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Peace In Believing Ministries
Devotional Lessons
"grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity." - 2 Peter 3:18

Jesus Series
04/19/2019, by John Kincaid


Lesson 2037: Which Books Belong in the Bible? Pt.5

The Apocrypha is a group of books which the Catholic Church considers part of the Old Testament.

These books are not accepted by the Protestant church and Judaism.
 
There are about a dozen books in the Apocrypha, including Tobit, Judith, 1 & 2 Maccabees.
 
They don’t belong in the Bible, because they weren’t in the Bible Jesus used. Jesus talked about the entire Old Testament.
 
The New Testament writers were familiar with the Apocrypha, but did not consider it to be inspired like the Old Testament. Jude 14; Heb.11:35

The New Testament quotes almost every book in the Old Testament.
 
The Apocrypha books were not in the Canon of Josephus, who was a Jewish historian at the time of Christ. These extra books were not in Philo’s canon, the Jewish philosopher just before the time of Christ.

The Jewish scholars of Jamnia in 90 AD didn’t have them in their Bible.
 
In fact these books were never in the Jewish Bible. They were written by Jews for Jews between 250 BC and the time of Christ or soon after. But they were just considered history and literature, not inspired.
 
Not one of these books claims to be inspired. Not one has supernatural predictions in it.
 
The Apocrypha contains no new truth about Jesus as the Messiah. (Jews don’t believe Jesus is God’s Son, unless the Jews become Christians.)
 
Apocrypha books contain errors. Despite critics who claim there are alleged discrepancies in the Bible, the true books of the Bible are without error.

Peace In Believing Ministries
Greenville, SC

 

For Further Reading

These authors and books
were helpful in preparing
this series:

Warren Wiersbe:
   "Bible Exposition
    Commentary"
J. Vernon McGee:
   "Thru the Bible
    Commentary"
John F. Walvoord:
   "Bible Knowledge
    Commentary"
William MacDonald:
   "Believer's Bible
    Commentary"
William Hendriksen,
Simon Kistemaker:
   "Baker New Testament
   Commentary"
Paul Enns:
   "Moody Handbook
    of Theology"

Copyright © 2019 Peace In Believing Ministries, All rights reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scriptures are from: The Holy Bible: English
Standard Version. 2001. Wheaton: Standard Bible Society.

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