Do you consider the apocrypha part of the inspired?

Question

word of god? Why or why not?

If you don't consider the apocrypha part of the "true canon," why not? The bible as we know it was compiled by on sect of Catholic Christians 1600 years ago, so is there any reason to think they were infallible?

And we now know that many of the books of the NT were not written by the authors they were presumed to have been written by...many of the epistles were known to be later forgeries, yet those books are still part of the accepted bible.

Please no snotty replies, I'm trying to understand your thinking.

Answer 1

Due to the fact that these
Christians use the Protestant Old Testament which is lacking 7 entire books 2 (Tobias, Judith, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus/Sirach, Baruch, I Maccabees, and II Maccabees), 3 chapters of Daniel and 6 chapters of Esther may be one of the reasons they ask catholics so many questions.

For the Sola Scriptura this is too bad .
In the 16th c., Luther removed those books from the canon that lent support to orthodox doctrine, relegating them to an appendix. Removed in this way were books that supported such things as:

prayers for the dead (Tobit 12:12; 2 Maccabees 12:39-45),

Purgatory (Wisdom 3:1-7),

intercession of dead saints (2 Maccabees 15:14),

and intercession of angels as intermediaries (Tobit 12:12-15).

The lesson, though, is this: relying on the "Bible alone" is a bad idea; we are not to rely solely on Sacred Scripture to understand Christ's message. While Scripture is "given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness" (2 Timothy 3:16-17), it is not sufficient for reproof, correction and instruction in righteousness. It is the Church that is the "pillar and ground of Truth" (1 Timothy 3:15)! Jesus did not come to write a book; He came to redeem us, and He founded a Sacramental Church through His apostles to show us the way. It is to them, to the Church Fathers, to the Sacred Deposit of Faith, to the living Church that is guided by the Holy Spirit, and to Scripture that we must prayerfully look.


any further questions, try this website:

http://www.fisheaters.com/beingcatholic....

Answer 2

You can't believe everything you read. The bible is internally consistent while the apocrypha disagree with it too much. All Christian religions seem to know that much. It's like criticizing Einstein while not knowing any calculus. Not meant to be a smart comment just an observation. Study spirituality, if you don't like the Bible. You have to sort through that as much as you do with philosophy, metaphysics or anything people have given a lot of thought to. Even scientists argue constantly. Their whole language is confrontational. It's best to stick to proved science, logical spirituality or metaphysics. Frankly the Human Studies have not used the objective scientific method and reap the results or lack of results. Scientists don't tackle the human questions, probably because many are not people persons and the issues seem too complicated and difficult to reduce to a formula, but not impossible. Statistics are used extensively by some branches of psychology, but that, and medicine, is largely curative and not preventative. The Bible has had a lot of scholarship around it, but not too objective, I have to say. Still the Bible is incredibly accurate. It's been poured over so much it's unbelievable. Someplace around 80 plus percent of people have some sort of belief that we are more than the sum of our parts, more than just a robot. It's hard to prove, but I sure hope so, at least our thoughts or our awareness or something, although I agree we are almost a computer. If you know how to work the Bible, it really works and it's all coming out because of the information age. Still, all literature and all people are inspired, to some extent, certainly in their different areas of knowledge. It's the test step of the scientific method that proves a text for accuracy. "Test the inspired expressions to see if they're from God."

Answer 3

I don't believe anything apocryphal is inspired. The two terms are contradictory. But if you are referring to the deuterocanonical writings in the Old Testament, yes I believe they are inspired. The books of the Bible were authoritatively compiled by the only Christian Church that existed 1600 years ago - the Catholic Church. This was the excepted canon of scripture for over a millennium. And these books are in the Old Testament, not the New Testament.

Liberal exegesis tries to make the case that some of the New Testament books were written by pseudonymous authors. The fact is that we do not know this. But even if they were, that still does not change their status as inspired writings.

The fact is that without relying on some higher authority than one's own intuition, it is impossible to know which writings are inspired by God. That is why Jesus gave us a competent authority to make decisions like this with his guarantee that his Church would be guided by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit protects the Church from teaching false doctrine. Tell me - which one of the thousands of disagreeing Protestant sects is teaching the truth? These churches have no traceable lineage to the apostles, who bestowed the Holy Spirit upon their successors. These successors of the apostles - the Catholic bishops - are the only people who have the authority to make such decisions.

That is why I believe the deuterocanonical writings are scriptural. Because, as St. Augustine put it, "Indeed, I would not believe in the gospel myself if the authority of the Catholic Church did not move me to do so" (Faith and Creed 5:6 [A.D. 393]).

Some of the other answerers to your question need a history lesson. The fact is that the Jews did not consider the canon of scripture to be closed until the Council of Jamnia (c. A.D 100). This was done in response to the Christians using Jewish texts as their own scriptures. The accepted canon of scripture in first century Judeaism was the Septuagint. The same text that the Catholic Church has always used as its source for Old Testament scriptures. The Coucil of Jamnia was held after Jesus had transferred the authority to make such decisions from the Pharisees to the Apostles. Therefore, the "approved" Jewish canon, which is used by Protestants today was decided on by the same Jewish community that denied Jesus' divinity.

Secondly, the Church did not expand the scriptures at the Council of Trent. They merely reafirmed the canon as it always had been. Look at Jerome's vulgate (fourth century) and the Gutenberg Bible (fifteenth century) - both occurred prior to the Protestant Reformation (sixteenth century) - and both contain the deuterocanonicals. It was if fact the Protestant reformers - specifically Luther - who removed these books from the Bible, along with several in the New Testament. Luther only remitted the New Testament books under political pressure from the German princes who were protecting him. This is the authority that one submits to when accepting the Protestant version of the Bible.

Thirdly, the disputed beliefs mentioned by one answerer - prayers for the dead, pugatory and justification by faith and works - are all taught through-out the Bible. The deuterocanonical books did not contradict the rest of scripture in any way. That is why Luther also wanted to remove some of the New Testament books - because they also taught these same doctrines. The Protestant mind doesn't seem to be able to get around the idea the the Church does not base its beliefs solely on what is in the Bible, but based the canon of scripture on what was already known to be true by the guidence of the Holy Spirit. Here's a question for my co-answerer who likes philosophy: which came first - The Church or the Bible? Here's another one for those of you who fancy yourselves as Bible scholars: what does scripture say is the foundation of truth? (Hint: it's not the Bible). The answer can be found in 1Timothy 3:15.

Answer 4

i personally believe that there is much to be learned form the apocrypha. I attempt to remain open minded and willing to learn and understand the faiths of those, although i am not a practitioner of that particular faith.

For whatever reason, so many of the written texts were either hidden or not included for reasons we may never know. What i do know is that any sect that was in existence 1600 years from now and is still around today, has gone through some major changes....

I think that there are so many people who cannot see the truth due to the mental conditioning they started receiving at birth.They accept what they are told to be true without question.
Only my humble opinion
Blessed Be

Answer 5

Your comment is itself snotty. The New Testament has never been proven to not have been written by whom Tradition said it was written by.

The Bible was not systematically compiled 1600 years ago. You obviously are one of those that has no idea what the Council of Nicea was about. It had nothing to do with compiling the Bible. What protestants call the apocrypha was never apocryphal to Christians. As for the "canon", it was not then a closed list, but an overlap of documents agreed upon by Bishops from all quarters as the admitted extent of documents for earliest evidence in the procedings of the Council. Even Arius agreed on these documents being the ones admitted for the procedings. In those days, there was non Christian but members of that Catholic body.

The socalled New Testament Apocrypha varies from being like the Books now in the Bible to being late forgeries. The socalled "apocrypha" that Catholics accept were once recognized by the Jews as Scripture. There are heretical reasons protestants have for rejecting these. The Books of the Maccabees have things in them that protestants wish to ignore in their many heresies. The books of Tobit and Judith and Daniel and Esther cannot be said to have factual or historical errors, as the details are best judged from their own pages, and the times they cover often cover periods not that well probed yet. There are huge holes in secular history for those times. Often kings lists are compiled from fragmentary comparisons, etc., or there is lack of knowledge of who ruled in one country during a dynasty elsewhere - hardly strong enough data by which to judge when a narrative is placed, nor what happened then.

Answer 6

No. Their content not only contained some historical errors and factual errors, but also taught things that did not cohere with the Scripture.

I consider them as having some value but that they were not fit for the formation of doctrine. With the caveat of their non-canonical status , the books continued to be included in Bibles until shortly after reformation. After 1825 or so, the apocryphal books were largely dropped from inclusion in the Bible except in versions authorized by the Roman Catholic Church or the Eastern Orthodox churches.

During the Reformation one of the complaints against Rome was that some of its teachings had no basis in Scripture. Rome responded in 1546 at the Council of Trent by declaring the apocryphal books to be scriptural, thus expanding its definition of the canon. The reason these books that Roman Catholic doctrines such as prayers for the dead, purgatory, and justification by faith plus works are derived.

Answer 7

Can I say something.The knowlegde you presented is in error Here's a test for you,find 1 real authentic error in the bible.No one has ever found the bible to be wrong in anything
In fact everone who's ever started out to prove it's inaccuracy in any one of the things you brought up
,have come instead to agree with the one who wrote it,The HolySpirit thru divine inspiration thru the bible writer's.
They have all,also some into a saving grace experience with the Lord Jesus Christ!

Those people who'v claimed inaccuracys about the bible have never reeeeellly made a serious study of the many sources availabe for it's truth in,say for one,archeology.

Answer 8

The answer is simple. In the New Testament it says that the Jews were given the Oracles of God. The Jews did not include the Apca as a part of the Oracles of God. And so when canon time came around they did not get included !!!
No snty reply intended !!!http://www.carm.org/doctrine/100truths.htm

Answer 9

do you believe everything you read? Understanding of something is wisdom gained by it so actually you do not want to understand the Bible you want to trash it because you have gained no wisdom from it. Good luck on your search for meaning when everything can be reduce to false

Answer 10

TICK TICK TICK....