Talk:Apocrypha

Old talk

Article says:

Roman Catholic and Greek Orthodox churches regard the apocrypha as deuterocanonical, belonging to second-level biblical canon; they are deemed to be divinely inspired, but are of a lesser authority than the rest of the Bible.

I'd like to see some evidence that they view them as being of lesser authority. AFAIK, Catholics at least view them as equally authoritative, although they recognize they have been subject to more dispute/controversy over the years than most books have. Secondly, I detect in this article Protestant bias, especially in regard to its frequent use of Protestant terminology without its qualification as Protestant. -- SJK

Ok, this will be addressed. I don't think that there is a Protestant bias, as the person who wrote that paragraph was Jewish (me), and regards the apocrypha as interesting Jewish historical and religious literature, but not divinely inspired. I had read a bit on this topic, including a little material written by clergy in the Catholic Chruch, but it still it could be in error. I will check this issue out in the New Catholic Encyclopaedia. RK

RK: The terminology you are using, at least among Christians, is used mainly by Protestants, not Catholics. As for Jews, I don't know (but since they agree with Protestants on the OT/Tanakh canon, it would not suprise me if they also use Protestant terminology) -- SJK

Would something like Epistle to the Laodiceans go here? --Alan Millar

No. None of the contested works (or parts thereof) is in the New Testament. While I realize that the Wiki article needs to be neutral, as a Catholic I was taught that Protestants dropped books and parts of books that "really were" in the Bible. I'm not trying to start a fight, but rather to question the notion that Catholics find these books of lesser quality. In fact, some of the dropped passages support Catholic interpretations of Christianity better than Protestant versions, so it would make no sense for Catholics to downgrade them. (Notably Luther's dislike of the following quote: 'It is a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead that they may be loosed from their sins' (2 Macc. 12:46). Catholics who call those works 'deuterocanonical' are not so much downgrading them from 'canonical' as upgrading them from 'apocryphal'. Church history is full of quotes from these works, which were included in the Septuagint and Vulgate. --DGJ

According to the Catholic Encyclopedia (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03267a.htm) the term Deutero is not at all derogatory, and these books are considered just as canonical as the rest. (I have just made some changes to the Deuterocanonical books page to clarify this as well.

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Many of the apocryphal books listed are shown as nonexistent articles, but I think I may have found them. I don't know enough about this topic to actually change the links, but FWTW here they are: Acts of the Apostles, Book of Revelation.

Acts of the Apostles and Book of Revelation (the Apocalypse) are not deuterocanonical, but rather canonical. I think that at least one of them was the subject of a political compromise when the Catholic bishops drew up the canon list at one of those councils -- I think (or at least have read) that there was some political bartering about which books to stick in as canon, and the east and west traded off a bit. But in any case, they both got in, and are not the subject of this article (Apocrypha/Deuterocanonical).

Unanswered questions

The article mentions that Martin Luther dropped some (or all, I forget) of the Deuterocanonical/Apocryphal books, but, didn't he also drop the canonical epistle of James, so perhaps quoting him introduces some complication (the canon of Martin Luther) that belongs elsewhere ?

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Why is Book of Enoch among NT Apocrypha? Why aren't apocalypses among the apocrypha? for example Apocalypse of Peter?

Literary apocrypha

Is there a less obscure example of literary apocrypha than "the Ossianic cycle invented by James Macpherson" which doesn't even have an article? Perhaps some classical Greek work or something? -- Beland 02:12, 4 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Non Judeo-Christian Apocrypha

The introduction to the article used to imply that "Apocrypha" was a general theological term, but the only content is about Judeo-Christian beliefs.

It would be interesting to include or link to non Judeo-Christian Apocrypha, if anyone knows of any. In the meantime, I've made the intro more specific.

-- Beland 04:28, 4 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Questionable edits

In refactoring the Old Testament section, I made the particularly questionable edits below, which others should review:

>> Not all books from the Septuagint are accepted by the Roman Catholic church as canonical. The Prayer of Manasseh, 3 Esdras, 4 Esdras, 3 Maccabees, 4 Maccabees, and Psalm 151 are not considered to be canonical, and are not included in the canon, although some Protestants include these books in the Apocrypha. In the Vulgate, these books are found in an appendix. <<

I couldn't find these in the appendix to the Vulgate on the Vatican's site, but it was in Latin, so I had a hard time deciphering it. Other than that, this paragraph is mostly redundant, so I dropped it.

>> Among the Oriental Orthodox, all the deuterocanonical books are accepted <<

I disambiguated this from "the Apocrypha is accepted", but I am not sure that is what was meant. The article on "Oriental Orthodox" doesn't help.

-- Beland 04:27, 4 Aug 2004 (UTC)

More questions:

• When the Jewish section says "apocrypha", does it refer only to the Apocrypha of the Old Testament, or does it include the entirety of the New Testament, too? Is there a better term with which to disambiguate, perhaps a Hebrew one?

• Is it the apocrypha, and it is capitalized or not? Is there a semantic difference?

-- Beland 05:35, 4 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Problems with Four Criteria for Canonicity

The "Four Criteria for Canonicity" section seems self-contradictory. If these criteria have not been applied consistently and objectively (which they clearly have not), then other factors must also have influenced historical decisions on canonical status. So why is there this neat and tidy list?

Is there some historical group which has claimed these principles as ideals? If so they should be identified and some edits made to preserve NPOV.

The article shouldn't just admonish authors of book-specific articles to do good book-specific histories. It should link to a good general history or collection of histories of canonicalization. The rest of the article tries to present some of that history, but it's terribly incomplete and rather choppy. I'm not sure such a history exists on the Wikipedia yet.

-- Beland 05:36, 4 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Linking to "Biblican canon" for now. -- Beland 05:47, 4 Aug 2004 (UTC)

WikiProject

Based on a suggestion in Wikipedia:Pages needing attention, I have started the skeleton of a WikiProject to try to cut down on the overlap between the various presentations of the canon. I think that a lot of people working here will want input on this. Feel free! Mpolo 13:23, Sep 14, 2004 (UTC)

one of Zappaz groce mistakes

1. (cur) (last) 16:23, 4 Dec 2004 84.57.71.11 (→The Latter-day Saints' view of the Apocrypha)
2. (cur) (last) 16:20, 4 Dec 2004 84.57.71.11 (→The Latter-day Saints' view of the Apocrypha)
3. (cur) (last) 16:19, 4 Dec 2004 84.57.71.11 (→The Latter-day Saints' view of the Apocrypha)
4. (cur) (last) 16:17, 4 Dec 2004 84.57.71.11 (→Apocrypha of the New Testament)
5. (cur) (last) 16:16, 4 Dec 2004 84.57.71.11 (→Apocrypha of the New Testament)
6. (cur) (last) 16:14, 4 Dec 2004 84.57.71.11 (→Apocrypha of the New Testament)
7. (cur) (last) 16:13, 4 Dec 2004 84.57.71.11 (→In Catholicism and Orthodoxy)
8. (cur) (last) 16:02, 4 Dec 2004 84.57.71.11 (→In Catholicism and Orthodoxy)
9. (cur) (last) 15:59, 4 Dec 2004 84.57.71.11 (→In Protestantism)
10. (cur) (last) 15:59, 4 Dec 2004 84.57.71.11 (→In Protestantism)
11. (cur) (last) 15:54, 4 Dec 2004 84.57.71.11 (→In Protestantism)
12. (cur) (last) 15:52, 4 Dec 2004 84.57.71.11 (→In Judaism)
13. (cur) (last) 15:51, 4 Dec 2004 84.57.71.11 (→In Judaism)
14. (cur) (last) 15:50, 4 Dec 2004 84.57.71.11 (→Intro)
15. (cur) (last) 15:49, 4 Dec 2004 84.57.71.11 (→Intro)

he forgot to sign in, ol' bunghole from the olde world 206.51.236.32