All Doves:
There is surprisingly, considerable confusion among the contemporary Christian world today about what is "Canon" and what is not "Canon". Many believe we should have other books in the Bible.
For the majority of the Protestant community, "Canon" is referred to as the 66 books of the Old and New Testaments. Catholics, include an additional 15 Apocryphal books, from a collection of about 18 or more books written during the Intertestamental Period, the four hundred years following the closing of the Old Testament with the prophet Malachi, and the coming of the Messiah and the beginning of the New Testament. During those 400 years of silence, when God did not speak through new prophets to Israel and silence prevailed concerning Divine revelation.
These Catholic additions to the Bible are called the Apocrypha or sometimes the Deuterocanonical books. At the Council of Trent (1546 AD) the Roman Catholic Church pronounced a series of books as sacred literature. They asserted that the Apocryphal books together with unwritten tradition as being from God and are to be received and venerated as the Word of God. So, following the Council of Trent, you had the Word of God, the Bible, with the Apocrypha and Catholic Tradition as co-equal sources of truth for the Catholic. In reality, it seems obvious that the Bible is the final source of truth for Catholics. Roman Catholic doctrine comes primarily from tradition stuck together with the a few Bible names. Catholics, Roman and Orthodox, have been deceived into NOT believing that the Bible is God's complete revelation for man. They are taught their priest is a spokesman of God in lieu of the Bible.
The word "Apocrypha" means "of questionable authenticity". The early Christian community recognized when the "Canon" was accepted [the 66 books of the Old and New Testament] they recognized that these Apocryphal books contained spurious material and therefore were not inspired of God. Other names for these books are "hidden" or "deuterocanonical" books. They are also called "pseudepigraphal", meaning "false writings" to designate them as unauthentic books of the late centuries BC and early AD. These books contain religious folklore and have never been considered inspired of God by Biblical Christians from the earliest years of the the Church.
There are a number of reasons that the Apocrypha isn't in the Bible:
1. Not one of the apocryphal books is written in the Hebrew language (the Old Testament was written in Hebrew). All Apocryphal books are in Greek, except one which exists only in Latin.
2. None of the Apocryphal writers claimed to inspiration.
3. The Apocryphal books were never acknowledged as sacred Scriptures by the Jews, the custodians of the Hebrew Scriptures (the Apocrypha was written prior to the New Testament). In fact, the Jewish people rejected and destroyed the Apocrypha after the overthrow of Jerusalem in 70 AD.
4. The Apocrypha contains fabulous and often bizarre statements which not only contradict the "canonical" Scriptures but themselves. For example, in the two Books of Maccabees, Antiochus Epiphanes is made to die three different deaths in three different places.
5. The Apocryphal books were not permitted among the sacred books during the first four centuries of the early Christian Church, before Rome became the dominant church.
6. The Apocrypha includes doctrines in variance with the Bible, such as prayers for the dead and sinless perfection.
7. It teaches immoral practices, such as lying, suicide, assassination, and magical incantation.
8. No apocryphal book is referred to in the New Testament whereas the Old Testament is referred to hundreds of times.
9. Because of these and other reasons, the Apocryphal books are only valuable as ancient documents illustrative of the manners, language, opinions, and history of the Middle East.
10. They abound in historical and geographical inaccuracies and anachronisms.
11. They resort to literary types and display an artificiality of subject matter and styling out of keeping with inspired Scripture.
12. They lack distinctive elements which give genuine Scripture their divine character, such as prophetic power and poetic and religious feeling.
You may happen to have a KJV Bible which contains the Apocrypha; however, the King James Translators never considered the Apocrypha as the Word of God. It was inserted into the middle of the Bible between the Old and New Testament as an appendix of reference material.
Some have referred to these books as the "missing books" of the Bible and conclude they are new discoveries which are part of God's revelation. Nothing could be further from the truth. The content of these books are spurious and shows them to be inspired of man ... not God. It is noteworthy that the Roman Catholic Church is a false church with false doctrines and pagan practices, accepts these books as Scripture. Interestingly, the Mormons, or LDS Church accept them as Scripture. The fact is there is no lost books of the Bible.
Point #6 above was an important division point, because the Roman Catholic Church at the Council of Trent restored books that promoted purgatory, salvation by works, Mary's sinless (immaculate conception). The heretical Roman Catholic Church claims these books are inspired:
Tobit
Judith
Wisdom of Solomon
Ecclesiasticus
Baruch 1 & 2
Maccabees
Letter of Jeremiah
Additions to Esther
Prayer of Azariah
Susanna (Daniel 13)
Bel and the Dragon (Daniel 13)
Three other books of the Septuagint, the Prayer of Manasseh, and 1st & 2nd Esdras, were not considered to be inspired or canonical by the Roman Catholic Church at the Council of Trent. For over 1,300 years, since the inception of the Roman Catholic Church in the 4th century, even they did not consider them inspired. The Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament) contained the Apocrypha along with the standard 39 books of the Old Testament Bible. The Septuagint was translated in Alexandra, Egypt which was a hot bed of heresy. The Gnostics of the third and fourth centuries AD were notorious for spurious writings. These were revived by modern day Gnostics during the past thirty years and are regularly quoted, promoted, and hyped by the History Channel, A&E, and Discovery Channel.
It is important to recognize and know that Jesus nor any of His disciples ever quoted from or mention any of these books .
>From Alexandra, Egypt also came the corrupted manuscripts of "Aleph", "A", "B", upon which all modern English translations are based. The "New" Greek Text of Wescott & Hort, of the late 1880's included several of these Apocryphal books in the LXX, or Septuigant. However, it is important to recognized that none of these books were ever included in the Hebrew Bible and were never accepted by the Jews. Furthermore, no Greek manuscript contains the Apocryphal books as does the Roman Catholic Bible. No copy of the Septuagint before the fourth century AD has any of the Apocryphal books included which reflects the progression of heresy in Egypt.
By 1629, the Apocrypha began to be omitted from succeeding printings of the KJV Bible. By 1825, the British and Foreign Bible Society agreed, that from that time forward, the Apocrypha had been virtually eliminated from all English Bibles - Catholic and some pulpit Bibles excepted.
Lest anyone think they have been deceived by the omission of the Apocryphal writings, they need not be concerned. There are more volumes on how the Canon was put together, than you have shelf space in your home. No true Bible-believing church has ever accepted the books as canonical for these reasons. In order for a book to be considered inspired of God and included in the Canon it must have satisfied the following requirements:
1. It must have been written by a prophet of God. None of the Apocryphal books claim they were.
2. It must come with the authority of God. These spurious books are strikingly absent of the ring of authority. None of them come up or compare in any way to the character and quality of the sixty-six Books of the Bible.
3. It must demonstrate that the power of God rests on the book. There is nothing transforming about these books.
4. It must tell the truth about God, man, history, science, etc. The books of the Apocrypha are full of contradictions, errors, and even heresies, and full of untruths.
5. It must be accepted by Biblical Christians as inspired of God. The Apocryphal books completely fail this final and fatal test.
Plainly put, the Roman Catholic Church has never had any Biblical support for its teachings such as purgatory, prayers for the dead, works of salvation, indulgences, etc. The events of the Reformation brought to a head and raised question these false teachings. The Council of Trent in 1546 went against the early church councils by declaring the Apocrypha as sacred Scripture.
It was the church of Rome, the early apologists, which determined the Canon at the Council of Hippo (393 AD) and the Council of Carthage (397 AD) which determined which books were inspired, and which were not. Consequently, the Roman Catholic Church reversed their position nearly 1,300 years later at the Council of Trent. In a previous post, I identified why Rome became so powerful and dominant in the Church at that time, namely because of its geographical centrality among the early churches.
The early Council of Hippo and Carthage had long established the fact that the Apocrypha was spurious and therefore rejected as accepted as Canon.
Jesus said, "The Scripture cannot be broken" -(John 10:35), which means that genuine Scripture consistently agrees with itself throughout. Since these books are filled with inaccuracies and disagree with the plain teachings of the Bible, they could not be a part of God's Word.
Jesus also affirmed the three sections of the Hebrew Scriptures preserved and accepted by the Jews. He said, "All things must be fulfilled which were written in the Law of Moses, and the Prophets, and the Psalms concerning Me" -(Luke 24:44). The Apostle Paul later explained that God committed to the Jews "the Oracles of God" -(Romans 3:2). The Jews did not accept the Apocrypha, and so neither did the Church. The inclusion of the Apocrypha in the original printing of the KJV Bible was strictly for historical reasons. There is no evidence to support the idea that the Apocrypha is anything other than spurious material.
I have had access to four different seminary libraries in my theological education, and I long ago concluded we have the complete Canon in our King James Bible. I have researched the writings of those that determined what was Canon and what was not. For the Roman Catholic Church to say that we do not have all the books of the Bible is simply a lie. One of the arguments afoot today in coming to a Bible for the One-World-Church is the stickler of Rome to its demand that the Septuagint be included in the One-World-Church because it supports Roman Catholic heresy and errant doctrines. Currently, the NIV of the 1980's and the Roman Catholic Bible used in church are one in the same, but with this one exception. Rome ultimately will likely succeed in having the Septuagint (which contains the Apocrypha) reinserted into the One-World-Church Bible. Rome never changes.
God bless,
Pastor Bob