The term "apocrypha" comes from a Greek word meaning "hidden" or "secret" and the books were originally considered by the early church as too exalted to be available to the general public. As time progressed, the exalted nature of the books was lost and the books were deemed by some as false. Between the Book of Malachi and Matthew there is a gap of approximately 450 years. It is these books that fill that gap and in the time of Christ, these books formed part of the Septuagint Greek Bible which was in circulation at that time.
What is missing from most Bibles, and our understanding of it, is what happened in that 450 year gap. Prophets were still writing and reflecting on life in the Holy Land right up until the Romans destroyed the temple of Jerusalem in 70 AD. The world that Jesus entered in 4 BC is not the world that Daniel and Malachi experienced. One of the values of these books is how they reflect the mindset of Judaism and a Roman world that the New Testament writers faced. Malachi and Daniel leave us in Persia; Matthew brings us into a Roman world. The Apocrypha bridges that gap and gently nudges us into the reality of Roman Palestine. It was only in the fourth century AD that Christians first started to question the “canonicity” of the works although most survived to be included in the King James translation of the Bible in 1611.
Sorry Alpha I admit I am mistaken Jesus did not to my understanding (at the moment) quote from the apocrypha books.
However a response to that objection is;
Your position in general is basically that if Jesus didn't quote directly from the deuterocanonical books, they aren't inspired. That charge, though, is insane. First of all, Jesus did not even quote from all of the 39 Old Testament books Protestants considered inspired, either! It is true he quoted from most of them, but that is not enough. "Most" won't do. What about those he did not quote, such as Ruth, Canticle of Canticles, etc.? Are they not inspired? Secondly, we do not know whether Jesus might indeed have quoted from the deuterocanon, since not all revelation is written down in the Bible (see John 21:25). Thirdly, quotation from a book does not imply its inspiration. In Hebrews 11:36, for example, the author alludes to the non-inspired book Ascension of Isaiah 5:1-14. In Jude 9, we are told that Archangel Michael had a dispute with Satan over the body of Moses. This dispute is not found in the Old Testament, but in the Assumption of Moses, which is not inspired. The mere alluding to a book or quotation thereof simply does not make a book more or less God-breathed. An even more important aspect is that it is simply not true to say that the deuterocanonicals are never quoted or alluded to in the New Testament. Sirach 5:13-14 matches with James 1:19, Wisdom 2:12-20 with Matthew 27:41-43, and 1 Maccabees 4:36-59 and 2 Maccabees 10:1-8 with John 10:22-36.
There is really no reason to reject the 7 disputed books. Protestants accept the 27 books of the New Testament which were defined by the Councils of Rome, Hippo, Carthage, Florence, and Trent, and yet not the 46 books of the Old Testament defined by the same councils. Why not? Why this inconsistency?
There is no reason to reject the deuterocanonical books as un-inspired. It was simply a turn Martin Luther had to take to justify his break-off from a 1500-year-old Church tradition.
Deuteronomy 4:2: "You shall not add to the word that I speak to you, neither shall you take away from it: keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you."
Aieno Another key figure in the history of the Apocrypha was the church father St. Augustine. Augustine believed that the books of the Apocryphal were canonical. Soon thereafter, the councils of Hippo and Carthage, under the influence of Augustine, declared the books of Apocrypha as Scripture. A few years later Pope Leo also testified that the Apocrypha was indeed part of the Old Testament canon.
Except for a few dissenting voices the matter was not really addressed for the next one thousand years.
Yes Jerome rejected it he said they where good teachings of the church but not inspired But then again in the Churches veiw he was ignored because he was wrong.
Peace