the apocrypha?

Question

what do u think of the apocrypha?
factual?
fiction?
i like the sound of it....APOCRYPHA.
sounds cool.
has any one read it? i just bought it.
ive always went by king james.
well just want your input.
thanks, candy

Answer 1

The Apocrypha, although not considered a part of the inspired canon by the Reformers, was included in the Roman Catholic bible. Whether or not you can agree with its inspiration you will still find it an invaluable resource of inter-testemental historical information. Escpecially about the Maccabee's. It was an excellent choice and I am sure you will enjoy it.

Answer 2

The apocrypha is a small collection of books and book additions that is included in (some) Catholica Bibles, but not the Protestant Bibles.

The Old Testament (or Torah) was originally written in Hebrew, and the list of books included officially closed around 450 BC. However, people still continued to write books about God. (They are still doing that today - look at the DiVince Code for instance)

Around 250BC the Old Testament was translated into Greek, which was becoming the common language of that day, replacing Hebrew. The group that made the translate included some books that were not part of the Torah, but related history from 400 to 250BC, plus another book of new psalms and new proverbs, etc.

Over the next 200 years, the Greek version of that Torah would become THE version of the Torah (much like the King James Bible is THE version of the Bible). Every quote Jesus and the New Testament writers make from the Torah is from that Greek Version.

Around 400 AD, an early Christian scholar named Jerome, translated the Old and New Testament into the common language of his day - Latin. As he was not a Hebrew scholar, he made his OT translation from the Greek Torah instead of the Hebrew originals. But he realized the Greek Torah included books that were not part of the official Hebrew Torah. Not sure what to do with the additional books, he collected them into a section in between the two testaments called the apocypha, which means "minor knowledge" or "hidden knowledge". They have since been considered of less importance or inspiration then the other books. No major church doctrines are based on information in those books. The majority of the books are historical in nature, and so have some value in covering that 200 years of Jewish history.

The protestants, when they translated the King James Bible, went back to the original Hebrew manuscripts which do not include those book, so they are not included in the KJ translation.
Since most newer translations are made from the original Hebrew, not the Greek translation, they also do not include the books. However you can find Bibles (usually Catholic translations) that include them.

Answer 3

Some apcrypha are validated by the Catholic church as God-inspired scripture, but the vast majority of apocrypha documents is not taking into account by all of the Christian traditions. At odds are the ones related to Jesus as a child.
And it's about time you put your King James aside. Bible scholarship has advanced tremendeously since the Elizabethan English used by the King Jimmy pen pals.

Answer 4

apocrypha
This comes from the Greek apokruphos, which means secret or hidden. It refers to a collection of Biblical books which appear in the Catholic version of the Bible, but which do not also appear in the Hebrew collection.

Because of this discrepancy, Luther removed them when he translated the Bible into German. Thus, Protestant versions of the Bible all lack these books:

Tobit
Judith
I Maccabees
II Maccabees
Wisdom of Solomon
Ecclesiasticus
Baruch

Answer 5

welcome - glad you found it! like it tremendously and hope you will too!
I'm assuming you are a female by your name -- make sure you read Judith -- it tells of a grave crisis through which God used a woman as His instrument. even if you're not a female, it's a great read - tobit too!!!

i still keep my KJV alongside for references when people quote from there -- can never have too many "study guides" when our final exams have sooooo much riding on them!

God Bless
YSIC

Answer 6

there are a whole bunch of apocryphal books that never were in any bible, there are a whole bunch of other early Christian writings that weren't in the bible either but seem to be more Christian than the bible, I grew up on the Douay-Rheims