The Apocrypha #2

The Biblical apocrypha (from the Greek ἀπόκρυφος, apókruphos, meaning ＂hidden＂) denotes the collection of ancient books found, in some editions of the Bible, in a separate section between the Old and New Testaments or as an appendix after the New Testament. Although the term Apocrypha had been in use since the 5th century, it was in Luther’s Bible of 1534 that the Apocrypha was first published as a separate intertestamental section. Luther was making a polemical point about the canonicity of these books. As an authority for this division, he cited St. Jerome, who in the early 5th century distinguished the Hebrew and Greek Old Testaments, stating that books not found in the Hebrew were not received as canonical. Although his statement was controversial in his day, Jerome was later titled a Doctor of the Church and his authority was also cited in the Anglican statement in 1571 of the Thirty-nine Articles.