [Greek word apokrypha means hidden or secret things, used by ecclesiastical writers for: 1) matters secret or mysterious. 2) of unknown origin, forged, spurious. 3) unrecognized, uncanonical.] The name generally given to the following 16 books: 1 and 11 Esdras, Tobit, Judith, the Rest of Esther, The Wisdom of Solomon, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch with The Epistle of Jeremy, The Song of the Three Holy Children, The History of Susanna, Bel and the dragon, The Prayer of Manasses, 1, 11, 111 and 1V Maccabees being omitted.”

• “Unlike the books of the Old Testament, which are in Hebrew, with some portions in Aramaic, the apocryphal productions are in Greek ... The Jewish Church considered them uninspired, and some of their writers disclaim inspiration, (prologue to Ecclesiasticus; 11 Macc.2:23; 15:38). The Apocrypha and Pseudopigrapha were produced between about 250 B.C. and somewhere in the early Christian centuries. They are not found in the Hebrew canon: they are never quoted by Jesus; and it cannot with certainty be affirmed that the apostles ever directly allude to them...”

• “The Church of England in the 6th of the Thirty-nine Articles published in 1562 calls the apocryphal teatises books which the 'Church doth read for example of life and instruction of manners: but yet doth it not apply them to establish any doctrine.' The Westminster Confession of 1643 declares, as a matter of creed, that 'the books, commonly called Apocrypha, not being of divine inspiration, are no part of the canon of Scripture, and therefore are of no authority in the Church of God, or to be any otherwise approved or made use of than other human writings.'”

• “The Council of Trent at its sitting on April 8th, 1546, ...pronounced an anathema against anyone who ventured to differ from it in opinion. This has since regulated the belief of the Roman Catholic Church..”

• “A controversy on the subject was carried on between the years 1821 and 1826, which resulted in the exclusion of the Apocrypha from all Bibles issued by the British and Foreign Bible Society.”