Why was the apocropha excluded? (Jesus, reject, gospel, mystic)

[MysticSang'ha]

Fascinating. Thanks, A_E.



*continues to pick up pieces of brain tissue after head explosion*



Don't mind me. Learning new things is great.



Peace,
Mystic

[James the Persian]

Mystic-als,

Are we talking about what the Protestants call the apocrypha (the Deuterocanon of the Old Testament) or the New Testament apocrypha, otherwise known as the Gnostic Gospels etc.? If it's the former, they were not excluded from the canon. The vast majority of Christians in the world have all or the majority of them in their canons (Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox - bar the Ethiopians - use all, RCs and Ethiopians have most). Only the Protestant reformers threw out the deuterocannon and even they did so quite late. The original KJV, for instance, includes these books.

If the latter, then they were rejected because they were considered to be inconsistent with the teachings of the Church and hence not valid components of Holy Tradition. They did not teach normative Christianity. A canon is a measure, after all, and hence the canon of Scripture is simply the collection of writings against which other writings and teachings should be compared.

Someone mentioned Nicea. You're quite right that this council (and Constantine) had nothing whatsoever to do with canonising the New Testament. The canonisation of Scripture was a long and organic process which had resulted in a core group of commonly accepted canonical texts long before Nicea but was not complete until about a century after that council. None of this process, though, had anything to do with the OT. The original Church's OT was the Septuagint and remained so until the Reformation. Rome, for reasons I do not know, dropped a few Deuterocanonical texts at some point and the Ethiopians dropped some books and added others, but all of these Old Testament canons were considered valid while the Church was one. The idea of their being a single fixed canon at any point in he Church's history is simply not accurate.

James

[Mystic-als]

I was taught that these were evil books and that I was to stay away. The bible does say to "flee form every appearence of evil" so we shouldn't play with the devil's toys.

I don't believe this but it is what was taught to me.

Maybe this is a stupid question. But WHY SHOULD THE APOCRYPHA BE INCLUDED?

[James the Persian]

Originally Posted by Mystic-als

I was taught that these were evil books and that I was to stay away. The bible does say to "flee form every appearence of evil" so we shouldn't play with the devil's toys.

I don't believe this but it is what was taught to me.

Maybe this is a stupid question. But WHY SHOULD THE APOCRYPHA BE INCLUDED?

Again, Iask, what do you refer to as the apocrypha? If you do mean the Deuterocanon, say 1 Maccabees, for instance, then the answer is simple. They should be included because they are part of the Septuagint. This is the OT that was used by the early Church from the beginning, is clearly part of the 'all Scriptures' quote from Timothy that is so beloved of sola scripturalists (ironically) and is the version of the OT almost exclusively quoted in the NT. The question, then, is not why should they be included but, by what authority could they be excluded some 1600 years later.

James

[Mystic-als]

by what authority could they be excluded some 1600 years later.

I totally agree. But it is only my opinion. I want to hear people who think differently.

I am talking about both. Esspecially the NT one though

[James the Persian]

Originally Posted by Mystic-als

I totally agree. But it is only my opinion. I want to hear people who think differently.

I am talking about both. Esspecially the NT one though

The situations with the OT and NT 'apocrypha' are quite different. With the former, Protestants and those who follow that canon need to justify why they excluded books held as canonical by the Church from the beginning. With the latter, anyone who wishes to include them must justify why they would add books that were never considered canonical by the Church. If you read the vast majority of the non-canonical NT era books, it's patently obvious why the Church excluded them. There are certain books, such as the Didache or Shepherd of Hermas that are not so clear cut but whilst these were never part of the canon they were always considered useful texts. We still consider them as such and place them in Holy Tradition. The issue is not a black and white canonical = inspired, non-canonical = uninspired one as many sola scripturalists would have you believe.

James

[Mystic-als]

That is interesting! Where can I or someone else find a list of these books? Again all of the Apocrypha books. Is there a website/s you know of?

[James the Persian]

Originally Posted by Mystic-als

That is interesting! Where can I or someone else find a list of these books? Again all of the Apocrypha books. Is there a website/s you know of?

You can find the majority of the Deuterocanon in any RC Bible or the original KJV. They're probably online somewhere but I've never had cause to look for them as they are in my Bible at home (most in my English Bible and all in the Romanian one).
You can find most if not all of the NT era apocrypha and other texts such as those I mentioned above here:

http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/

Hope this helps.

James