apocrypha

Apocrypha is biblical or related writings not forming part of the accepted canon of Scripture. While some might be of doubtful authorship or authenticity, in Christianity, the word apocryphal (ἀπόκρυφος) was first applied to writings which were to be read privately rather than in the public context of church services. Apocrypha were edifying Christian works that were not considered canonical Scripture. It was not until well after the Protestant Reformation that the word apocrypha was used by some ecclesiastics to mean "false," "spurious," "bad," or "heretical." From a Protestant point of view, Biblical apocrypha are a set of texts included in the Septuagint, (the Hebrew Bible in Greek), used for over two-hundred years by Jews and by early Christians. After the fall of Jerusalem, the Jews restored the Hebrew language to their Bible. The books which were included in the Septuagint but not in the original Hebrew Bible were set apart and remained in Greek. Later, when Jerome translated the Canon of Scripture and produced the Latin Vulgate, he labelled those books as Apocrypha. Catholic and Orthodox Churches consider them to be canonical, some Protestants consider them apocryphal, that is, non-canonical books that are useful for instruction. Luther's Bible placed them in a separate section in between the Old Testament and New Testament called the Apocrypha, a convention followed by subsequent Protestant Bibles. Some non-canonical apocryphal texts are called pseudepigrapha, a term that means "false attribution". The modern English adjective "apocryphal" is often used to indicate that a writing on any topic is of doubtful authenticity; spurious, fictitious, false; fabulous or mythical. Etymology The word's origin is the Medieval Latin adjective (secret, or non-canonical) from the Greek adjective , , (private) from the verb , (to hide away).