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Archive 1 |
"Protestants use the term in a more general/more restricted sense" I changed it to 'more books', which might cover it. The idea that Protestants separate Pseudepigrapha and Apocrypha is true only in departments of religion, I fear. --Michael Tinkler
No, not more books, but to a different set of books. -- Simon J Kissane
The page says "In 1546 the Catholic Council of Trent adopted the canon of Augustine." The Catholic cannon was first proposed in 382 by Pope Damasus, followed by ratification by the Councils of Hippo (393 A.D.) and Carthage (397 A.D.). Pope St. Innocent approved the 73 book canon and closed the cannon of the Bible. Samuraidragon 20:38, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
There is a lot of information found in this article, some of it quite esoteric. I added (yet another) section near the top of this article to give greater promenance to what I think most people will be looking for when they are directed here: the books found in the Apocrypha section of a modern printed Bible. -rwflammang
Article says:
I'd like to see some evidence that they view them as being of lesser authority. AFAIK, Catholics at least view them as equally authoritative, although they recognize they have been subject to more dispute/controversy over the years than most books have. Secondly, I detect in this article Protestant bias, especially in regard to its frequent use of Protestant terminology without its qualification as Protestant. -- SJK
Ok, this will be addressed. I don't think that there is a Protestant bias, as the person who wrote that paragraph was Jewish (me), and regards the apocrypha as interesting Jewish historical and religious literature, but not divinely inspired. I had read a bit on this topic, including a little material written by clergy in the Catholic Chruch, but it still it could be in error. I will check this issue out in the New Catholic Encyclopaedia.
RK
RK: The terminology you are using, at least among Christians, is used mainly by Protestants, not Catholics. As for Jews, I don't know (but since they agree with Protestants on the OT/Tanakh canon, it would not suprise me if they also use Protestant terminology) -- SJK
Would something like Epistle to the Laodiceans go here? -- Alan Millar
No. None of the contested works (or parts thereof) is in the New Testament. While I realize that the Wiki article needs to be neutral, as a Catholic I was taught that Protestants dropped books and parts of books that "really were" in the Bible. I'm not trying to start a fight, but rather to question the notion that Catholics find these books of lesser quality. In fact, some of the dropped passages support Catholic interpretations of Christianity better than Protestant versions, so it would make no sense for Catholics to downgrade them. (Notably Luther's dislike of the following quote: 'It is a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead that they may be loosed from their sins' (2 Macc. 12:46). Catholics who call those works 'deuterocanonical' are not so much downgrading them from 'canonical' as upgrading them from 'apocryphal'. Church history is full of quotes from these works, which were included in the Septuagint and Vulgate. --DGJ According to the Catholic Encyclopedia ( http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03267a.htm) the term Deutero is not at all derogatory, and these books are considered just as canonical as the rest. (I have just made some changes to the Deuterocanonical books page to clarify this as well.
Many of the apocryphal books listed are shown as nonexistent articles, but I think I may have found them. I don't know enough about this topic to actually change the links, but FWTW here they are: Acts of the Apostles, Book of Revelation.
The term "Deuterocanonical" is used with extreme caution by Catholic theologians as it suggests that there are Protocanonical books and Deuterocanonical books of the Old Testament, when there is absolutely no such thing outside of hypothetical consideration. It is important to note that these theologians also had absolutely no authority to canonize the bible. These terms are nothing more than personal opinions. Martin Luther was the first Christian outside of the RCC to claim that he had the authority to canonize the bible when he rejected books of the OT as a solution to his own personal problem of dealing with purgatorial subjects when it was shown to him in his own Vulgate. He concluded that a post-crucifixion Jewish canon semi-fixed at the Council of Jamnia in 90AD would fit the bill and went with it. I believe most Orthodox Jews today would point out that the Jewish Canon is not closed because the messiah has yet to come. The actual bible canon was fixed by the RCC in 397 at the III Council of Carthage. [Cpt|Kirk 17:58, 23 March 2006 (UTC)]
Sorry. Luther was not the first, he followed the example of St Jerome. Sorry, Luther was not outside the RCC, he was a Catholic monk. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.8.60.158 ( talk) 18:38, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
The article mentions that Martin Luther dropped some (or all, I forget) of the Deuterocanonical/Apocryphal books, but, didn't he also drop the canonical epistle of James, so perhaps quoting him introduces some complication (the canon of Martin Luther) that belongs elsewhere ?
Why is Book of Enoch among NT Apocrypha? Why aren't apocalypses among the apocrypha? for example Apocalypse of Peter?
>> Enoch is part of the OT.
Luther created the 'Apocrypha' by moving books from the Old Testament into this newly created section. He also divided up the New Testament by creating a section for 'The Capital Books' and then a lesser section of the NT called the 'Oecolampadius' for Rev., Jas., Jude, 1 Pet, and 2-3 John. The Book of Enoch was not found in the LXX (Septuagint) and so did not appear in the Christian OT. The Apocalypse of Peter is apocrypha, but not Protestant apocrypha but Catholic apocrypha which can be found in a larger group of Early Christian Writings (200+ books). [Cpt|Kirk 18:05, 23 March 2006 (UTC)]
>> Enoch is in the Christian OT in Ethiopia.
Is there a less obscure example of literary apocrypha than "the Ossianic cycle invented by James Macpherson" which doesn't even have an article? Perhaps some classical Greek work or something? -- Beland 02:12, 4 Aug 2004 (UTC)
The introduction to the article used to imply that "Apocrypha" was a general theological term, but the only content is about Judeo-Christian beliefs.
It would be interesting to include or link to non Judeo-Christian Apocrypha, if anyone knows of any. In the meantime, I've made the intro more specific.
-- Beland 04:28, 4 Aug 2004 (UTC)
In refactoring the Old Testament section, I made the particularly questionable edits below, which others should review:
>> Not all books from the Septuagint are accepted by the Roman Catholic church as canonical. The Prayer of Manasseh, 3 Esdras, 4 Esdras, 3 Maccabees, 4 Maccabees, and Psalm 151 are not considered to be canonical, and are not included in the canon, although some Protestants include these books in the Apocrypha. In the Vulgate, these books are found in an appendix. <<
I couldn't find these in the appendix to the Vulgate on the Vatican's site, but it was in Latin, so I had a hard time deciphering it. Other than that, this paragraph is mostly redundant, so I dropped it.
>> Among the Oriental Orthodox, all the deuterocanonical books are accepted <<
I disambiguated this from "the Apocrypha is accepted", but I am not sure that is what was meant. The article on "Oriental Orthodox" doesn't help.
-- Beland 04:27, 4 Aug 2004 (UTC)
More questions:
--
Beland 05:35, 4 Aug 2004 (UTC)
The "Four Criteria for Canonicity" section seems self-contradictory. If these criteria have not been applied consistently and objectively (which they clearly have not), then other factors must also have influenced historical decisions on canonical status. So why is there this neat and tidy list?
Is there some historical group which has claimed these principles as ideals? If so they should be identified and some edits made to preserve NPOV.
The article shouldn't just admonish authors of book-specific articles to do good book-specific histories. It should link to a good general history or collection of histories of canonicalization. The rest of the article tries to present some of that history, but it's terribly incomplete and rather choppy. I'm not sure such a history exists on the Wikipedia yet.
-- Beland 05:36, 4 Aug 2004 (UTC)
The catholic church applied the criteria when selecting cannon, I believe using a devils advocate and all. They held trial over them, which is a most interesting concept... kinda reminds me of Sanhedrin ... only with more authority placed on final decisions. It's not as if either catholic or protestant hold the book of judas in high respect, or give it further review ever couple years. On another note, in the jewish tradition those books would not be considered Tanach, but rather Kabbala. Writing which is dangerous in the wrong hands, heretical and important enough to keep around and study. Modern rabinical juidism doesn't have a universal body holding sway over it (reform,conservative,ultra conservative,traditionalist,orthodox,ultra orthodox,hasids...which are like jehovah's witnesses for jews,ect). So it's easy to understand why the author of this article couldn't show the sensitivity required when dealing with the subject. Hence the possible offence which would even get this article questioned to the point of sharp debate. One must apply the same caution when dealing with another mans religion that he would with said mans wife. He must be gentle and without tongue.
Based on a suggestion in Wikipedia:Pages needing attention, I have started the skeleton of a WikiProject to try to cut down on the overlap between the various presentations of the canon. I think that a lot of people working here will want input on this. Feel free! Mpolo 13:23, Sep 14, 2004 (UTC)
This is an inappropriate article for the BCE/CE change - do any of the regular editors object to restoring AD/BC? Trödel| talk 01:36, 27 May 2005 (UTC)
As a point of neutrality, the contemporary BCE/CE nomenclature is, I believe, appropriate. Wikipedia terminology should reflect contemporary usage rather than obsolete symantic forms. -- RubberNeckHawaii 21:01, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
What exactly is this trying to say?
Attempted rewrite:
Did I get the meaning right? Jpatokal 11:48, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
_________________
>>The modern equivalent term to the ancient "apocrypha" would be "top secret government documents". . . . (Their not being mentioned in the >>public catalogue would indicate their being accessible only to government agents having a "top secret" security-clearance.)
This seems both unsupported and out of place in the article. Suggest expanding with citations and moving to its own subsection of this article.
208.27.203.131 ( talk) 16:13, 13 August 2009 (UTC) InterestedReader
especially where 2 Maccabees speaks, by implication, of purgatory: "It is therefore a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead, that they may be loosed from sins." (12:46).
Is this a translation issue? The NAB says: "Thus he made atonement for the dead that they might be freed from this sin." [1] -- Essjay · Talk 06:24, August 5, 2005 (UTC)
There's an overlap of information between the two articles. Since the Apocrypha article is quite long, maybe the details of the traditional OT Apocryphal books could be moved to the Books of the Apocrypha? Saint Midge 06:50, 31 December 2005 (UTC)
The section titled "Latter Day Saint views", describes LDS views on apocrypha as previously described.
Concerning the paragraph in this section beging with "Catholics and Protestants": Catholic and Protestant views of The Book of Mormon, don't quite belong in this secton of this article. Yet I tried to keep the most relevant ideas see bottom of entry. On a side note, the veracity of any scripture is rarely without one form of controversy or another.
Also, my fellow Mormons, are apocryphal texts only to be revealed before the second coming? Not after or durring? I generalized the sentence to allow for this.
Here's what I did
Sorry if I didn't sign in before I made the article change. If this is deemed appropriate, just remove this very discussion entry sometime. -- Brad 06:52, 14 September 2005 (UTC)
Could we get a list like Books of the Bible for the Apocrypha? Maybey at the (now redirected) Books of the Apocrypha. Sincerely, J. D. Redding
From Apocrypha in Judaism through a large portion of the rest of the article, it reads more like, to be honest, a bad novel than Wikipedia. It relies overly much on elaborate prose and a storytelling angle - this is an encylopedia, and beginning at this point, the article, stylistically, becomes distinctly un-encylopedic. The writing quality would be decent for, example, a high school essay on the Apocrypha, but it is not sufficient for Wikipedia, due to disorganization. Beginning with Apocrypha in Christianity, the article begins bordering on breaking NPOV - while it's possible to read the whole thing and come away with a sense of NPOV, I had to brush aside my first interpretations of the section to do so - not something which should be present. Also, "We have remarked above..." breaks encylopedic style as well - the encylopedia is not a We. It's not even an I, or an It. Similar effect could be gotten by saying 'As shown above...' or equivalent, and similar errors show up in several places later in the article. There's also too much transition between subsections - if you're going to place a subsection header, treat the contents of it as independent of the other subsections. This article shouldn't run on chronological order - at least not in a storytelling sense. The only significant problem with this article is a large stylistic break. Go read other wiki articles (preferrably those which are held to be of high quality, such as the Featured Articles) and take note of the stylistic decisions they make. The elaborate prose and bad style need to be eliminated. In fact, the first parts of the article - up until Apocrypha in Judaism - is quality in style and substance. I'm not qualified to make the edits this article needs (or else I would do it myself) but I felt like this was a nastier bit of stylistic break than usual so I have no choice but to comment. Rarr 06:18, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
I think the article needs a re-write as well. Its too messy at the moment for me to be all that willing to approach it though, I might have a go at it when I've got a really clear head and I'm in a really good mood and don't mind getting annoyed by the mess that its in, but that isn't today. Looking at it it looks like parts of the article come from some ancient and out of date encyclopedia (e.g. Encyclopedia Brittania 1911) - one that doesn't know about the discoveries at Nag Hammadi for example. Clinkophonist 21:07, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
I've reworded content up to the "Cultural impact" subhead, adding dates to the Bible versions, removing old-fashioned language, and restructuring a few paragraphs within sections to improve the flow.-- Marysunshine 04:38, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
I just did some work on "Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha in Judaism." My edits were mostly to clarify what information was already there, and eliminate antiquities, etc. Some of that material needs to be cited, however, and it certainly could be added upon (especially the "psuedepigraphia" -- we bring it up tantalizingly in the section's title, then proceed to ignore it completely). rwflammang might be able to help with this, judging on his/her previous helpful edits. There are still some holes that need to be patched up by someone who knows the subject better than I do.-- Marysunshine 21:44, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
The are a few passages of NT Greek left untranslated throughout the article. I'm not proficient enough at Greek to translate them, but it needs doing. I can provide a transliteration if needed, although I'm not sure if it would be appropriate. Any thoughts? Daniel ( ☎) 20:07, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
Seems to me many of the controversial statements in this article could be better expounded upon in the article Biblical canon. Although the Apocrypha are obviously related to the issue of the canon, I'd like to see this article focus more on the history and content of the books themselves and less on the question of their canonicity, which belongs in the article Biblical canon. -rwflammang 13 April 2006
I think the split Clinkophonist proposed is a good idea in general, but before we do something like that, we have to clean this thing up. Rarr 00:48, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
Wouldn't it make more sense for Books of the Apocrypha to redirect to Books of the Bible instead of to here? If they're looking for the list of books, the table there will be much more helpful. / blahedo ( t) 22:01, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
This section currently reads:
I can't tell if this is Protestant-centric or just wrong; the Vulgate is in Latin and Douay-Rheims in English, but both are Catholic—thus they don't have a section labelled "Apocrypha", but do include all that material. It is at least misleading, and it makes me wonder about the accuracy of the second paragraph as well. / blahedo ( t) 05:07, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
Before King James
From the Holy Bible containing The Authorized Editon of The New Testament, A.D. 1611 and The Revised Version of A.D. 1881, Arranged in Parallel Columns; with Complete Concordance, Embracing every passage of Scripture in the Largest Edition, Aprocrypha and Psalms. Printed by O. A. Browning & CO Toledo, OH Copyright 1872 to 1885 with the Library of Congress.
The Apocrypha Books Included in this edition are
Every time I went at trying to clean up the main article, I found myself at a loss as to where even to start. So I took a deep breath, figured out what the major fault lines were, and split the article. I created Jewish apocrypha and Biblical apocrypha, and New Testament apocrypha already existed but I'm inclined to switch it to Christian apocrypha though I haven't done that yet.
Both new articles contain considerable material from the original article, and not contiguous chunks, either; this should hopefully make it a lot easier to spot duplicate or contradictory information and merge or reconcile as appropriate. The split is far from a done deal—a lot of cleanup work is still required. Among other things, not all the info in the sections of this page is contained in the "main article" that they refer to, which should be fixed. And the references I did nothing with, so some of the refs on this page should be farmed out to the subpages.
I'll keep working on this, but I wanted to let any watchers know what was going on first. Happy editing! / blahedo ( t) 02:22, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
I'm scratching my head over what to do with the parenthetical citations scattered throughout the text. These appear to be cut-n-pasted in from the text of the 1911 Britannica (or wherever), and cleave to that antique style rather than contemporary, wiki-friendly links & footnote citations.
I'm thinking of passages like these: Thus Origen distinguishes between writings which were read by the churches and apocryphal writings; γραφη μη φερομενη μεν εν τοις κοινοις και δεδημοσιευμενοις βιβλιοις εικος δ ὁτι εν αποκρυφοις φερομενη (Origen's Comm. in Matt., x. 18, on Matt. xiii. 57, ed. Lommatzsch iii. 49 sqq.). Cf. Epist. ad Africam, ix. (Lommatzsch xvii. 31): Euseb. H.E. ii. 23, 25; iii. 3, 6. See Zahn, Gesch. Kanons, i. 126 sqq. Thus the meaning of αποκρυφος is here practically equivalent to "excluded from the public use of the church", and prepares the way for an even less favourable use of the word.
Evidently, the old writer was citing a commentary made by Origen on the Book of Matthew as presented by an editor named Lommatzsch. I have no idea who Lommatzch was, or what book this is -- but I'm uncomfortable simply deleting this reference, since it's putting words in Origen's mouth and needs to be sourced. Should this simply be cited to the Brittanica? Should I (or someone more motivated) actually look up the Lommatzch or some other source for Origen's commentaries, add that to the references and link to that? -- grant 16:01, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
Would it be wrong to include a link to the latter in the See also section? Theavatar3 19:02, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
Why? Miuq ( talk) 00:59, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
I have been working parts of Michael Barber's blog entry into the Development of the Old Testament canon article. However, I am concerned that Barber's position is only one POV and is a minority viewpoint. I wanted to ask others for their opinion regarding this material and how best to present it in an NPOV way. Among other questions, I'm wondering if this material should be presented in the Development of the Old Testament canon article or in the Deuterocanonical books article.
-- Richard 08:40, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
In the "New Testament apocryphal literature" the link for heterodoxy goes to the page on Christian heresy. This is peculiar considering that there is a page on heterodoxy. Is there some reason it is this way? Miuq ( talk) 06:26, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
I changed it so that it would link the the Heterodoxy page. Miuq ( talk) 00:58, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
What exactly is meant by "uncertain authenticity"? How is "authentic" defined, and who is defining it? It seems to me that the question of true authorship is all that the word "apocrypha" is conveying. In this respect, a work that is of "uncertain authenticity" is merely another of saying that the authorship of the work is uncertain. This creates a descriptive redundancy: "Apocrypha are texts of uncertain authenticity or writings where the authorship is questioned." - the texts are "of uncertain authenticity" or the texts' "authorship is questioned"?
This definition leads to an interesting situation: According to believers, the orthodox/canonical works presented in the Bible are "authentic", but the unorthodox/non-canonical works which constitute the Biblical apocrypha are "not authentic". Yet in both cases the authorship is entirely unknown. In the case of canonical Biblical writings, the traditionally attributed authors have gained acceptance with the layperson, absent of any real evidence. In the case of the apocrypha, there are no traditionally attributed authors. Traditional attribution of authorship is not proof of authorship. Thus, there is never ending confusion as to the usage of the term "apocrypha".
96.237.14.131 (
talk) 22:41, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
I would like to suggest that there be an article split between Apocryphal and the Apocrypha. While the Apocrypha is widely accepted as referring to the bible, I am sure that Apocryphal is being confused. Apocryphal should have its own article should be used secularly to point out dubious and doubtful accounts of history such as the stated George Washington and the Cherry Tree story but I am sure there are others like:
Already I can envision the article being a list of these events and people and closely tied with the folklore article. Would editors consider creating a new article?-- Kencaesi ( talk) 20:49, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
The Newton story is rather more than simply apocryphal. There's proof that he told it himself, though of course that's not the same as proof that it actually happened. Peter jackson ( talk) 18:37, 19 March 2009 (UTC)
The intro section states:
Same category as what?? What is the category?
Huh? How does that a more specific version of the idea about Gospel according to Hebrews?
How does authenticity relate to apocrypha (texts that are useful but not divinely inspired)? How does How does canonicity relate to apocrypha?
- Pgan002 ( talk) 20:57, 19 January 2010 (UTC)
![]() | This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
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Revelation 22:18-19 tells us clearly not to add to the words of this prophecy, but however, the apocrypha was added centuries later. The words of the apocryphal writings also lack divine inspiration as they stray far from the rest of the bible. NeilGodman 11:22, 1 August 2007 (UTC) |
Last edited at 11:22, 1 August 2007 (UTC). Substituted at 08:50, 19 April 2016 (UTC)
![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 |
"Protestants use the term in a more general/more restricted sense" I changed it to 'more books', which might cover it. The idea that Protestants separate Pseudepigrapha and Apocrypha is true only in departments of religion, I fear. --Michael Tinkler
No, not more books, but to a different set of books. -- Simon J Kissane
The page says "In 1546 the Catholic Council of Trent adopted the canon of Augustine." The Catholic cannon was first proposed in 382 by Pope Damasus, followed by ratification by the Councils of Hippo (393 A.D.) and Carthage (397 A.D.). Pope St. Innocent approved the 73 book canon and closed the cannon of the Bible. Samuraidragon 20:38, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
There is a lot of information found in this article, some of it quite esoteric. I added (yet another) section near the top of this article to give greater promenance to what I think most people will be looking for when they are directed here: the books found in the Apocrypha section of a modern printed Bible. -rwflammang
Article says:
I'd like to see some evidence that they view them as being of lesser authority. AFAIK, Catholics at least view them as equally authoritative, although they recognize they have been subject to more dispute/controversy over the years than most books have. Secondly, I detect in this article Protestant bias, especially in regard to its frequent use of Protestant terminology without its qualification as Protestant. -- SJK
Ok, this will be addressed. I don't think that there is a Protestant bias, as the person who wrote that paragraph was Jewish (me), and regards the apocrypha as interesting Jewish historical and religious literature, but not divinely inspired. I had read a bit on this topic, including a little material written by clergy in the Catholic Chruch, but it still it could be in error. I will check this issue out in the New Catholic Encyclopaedia.
RK
RK: The terminology you are using, at least among Christians, is used mainly by Protestants, not Catholics. As for Jews, I don't know (but since they agree with Protestants on the OT/Tanakh canon, it would not suprise me if they also use Protestant terminology) -- SJK
Would something like Epistle to the Laodiceans go here? -- Alan Millar
No. None of the contested works (or parts thereof) is in the New Testament. While I realize that the Wiki article needs to be neutral, as a Catholic I was taught that Protestants dropped books and parts of books that "really were" in the Bible. I'm not trying to start a fight, but rather to question the notion that Catholics find these books of lesser quality. In fact, some of the dropped passages support Catholic interpretations of Christianity better than Protestant versions, so it would make no sense for Catholics to downgrade them. (Notably Luther's dislike of the following quote: 'It is a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead that they may be loosed from their sins' (2 Macc. 12:46). Catholics who call those works 'deuterocanonical' are not so much downgrading them from 'canonical' as upgrading them from 'apocryphal'. Church history is full of quotes from these works, which were included in the Septuagint and Vulgate. --DGJ According to the Catholic Encyclopedia ( http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03267a.htm) the term Deutero is not at all derogatory, and these books are considered just as canonical as the rest. (I have just made some changes to the Deuterocanonical books page to clarify this as well.
Many of the apocryphal books listed are shown as nonexistent articles, but I think I may have found them. I don't know enough about this topic to actually change the links, but FWTW here they are: Acts of the Apostles, Book of Revelation.
The term "Deuterocanonical" is used with extreme caution by Catholic theologians as it suggests that there are Protocanonical books and Deuterocanonical books of the Old Testament, when there is absolutely no such thing outside of hypothetical consideration. It is important to note that these theologians also had absolutely no authority to canonize the bible. These terms are nothing more than personal opinions. Martin Luther was the first Christian outside of the RCC to claim that he had the authority to canonize the bible when he rejected books of the OT as a solution to his own personal problem of dealing with purgatorial subjects when it was shown to him in his own Vulgate. He concluded that a post-crucifixion Jewish canon semi-fixed at the Council of Jamnia in 90AD would fit the bill and went with it. I believe most Orthodox Jews today would point out that the Jewish Canon is not closed because the messiah has yet to come. The actual bible canon was fixed by the RCC in 397 at the III Council of Carthage. [Cpt|Kirk 17:58, 23 March 2006 (UTC)]
Sorry. Luther was not the first, he followed the example of St Jerome. Sorry, Luther was not outside the RCC, he was a Catholic monk. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.8.60.158 ( talk) 18:38, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
The article mentions that Martin Luther dropped some (or all, I forget) of the Deuterocanonical/Apocryphal books, but, didn't he also drop the canonical epistle of James, so perhaps quoting him introduces some complication (the canon of Martin Luther) that belongs elsewhere ?
Why is Book of Enoch among NT Apocrypha? Why aren't apocalypses among the apocrypha? for example Apocalypse of Peter?
>> Enoch is part of the OT.
Luther created the 'Apocrypha' by moving books from the Old Testament into this newly created section. He also divided up the New Testament by creating a section for 'The Capital Books' and then a lesser section of the NT called the 'Oecolampadius' for Rev., Jas., Jude, 1 Pet, and 2-3 John. The Book of Enoch was not found in the LXX (Septuagint) and so did not appear in the Christian OT. The Apocalypse of Peter is apocrypha, but not Protestant apocrypha but Catholic apocrypha which can be found in a larger group of Early Christian Writings (200+ books). [Cpt|Kirk 18:05, 23 March 2006 (UTC)]
>> Enoch is in the Christian OT in Ethiopia.
Is there a less obscure example of literary apocrypha than "the Ossianic cycle invented by James Macpherson" which doesn't even have an article? Perhaps some classical Greek work or something? -- Beland 02:12, 4 Aug 2004 (UTC)
The introduction to the article used to imply that "Apocrypha" was a general theological term, but the only content is about Judeo-Christian beliefs.
It would be interesting to include or link to non Judeo-Christian Apocrypha, if anyone knows of any. In the meantime, I've made the intro more specific.
-- Beland 04:28, 4 Aug 2004 (UTC)
In refactoring the Old Testament section, I made the particularly questionable edits below, which others should review:
>> Not all books from the Septuagint are accepted by the Roman Catholic church as canonical. The Prayer of Manasseh, 3 Esdras, 4 Esdras, 3 Maccabees, 4 Maccabees, and Psalm 151 are not considered to be canonical, and are not included in the canon, although some Protestants include these books in the Apocrypha. In the Vulgate, these books are found in an appendix. <<
I couldn't find these in the appendix to the Vulgate on the Vatican's site, but it was in Latin, so I had a hard time deciphering it. Other than that, this paragraph is mostly redundant, so I dropped it.
>> Among the Oriental Orthodox, all the deuterocanonical books are accepted <<
I disambiguated this from "the Apocrypha is accepted", but I am not sure that is what was meant. The article on "Oriental Orthodox" doesn't help.
-- Beland 04:27, 4 Aug 2004 (UTC)
More questions:
--
Beland 05:35, 4 Aug 2004 (UTC)
The "Four Criteria for Canonicity" section seems self-contradictory. If these criteria have not been applied consistently and objectively (which they clearly have not), then other factors must also have influenced historical decisions on canonical status. So why is there this neat and tidy list?
Is there some historical group which has claimed these principles as ideals? If so they should be identified and some edits made to preserve NPOV.
The article shouldn't just admonish authors of book-specific articles to do good book-specific histories. It should link to a good general history or collection of histories of canonicalization. The rest of the article tries to present some of that history, but it's terribly incomplete and rather choppy. I'm not sure such a history exists on the Wikipedia yet.
-- Beland 05:36, 4 Aug 2004 (UTC)
The catholic church applied the criteria when selecting cannon, I believe using a devils advocate and all. They held trial over them, which is a most interesting concept... kinda reminds me of Sanhedrin ... only with more authority placed on final decisions. It's not as if either catholic or protestant hold the book of judas in high respect, or give it further review ever couple years. On another note, in the jewish tradition those books would not be considered Tanach, but rather Kabbala. Writing which is dangerous in the wrong hands, heretical and important enough to keep around and study. Modern rabinical juidism doesn't have a universal body holding sway over it (reform,conservative,ultra conservative,traditionalist,orthodox,ultra orthodox,hasids...which are like jehovah's witnesses for jews,ect). So it's easy to understand why the author of this article couldn't show the sensitivity required when dealing with the subject. Hence the possible offence which would even get this article questioned to the point of sharp debate. One must apply the same caution when dealing with another mans religion that he would with said mans wife. He must be gentle and without tongue.
Based on a suggestion in Wikipedia:Pages needing attention, I have started the skeleton of a WikiProject to try to cut down on the overlap between the various presentations of the canon. I think that a lot of people working here will want input on this. Feel free! Mpolo 13:23, Sep 14, 2004 (UTC)
This is an inappropriate article for the BCE/CE change - do any of the regular editors object to restoring AD/BC? Trödel| talk 01:36, 27 May 2005 (UTC)
As a point of neutrality, the contemporary BCE/CE nomenclature is, I believe, appropriate. Wikipedia terminology should reflect contemporary usage rather than obsolete symantic forms. -- RubberNeckHawaii 21:01, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
What exactly is this trying to say?
Attempted rewrite:
Did I get the meaning right? Jpatokal 11:48, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
_________________
>>The modern equivalent term to the ancient "apocrypha" would be "top secret government documents". . . . (Their not being mentioned in the >>public catalogue would indicate their being accessible only to government agents having a "top secret" security-clearance.)
This seems both unsupported and out of place in the article. Suggest expanding with citations and moving to its own subsection of this article.
208.27.203.131 ( talk) 16:13, 13 August 2009 (UTC) InterestedReader
especially where 2 Maccabees speaks, by implication, of purgatory: "It is therefore a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead, that they may be loosed from sins." (12:46).
Is this a translation issue? The NAB says: "Thus he made atonement for the dead that they might be freed from this sin." [1] -- Essjay · Talk 06:24, August 5, 2005 (UTC)
There's an overlap of information between the two articles. Since the Apocrypha article is quite long, maybe the details of the traditional OT Apocryphal books could be moved to the Books of the Apocrypha? Saint Midge 06:50, 31 December 2005 (UTC)
The section titled "Latter Day Saint views", describes LDS views on apocrypha as previously described.
Concerning the paragraph in this section beging with "Catholics and Protestants": Catholic and Protestant views of The Book of Mormon, don't quite belong in this secton of this article. Yet I tried to keep the most relevant ideas see bottom of entry. On a side note, the veracity of any scripture is rarely without one form of controversy or another.
Also, my fellow Mormons, are apocryphal texts only to be revealed before the second coming? Not after or durring? I generalized the sentence to allow for this.
Here's what I did
Sorry if I didn't sign in before I made the article change. If this is deemed appropriate, just remove this very discussion entry sometime. -- Brad 06:52, 14 September 2005 (UTC)
Could we get a list like Books of the Bible for the Apocrypha? Maybey at the (now redirected) Books of the Apocrypha. Sincerely, J. D. Redding
From Apocrypha in Judaism through a large portion of the rest of the article, it reads more like, to be honest, a bad novel than Wikipedia. It relies overly much on elaborate prose and a storytelling angle - this is an encylopedia, and beginning at this point, the article, stylistically, becomes distinctly un-encylopedic. The writing quality would be decent for, example, a high school essay on the Apocrypha, but it is not sufficient for Wikipedia, due to disorganization. Beginning with Apocrypha in Christianity, the article begins bordering on breaking NPOV - while it's possible to read the whole thing and come away with a sense of NPOV, I had to brush aside my first interpretations of the section to do so - not something which should be present. Also, "We have remarked above..." breaks encylopedic style as well - the encylopedia is not a We. It's not even an I, or an It. Similar effect could be gotten by saying 'As shown above...' or equivalent, and similar errors show up in several places later in the article. There's also too much transition between subsections - if you're going to place a subsection header, treat the contents of it as independent of the other subsections. This article shouldn't run on chronological order - at least not in a storytelling sense. The only significant problem with this article is a large stylistic break. Go read other wiki articles (preferrably those which are held to be of high quality, such as the Featured Articles) and take note of the stylistic decisions they make. The elaborate prose and bad style need to be eliminated. In fact, the first parts of the article - up until Apocrypha in Judaism - is quality in style and substance. I'm not qualified to make the edits this article needs (or else I would do it myself) but I felt like this was a nastier bit of stylistic break than usual so I have no choice but to comment. Rarr 06:18, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
I think the article needs a re-write as well. Its too messy at the moment for me to be all that willing to approach it though, I might have a go at it when I've got a really clear head and I'm in a really good mood and don't mind getting annoyed by the mess that its in, but that isn't today. Looking at it it looks like parts of the article come from some ancient and out of date encyclopedia (e.g. Encyclopedia Brittania 1911) - one that doesn't know about the discoveries at Nag Hammadi for example. Clinkophonist 21:07, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
I've reworded content up to the "Cultural impact" subhead, adding dates to the Bible versions, removing old-fashioned language, and restructuring a few paragraphs within sections to improve the flow.-- Marysunshine 04:38, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
I just did some work on "Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha in Judaism." My edits were mostly to clarify what information was already there, and eliminate antiquities, etc. Some of that material needs to be cited, however, and it certainly could be added upon (especially the "psuedepigraphia" -- we bring it up tantalizingly in the section's title, then proceed to ignore it completely). rwflammang might be able to help with this, judging on his/her previous helpful edits. There are still some holes that need to be patched up by someone who knows the subject better than I do.-- Marysunshine 21:44, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
The are a few passages of NT Greek left untranslated throughout the article. I'm not proficient enough at Greek to translate them, but it needs doing. I can provide a transliteration if needed, although I'm not sure if it would be appropriate. Any thoughts? Daniel ( ☎) 20:07, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
Seems to me many of the controversial statements in this article could be better expounded upon in the article Biblical canon. Although the Apocrypha are obviously related to the issue of the canon, I'd like to see this article focus more on the history and content of the books themselves and less on the question of their canonicity, which belongs in the article Biblical canon. -rwflammang 13 April 2006
I think the split Clinkophonist proposed is a good idea in general, but before we do something like that, we have to clean this thing up. Rarr 00:48, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
Wouldn't it make more sense for Books of the Apocrypha to redirect to Books of the Bible instead of to here? If they're looking for the list of books, the table there will be much more helpful. / blahedo ( t) 22:01, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
This section currently reads:
I can't tell if this is Protestant-centric or just wrong; the Vulgate is in Latin and Douay-Rheims in English, but both are Catholic—thus they don't have a section labelled "Apocrypha", but do include all that material. It is at least misleading, and it makes me wonder about the accuracy of the second paragraph as well. / blahedo ( t) 05:07, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
Before King James
From the Holy Bible containing The Authorized Editon of The New Testament, A.D. 1611 and The Revised Version of A.D. 1881, Arranged in Parallel Columns; with Complete Concordance, Embracing every passage of Scripture in the Largest Edition, Aprocrypha and Psalms. Printed by O. A. Browning & CO Toledo, OH Copyright 1872 to 1885 with the Library of Congress.
The Apocrypha Books Included in this edition are
Every time I went at trying to clean up the main article, I found myself at a loss as to where even to start. So I took a deep breath, figured out what the major fault lines were, and split the article. I created Jewish apocrypha and Biblical apocrypha, and New Testament apocrypha already existed but I'm inclined to switch it to Christian apocrypha though I haven't done that yet.
Both new articles contain considerable material from the original article, and not contiguous chunks, either; this should hopefully make it a lot easier to spot duplicate or contradictory information and merge or reconcile as appropriate. The split is far from a done deal—a lot of cleanup work is still required. Among other things, not all the info in the sections of this page is contained in the "main article" that they refer to, which should be fixed. And the references I did nothing with, so some of the refs on this page should be farmed out to the subpages.
I'll keep working on this, but I wanted to let any watchers know what was going on first. Happy editing! / blahedo ( t) 02:22, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
I'm scratching my head over what to do with the parenthetical citations scattered throughout the text. These appear to be cut-n-pasted in from the text of the 1911 Britannica (or wherever), and cleave to that antique style rather than contemporary, wiki-friendly links & footnote citations.
I'm thinking of passages like these: Thus Origen distinguishes between writings which were read by the churches and apocryphal writings; γραφη μη φερομενη μεν εν τοις κοινοις και δεδημοσιευμενοις βιβλιοις εικος δ ὁτι εν αποκρυφοις φερομενη (Origen's Comm. in Matt., x. 18, on Matt. xiii. 57, ed. Lommatzsch iii. 49 sqq.). Cf. Epist. ad Africam, ix. (Lommatzsch xvii. 31): Euseb. H.E. ii. 23, 25; iii. 3, 6. See Zahn, Gesch. Kanons, i. 126 sqq. Thus the meaning of αποκρυφος is here practically equivalent to "excluded from the public use of the church", and prepares the way for an even less favourable use of the word.
Evidently, the old writer was citing a commentary made by Origen on the Book of Matthew as presented by an editor named Lommatzsch. I have no idea who Lommatzch was, or what book this is -- but I'm uncomfortable simply deleting this reference, since it's putting words in Origen's mouth and needs to be sourced. Should this simply be cited to the Brittanica? Should I (or someone more motivated) actually look up the Lommatzch or some other source for Origen's commentaries, add that to the references and link to that? -- grant 16:01, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
Would it be wrong to include a link to the latter in the See also section? Theavatar3 19:02, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
Why? Miuq ( talk) 00:59, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
I have been working parts of Michael Barber's blog entry into the Development of the Old Testament canon article. However, I am concerned that Barber's position is only one POV and is a minority viewpoint. I wanted to ask others for their opinion regarding this material and how best to present it in an NPOV way. Among other questions, I'm wondering if this material should be presented in the Development of the Old Testament canon article or in the Deuterocanonical books article.
-- Richard 08:40, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
In the "New Testament apocryphal literature" the link for heterodoxy goes to the page on Christian heresy. This is peculiar considering that there is a page on heterodoxy. Is there some reason it is this way? Miuq ( talk) 06:26, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
I changed it so that it would link the the Heterodoxy page. Miuq ( talk) 00:58, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
What exactly is meant by "uncertain authenticity"? How is "authentic" defined, and who is defining it? It seems to me that the question of true authorship is all that the word "apocrypha" is conveying. In this respect, a work that is of "uncertain authenticity" is merely another of saying that the authorship of the work is uncertain. This creates a descriptive redundancy: "Apocrypha are texts of uncertain authenticity or writings where the authorship is questioned." - the texts are "of uncertain authenticity" or the texts' "authorship is questioned"?
This definition leads to an interesting situation: According to believers, the orthodox/canonical works presented in the Bible are "authentic", but the unorthodox/non-canonical works which constitute the Biblical apocrypha are "not authentic". Yet in both cases the authorship is entirely unknown. In the case of canonical Biblical writings, the traditionally attributed authors have gained acceptance with the layperson, absent of any real evidence. In the case of the apocrypha, there are no traditionally attributed authors. Traditional attribution of authorship is not proof of authorship. Thus, there is never ending confusion as to the usage of the term "apocrypha".
96.237.14.131 (
talk) 22:41, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
I would like to suggest that there be an article split between Apocryphal and the Apocrypha. While the Apocrypha is widely accepted as referring to the bible, I am sure that Apocryphal is being confused. Apocryphal should have its own article should be used secularly to point out dubious and doubtful accounts of history such as the stated George Washington and the Cherry Tree story but I am sure there are others like:
Already I can envision the article being a list of these events and people and closely tied with the folklore article. Would editors consider creating a new article?-- Kencaesi ( talk) 20:49, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
The Newton story is rather more than simply apocryphal. There's proof that he told it himself, though of course that's not the same as proof that it actually happened. Peter jackson ( talk) 18:37, 19 March 2009 (UTC)
The intro section states:
Same category as what?? What is the category?
Huh? How does that a more specific version of the idea about Gospel according to Hebrews?
How does authenticity relate to apocrypha (texts that are useful but not divinely inspired)? How does How does canonicity relate to apocrypha?
- Pgan002 ( talk) 20:57, 19 January 2010 (UTC)
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The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Apocrypha/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.
Revelation 22:18-19 tells us clearly not to add to the words of this prophecy, but however, the apocrypha was added centuries later. The words of the apocryphal writings also lack divine inspiration as they stray far from the rest of the bible. NeilGodman 11:22, 1 August 2007 (UTC) |
Last edited at 11:22, 1 August 2007 (UTC). Substituted at 08:50, 19 April 2016 (UTC)