As we have seen repeatedly in the first two
installments of this series, the standard Protestant Old Testament is not the
only version of the Bible out there. Other versions exist, most of which
contain a wider and more varied selection of religious books than our own
Bibles.
For Catholics and those in Orthodox
churches, no consideration of the relative value of the Apocryphal or
Deutero-canonical texts is necessary. Their episcopate takes a position on
their behalf and says to them, in effect, “Here’s your Bible.”
Protestants, on the other hand, have no
central governing body to decide such issues, and I have yet to come
across any local church’s statement of faith that addresses the canonicity or
non-canonicity of these “extra” books. Which means it’s up to us to either
evaluate them for ourselves, or else opt to put our trust in the folks who made
decisions about such things in years past.