The Canon of the Bible (Pt.2) - Paul M. Williams

How We Got Our Bible (Pt.6) This teaching focuses on the apocryphal books and asks the question, 'do they belong in the canon of Holy Scripture?'.  Apocrypha is the name given to the 15 additional books that appear in some Bible translations which contain Jewish religious literature.  If one was to pick up a KJV Bible today, one would turn the page from Malachi, past the page separating the Old and New Testaments, straight into the first chapter of Matthew’s Gospel.  However, in the original KJV Bible of 1611, one would have turned from Malachi to 1 Esdras!!  In fact, the Apocrypha was a part of the KJV for 274 years and was not removed until as late as 1885.  If one picks up a Roman Catholic Bible today, one will find that it consists not of 66 books but of 73 books which includes some apocryphal books known as the deuterocanonical books.  Do these books belong in our Bible and if not why not?  What about the great mass of so-called lost books claiming to be from Bible characters, known as the Pseudepigrapha, such as the Book of Enoch, the Book of Noah, The Acts of John, The Gospel of Thomas etc.  We shall set out in this teaching to answer these questions along with many more. Download notes (pdf)http://traffic.libsyn.com/bethesdashalom/3b_The_Canon_of_the_Bible_Pt2.pdf