What are the Apocryphal books?

Question

how many are they and why aren't they included within the New Testament.
If they are different to the canonical, how different are they?

Answer 1

The canonical books are true and divinely inspired writings. Where as the apocryphal books are often full of false teachings and false statements. Often these books do not hold with anything else written and cannot be substantiated by any historical documents.... in other words... lies. The Gnostic books are an example of these. While they are interesting to read, we do not use them to establish canon law and doctrine.

The OT also had apocryphal writings... these are generally included in the Catholic bibles, but not in Protestant. Again, good reading, but not canon. The old testament was actually assembled prior to the Jews assembling theirs. It was only with Martin Luther that we had the distinction between canon and apocrypha.

Answer 2

The nine Apocryphal books were part of the Old Testament but not included by the Jewish sages they are:

Tobit
Judith
1 Maccabees
2 Maccabees
Wisdom (of Solomon)
Ben Sira
Baruch, includes Letter of Jeremiah (Additions to Jeremiah)
Additions to Daniel
Additions to Esther (to give it a more religious feel as Esther is the only book of the bible that does not contain the word "God")

Some authorites also include further books including Psalm 151, the books of Esdras and the third and fourth books of Maccabees. It varies from Church to Church

Answer 3

Apocryphal books are any books written by ancient christians not accepted into the New Testament. They are generally omitted due to questionable divinity or questionable value to the church.

They include:

Gospel of Thomas
Gospel of Mary
Gospel of Peter

more can be found here:

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

Answer 4

They aren't in the NT because they were all part of the OT. (Not to be confused with "The O.C.)

There were seven additional books in the original OT, and four of the current books had additional chapters / verses in them. The Catholic church kept them as part of their Bible, but the Hebrew canon removed them from the Tanach (aka OT).

When the Protestants broke off from the Catholic church, they looked at the OT and decided to remove the apocryphal books from the Bible, in part due to the fact that they were not part of the Hebrew canon... the theory was that the Hebrews knew better than the Catholics what books should and should not be in their holy book.

Answer 5

They are a collection of NT books that weren't included. I would presume because they contradicted the nature and power of the church. These books probably contain more valuable information than those that were included - which don't really offer much of any value. I am sure that they would undermine the church and what it teaches - for a start, churches probably shouldn't even exist! I think there were about 15.

Answer 6

Visit this...You will get lots of ideas...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_apocrypha

and also www.amazon.com/Apocrypha-Edgar-J-Goodspeed/dp/0679724524