Apocrypha

  • The Apocrypha were a series of additional texts added to the original translation of the Hebrew Bible and included in the the Bibles of the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church.
  • The Apocrypha were then excluded from the Protestant Church Bibles after the Reformation, but reincluded in the King James Bible of 1611.

The Deuterocanonical Books or Apocrypha

  • The Books of the Septuagint form the basis of the Old Testament in Bibles of the Western Christian Churches.
  • However, the Septuagint is not only a translation of the Hebrew Bible, but includes additional texts.
  • The Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church include these additional texts in their Bibles, and refer to them as the Deuterocanonical Books and consider them to be canonical.
  • During the Reformation, the Protestant Churches excluded the Deuterocanonical Books from the Septuagint and referred to them as ‘Apocrypha’, preferring to translate from the original Masoritic Text (MT) of Hebrew Bible. They consider them to be non-canonical.
  • However, the English King James version of the Bible published in 1611, decided to include the Apocrypha as a separate chapter, between the Old Testament and the New Testament.

The Books of the Apocrypha

    • 1 Esdras
    • 2 Esdras
    • 1 Maccabees
    • 2 Maccabees
    • Tobit
    • Letter of Jeremiah
    • Prayer of Manasseh
    • Prayer of Azariah
    • Judith
    • Suzanna
    • Additions to Esther
    • Wisdom of Solomon
    • Baruch
    • Bel and the Dragon.

 

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