What's the Big Deal About the Apocrypha?

I know Protestants don't accept it in the Bible. But why? And what's the big deal?

We studied it in RC grade school and HS. And doctrinally it doesn't seem too different from the rest of the Bible.

In fact, the Apocrypha is where we hear of Anne (the BVM's mother) and the Archangel Raphael (whose name means 'God hath healed').

So what is the big deal? And why isn't it included?

 

Probably because it's got more truth to it than anything else. The new testament which we know today wasn't finalised until into the 1200s so that's 1000 years worth of the church picking, choosing and rewriting history until they were happy with it.

 

the big deal, not really that big in some ways, were the first and second mycian councils, which determined the christian library which became the christian bible.
the big deal was throwing christ under the bus by cannonizing saul of tarsus (as the so called saint paul)

and that was all about what today we would call politics.

so there were books about the history of the faith, mostly before christ,
which were dismissed as irrelivant,
though perhaps neither more nor less accurate then those which have been included.

 

I actually ordered the apocryphal book along with the 3 books of Enoch and the book of the giants earlier tonight so I'll have a read and better understand to post when I do.

 

i have it. boring af. revelations is still the most op chapter.


the reason apocrypha was rejected i believe is because it slightly contradicted some parts of the cannon.

 

And that's why it seems so interesting from the parts I have read and know. It seems to be a contradiction where like I said before it didn't really fit in with what Christianity wanted to teach so they just sort of re wrote it or skipped pieces in general. To me it paints Christianity as this just complete of rubbish tbh where they even had to re-write their tales like of Jesus birth because it just wasn't good enough in it's originality.

 

most religions are rewrites. the first christian books weren't written down until around 70 A.D

that is why biblical scholars make the distinction between the Historical and Biblical Christ.

 

unfortunately as stellar said, yes that's probably the most non-boring thing about it. the book of macabees for example. but it does tell you how the greeks were gotten rid of, and how and why the romans showed up. well maybe not directly, nor in a very interesting story telling by modern standards way.

just remember 'cannon' is what those mycean confrences were arguing over, and ultimately where it was created.

i sadly don't have a copy of it for reference, but if i did, reference, like the christian bible, which it seems i also don't have one of, is all they would be.

"most religions" is the superset, of which christianity is an element. not a reflection of its peculiarities. and i was under the impression that the essenes (authors of the dead sea scrolls) were perhaps somewhat earlier then that. burried and mutated as it is, their writings and even those of egyptian kemmit, are at the root of much that is called 'christian' writing and thought.

 

I've spent close to 10 years now being an amateur historian on religion and while I'm clearly not "there" in terms of knowledge, I've had to piece my own clues together and I pretty much adamentally state that Sumerian "religion" (which I've get into) was the religion that pretty much every other culture based their religious dogma from. First came Sumerian and then came the rest from Akkadkan, Babylonian, Egyptian, Greek, Roman and so on even into the Americas all have extremely similar stories and it's not actually hard to pinpoint the original Sumerian gods in the other cultures either, which is very akin to Egyptian just under different names.

In the bible it is said that that God and the Angels had a meeting and it was decided that they would come down confuse humans with religion and language and this a point in time where I believe the other religions started to come to fruition in the world. The Sumerians tell tales of how their gods were given district's and areas on earth to bring up their own people and culture and rule as their own deity.

The Egyptian mythology, the one most of us know today should probably be more guarded as new Egyptian mythology which has been fictionalised to beliefs in the sun and sun gods etc. But it's really just a continuation of the Sumerian religion as Marduk was sent to reign in Egypt and he completely changed the way Egyptians devoted their time to the gods. Marduk was the God that went by the name Ra, and he banished the Egyptian Pantheon of gods until the Egyptians only worshipped him as the one true God. This creates stress between Egypt and the other world cultures and as gods and angels do, they do battle and I feel a realistic implication is that much of the religious bullshit in Mesopotamia today is probably still entrenched quite vividly in their older religions.

But that's just my theories over the last decade of self research. I would be able to list the Sumerian gods in a lot of the following after religions so that you could have an understanding of who was who. But you can find all that online anyway.

One thing is for certain for me anyway, they're all the same.

 

Are you familiar with the prisca theologia?

If not, look into it.