Church History, Theology Thoughts

The Apocrypha – Why did we get rid of them?

I’ve been confused lately… why, after 1,500 years, did we all of a sudden decided to drop the inter-testamental books from the Bible? It doesn’t make sense… at least not to me…

I’m confused. Undecided

Here’s what I know so far:

  • The Christian Bible included the inter-testamental books up until the Protestant Reformation in the 1500’s.
  • Martin Luther was the first person to move the inter-testamental books from the Old Testament into a separate selection called the “Apocrypha”.
  • Protestant Bibles included them in a “Apocrypha” section until around the 1820’s, when they stop appearing.

So why did Martin Luther decided that the inter-testamental books where no longer valid? I mean, the church used them for over 1,500 hundred years!!! Shoot, some of the books were used by True Believers longer then the writing of Paul.[@more@]

One of the arguments about the validity of the Bible is that God has kept it around despite plans to destroy all copies. As such, if God allows the inter-testamental books to survive as part of the Bible for over 1,800 years, what makes the last 200 years so important that we can thrown the inter-testamental books away?

I guess I should mention that I’ve heard it said that when St. Jerome translated the Vulgate he used the Masoretic or Hebrew text of the OT instead of the Septuagint or Greek text. Apparently the Masoretic text did not have the inter-testamental books listed why the Septuagint did. Still, St. Jerome included the inter-testamental books in the Vulgate…

I don’t know…

I just think that it is very, very strange that why the rest of Christendom uses the inter-testamental books, we Protestant don’t.  Why is that?

Currently the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox (Russian, Greek, Georgian, etc), and Oriental Orthodox Churches (Coptic Orthodox, Syriac Orthodox, Ethiopian Orthodox, Eritrean Orthodox, Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church and Armenian Apostolic churches) all use the inter-testamental books as part of their canon. In addition, while the Anglican Church does not recognize the Apocryphal books as canon, they do use them liturgically.