Free (nook/Kindle/Kobo/ePub) Apocrypha: King James Version [Xtian Bible Supplements]

[ATDrake]

Apocrypha: King James Version is Exactly What It Says In The Title, consisting of those texts not necessarily considered canonical which can be found in some versions of the Bible (Wikipedia entry), free courtesy of Christian publisher Baker Books.

NB: despite what the blurb kind of implies, there is no commentary or explanatory glosses/footnotes to this (aside from noting where in between the official books of the KJV Bible to stick the various parts) and it consists solely of the supplementary biblical text.

Currently free, probably just for one day @ B&N (may also drop in the UK), Amazon UK (slated to drop in the main store after midnight Pacific Time), Kobo & Google Play (both available to Canadians), and Christian Book (ADE-DRM ePub available worldwide).

May or may not also show up free @ iTunes, where it and a number of other freebies from publishers which regularly distribute them to iTunes as well are being a bit stubborn to drop tonight, so linkage for your price-drop check convenience to the US store, where it's most likely to show up first.

Description (deleted the bit in the blurb about the paperback of this making for an affordable easy-to-read edition; this freebie is certainly affordable while it lasts, and hopefully easy to read for those of you interested)
Despite the different opinions on the degree of authority that should be given to the books of the Apocrypha, most Christians agree that these books are valuable.

Because these books were written in the intertestamental period, they provide helpful insight into Jewish history, beliefs, and religious practices immediately prior to the birth of Jesus. People who read them will be better able to understand the political, cultural, ethical, and religious context of the contemporaries of Jesus.

[crich70]

Still free here.

[ATDrake]

Now a repeat freebie in all the stores and also newly free @ iTunes (available to Canadians) & B&N UK this time around.

[ATDrake]

Someone over at Baker must love this, since it's getting another round of freebie-ization in the usual stores.

Also newly free @ BookShout (online reading & in-app download).

[crich70]

Isn't it more often found in the Catholic Bible rather than the KJV? I know at least it's not in either my paper or ebook copy of the KJV.

[ATDrake]

^

I personally wouldn't know, because I'm an atheist with a decided non-interest in most religion-affiliated subjects, but thankfully, Wikipedia seems to Explain It All®, and you can thank your nation's separatist Puritan roots for it:

The British Puritan revolution of the 1600s brought a change in the way many British publishers handled the apocryphal material associated with the Bible. The Puritans used the standard of Sola Scriptura (Scripture Alone) to determine which books would be included in the canon. The Westminster Confession of Faith, composed during the British Civil Wars (1642–1651), excluded the Apocrypha from the canon. The Confession provided the rationale for the exclusion: 'The books commonly called Apocrypha, not being of divine inspiration, are no part of the canon of the Scripture, and therefore are of no authority in the church of God, nor to be any otherwise approved, or made use of, than other human writings' (1.3).[20] Thus, Bibles printed by English Protestants who separated from the Church of England began to exclude these books.

[crich70]

And King James came into it because he was trying to keep peace in his kingdom and a standardized text that people could read would help that. Hard to read a text when it's written in latin and you don't understand latin. Even a lot of church men had that problem. I understand the Apocrypha is somewhat historic or tradition of what happened or something which might be one reason why they felt it wasn't canon. I've never read it myself so I don't know much about it. It is more accepted than some of the 'alleged' gospels like Thomas and Judas though I think.

[Difflugia]

Originally Posted by crich70

And King James came into it because he was trying to keep peace in his kingdom and a standardized text that people could read would help that. Hard to read a text when it's written in latin and you don't understand latin. Even a lot of church men had that problem. I understand the Apocrypha is somewhat historic or tradition of what happened or something which might be one reason why they felt it wasn't canon. I've never read it myself so I don't know much about it. It is more accepted than some of the 'alleged' gospels like Thomas and Judas though I think.

Actually, there already was a standardized text in English that was very popular at the time, but too antiestablishment for the political tastes of King James. Thus he commissioned the "Authorized Version" as opposed to the several "unauthorized" versions in use at the time.

The Apocrypha are books that exist in the Greek Septuagint, but not in the Masoretic Hebrew text. The Orthodox tradition (which the Roman Catholic Church inherited) is that the Greek Septuagint is not merely a human translation, but is itself divinely inspired (much like KJV-only Protestants now), thus all of the included books are Scripture. During the Middle Ages, the Jewish Masoretes compiled a canonical set of Hebrew texts and rejected the Apocryphal books. Since that time, Hebrew originals of the books have been lost (or perhaps some never existed in the first place; there's a bit of scholarly debate), so most of the Apocrypha only exists in Greek.

When Martin Luther translated the Bible into German in the 1500s, he used the Masoretic Hebrew text as his basis. He translated the rejected books from the Greek, but declared that they weren't scriptural and later Protestants followed suit. They were printed with Protestant Bibles, but separated from the canonical Old Testament. Eventually, mostly for cost reasons, the Apocrypha were omitted from most Protestant Bibles.

As far as whether or not the Apocryphal books are worth reading, I'd just point out that whether or not you consider them to be Scripture, the earliest Christians very likely did. Unless you're extremely comfortable with the English of the King James Bible, though, I'd recommend a more modern translation.

[ATDrake]

Now a repeat freebie once again in most of the original stores.

[Conan46]

I always liked the books of Sirach and Wisdom. They seemed to be quite Stoic in tone. I'm thinking the Puritans were not fans of the Apocrypha. Some Protestants considered the books worth reading as non-Canon and stuck them between the Testaments. I think they are interesting historic books, but the Bible is so huge already those extra books make it especially unwieldy. I have a Large Print Good News Bible with Apocrypha--that Bible is gigantic

[GtrsRGr8]

The edition of Apocrypha that is the subject of this thread--which is the same book as that posted by Difflugia on the "Christian Interest" thread a day or two ago--is the Apocrypha associated with the Old Testament.

There are apocryphal "books" that are associated with the New Testament, as Crich70 and maybe others referred to or mentioned. They include such books as the Epistle of Barnabas, the Gospel of Peter, the Gospel of Thomas, and probably most famously at the present time, the Gospel of Judas. There is a list of them at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Testament_apocrypha.

[GtrsRGr8]

Originally Posted by ATDrake

^

I personally wouldn't know, because I'm an atheist with a decided non-interest in most religion-affiliated subjects, but thankfully, Wikipedia seems to Explain It All®, and you can thank your nation's separatist Puritan roots for it:

I appreciate the fact that, even though you are an atheist, you (frequently) post religious books, even those for Christians.