Deuterocanocals (ritual, reject, gospel, translation, doctrine)

[spiritually inclined]

I've read all of the Protestant version of the Bible, but for the first time I bought a Bible containing the Appocrapha(?), and I'm slowly making my way through it. How do Anglicans/Episcopalians view the deuterocanocal (spelling)? books? As useful reading or actual scripture equal to the rest of the Bible?

James

[James the Persian]

Originally Posted by spiritually inclined

I've read all of the Protestant version of the Bible, but for the first time I bought a Bible containing the Appocrapha(?), and I'm slowly making my way through it. How do Anglicans/Episcopalians view the deuterocanocal (spelling)? books? As useful reading or actual scripture equal to the rest of the Bible?

James

I can't answer for the Anglicans, but I don't think anyone views them as of equal standing to the rest of the Bible. The thing is that for those of us who include them, they are inspired and valuable but not so valuable as, say, the Gospels (and there are other rankings within Scripture too, unlike how you'd often see it described by protestants). For all of us (Orthodox, OO, RC etc.) that use the Deuterocanon (and I'd guess you have the RC one - it may surprise you to find that we and most OOs have a larger set and the Ethiopians a different one again) the distinction between canonical Scripture and other writings is rather grey and fuzzy and there are definitely texts outside the canon that are considered inspired to one degree or another.

James

[MidnightBlue]

Anglicans are a very diverse group, so you can't say there's one opinion across the board about much of anything. According to the Articles of Religion:

The Holy Scripture are those Canonical Books of the Old and New Testament whose authority was never doubted in the Church. And the other Books (as Jerome said) [i.e., the Deuterocanonicals] the Church reads for example of life and instruction in behaviour; but it does not use them to establish any doctrine.

[Terrywoodenpic]

Originally Posted by MidnightBlue

Anglicans are a very diverse group, so you can't say there's one opinion across the board about much of anything. According to the Articles of Religion:

The Holy Scripture are those Canonical Books of the Old and New Testament whose authority was never doubted in the Church. And the other Books (as Jerome said) [i.e., the Deuterocanonicals] the Church reads for example of life and instruction in behaviour; but it does not use them to establish any doctrine.

You got it in one...
very few Bibles are published with the Apocrypha these days.
In the 1940's I had a KJV with the Apocrypha in the back.. It was a students version and also had a concordance and subject index and list of biblical names.
Some how I lost it in my travels...

[spiritually inclined]

I have read the rest of the Bible, more than once, but I am now making my way through the Apocrypha for the first time and find it quite interesting.

Are the books 1 and 2 Esdras (?) and the Prayer of Manessah the books the Orthodox include that aren't in the Roman Catholic Apocrypha? Mine includes those, too.

James

[Victor]

Spiritually inclined, hopefully the links below will be of some use.

Old Testament Comparison Table
http://www.geocities.com/trvalentine/orthodox/otbooks.html

Sources of English Translations
http://www.religiousforums.com/forum/showthread.php?t=16647

Number of Inspired Books
http://www.religiousforums.com/forum/showthread.php?t=16644

Books accepted and rejected in the NT
http://www.scborromeo.org/truth/fig4.htm

What are the Deuterocanonical books:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deuterocanonical_books

[James the Persian]

Originally Posted by spiritually inclined

I have read the rest of the Bible, more than once, but I am now making my way through the Apocrypha for the first time and find it quite interesting.

Are the books 1 and 2 Esdras (?) and the Prayer of Manessah the books the Orthodox include that aren't in the Roman Catholic Apocrypha? Mine includes those, too.

James

Take a look at the first link that Victor posted for the differences. I was going to post that one for you. I'd be very surprised if you have a complete Orthodox OT in English as I'm not aware of any translations that actually contain all of the books. For instance, I've yet to see an English OT with 151 Psalms and 3 and 4 Macabees. Hopefully this will be solved next spring when the (delayed) complete Orthodox Study Bible will be available.

James

[Buttercup]

Thanks for posting those links, Victor. I bookmarked a couple of them for later reference.