Some Christians accept the Apocrypha as part of the Bible. Why do some leave it out?
Our Lutheran pastor is leading a study of the Deutercanonial books right now...... I'd lightly read some of them before in my RCC days, but this is the first study of them. We've done Baruck, Letter of Jeremiah, Tobit and now we're looking at Ecclesiasticus.
Lutherans have no official position on these (the canonization of them would require a true Ecumenical Council - which hasn't happened since around 800 AD). Luther himself included the typical RC "set" of them in his day (PLUS one more) in his German translation, so that Luther's Bible has one more book in it than the one the RC Denomination officially declared a few years after Luther's death - but unlike the RCC (and later the Anglican, Reformed, Orthodox and LDS churches - all after Luther's death), Luther did not officially/formally declare anything about them. In his own, personal, individual, unofficial OPINION, he noted that these books historically have been disputed and often not accepted as equal to the other OT books - often regarded as good to read but not normative (and thus not canonical). In many parts of the world, Lutherans still use modern translations of his German one - and thus those Lutherans have a longer Bible than modern Catholics do. But in the USA, as Lutherans switched to English, they tended to "go" with the Reformed Edition of the KJV of 1611 (the Anglican KJV edition contains more books than Luther's or the Official RCC one adopted at Trent after Luther's death). Today, few Bibles owned by Lutherans have these books, however the LCMS put out a "Lutheran Study Bible" and I bought the accompaning Apocrapha with it as the "set" intended. The LCMS publishes excellent Bible studies and commentaries on these books.
I hope that helps.
- Josiah
