Deutoronimicals/Apocrypha - what do you think of these books?

Hi,

I went to a Bible study group yesterday with a couple of friends of mine. The guy who was hosting it is an admitted Protestant, but he said that the only time that he has agreed with the Catholic church on anything was their inclusion of the Deutoronimical/Apocrypha scriptures in the Good News Bible Catholic Study version.

I have been using this Bible since I was in Year 8 at school, and they are very interesting and authoritative books - including the book of Sirach, Judith, Maccabees, Tobit and Esdras.

Sirach's books share a lot in common with Proverbs when it comes to issues of wisdom, morality, social ethics and business practices.

Judith is the story of a woman who used her beauty to entice and deceive an evil and oppressive king called Holofernes to kill him (under the control of God) to end his regime.

Maccabees 2 has the story of how another evil king called Antiochus put a whole family to death for refusing to eat pork, and his eventual conversion to God shortly before his death.

I also found it very interesting during the study that Martin Luther even wanted to edit out some of the New Testament books such as the book of James because he saw it as being inconsistent with Christianity.

Other books like the Gospel of Mary and the Gospel of Thomas have been disavowed by post Gnostic Christians as being fake, despite the fact that I've read the latter and found it to be quite rational with the teachings of Jesus.

__________________
"Sexual modesty cannot then in any simple way be identified with the use of clothing, nor shamelessness with the absence of clothing and total or partial nakedness. There are circumstances in which nakedness is not immodest... Nakedness as such is not to be equated with physical shamelessness."

Pope John Paul II (nee Karol Cardinal Wojtyla)

To be honest, I don't think it matters much whether one considers them Canonical, Deuterocanonical (second canon), They are certainly worth reading if only to understand the thinking of Jesus time, and for things like the amazing poetry about the Wisdom of God in Wisdom of Solomon. That's my favorite of them, followed by Tobit. Personally, I would have reservations about regarding them as fully canoncial (aka the Eastern Orthodox churches) - some bits like the additions to Esther simply don't seem up to that standard and Macabeees is very important historically but (IMO) not that great theologically.


Most of the sayings in Thomas are ripped out of the Synoptic tradition, so for the most part they are sayings of Jesus- the main problem is that they are ripped out of the narrative that gives them their proper context and provides the most important structure to Jesus' ministry.

__________________
"Goodness is stronger than evil,
love is stronger than hate,
light is stronger than darkness,
life is stronger than death,
victory is ours through him who loved us."
(+Desmond Tutu)