Replies

One point I make about the apocrypha to folks is the lack of its everyday use even amongst those who claim it to be truly divine.

Just a quick survey glance at various missals, religious tomes, spoken massess,homilies, preachings and teachings will show you that the apocrypha is rarely taught or referred to or represented in the aforementioned. Oh sure one might find a reading here and there from Tobit or Wisdom or some such and 1 Maccabees is said to be accurate historically but 99 percent of the teaching examples that I survey from time to time that are in everyday use still derive from passages in the 39 main OT books and the 27 in the NT.

That is because the Holy Spirit is active and he is going to inspire messages from those works that the Spirit regards as true! It is the Spirit that searches out the deep things of God and then reveals them to our hearts.

Applying your metric then.. and anecdotal witness of frequency of use as it relates to "inspiration" from my experiences... one could also assume many Christians incorrectly place the value and creedence of St. Paul's epistles Above that of the Gospels of the Apostles who actually lived and walked with Christ...and where Jesus own words are given us. So I think your method is too subjective in that regard.

Given the uncertainty...and controversy of determining an established Jewish Canon between the differing sects of ancient Jews- and combined with how the Dead Sea Scrolls prefigure a Messianic Christ to come...and in yhose same Scrolls contain content from Tobit and Sirach.... I think these books that have been eliminated from your Bible- possibly based on some post-Temple destruction Jewish aversion to Christianity ought to be re-thought by all who seek that Truth. Do you agree...or is it settled "science"?

"Just a quick survey glance at various missals, religious tomes, spoken massess,homilies, preachings and teachings will show you that the apocrypha is rarely taught or referred to or represented in the aforementioned. Oh sure one might find a reading here and there from Tobit or Wisdom or some such and 1 Maccabees is said to be accurate historically but 99 percent of the teaching examples that I survey from time to time that are in everyday use still derive from passages in the 39 main OT books and the 27 in the NT."

Indeed, and Purgatory is not what is even taught in 2 Mac., as shown. Meanwhile according to the research by a RC cited before (Todd Easton: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/3418790/posts?page=51#51) , Obadiah is never read during the 3-year RC cycle, even if one includes weekday masses, while Judges, Ruth, Esther, Song of Songs, Lamentations, Nahum, and Haggai are utterly missing in the Sunday cycle, and only 1% of Leviticus, Numbers, 2 Kings, 1 Chronicles, and Daniel are read.