Why Were the Books of the Old Testament Apocrypha Rejected as Holy Scripture by the Protestants?
http://www.blueletterbible.org/faq/don_stewart/stewart.cfm?id=395
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The Old Testament Apocrypha consists of eleven or twelve books, depending upon how they are divided, that the Roman Catholic Church adds to the Old Testament. The Protestants reject these books as Holy Scripture for the following reasons.
1. The Apocrypha Has Different Doctrine And Practices Than Holy Scripture
There are doctrines and practices contained in the Apocrypha that are contrary to what the Scripture teaches. They include the following.
They Teach A Person Is Saved By Works
In the Apocrypha proof texts can be found to support the Roman Catholic doctrine of justification by human works and not faith alone. The Apocrypha contains the following verses.
For almsgiving saves from death and purges away every sin. Those who give alms will enjoy a full life (Tobit 12:9).
In another place in Tobit it says.
So now, my children see what almsgiving accomplishes, and what injustice does it brings death! (Tobit 14:11).
In the Book of First Maccabees it says.
Was not Abraham found faithful when tested, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness (First Maccabees 2:52).
The Bible, on the other hand, says that a person is saved by grace through faith. It is not based upon our good works.
For by grace you are saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God - not the result of works, so that no one may boast (
Ephesians 2:8,
9).
The doctrine of purgatory – a place of purging between heaven and hell - is taught in the Apocrypha. It says.
So they all blessed the ways of the Lord, the righteous judge, who reveals the things that are hidden; and they turned to supplication, praying that the sin that had been committed might be wholly blotted out. The noble Judas exhorted the people to keep themselves free from sin, for they had seen with their own eyes what had happened as the result of the sin of those who had fallen. He also took up a collection, man by man, to the amount of two thousand drachmas of silver, and sent it to Jerusalem to provide for a sin offering. In doing this he acted very well and honorably, taking account of the resurrection. For if he were not expecting that those who had fallen would rise again, it would have been superfluous and foolish to pray for the dead. But if he was looking to the splendid reward that is laid up for those who fall asleep in godliness, it was a holy and pious thought. Therefore he made atonement for the dead, so that they might be delivered from their sin (Second Maccabees 12:41-45).
The Bible teaches that, upon death, one either goes to be with the Lord or is sent away from Him – there is no middle place. The writer to the Hebrews stated.
Just as man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment (
Hebrews 9:27).
According To The Apocrypha God Hears The Prayers Of The Dead We find the Book of Baruch teaching that God hears the prayers of those who have died.
O Lord Almighty, God of Israel, hear now the prayer of the dead of Israel, the children of those who sinned before you, who did not heed the voice of the Lord their God, so that calamities have clung to us (Baruch 3:4).
The dead do not pray for the living. Only the living upon the earth pray for the other living ones on the earth.
The Apocrypha Teaches The Pre-existence Of Souls The doctrine of the pre-existence of souls is found in the Apocrypha.
As a child I was naturally gifted, and a good soul fell to my lot; or rather, being good, I entered an undefiled body (Wisdom 8:19,20).
Scripture does not teach that souls have any existence before they are united into a body.
It Teaches Creation Out Of Pre-Existent Matter The doctrine of creation out of pre-existent matter is taught in the Apocrypha.
For your all-powerful hand, which created the world out of formless matter, did not lack the means to send upon them a multitude of bears, or bold lions (Wisdom 11:17).
The Bible says that God's creation was out of nothing.
By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things which are visible (
Hebrews 11:3).
The Apocrypha Say The Body Weighs Down The Soul The idea of the body as a weight upon the soul is found in the Apocrypha.
For a perishable body weighs down the soul, and this earthy tent burdens the thoughtful mind (Wisdom 9:15).
The idea that the body weighs down the soul is not biblical – the body is not evil.
All of these doctrines are contrary to the teaching of Holy Scripture.
2. The Apocrypha Is Never Cited In The New Testament As Scripture
Though the New Testament cites directly, or alludes to, almost every book of the Old Testament as Scripture, it never cites the Apocrypha as being God's Word. The Apocrypha was not the Bible of Jesus or His apostles. While Jesus and Hs apostles often quoted from the Septuagint, they never quoted from the Apocrypha.
Allusions Are Not The Same As Scripture While there may be some allusions to the apocryphal books by New Testament writers there is no direct quote from them. An allusion is not the same as a direct quote.
No Statement Introduced By "It Is Written" In addition, no New Testament writer ever refers to any of these books as authoritative. Quotes from the accepted books are usually introduced by the phrase, "It is written," or the passage is quoted to prove a point. But never do the New Testament writers quote the Apocrypha in this way.
Furthermore no book of the Apocrypha is mentioned by name in the New Testament.
There Are Others Books Directly Quoted Apart From Apocrypha Add to this, there are certain books that both Protestants and the Roman Catholic Church reject as Scripture that are actually cited in the New Testament. Jude cites the apocryphal book of Enoch.
Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied about these men: "See, the Lord is coming with thousands upon thousands of his holy ones to judge everyone, and to convict all the ungodly of all the ungodly acts they have done in the ungodly way, and of all the harsh words ungodly sinners have spoken against him" (
Jude 14,
15).
Paul cites the name of the magicians of Pharaoh who opposed Moses. These names are not mentioned in the Old Testament.
Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so also these men oppose the truth - men of depraved minds, who, as far as the faith is concerned, are rejected (
2 Timothy 3:8).
If the writers of the New Testament considered the Apocrypha to be Scripture, we would certainly expect them to refer to it in some way. However we find no direct quotations. This is in contrast to over 250 quotations from the authoritative Old Testament Scriptures.
The fact that the present canon was repeatedly quoted as being divinely authoritative as well as the absence of any direct quote is another indication of the extent of the canon - it did not include the Apocrypha.
3. The Apocrypha Has Always Been Rejected By The Jews As Scripture
The Jews have never considered these works to be divinely inspired. On the contrary, they denied their authority. At the time of Christ we have the testimony of the Jewish writer Flavius Josephus that they were only twenty-two books divinely inspired by God. These books are the same as our thirty-nine in the Old Testament. The books of the Apocrypha were not among these. The same testimony is found in Second Esdras – the Ezra legend. This work was written in A.D. 100. Therefore these books were never part of the Hebrew canon of Scripture.
4. The Books Of The Apocrypha Were Written During The Silent Years
The books of the Apocrypha were written during the four hundred silent years between the Book of Malachi and the announcement of the birth of John the Baptist. Jewish and New Testament sources both agree that no divinely inspired prophetic utterance occurred during this time.
5. The Septuagint Translation Proves Nothing
The fact that the Apocrypha is found in the Septuagint translation does not prove anything. It merely testifies that the Alexandrian Jews translated other religious material into Greek apart from the Old Testament Scripture. A Greek translation is not the same thing as a book being part of the Hebrew canon.
6. There Is No Evidence The Apocrypha Was In Septuagint At The Time Of Christ
There is no evidence that the books of the Apocrypha were in the Septuagint as early as the time of Christ. The earliest manuscripts that contain them date back to the fourth century A.D. This does not demonstrate that the books of the Apocrypha were part of the Septuagint in pre-Christian times. Even if they were in the Septuagint at this early date, it is noteworthy that neither Christ nor the apostles ever quoted from them as they did with most of the Old Testament books. In addition, books were merely translated in Alexandria, Egypt – they were not canonized there.
There is no clear answer as to what they first century Septuagint contained. The fourth or fifth century Greek manuscripts, in which the Apocrypha appears, have no consistency with the number of books or their order.
7. There Is No Evidence Of A Greater Alexandrian Canon
It has been argued that the canon of the Alexandrian Jews was larger than the present Hebrew Old Testament. However, there is no evidence that the Jews in Alexandria, Egypt had a wider canon than the Jews living in Israel. Philo of Alexandria, who lived in the first century A.D., wrote on a number of subjects. He acknowledged the Jews believed in the divine authority of the Hebrew canon. However, he gave no indication that there was a wider canon used by the Jews living in Egypt. From Philo we find that the canon in Alexandria, Egypt was the same as in Palestine. He knows the threefold division of the Old Testament as ascribes divine inspiration to many of the books. In addition, he says nothing about the Apocrypha. Consequently there is no evidence anywhere that the Alexandrian Jews accepted the Apocrypha as Holy Scripture.
It must be remembered that it was not the Jews in Egypt but rather some of the Greek-speaking Christians who gave some measure of authoritative status to certain of these books translated with the Septuagint plus. To the Jews, these books were never considered divinely inspired Scripture.
8. They Are Not On The Early Canonical Lists
In the early years of the church it drew up various lists of the books it considered to be Old Testament Scripture. The books of the Apocrypha do not appear on any list until late in the fourth century. This demonstrates the acceptance of these writings was not immediate.
The Apocrypha Is Missing From The Earliest List The earliest existing list of the Old Testament canon comes from a man named Melito, a bishop of Sardis. In approximately A.D. 170 he wrote the following.
When I came to the east and reached the place where these things were preached and done, and learned accurately the books of the Old Testament, I set down the facts and sent them to you. These are their names: the five books of Moses, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua the son of Nun, Judges, Ruth, four books of the Kingdom, two books of Chronicles, the Psalms of David, the Proverbs of Solomon and his wisdom, Ecclesiastes, the Song of Songs, Job, the prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, The Twelve in a single book, Daniel, Ezekiel, Ezra.
This list of Melito is highly instructive. He includes all the books of the present canon except Esther. The reference to the four books of the kingdom would be 1,2 Samuel and 1,2 Kings. Ezra was the common way to refer to Ezra-Nehemiah. Wisdom was merely a fuller description of the Book of Proverbs – not the Apocryphal book by that name. Among ancient writers Proverbs was often called Wisdom.
While including all of the books of the present Old Testament canon (except Esther) Melito nowhere mentions any of the books of the Apocrypha.
