Is there a 2nd or 3rd ecclisiastes? Are they apocryphal? Or gnostic in nature?

Answer 1

There is no 2nd or 3rd Ecclesiastes, per se.

However, there are 2 more books of "wisdom" in the Catholic Bible and Orthodox Christian Bible than are in the Protestant Bible.

They are called the seven Sapiential (wisdom) books:
1) Job
2) Psalms
3) Proverbs
4) Ecclesiastes
5) Song of Solomon (Song of Songs)
6) Ecclesiasticus (Sirach)
7) Book of Wisdom (Wisdom of Solomon or Wisdom)

The last 2 are not in Protestant Bibles, and are considered "Deuterocanonical" by Catholics and "apocrypha" by Protestants.

Ecclesiastes is considered a book of wisdom, as are "Ecclesiasticus" and the "Book of Wisdom".

All-in-all, the last 2 books mentioned in the list above, are very good and more doctrinally sound then most modern Christian books that are "best-sellers". They are still considered "apocrypha" by Protestants, but this only means that Portestants don't consider them inspired by the Holy Spirit and, therefore, perfectly holy and without fault.

They are not "gnostic". Gnostic applies better to the "apocrypha" of the New Testament - garbage writings that are unbiblical and heretical - not good from a Catholic or Protestant perspective. The gnostics had very awful teaching.

Here is more information:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_apocrypha
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deuterocanonical
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Wisdom
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Sira

God bless!

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