Editing Apocrypha (section)

===Intertestamental books===
[[File:Apocriefe_boeken_Lutherbijbel.jpg|thumb|350px|Copies of the [[Luther Bible]] include the deuterocanonical books as an intertestamental section between the Old Testament and New Testament; they are termed the "[[Biblical apocrypha|Apocrypha]]" in many Protestant Churches.]] 
[[File:KJV 1769 Oxford Edition, vol. 1.djvu|page=21|thumb|The contents page in a complete 80 book [[King James Bible]], listing "The Books of the Old Testament", "The Books called Apocrypha", and "The Books of the New Testament".]]

{{see also|Biblical apocrypha|Intertestamental period|Development of the Old Testament canon}}
{{further|List of books of the King James Version}}
During the [[Christianity in the 1st century#Apostolic Age|Apostolic Age]]{{Broken anchor|date=2025-05-11|bot=User:Cewbot/log/20201008/configuration|target_link=Christianity in the 1st century#Apostolic Age|reason= The anchor (Apostolic Age) [[Special:Diff/1263215371|has been deleted]].|diff_id=1263215371}} many Jewish texts of Hellenistic origin existed within Judaism and were frequently used by Christians. Patristic authorities frequently recognized these books as important to the emergence of Christianity, but the inspired authority and value of the apocrypha remained widely disputed.{{citation needed|date=April 2021}} Christians included several of these books in the canons of the [[Christian Bible]]s, calling them the "apocrypha" or the "hidden books".{{citation needed|date=April 2021}}

In the sixteenth century, during the Protestant [[Reformation]], the canonical validity of the intertestamental books was challenged and [[List of books of the King James Version#Apocrypha|fourteen books]] were classed in 80 book Protestant Bibles as an intertestamental section called the Apocrypha, which straddles the Old Testament and New Testament. Prior to 1629, all English-language Protestant Bibles included the Old Testament, Apocrypha, and New Testament; examples include the "[[Matthew's Bible]] (1537), the [[Great Bible]] (1539), the [[Geneva Bible]] (1560), the [[Bishop's Bible]] (1568), and the [[King James Bible]] (1611)".<ref name="Ewert">{{cite book|author-last=Ewert |author-first=David |title=A General Introduction to the Bible: From Ancient Tablets to Modern Translations |date=11 May 2010 |publisher=[[Zondervan]] |isbn=9780310872436 |page=104 |quote=English Bibles were patterned after those of the Continental Reformers by having the Apocrypha set off from the rest of the OT. Coverdale (1535) called them "Apocrypha". All English Bibles prior to 1629 contained the Apocrypha. Matthew's Bible (1537), the Great Bible (1539), the Geneva Bible (1560), the Bishop's Bible (1568), and the King James Bible (1611) contained the Apocrypha. Soon after the publication of the KJV, however, the English Bibles began to drop the Apocrypha and eventually they disappeared entirely. The first English Bible to be printed in America (1782–83) lacked the Apocrypha. In 1826, the British and Foreign Bible Society decided to no longer print them. Today the trend is in the opposite direction, and English Bibles with the Apocrypha are becoming more popular again.}}</ref>

[[List of books of the King James Version#Apocrypha|Fourteen out of eighty biblical books]] comprise the Protestant Apocrypha, first published as such in Luther's Bible (1534). Many of these texts are considered [[Biblical canon|canonical]] Old Testament books by the Catholic Church, affirmed by the [[Council of Rome]] (AD 382) and later reaffirmed by the [[Council of Trent]] (1545–63); all of the books of the Protestant Apocrypha are considered canonical by the Eastern Orthodox Church and are referred to as [[Biblical Apocrypha#Anagignoskomena|''anagignoskomena'']] per the [[Synod of Jerusalem (1672)|Synod of Jerusalem]] (1672). The [[Lutheranism|Lutheran Churches]] normatively include in the Bible the Apocrypha as an intertestamental section between the Old Testament and the New Testament; the systematic theologian [[Martin Chemnitz]], a leading figure in the development of Evangelical Lutheranism "separated Scripture into two categories: those from which the Church makes doctrine and those from which the Church does not."<ref name="Futrell2011">{{cite web |last1=Futrell |first1=Rich |title=The Apocrypha and Change within the Lutheran and Roman Churches |url=https://kimberlinglutheran.com/2011/01/18/the-apocrypha-and-change-within-the-lutheran-and-roman-churches/ |publisher=Shepherd of the Hills Lutheran Church |access-date=24 May 2025 |language=English |date=23 January 2011}}</ref> The [[Book of Concord]], the compendium of Evangelical Lutheran doctrine, quotes passages from the Apocrypha/Deuterocanon.<ref name="Futrell2011"/> The ''Dietrich Catechism'', widely used in Evangelical Lutheranism, affirms that apart from the canonical books, the Lutheran Bible includes the apocrypha.<ref name="Futrell2011"/> To this date, [[Lection|scripture readings]] from the Apocrypha are included in the [[lectionary|lectionaries]] of the Lutheran Churches and the Anglican Churches.<ref>{{cite book|title=Readings from the Apocrypha |year=1981 |publisher=Forward Movement Publications |page=5}}</ref><ref name="Futrell">{{cite web |last1=Futrell |first1=Rich |title=Optional Supplemental Lectionary Readings from the OT Apocrypha |url=https://kimberlinglutheran.com/2011/02/24/optional-supplemental-lectionary-readings-from-the-ot-apocrypha/ |publisher=Shepherd of the Hills Lutheran Church |access-date=24 May 2025 |date=24 February 2011}}</ref>

[[Anabaptists]] use the [[Luther Bible]], which contains the intertestamental books; [[Amish]] wedding ceremonies include "the retelling of the marriage of Tobias and Sarah in the Apocrypha".<ref name="Wesner">{{cite web |author-last1=Wesner |author-first1=Erik J. |title=The Bible |date=8 April 2015 |url=https://amishamerica.com/bible/#apocrypha |publisher=Amish America |access-date=23 May 2021 |language=English}}</ref> The [[Anglican Communion]] accepts the Protestant Apocrypha "for instruction in life and manners, but not for the establishment of doctrine (Article VI in the [[Thirty-Nine Articles]])",<ref name="Ewert2010">{{cite book|author-last=Ewert |author-first=David |title=A General Introduction to the Bible: From Ancient Tablets to Modern Translations |date=11 May 2010 |publisher=[[Zondervan]] |isbn=9780310872436 |page=104}}</ref> and many "lectionary readings in [[The Book of Common Prayer]] are taken from the Apocrypha", with these lessons being "read in the same ways as those from the Old Testament".<ref name="ThomasWondra2002">{{cite book|author-last1=Thomas |author-first1=Owen C. |author-last2=Wondra |author-first2=Ellen K. |author-link2=Ellen Wondra |title=Introduction to Theology |edition=3rd |date=1 July 2002 |publisher=Church Publishing, Inc. |isbn=9780819218971 |page=56}}</ref>

The first [[Methodist]] liturgical book, ''[[The Sunday Service of the Methodists]]'', employs verses from the Apocrypha, such as in the Eucharistic liturgy.<ref name="Wesley1825">{{cite book|title=The Sunday Service of the Methodists; With Other Occasional Services |year=1825 |publisher=J. Kershaw |language=en |page=136 |author-first=John |author-last=Wesley |title-link=The Sunday Service of the Methodists; With Other Occasional Services |author-link=John Wesley}}</ref> The Protestant Apocrypha contains three books (1 Esdras, 2 Esdras and the Prayer of Manasseh) that are accepted by many Eastern Orthodox Churches and Oriental Orthodox Churches as canonical, but are regarded as non-canonical by the Catholic Church and are therefore not included in modern Catholic Bibles.<ref name="HenzeBoccaccini2013">{{cite book|author-last1=Henze |author-first1=Matthias |author-last2=Boccaccini |author-first2=Gabriele |title=Fourth Ezra and Second Baruch: Reconstruction after the Fall |date=20 November 2013 |publisher=[[Brill Publishing|Brill]] |isbn=9789004258815 |page=383 |quote=Why 3 and 4 Esdraas (called 1 and 2 Esdras in the NRSV Apocrypha) are pushed to the front of the list is not clear, but the motive may have been to distinguish the Anglican Apocrypha from the Roman Catholic canon affirmed at the fourth session of the Council of trent in 1546, which included all of the books in the Anglican Apocrypha list ''except'' 3 and 4 Esdras and the Prayer of Manasseh. These three texts were designated at Trent as Apocrypha and later included in an appendix to the Clementine Vulgate, first published in 1592 (and the standard Vulgate text until Vatican II).}}</ref>

In the 1800s, the [[British and Foreign Bible Society]] did not regularly publish the intertestamental section in its Bibles, citing the cost of printing the Apocrypha in addition to the Old Testament and New Testament as a major factor; this legacy came to characterize English-language Bibles in Great Britain and the Americas, unlike in Europe where Protestant Bibles are printed with 80 books in three sections: the Old Testament, Apocrypha, and New Testament.<ref name="Anderson2003">{{cite book|author-last=Anderson |author-first=Charles R. |title=Puzzles and Essays from "The Exchange": Tricky Reference Questions |year=2003 |publisher=Psychology Press |isbn=9780789017628 |page=[https://archive.org/details/puzzlesessaysfro00ande/page/123 123] |quote=Paper and printing were expensive and early publishers were able to hold down costs by eliminating the Apocrypha once it was deemed secondary material.|url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/puzzlesessaysfro00ande/page/123}}</ref><ref name="McGrath2008">{{cite book|author-last=McGrath |author-first=Alister |title=In the Beginning: The Story of the King James Bible and How It Changed a Nation, a Language, and a Culture |date=10 December 2008 |publisher=Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group |language=en |isbn=9780307486226 |page=298}}</ref>

In the present-day, "English Bibles with the Apocrypha are becoming more popular again", usually being printed as [[Intertestamental period|intertestamental books]].<ref name="Ewert"/> The [[Revised Common Lectionary]], in use by most mainline Protestants including Methodists and Moravians, lists readings from the Apocrypha in the [[liturgical calendar]], although alternate Old Testament [[scripture lesson]]s are provided.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.commontexts.org/rcl/rcl_introduction_web.pdf |title=The Revised Common Lectionary |year=1992 |publisher=Consultation on Common Texts |access-date=19 August 2015 |quote=In all places where a reading from the deuterocanonical books (The Apocrypha) is listed, an alternate reading from the canonical Scriptures has also been provided. |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150701230910/http://www.commontexts.org/rcl/RCL_Introduction_Web.pdf |archive-date=1 July 2015 |df=dmy }}</ref>

The status of the deuterocanonicals remains unchanged in Catholic and Orthodox Christianity, though there is a difference in number of these books between these two branches of Christianity.<ref name="Kimbrough">{{cite book|author-first=S.T. |author-last=Kimbrough |title=Orthodox And Wesleyan Scriptural Understanding And Practice |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=q-vhwjamOioC&pg=PA23 |year=2005 |publisher=St Vladimir's Seminary Press |isbn=978-0-88141-301-4 |page=23 }}.</ref> Some authorities began using term ''[[deuterocanonical]]'' to refer to this traditional intertestamental collection as books of "the second canon".<ref>The ''Style Manual for the Society of Biblical Literature'' recommends the use of the term ''deuterocanonical literature'' instead of ''apocrypha'' in academic writing, although not all apocryphal books are properly deuterocanonical.</ref> These books are often seen as helping to explain the theological and cultural transitions that took place between the Old and New Testaments. They are also sometimes called "intertestamental" by religious groups who do not recognize [[Hellenistic Judaism]] as belonging with either Jewish or Christian testaments.{{citation needed|date=April 2021}}

Slightly varying collections of apocryphal, deuterocanonical or intertestamental books of the Bible form part of the [[Catholic Church|Catholic]], [[Eastern Orthodox Church|Eastern Orthodox]] and [[Oriental Orthodox Church|Oriental Orthodox]] canons. The deuterocanonical or intertestamental books of the Catholic Church include Tobit, Judith, Baruch, Sirach, 1 Maccabees, 2 Maccabees, Wisdom and additions to Esther, Daniel, and Baruch.

The [[Book of Enoch]] is included in the biblical canon of the [[Oriental Orthodox]] churches of Ethiopia and Eritrea. The [[Epistle of Jude]] alludes to a story in the book of Enoch, and some believe the use of this book also appears in the four gospels and [[1 Peter]].<ref>{{cite book|author-last1=Clontz |author-first1=T.E. |author-last2=Clontz |author-first2=J. |title=The Comprehensive New Testament |publisher=Cornerstone Publications |date=2008 |isbn=978-0-9778737-1-5}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.accordancebible.com/Comprehensive-Crossreferences |title=New Release: Comprehensive Bible Cross References |author=Accordance Bible Software |website=Accordance Bible Software |date=December 2011 |access-date=21 April 2018}}</ref> While [[Jesus]] and his disciples sometimes used phrases also featured in some of the Apocryphal books,<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.scripturecatholic.com/deuterocanonical-books-new-testament/ |title=References to the Apocrypha in the New Testament|date=7 August 2017 }}</ref>{{Dubious|date=November 2022}} the Book of Enoch was never referenced by Jesus. The genuineness and inspiration of Enoch were believed in by the writer of the [[Epistle of Barnabas]], [[Irenaeus]], [[Tertullian]] and [[Clement of Alexandria]]<ref name=EB1911 /> and many others of the [[early church]].{{cn|date=November 2022}} The [[Epistles of Paul]] and the [[Gospels]] also show influences from the [[Book of Jubilees]],{{cn|date=November 2022}} which is part of the Ethiopian canon, as well as the [[Assumption of Moses]] and the [[Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs]],{{cn|date=November 2022}} which are included in no biblical canon.