Apocrypha Never Quoted in Scripture
Some falsely claim that the apostles quoted from the Apocrypha, or that they cited the Apocrypha as authority. This claim is not true. The Apocrypha were falsely added by men to the inspired books of the Old Testament 700 years after the three divisions of the Old Testament were authoritatively completed. Think of it! They were not falsely inserted until 400 years after the birth of Jesus Christ.
But what of the claim that the apostles quote from a Greek translation of the Old Testament in which the Apocrypha were?
Here is Paul's own answer:
Paul believed ". . . none other things than those which the prophets and Moses did say should come" (Acts 26:22). He accepted "all things which are written in the law and in the prophets" — the Old Testament! (Acts 24:14) Paul did not say he believed in the Law, the Prophets, and the Apocrypha.
The Apocrypha were written between the time of Ezra and the inspired prophets and the time of Christ — a time during which God had ceased to send His prophets. Universal testimony admitted by all is that the last of the Old Testament prophets lived in Nehemiah's day.
The Apocrypha have no divine authority behind them. They did not come from God. In numerous places they blatantly contradict the inspired Word of God. They introduce pagan fable and superstition.
The Apocrypha originated secretly among the Essene Jews, who had adopted many of the customs of the pagans around them.
Let us notice in the censored Catholic Bible, published by the Douay Bible House in New York, the preface by Schuemacher. This daring preface states: "The Greek-speaking Jews in the Dispersion, especially in Egypt, recognized Books as sacred which the Jews in Palestine in the course of time suspected and, in post-Christian times rejected as not being of divine character. Protestants follow the tradition of the Palestinian Jews [the so-called Jewish Canon] and discarded a number of books which the Hellenistic Jews in the Dispersion [in their so-called Septuagint Canon] accept as sacred. Catholics follow the tradition of the Hellenistic Jews. . . ."
This claim is without historical foundation. Let's understand the facts.
The FACTS of History!
First, the Jews in the Dispersion, those living in Gentile lands and not in the Holy Land, had no authority to decide for themselves which books belonged in the Bible.
Second, the Jewish communities always looked to Jerusalem for any final decision on the Canon (the books which constitute the rule or standard by which we are to live — Canon means "rule").
Third, the Jews in the Dispersion accepted no other Canon than the books which had been accepted by the Jews in Judaea. The Jewish philosopher Philo, who lived in Alexandria, Egypt, "makes no quotations from the Apocrypha, and he gives not the slightest ground for the supposition that the Jews of Alexandria of his time were disposed to accept any of the books of the Apocrypha in their Canon of 'Holy Scripture' " (from H. E. Ryle, Philo in Holy Scripture, page xxxiii). Again, "If there were a controversy between the Diaspora and Palestine concerning the Canon, one would expect some hint of it in Philo, and there is none," declares E. Earle Ellis, in his book Paul's Use of the Old Testament, page 34.
Some religious authorities assume and take for granted that the inspired New Testament apostles quoted only from a Greek translation called the "Septuagint." They further assume that this translation contained the Apocrypha. This Greek translation of the Old Testament began around 275 B.C. (some place it in the 2nd century, sometime later). Only the first five books of the Bible — the books of Moses — were originally translated. "When and by whom the other books were added is quite unknown," says Frederic G. Kenyon in The Text of the Greek Bible. "Some books are translated almost word for word; others, like Job and Daniel, quite freely. . . . In the Greek translation of Jeremiah some 2,700 words are missing and the arrangement of the material is somewhat different . . ." (from the Text of the Old Testament by Ernst Wiirthwein, page 37).
Now notice that Professor Kenyon further says about the Septuagint Version and its various corruptions; "Thus in Job the Septuagint is shorter than the Hebrew text by about one-sixth, and there are large variations in Joshua, I Samuel, I Kings, Proverbs, Esther and Jeremiah, and lesser ones in other books" (Text of the Greek Bible, p. 29).
Septuagint Originally Without Apocrypha
The Septuagint Version actually has no authority. Some of it may have been well translated, especially the law, but much of it was utterly corrupt. But that isn't all. The Septuagint Translation of the whole Old Testament was already complete before most of the Apocryphal books were even composed! (See Edersheim in The Life and Time of Jesus the Messiah, page 26) The Catholic Bishop Cyril, of Jerusalem, born about 315 A.D., mentioned that as late as this date it was recognized that the Septuagint did not have the Apocrypha in it. He wrote: "Read the divine Scriptures — namely, the 22 books of the Old Testament which the 72 interpreters translated . . ." — the Septuagint Version. Notice that there were not 22 plus seven added books! There were only the 22 scrolls which were translated (the 39 books of the Old Testament today, remember, were then often written on 22 scrolls).
Even if the apostles had quoted from the Septuagint Version, there would therefore be no proof that the Apocrypha would be thus recognized. The addition of Apocryphal books to the Old Testament did not begin until about 80 A.D. Numerous spurious books were gradually introduced into the inspired Canon. No two copies of the earliest Catholic Bibles agree as to which apocryphal books were to be added. It was not until 397 A.D., at the Council of Carthage, that Augustine, the Canaanite Bishop from Hippo in North Africa, led the Council of Carthage to generally approve seven Apocryphal books. As late as 363 A.D. at the Council of Laodicea the Greek Church rejected the Apocryphal books as a whole. And the Roman Catholic scholar Jerome, who translated the Latin Vulgate Version, rejected the Apocrypha and made his translation from the Hebrew Old Testament directly. It was not until the Council of Trent that the Apocrypha were declared equal with the books of the Bible. At the Council of Trent on April 8, 1546, those who rejected the Apocrypha were declared to be "anathema of Christ"! Here was the authority of men determining what others must believe. This was not the authority of God.
The evidence is overwhelming — the apostles did not use or approve the Apocrypha.
Only gradually, from the third century onward were different Apocryphal writings added to the Septuagint translation. Another proof is that no two early copies of the Septuagint version have the same Apocryphal books in them
This is ABSOLUTE PROOF that the Alexandrian Jews had no settled or established canon [list of the inspired books] which included the Apocrypha. The addition of the Apocrypha to the Septuagint translation of the Old Testament was a matter of human tradition. So many different Apocryphal books were circulating in the Western world that it took a church council in 397 A.D. to decide which books would be listed as "approved."
So the Apocrypha is not a part of the inspired Old Testament. It is not part of the Bible! The Bible is COMPLETE WITHOUT IT.
Septuagint Not Only Greek Old Testament
There is ample proof that in New Testament quotations, the apostles did not use the Septuagint to quote from as the only Greek translation of the Old Testament. Two OUT OF EVERY
THREE QUOTATIONS from the OLD TESTAMENT FOUND IN THE NEW DO NOT AGREE VERBALLY WITH THE READING OF THE SEPTUAGINT translation of the Old Testament. "Paul was acquainted with other Greek texts," states Ellis on page 15 of his book, Paul's Use of the Old Testament. On page 19 he further admits, "Paul made use of variant translations or renderings known to his readers." In the days of the apostles there were apparently several different translations into Greek of the Old Testament. Though the first five books of the Septuagint were originally approved by the Jews to be read in Greek, the remaining books of the Septuagint Version became so corrupt that the Jews finally forbade their people to use any of the Septuagint. Numerous quotations from Daniel make it plain that the apostles writing in Greek also used translations different from the Septuagint in the first century A.D. No wonder Kenyon wrote on page 32 of his book, The Text of the Greek Bible, that the apostles were "using some earlier translation of which we have otherwise no knowledge; for several [non-Septuagint] readings occur in the New Testament, notably in the quotations from Daniel, in the Apocalypse, and Hebrews. There must therefore have been . . . some other version than the LXX [Septuagint Version] extant in the first century. . . ."
Other Missing Books?
Some sects today contend that there are "missing books of the Bible" from which Jesus and the apostles quoted. But notice! In Acts 17:28 Paul incidentally quotes the heathen poets. And in Titus 1:12-13 he again quotes non-Christian Cretan religious leaders. This certainly does not mean that the apostles are giving sanction to these heathen poets! Today we often quote from accurate historical sources — just as has been done in this article — but that does not mean we recognize the volumes from which these quotations have been taken as inspired of God.
In similar manner Jesus and the apostles sometimes quote from historical source material which had been preserved by the Jews from the days of Ezra and Nehemiah. But that does not mean that the volumes from which those quotations were taken were required to be preserved by the Jews for all generations. Just those particular quotations which Jesus and the apostles thought necessary have been preserved in the New Testament today.
God inspired the prophets of ancient times to bear His message not only for their generation but for all generations. Much of the material that they wrote for their generation was not intended to be preserved. God led them to choose those particular things which were needful for all generations. And what they themselves had not already preserved for us in the three divisions of the Old Testament — the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms — Jesus Himself and the apostles have retained for us as quotations- in the New Testament. But notice that none of these New Testament quotations comes from the Apocrypha.
These spurious books, which have no authority in the official Jewish community, were primarily the work of the Jewish sect called the Essenes. (See the proof in The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, article "Apocrypha.") The Essenes were an ascetic Jewish group commonly influenced by pagan mysteries. To justify their pagan practices they secretly composed spurious books in the name of Enoch and others in an attempt to justify their teachings adopted from the pagans.
New Testament Also COMPLETE
When the Jews in New Testament times refused the message of Jesus Christ and His apostles, Jesus raised up the Apostle Paul to go to the Greek world to have His New Testament message preserved in Greek for us today.
Most people are not aware that if the New Testament is placed side by side with the Old, the Bible is COMPLETE IN SEVEN DIVISIONS: Law, Prophets, Psalms, Gospels, Acts, Epistles, Revelation. Here is an amazing SEVENFOLD DIVISION of the books of the Bible. Seven is God's number for completion. With these seven divisions of the Bible, God's Book is complete.
The Greeks were given the New Testament to preserve, but God led the apostles to make the decision as to which books the Greek world would be heir to.
Notice that Paul sanctions the Gospels as inspired in I Timothy 5:18. Paul quotes as Scripture the words, "The laborer is worthy of his reward." This quotation is found nowhere in the Old Testament. It is found in Luke's Gospel, chapter 10, verse 7.
In II Peter 3:15-16 the epistles of Paul are compared with the Old Testament and are designated "Scriptures."
A comparison of the book of Genesis with the book of Revelation would prove conclusively that the book of Revelation was intended to be the last book of the Bible. And as a final warning not-to add any other book, God inspired John to write (Rev. 22:18-19), "For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book: and if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book."
New Testament Prophesied in Old
The Old Testament itself prophesied of the disciples that they would be the ones who would close the Canon — that is, complete the number of books of the Bible. Notice Isaiah 8:16: "Bind up the testimony, seal the law AMONG MY DISCIPLES." "To bind up" comes from the Hebrew word meaning "to complete." The apostles were used "to complete" the testimony of Jesus Christ. The New Testament Church has "the testimony of Jesus Christ" (Rev. 12:17). It was also through the disciples of Jesus Christ that God's seal of approval was placed on those laws which are eternally binding on Christians.
Yes, we can know! The Bible is COMPLETE! Not one book of the Bible has been lost. Not one is missing. The books of the Bible as you find them in your King James Version constitute the complete Bible!