This is partly because the Puritans disapproved of them ; they had already begun to drop them from printings of their Geneva Bible by 1600, and began to demand copies of the King James Version omitting them, as early as 1629.
And it is partly because we discredit them because they did not form part of the Hebrew Bible and most of them have never be found in any Hebrew forms at all.
But they were part of the Bible of the early church, for it is used the Greek version of the Hebrew Bible, we call the Septuagint, and these books were all in that version.
They passed from it into Latin and the great Latin Bible edited by St. Jerome about 400 A.D., the Vulgate, which became the Authorized Bible of western Europe and England and remained so for thousand years. But Jerome found that they were not in the Hebrew Bible, and so he called them the Apocrypha, the hidden or secret books.
EDGAR J. GOODSPEED, BIBLICAL SCOLAR AND TRANSLATOR.
II ESDRAS 5:23-40
"Sovereign Lord, from all the forests on the earth and from all its tress you choose one vine, and from all the lands in the world you chose for yourself one garden, and from all the flowers in the world you chose for yourself one lily, and from all the depths of the sea you filled yourself one river, and all the cities that have been built you consecrated Zion to yourself, and of all the birds that have been created you named for yourself one dove, and of all the cattle that have been formed you provided for yourself one sheep, and of all the peoples that have multiplied you got yourself one people, and you gave to this people that you desired a law that was approved by all. And now, Lord, why have you given this one up to the many, and after preparing one root above the others have you scattered your only one among the many ? And those who opposed your promises have trampled on those who believed your agreements. For if you really hate your people it ought to be punished with your own hands."
And it came to pass when I had uttered these words that the angel who had come to me on a previous night was sent to me. And he said to me,
"Listen to me, and I will instruct you ; attend to me, and I will tell you more."
And I said, "Speak my lord."
And he said to me,
"Are you so very much distracted over Israel, or do you love him more that his Maker does ?"
And I said,
"No sir, but I spoke from grief, for my heart pains me every hour, while I strive to understand the way of the Most High, and to inquire into what his decree apportions."
And he said to me, "You cannot."
And I said,
"Why, sir, then why I was born ? And why did not my mother's womb become my grave, so that I might not see the trouble of Jacob, and the exhaustion of the posterity of Israel ?"
And he said to me,
"Count up for me those that have not yet come, and gather the scattered raindrops for me, and make the withered flowers green again for me, and open the closed chambers for me, and bring out for me the winds shut up in them, or show me the picture of a voice, and then I will show you the mark you ask to see."
And I said,
"Sovereign Lord, who is there who can know these things except he whose dwelling is not with men ? But I am foolish, and how can I speak of these things about which you have asked me ?"
And he said to me,
"Just as you cannot do one of these things that were mentioned, so you cannot find out my judgment, or the end of the love that I have promised my people."
GOD BLESS
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