I would like to reply to your assertions, IF they WERE YOUR asserions, but as it is I think I would be rebutting a website you looked up instead.
If would kindly quote a passage and explain how it is you feel the passage teaches something false I promise, I WILL reply (but one at a time).
Its just I don't want to spend the time and effort on something you probably won't read in order to a reply to something you yourself have spent almost no time and effort on.
But if you do not reply, I understand, you reject the Apocrypha because you want to and so you found a website that would tell you its bad. That's fine. But you understand that's not exactly the way conversation takes place, right?
Summa,
You’re making assumptions. My assertions are not derived from a website, but rather the text quoted from the website are in line with my position. My original response was not to address whether or not I accepted or rejected the Apocrypha, but rather to your statement that, “There are no Catholic doctrines in the disputed books of the Old Testament. They were written by Jews before the time of Christ. “
I interact with Catholics all of the time and when pressed to use “scripture” to defend their beliefs, many will site passages in the Apocrypha, such as what I quoted from that website. Let’s look at two of the passages that I sited:
II Maccabees is used a proof text to support praying for the dead and ultimately the belief in purgatory:
II Maccabees 12 (New American Bible):
38 Judas rallied his army and went to the city of Adullam. As the week was ending, they purified themselves according to custom and kept the sabbath there.
39 On the following day, since the task had now become urgent, Judas and his men went to gather up the bodies of the slain and bury them with their kinsmen in their ancestral tombs.
40 But under the tunic of each of the dead they found amulets sacred to the idols of Jamnia, which the law forbids the Jews to wear. So it was clear to all that this was why these men had been slain.
41 They all therefore praised the ways of the Lord, the just judge who brings to light the things that are hidden.
42 Turning to supplication, they prayed that the sinful deed might be fully blotted out. The noble Judas warned the soldiers to keep themselves free from sin, for they had seen with their own eyes what had happened because of the sin of those who had fallen.
43 He then took up a collection among all his soldiers, amounting to two thousand silver drachmas, which he sent to Jerusalem to provide for an expiatory sacrifice. In doing this he acted in a very excellent and noble way, inasmuch as he had the resurrection of the dead in view;
44 for if he were not expecting the fallen to rise again, it would have been useless and foolish to pray for them in death.
45 But if he did this with a view to the splendid reward that awaits those who had gone to rest in godliness, it was a holy and pious thought.
46 Thus he made atonement for the dead that they might be freed from this sin.
This text alone doesn’t teach the complete Catholic doctrines of purgatory or praying for the dead, but by reading it you can see where the Catholic church has used this passage to conflate that doctrine.
Now let me quote the other passage that I sited:
Ecclesiasticus (or the Book of Sirach) 30:
29 Water quenches a flaming fire, and alms atone for sins. (in some translations, it is verse 30 and in others it is verse 29. The New American Bible that I am quoting from has it as verse 29).
This verse, taken as-is, is used by the Catholic church to support taking alms for the forgiveness of sins.
Given this evidence, how can you support your statement that, “There are no Catholic doctrines in the disputed books of the Old Testament.“?
