I received a question not long ago asking about the books in the so-called Apocrypha, which are “additional” texts found in some Bibles. Why aren’t they in our Bibles? There are allusions to some of the books in the New Testament. They’re very old. They talk about things pertaining to God’s people. Why don’t we use them?
My answer is this:
There’s a longer answer to give with regards to “how we got the Bible,” the way texts were compiled and arranged, etc, but that’s too long to type, probably. A shorter answer would focus on the Apocrypha itself. First off, the collection of books is a catch-all, so some are going to have more value than others. I don’t want to imply that they’re all a waste of time to read. In fact, I’d argue there’s a lot to be gleaned from at least some of them, though that doesn’t make them inspired.
That said, the books are not without flaws, and that, plus some historical issues, are enough to satisfy their not being in the canon of Scripture.
For starters, while First Maccabees is largely considered historically accurate as a history of the Maccabean Revolt, the next book, Second Maccabees, was widely criticized by Jewish scholars for its inaccuracies.
The book of Judith is another that is riddled with problems, such as making Nebuchadnezzar the ruler during the Jews return from exile. They were already under Persian rule at that time. Nebuchadnezzar was long dead.
The Rest of Esther (additional chapters stuck to the end) is, in and of itself, a flawed work, since it was written centuries after Esther yet claims to be the same work.
Other books like The Song of the Three Holy Children fail to “ring true” as an inspired work. It’s more likely a story passed down and around that was never intended to be viewed as inspired, telling what happened to Hannaniah, Mishael, and Azariah when they went into the furnace in Daniel 3, but without any historical basis to ground it.
There’s a book called Wisdom of Solomon that reads like a knock-off of Proverbs but isn’t written by Solomon or at any time close to when the wise king lived. It’s written in the late BC era and has a ton of Greek philosophy peppered throughout, wholly anachronistic to the era of Solomon.
Baruch was written hundreds of years after Jeremiah, but claims to be history of Jeremiah, while getting things about Jeremiah wrong that Jeremiah himself wrote about.
That’s just a few.
As I said, there are some books and some things found in some books that aren’t bad, per se. And there are even some references made to the books in the New Testament, but that doesn’t automatically mean they should be inserted into the canon of inspired texts, any more than Paul quoting from pagan Greek poets in his sermon on Mars’ Hill automatically inserts the polytheistic Greek religion into the Christian culture (Acts 17:28). Being aware of books and referencing them is just a mark of good scholarship.
Keep in mind that the Jews had their canon of inspired texts long before the Holy Spirit began inspiring the New Testament texts, and those books are the same books regarded today as the Old Testament. Those who lived in the days of Jeremiah knew that Baruch was not inspired, etc.
I hope that clears things up even a little. It only scratches the surface, I suppose, but hopefully it puts your mind at ease when it comes to how you view the Word of God. What you’ve got is a complete record of inspiration, all things that pertain to life and godliness. Anything else is either a curiosity, a harmless (but not necessarily helpful) slice of life that sheds light on the era in which it was written, or a complete fabrication.
~ Matthew