The Apocrypha was never treated or classified by Protestants as inspired.
It was included in the KJV since people had gotten used to seeing it. But it was clearly separated from the OT and NT, and eventually removed.
It was included in the KJV since people had gotten used to seeing it. But it was clearly separated from the OT and NT, and eventually removed.
This may help your studies. From the source link already posted in my other reply. And your post there reiterates that prior observation about inerrancy.
A clear history exists of the inclusion of the Apocrypha in the King James Bible:
- In the year 1615 Archbishop Gorge Abbott, a High Commission Court member and one of the original translators of the 1611 translation, “forbade anyone to issue a Bible without the Apocrypha on pain of one year’s imprisonment”
- “It should be observed that the Old Testament thus admitted as authoritative in the Church was somewhat bulkier and more comprehensive than the [Protestant Old Testament] . . . It always included, though with varying degrees of recognition, the so-called Apocrypha or Deutero-canonical books. The use made of the Apocrypha by Tertullian, Hippolytus, Cyprian and Clement of Alexandria is too frequent for detailed references to be necessary” (Early Christian Doctrines, J. Kelly)
- “In 405 Pope Innocent I embodied a list of canonical books in a letter addressed to Exsuperius, bishop of Toulouse; it too included the Apocrypha. The Sixth Council of Carthage (419) Re-enacted the ruling of the Third Council, again with the inclusion of the apocryphal books… “The Sixth Council of Carthage repromulgated in Canon 24 the resolution of the Third Council regarding the canon of scripture, and added a note directing that the resolution be sent to the bishop of Rome (Boniface I) and other bishops: ‘Let this be made known also to our brother and fellow-priest Boniface, or to other bishops of those parts, for the purpose of confirming that Canon [Canon 47 of the Third Council], because we have received from our fathers that these are the books which are to be read in church.’” (The Canon on Scripture, F. F. Bruce)
- “The holy ecumenical and general Council of Trent . . . following the example of the orthodox Fathers, receives and venerates all the books of the Old and New Testament . . . and also the traditions pertaining to faith and conduct . . . with an equal sense of devotion and reverence . . . If, however, any one receive not, as sacred and canonical, the said books entire with all their parts, as they have by custom been read in the Catholic Church, and as they are contained in the old Latin Vulgate, and knowingly and deliberately rejects the aforesaid traditions, let him be accursed.” (Decree of the Council of Trent in 1546)
- “In the name of Holy Scripture we do understand those canonical books of the Old and New Testament, of whose authority was never any doubt in the Church. . . And the other books (as Jerome saith) the Church doth read for example of life and instruction of manners: but yet doth it not apply them to establish any doctrine.” (Articles of Religion of the Church of England, 1563, Sixth Article)
Most early Bibles contained the Apocrypha; here are just a few:
- 1534 Luther’s German translation of the Bible
- 1534 The Coverdale Bible
- 1537 Thomas Matthew Bible
- 1539 The Taverner Bible
- 1541 The “Great” or “Cromwell’s” Bible
- 1551 The “Tyndale/ Matthews” Bible
- 1560 The Geneva Bible
- 1568 The Bishops’ Bible
- 1610 Catholic Old Testament
- 1611 King James Bible
- 1615 King James Version Robert Barker at London, England
For readers information, there are still Bibles published today that contain the Apocrypha.