Any point in studying/reading apocryphic texts?

All truth is from God, I'm sure you can glean some wisdom from them.

This thread isn’t about the deuterocanon. It’s abour books like Enoch or the Apocalypse of Peter

The Protoevangelium of James has some heresy in it, but a lot of the historical stuff about the birth of Mary is considered true and celebrated by the church. Might be a worth a look into

I read some of these, but many can't even be mistaken for scripture. They're just good insights into how the ancient Jewish or Christian world thought in some areas. I find it refreshing at best, to get out of my current paradigm of thinking.. sometimes it helps to step outside of the box to see how things were taught.

One of the main reasons he got rid of the deuterocanonical books was because they only available in Greek (the language of the entire NT) and not Hebrew. And then some of them were found in Hebrew in the Dead Sea scrolls, showing what an idiot he was to think he knew better.

Can you expound on this, user?

No he was actually following the opinion of one of the early Christian writers and not all of the texts have been found in Hebrew and that still doesn't prove their authenticity. That said he considered them worthy of reading and kept it in his translation and is included in some Lutheran lectionaries.

oh gee, what a nice guy

would be terrible if it turned out it was, in fact, divine scripture and he reduced holy writings to cute little stories that may or may not be included in his own personal scriptural anthologies

Was still more honest than you disingenuous calumniators.

you should actually read Luther, he does a terrible job at actually explicating his theology. he's very well-known for having a strong rhetorical approach in lieu of a coherent approach to the faith.

it's also amusing to watch Lutherans try to actually defend Luther when he was very bad at arguments, the Vatican actually did respond to most, if not all the points he made in the 95 theses, and all he did was flip out in response

oh, and as E. Michael Jones pointed out, modern Lutherans always have to tip-toe around things Luther actually said, for instance, advocating the murder of Jews.

Not him but yeah I can explain. Basically Martin Luther (and the other reformers) thought Christianity had been corrupted over the years and we had to return to its original form, and to do that we had to read the scripture to see what was true (sola scriptura)
In the ancient church, they used a Greek form of the Old Testament called the Septuagint. The Septuagint contains a ton of books which aren’t in the Hebrew Bible (the entire Septuagint is used in the Orthodox Church, so look into the difference between an Orthodox Bible and a Protestant Bible for a list of the book differences). The main scholarly explanation for most of time has been that books with only Greek manuscripts were based on rabbinical traditions and had no Hebrew original. The reformers took those books out of the Bible, declaring only the Hebrew Old Testament and the Greek New Testament valid scripture. Since then, Hebrew originals of some of the Greek texts have been found. For instance, in the Dead Sea Scrolls

Protestantism was a reaction to the perceived decadence and corruption of the church as many Catholics also feel of the church at the present. Since then the church has also abolished certain practices so it's not like the Catholic Church has remained unchanged either.

Like? The Liturgy is not an unchangeable thing, and the TLM was not something that was even throughout the Church until the 13th century. Name some infallible dogma that was changed, please.

The canonicity of the 'deuterocanon' has been debated at different periods throughout history by Jerome who translated the Vulgate to give one example.

There also isn't a universal agreement on the deuterocanon held by all churches, unlike with the protocanon. Revelations was also disputed for a time.

A lot of the apocrypha were left out by the Church Fathers because they could not be certain of their authenticity or had been corrupted from the originals. They may contain inspired text but are useful as historical sources and often demonstrate where a lot of sacred tradition comes from or as written records of them. Gospel of Nicodemus and protoevangelium are good and catholic. But the gnostic gospels are worthless

Which makes little difference, what determines its authenticity is the Holy Spirit itself, making its will known through the Church.

The major basis made by Luther has shown him to be wrong and foolish, and doubly foolish because even St. Jerome would abide by the authority of the Church.

The fact is that things still changed as you claim about Lutherans.

Straw-man argument, my argument is that Luther was wrong the entire time and from the very beginning, it has nothing to do with whatever doctrinal or theological niceties he or his church may have.

Well such a vague response is what warrants such a vague trust in it by those who hear it.

There's nothing vague about the response, if the Holy See approves it, it's right. It cuts through the endless talmud-talk like a knife through butter.

Your father, Luther, was wrong.

Any reference to what he said about Jews could also be considered a strawman since that doesn't appear to be a core part of any Protestant doctrine and this is in light of any historical edicts Catholics may have issued against the Jews.

Funnily, I think the only thing that matches the value of my bible copies (which are nicely bound) is I hunted down a copy of RH Charles Pseudepigrapha (not even in print.. and it's a 2 volume set.. both huge books.. whole thing cost me like $300 hah). I also have MR James' NT Apocrypha as well. Not that I believe in much of it, but I wanted to be in the same place as the church fathers, who sifted through all of these texts themselves. I insisted on Charles' version because he did it in the 1800s and it matches KJV English (a similarly named James Charlesworth also did a modern version of these texts in the 80s.. but even his set is pricey).

No not really since you fail to make sense.

and what is nonsensical about it? Christ made the Church, built it on St. Peter, and gave this Church the authority to loosen and bind.

To proclaim something inspired, is the expression of this authority.

Make sense?

It cannot be considered a straw-man, because it is an argument Luther himself proposed, in his own words, in books anyone can access!

Things are true when they are not when one wants them to be. Regardless poor Luther was only doing the same thing all others were doing in relegating the apocrypha to its own section and now they misconstrue and give him hell for that.

Maranatha! Someone hasn't heard of the Ethiopian Tewahedo Church.