The Roman Catholic Church has added an additional 7 books to the Bible called the "Apocrypha" or "Deuterocanonical" books.
These books are:
In addition to these seven additional books, the Apocrypha also contains added chapters to established books.
Although the Roman Catholic canon has eleven more books than the Protestant Bible, only seven extra books appear in the table of contents of Roman Catholic Bibles... There are, however, four more books or pieces of literature that are added to other books that do not appear in the table of contents. There are the Additions to Esther, added at the end of the Book of Esther (Esth. 10:4f.); the Prayer of Azariah, inserted between... Daniel 3:23 and 24 (making it Daniel 3:24-90 in Roman Catholic Bibles); Susanna, placed at the end of Daniel 12... (as chap. 13); and Bel and the Dragon, which became chapter 14 of Daniel. So with seven complete books and four other pieces of literature found in Daniel and Esther, the Roman Catholic canon has eleven more books than does the Jewish Bible and Protestant Old Testament. [192]
Webster defines the word "apocrypha" as follows:
secret, not canonical, from Greek apokryphos obscure, from apokryptein to hide away, from apo- + kryptein to hide...
writings or statements of dubious authenticity
capitalized a : books included in the Septuagint and Vulgate but excluded from the Jewish and Protestant canons of the Old Testament [193]
Seing that the word "apocryphal" means "not canonical," or "writings or statements of dubious authenticity", the Roman Catholic Church does not use this term to describe these 7 to 13 extra writings. The Roman Catholic Church typically refers to these disputed writings as "Deuterocanonical books." "Deuterocanonical" means "second canon."
The following are important facts about the disputed books known as the Apocrypha:
Josh McDowell and Don Stewart wrote the following about the Apocrypha:
It cannot be overemphasized that the Roman Catholic Church itself did not officially declare these books Holy Scripture until 1545-1563 at the Council of Trent.
The acceptance of certain books in the apocrypha as canonical by the Roman Catholic church was to a great extent a reaction to the Protestant Reformation. By canonizing these books, they legitimized their reference to them in doctrinal matters.
There are some other telling reasons why the apocrypha is rejected by the Protestant church. One of these deals with the unbiblical teaching of these questionable books, such as praying for the dead.
Praying for the deceased, advocated in II Maccabees 12:45-46, is in direct opposition to Luke 16:25, 26 and Hebrews 9:27, among others. The apocrypha also contains the episode which has God assisting Judith in a lie (Judith 9:10, 13).
The apocrypha contains demonstrable errors as well. Tobit was supposedly alive when Jeroboam staged his revolt in 931 b.c. and was still living at the time of the Assyrian captivity (722 b.c.), yet the Book of Tobit says he lived only 158 years (Tobit 1:3-5; 14:11).
Finally, there is no claim in any of these apocryphal books as to divine inspiration. One need only read these works alongside the Bible to see the vast difference. [194]
The Catholic says:
The deuterocanonical books were found among the Dead Sea Scrolls! Therefore they should be included in the Canon.
Geisler and Brooks insightfully pointed out:
As for the Qumran finds, hundreds of books have been found there that are not canonical; this offers no evidence that they accepted the apocryphal books as anything other than popular literature. [195]
Many Christians are uncomfortable labeling the Roman Catholic Church a cult because of the mistaken belief that Roman Catholics and non-Roman Catholics use the same Bible. However, this is not the case. We have seen that the Roman Catholic Church has added to the Word of God significantly.
Of course Roman Catholics argue that we have subtracted from the Word of God by removing the writings they refer to as "deuterocanonical."
John MacArthur concluded as follows:
With regard to the Old Testament, by the time of Christ all of the Old Testament had been written and accepted in the Jewish community. The last book, Malachi, had been completed about 430 b.c. Not only does the Old Testament canon of Christ's day conform to the Old Testament which has since been used throughout the centuries, but is does not contain the uninspired and spurious Apocrypha, that group of 14 rogue writings which were written after Malachi and attached to the Old Testament about 200-150 b.c. in the Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament called the Septuagint (LXX), appearing to this very day in some versions of the Bible. However, not one passage from the Apocrypha is cited by any New Testament writer, nor did Jesus affirm any of it as He recognized the Old Testament canon of His era (cf. Luke 24:27,44). [196]
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