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I analyze Surah 46: The Sandhills, and explain how the "god" of the Koran is not the God of Israel, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph and the Church.

I explore Surah XXXI (The Adoration) of the Koran, demonstrating some of the inherent limitations of Mohammad's "Lord of the worlds."

Question: "What do the terms "apocrypha" and "deuterocanonical" mean, and how does the Orthodox Church view them?" The question of the Biblical canon is a somewhat complicated one, because it developed over a very long period of time, and there certainly have been some historical disagreements on the matter. The word "canon" comes the Greek word κανών, which means a measuring rod, or a rule. And so when we speak of the canon of Scripture, we are speaking of the lists of books that affirmed to be Scripture. Christians have a precisely defined New Testament Canon, about which there...

DEUTEROCANONICAL BOOKS IN THE NEW TESTAMENT Scripture Matt. 2:16 - Herod's decree of slaying innocent children was prophesied in Wis. 11:7 - slaying the holy innocents. Matt. 6:19-20 - Jesus' statement about laying up for yourselves treasure in heaven follows Sirach 29:11 - lay up your treasure. Matt.. 7:12 - Jesus' golden rule "do unto others" is the converse of Tobit 4:15 - what you hate, do not do to others. Matt. 7:16,20 - Jesus' statement "you will know them by their fruits" follows Sirach 27:6 - the fruit discloses the cultivation. Matt. 9:36 - the people were "like sheep...

Today is All Soul’s Day, in which Catholics pray for the faithful departed. And this practice of praying for the dead has clear Scriptural roots: it’s encouraged in 2 Maccabees 12:43-45. The only catch is that this citation comes from the Deuterocanon, the set of seven Books accepted as Scripture by Catholics but rejected by most Protestants (who tend to refer to these books, erroneously, as “Apocrypha”). It’s also in the Deuterocanon (specifically, 2 Maccabees 15:12-16) that we find the clearest example of praying to the Saints. We can go so far as to say that if Catholics are...

“Stand firm and hold fast to the traditions that you were taught, either by an oral statement or by a letter of ours.” ~ St. Paul to the ThessaloniansA former student of mine is thinking of becoming a Catholic, and she had a question for me. “I don’t understand the deuterocanonical books,” she ventured. “If the Catholic faith is supposed to be a fulfillment of the Jewish faith, why do Catholics accept those books and the Jews don’t?” She’d done her homework, and was troubled that the seven books and other writings of the deuterocanon had been preserved only...

(Bible verses: RSV) The Old Testament in Catholic Bibles contains seven more books than are found in Protestant Bibles (46 and 39, respectively). Protestants call these seven books the Apocrypha and Catholics know them as the deuterocanonical books. These seven books are: Tobit, Judith, 1 and 2 Maccabees, Wisdom of Solomon, Ecclesiasticus (or, Sirach), and Baruch. Also, Catholic Bibles contain an additional six chapters (107 verses) in the book of Esther and another three in the book of Daniel (174 verses). These books and chapters were found in Bible manuscripts in Greek only, and were not part of the...

The Pilgrims' Regress The Geneva Bible And The "Apocrypha"By Gary Michuta Every American schoolchild knows that the pilgrims landed on Plymouth rock, but do they know which Bible the pilgrims used? Most people, if asked the question, would say the Puritans used the good old King James Version. Wrong. The King James Bible was the "Authorized Version" of the Established Church of England and the Puritans were religious dissenters from that church. The Puritan's Bible of choice was the Geneva Bible, which was translated by Protestants who fled to Geneva from England during the reign of Queen Mary. The Geneva Bible broke new ground for printed Bibles....

The "Inconvenient Tale" of the Original King James BibleBy Gary Michuta King James I at the Hampton Court Conference"Dr. Reynolds...insisted boldly on various points ; but when he came to the demand for the disuse of the apocrypha in the church service James could bear it no longer. He called for a Bible, read a chapter out of Ecclesiasticus, and expounded it according to his own views ; then turning to the lords of his council, he said, " What trow ye makes these men so angry with Ecclesiasticus ? By my soul, I think Ecclesiasticus was a bishop,...

Every word of God is flawless; he is a shield to those who take refuge in him. Do not add to his words, or he will rebuke you and prove you a liar.—Proverbs 30:5-6, NIV The canon of scripture—that is, the official list of what’s in the Bible—is not revealed to us by any saying of Jesus, nor does scripture itself contain any list. The canon of scripture is determined by the Church, and there are differences among the various church bodies. Before We Begin… But first a little clarification, because the word “apocrypha” has a second, relatively obscure...

Catholics are sometimes puzzled when they hear their non-Catholic friends speaking of the "Apocrypha." If they question them they discover that they understand by that term the Books of Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Tobias, Judith, Baruch, First and Second Machabees and portions of Esther and Daniel. If further questioned, their friends should be able to say that at the Reformation the churches which separated from Rome and followed the lead of Luther and others decided that the above Books were not of equal authority with the rest since they are not to be found in the Hebrew Bible, but only in...

What is the Hebrew canon and are the deuterocanonicals/apocrypha a part of it? During Jesus' time, the Jews, as a whole, did not officially have a list of inspired books or canon. For example, the Sadducees accepted only the Pentateuch as Scriptures while the Pharisees accepted prophetic writings as well as other wisdom books, like Job and Proverbs as inspired. Which canon of Scriptures was known to Jesus, His followers and the first Christians? The answer is that they knew both Palestinian Canon and the Greek Septuagint translation. Greek-speaking Jews also lived in Palestine and were known as Hellenists (Acts...

ISSUE: Catholic Bibles contain seven more Old Testament (46) books than Protestant Bibles (39). Catholics refer to these seven books as the “deuterocanon”[1] (second canon), while Protestants refer to them as “apocrypha,” a term used pejoratively to describe non-canonical books. Protestants also have shorter versions of Daniel and Esther. Why are there differences?RESPONSE: Catholic Bibles contain all the books that have been traditionally accepted by Christians since Jesus’ time. Protestant Bibles contain all those books, except those rejected by the Protestant Reformers in the 1500’s. The chief reason Protestants rejected these biblical books was because they did not support Protestant...

There were two babies who had their throats slit. The seven-year-old girl who was raped and murdered in the Superdome. And the corpses laid out amid the excrement in the convention centre. In a week filled with dreadful scenes of desperation and anger from New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina some stories stood out. But as time goes on many remain unsubstantiated and may yet prove to be apocryphal. New Orleans police have been unable to confirm the tale of the raped child, or indeed any of the reports of rapes, in the Superdome and convention centre. New Orleans police...

QUESTION: I have been reading lately about how the Bible contains quotes from extracanonical texts as in Acts 17:28. Even the Old Testament quotes from rabbinical texts, right? Do you feel that these texts should have been omitted from the canon? Why would Jude quote from "The Assumption of Moses" in Jude 9 and then "The Book of Enoch" in Jude 14 if they are now considered 'apocryphal'?

QUESTION: Is anything missing from the New American Bible or the Rheims-Douay?

WILLARD SPERRY Willard Sperry Shows his dislike for the gospel of John in the following statement. "Some of these sayings, it is true, come from the Fourth Gospel (John), AND WE DO NOT PRESS THAT GOSPEL FOR TOO GREAT VERBAL ACCURACY IN ITS RECORD OF THE SAYINGS OF JESUS."244

QUESTION: Didn't the King James Bible when first printed contain the Apocrypha? ANSWER: Yes.