re deuterocanonicals esp sirach poram ihlpb att com wrote lets talk about principles if we accept that god sets the standards for what ought to be included in scripture then we can ask is it authoritative authoritative is not a quality of the writing itself it is a statement by the community of faith whether it will accept the writing as normative is it prophetic how is prophecy to be defined if it is speaking forth of god s message much of the apocrypha must surely qualify is it authentic again by what standard is authenticity a function of the authors the historical accuracy is it dynamic what is this supposed to mean many of the apocryphal books are highly dynamic thought provoking faithful even exciting is it received collected read and used by whom of course the apocryphal books were received by some collected or else we would not have them read and used and they still are in the catholic and orthodox churches on these counts the apocrapha falls short of the glory of god this is demonstrably false to quote unger s bible dictionary on the apocrapha they abound in historical and geographical inaccuracies and anachronisms so do other books of the bible they teach doctrines which are false and foster practices which are at variance with sacred scripture false by whose interpretation those churches that accept them find no contradiction with the rest of scripture they resort to literary types and display an artificiality of subject matter and styling out of keeping with sacred scripture this is a purely subjective evaluation the apocryphal books demonstrate the same categories and forms of writing found in the other scriptures in fact one could argue that the apocryphal additions to the book of esther act rather to bring the unscripturelike book of esther more into line with other books they lack the distinctive elements which give genuine scripture their divine character such as prophetic power and poetic and religious feeling have you ever read the wisdom of ben sira or the wisdom of solomon they exhibit every bit as much poetic and religious feeling as psalms or proverbs deletions how do you then view the words i warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book if anyone adds anything to them god will add to him the plagues described in this book and if anyone takes away from this book the prophecy god will take away from him his share in the tree of life and in the holy city rev surely this sets the standard and not just man made traditions these words clearly were meant to refer to the book of revelation alone not to the whole body of scripture revelation itself was accepted very late into the canon the church simply did not see it as having a primary role of any kind in identifying and limiting scripture it is also noteworthy to consider jesus attitude he had no argument with the pharisees over any of the ot canon john and explained to his followers on the road to emmaus that in the law prophets and psalms which referred to him the ot division of scripture luke as well as in luke taking genesis to chronicles the jewish order we would say genesis to malachi as scripture jesus does not refer to the canon for the simple reason that in his day the canon had not been established as a closed collection the books of the apocrypha were part of the septuagint which was the bible of the early church the hebrew canon was not closed until c e the torah pentateuch law was established in jesus day as were the prophets with the exclusion of daniel the writings however were still in flux jesus does not refer to the writings only to the psalms which were part of them the books of the apocrypha were all part of the literature that was eventually sifted and separated to argue that jesus is referring to the jewish canonical order in luke is weak at best he is not quoting scripture but telling a chronological story and as mentioned above the hebrew canon especially in the present order did not exist as such in jesus day revdak netcom com
