Curious question: Why do you suppose that 7 books were left out of the Protestant Bible?

Question

These books had been in the Old Testament in the Catholic Bible and are still in it. Is there a reason why these were left out?


http://catholic.com/library/Old_Testament_Canon.asp

Have you read them? I have and I can find nothing offensive nor unbiblical about them so why?

Sirach for example?

For one gentlemans comment it was not a Pope that left them out.

During the Reformation, primarily for doctrinal reasons, Protestants removed seven books from the Old Testament: 1 and 2 Maccabees, Sirach, Wisdom, Baruch, Tobit, and Judith, and parts of two others, Daniel and Esther. They did so even though these books had been regarded as canonical since the beginning of Church history.

Answer 1

It all falls under who was in charge of translating the Bible and what books THEY felt were gospel and which were apocrypha.

I believe it had a lot to do with going over all the books and deciding which ones supported each other and which ones even refer to one another for their validation.

If it fell under the category of "none of the above" then it was left out.....like Tobit.

Also there is the so called "Gospel of Judas" that is making such a sensation.

As I recall in National Geographic Magazine; their article notes that that work was known to the Catholic Church as early as AD 150 and rejected back then.

I notice that many other works have been re-discovered in the last 100 years that were previously rejected in the early days of the church and are now causing people of faith to question the bible.

Probably just more of the devil's work.

May I recommend you get hold of a copy of The Oxford University Press Bible, New Revised Standard Version with Apocrypha?

That has all 12 books that were left out of the Protestant Bible.......it includes the other 5 books you will find in the Greek and Russian Orthodox as well as the Slavonic Churches.

I believe the compact edition in leather is currently out of print right now due to a new edition coming out which will be sometime in October.

Oh, and thank you for being one of the nicer people that contribute to the Religion section.

God bless.

Answer 2

If for the seven books, you are referring to the books of 1 & 2 Esdras, Tobit, Judith, Sirach and 1 & 2 Macabees, as well as the additions to the books of Daniel (the stories of Bel and the Dragon, Susanna, and the song of the Three Holy Children), Esther, Jeremiah (as written by Baruch), Chronicles (the added items known as the prayer of Manasses), Eccleciastes (the added items are sometimes separated as an individual book: the Wisdom of Solomon), then you would be referring to the Apocrypha.

There are actually many books not included in any Bible that are considered apocryphal, such as Enoch, the Testament of Moses, the Prayer of Joseph, the Gospel According to Thomas, Peter, the Epistles of Ignatius, the two Epistles of Clement, and various others. The entirety of the Apocrypha were not included in the Bible because of many reasons, some more applicable to a certain apocryphal book than others.

- These books were written by and in support of Gnosticism (the most recent addition to this would actually be the Gospel according to Judas; those who have actually read it and find otherwise, please correct me), which is condemned by many of the epistles in the Bible.
- These books were written after the age of the Apostles (pretty much, by second-generation Christians at best).
- These books were not accepted in general by the Christians at the time.

These books can also be referred to as pseudo-apostolic writings.

Most of the Apocrypha were condemned by the early Church leaders (such as Origen). With the recent exception of the seven you normally find in some Catholic Bibles, the Catholic Church condemned them in 447 (Pope Leo the Great), even to the point of having them burned. Non-Catholic Christians do not include the seven that are included in the Catholic Bible, choosing to consider all Apocrypha as "spurious" and "non-canonical," thus having no place in mainstream Bibles.

Answer 3

The Jews were very careful in transcribing the books of the Old Testament. The Talmud describes in detail what practices were to be carried out as the books were copied. Some of these requirements included:

The pages had to be lined and spaced so that there were a certain number of columns.
Not so much as a letter could be written from memory. The scribe had to look at each word before writing
If at any point during copying a mistake was made, the page had to be thrown away and a new copy made.
There had to be a certain amount of space between letters (about a hair’s breadth).
Every letter was counted.
There were countless other rules and restrictions that had to be followed (do some research on the subject, it’s quite interesting), but these few that I have listed should give you enough insight to see that the Jews were extremely careful in their transcription; there was no room for error.

Somewhere around A.D. 70 or A.D. 90 (it depends on whom you read after) the Sanhedrin received permission from the Roman government to reconvene for the purpose of reaffirming that these 39 books were in fact inspired and to be included in the canon. More importantly, the Bible itself gives evidence that these 39 books are inspired of God and to be included in Scripture.

In John 5:39 Jesus told the unbelieving Jews that they were to ’search the Scriptures’, because they [the Scriptures] testified of Him. Luke 24 is another example of the Biblical evidence.

Luke 24:44-45: “And he said unto them, These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me. Then opened he their understanding, that they might understand the Scriptures.”

Historically, the New Testament is another story. There apparently was never a time when an official council of any kind met to determine which books should be included in the canon.

How then was it determined?

Apostolic authority. The work had to be either written or backed by an Apostle.
Inspiration of the content. There had to be internal evidence that a book was inspired of God.
General acceptance. The work had to be accepted by the church as being inspired.
David Cloud in his book, “Give Attendance to Doctrine” stated that around A.D. 208, Tertullian, in his “Prescription Against Heretics”, urged heretics to ‘run’ to the apostolic churches because the ‘authentic writings’ were still being read in these churches. Specifically mentioned were Corinth, Philippi, Rome, Thessalonica, and Ephesus. Most agree that the 27 books of the NT canon existed in the Greek language as early as the middle of the second century.Once again, study of the Bible itself gives us the best evidence. For example, you can see 2 Peter 3: 15-17 where Paul’s writings are included as Scripture. Please be reminded that there are other texts you can and should study on your own (these lessons are simply meant to be somewhat of an ‘overview’ of basic doctrine).

Answer 4

Those books were not left out - they had never been included in the first place. While they may have been distributed and even used for teaching, they were never held to be a part of the Old Testament by the Jews and so were not included in the Bible of the Christians. A better question might be, why does the Catholic church include them?

Answer 5

The question is "why did the Catholic Church include them". They are not considered Scripture. They were not inspired by the Holy Spirit, and they are not infallible, containing historical errors. In the New Testament, Jesus and the apostles quoted from the books of the Old Testament, but never made any comments concerning the Apocrypha.

Answer 6

I wonder if these books were eliminated when the Protestants broke with the Catholic church? I have seen the extra books in my ex-mother-in-law's Bible but never read them. When I was among the Fundamentalists it was said that these books were not Divinely inspired. At the time I saw the Catholic Bible I was still somewhat influenced by what I had been told. I was a young girl...

Answer 7

There has been no books left out of the Bible, Now If the Catholic Church is saying that, Then they are wrong as usual. Moses wrote the 1st 4 books of the Old Testament

Answer 8

In my country Bible is considered to be book which is consists of 2 parts : Old Testament and New Tastament.
Both parts are respectable for eastern ortofox christians.

I am as well very much surprised why christians protestants read and follow only New Testament. A lot of sects which came from USA to my country ( for exmpl " Church of Jesus" sect) also promote only New testament for the people..

I am muslim but for me the all events which happened before prophet Mohammed are important and respectable..

May be some christians take from Holy scriptures only what they consider convenient to believe?? Thats why they had created new ideology about Trinity and Son of God... which are definetely not in Old testament...

Answer 9

Good question. I have to say that I don't know for sure without studying it out first. But my first idea is that those books were not included in the Jewish Tanach. That might be the explanation. Here's a link to the books in the Tanach:

http://www.hebrew4christians.com/Scripture/scripture.html

You will also notice that there is variation in the order of the books.

Answer 10

The Apocrypha? It was though that they were not inspired books, but histories only. and there were 5 of them. OH, I am sorry! I just took a look at what you were referring to, and the answer is VERY simple, they were all written after 300 ad. that is why they are not in our Bible.