Apocrypha
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Apocrypha is a plural word (singular: apocryphan) that originally denoted hidden or secret writings, to be read only by initiates into a given Christian group.[1]

It comes from Greek and is formed from the combination of apo (away) and krytein (hide or conceal).[2]

The word apocrypha, like many other words, has undergone a major change in meaning throughout the centuries. Concerning these ancient books, the word apocrypha originally meant a text too sacred and secret to be in everyone's hands.[3]

Christians today say that apocrypha are works, usually written, of unknown authorship or of doubtful origin.[4]

The word apocryphal (ἀπόκρυφος) was first applied to writings which were kept secret because they were the vehicles of esoteric knowledge considered too profound or too sacred to be disclosed to anyone other than the initiated.

Apocrypha was applied to writings that were hidden not because of their divinitybut because of their questionable value to the church. In general use, the word apocrypha came to mean "false, spurious, bad, or heretical."

Biblical apocrypha are a set of texts included in the Septuagint and the Latin Vulgate, but not in the Hebrew Bible.

While Catholic tradition considers some of these texts to be deuterocanonical, and the Orthodox Churches consider them all to be canonical,

Protestants consider them apocryphal, that is, non-canonical books that are useful for instruction.[2][3] Luther's Bible placed them in a separate section in between the Old Testament and New Testament called the Apocrypha, a convention followed by subsequent Protestant Bibles.[4] Other non-canonical apocryphal texts are generally called pseudepigrapha, a term that means "false attribution".[5]






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