Even on this thread, we see that some insist that only the "gospels" should be accepted since only they contain the words of Jesus. That the words of Jesus matter more than the words of men. They totally forget, or at least discount, that ALL Scripture is given by God. Even the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are the retelling of what Jesus said AS IT WAS brought to their memories by the Holy Spirit. Some of those words Jesus said could not have been heard by those with him since he was alone a few times. The thoughts and intents of people's hears were also spoken of which MUST have been known only by the Holy Spirit revealing it to the writers decades after it happened. Even little details were not left out - something that cannot be explained as being passed down by "tradition".
Nope, those books were set apart from the Jewish Old Testament for a very good reason - they did not meet the standards God set for determining what came from him. He even told the Israelites that if a prophet spoke something and it was not true or did not come to pass, that that prophet was not from God - that is how they knew who to trust. It IS curious, though, how those questionable books weren't declared officially official as part of the Canon until the Council of Trent and those anathemas were not existing until then either. It was not mere coincidence that they were added just when the Catholic Church was disputing the Reformation. Without some of them, several doctrines would be proved to be unscriptural and, since the Pope was also declared as infallible as well as the Magesterium, it just wouldn't do having a dogma shown to be against Scripture, would it?
Genesis 3 1Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, "Did God actually say, 'You shall not eat of any tree in the garden'?" 2And the woman said to the serpent, "We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, 3but God said, 'You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.'" 4 But the serpent said to the woman, "You will not surely die. 5For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."
INDEED.