The RCC Old Testament has over 4000 verses from a group of writings known as the Apocrypha. Apocrypha means “Hidden” or “Hard to understand”. Although the Roman Catholic Church recognizes and declared that “God inspired 12 of the 15 writings of the said Apocrypha. These books are: Tobit, Judith, 1 Maccabees, 2 Maccabees, Wisdom of Solomon, Sirach, Baruch.
Plus five passages Bel and the Dragon, The Prayer of Azariah, Susanna, The Letter of Jeremiah and A 107 verse expansion of the Book of Esther.
These are NOT INSPIRED as according to the Roman Catholic Church claims!
For the following reasons:
- Jews of Palestine did not recognize the writing’s as part of Sacred Scripture.
- Jesus did not treat the Apocrypha as Sacred Scripture
- The early Church didn’t accept the writing’s as inspired
- The RCC didn’t even declare the scriptures to be inspired until the Council of Trent in the 16th Century!
The RCC wants you to also believe that they gave us the Bible! This is emphatically incorect!
Please pray that the Roman Catholic Follower comes to Christ!
God Bless
Brian Mason
Beacon Apologetics 
The Jews closed their canon after 2nd century AD. We know this because their Talmud, composed after 2nd century AD still quoted from Sirach. Apocryphal books were written by Jews as well.
Thanks for your comment. In my understanding, neither Jesus nor the apostles ever quoted from the Apocrypha. There are over 260 quotations of the Old Testament in the New Testament and not one of them is from these books. However, a Roman Catholic could respond by saying that there are several Old Testament books that are not quoted in the New Testament, i.e., Joshua, Judges, Esther, etc. Does this mean that they aren’t inspired either? But, these books had already been accepted into the canon by the Jews – where the Apocrypha had not. The Jews recognized the Old Testament canon, and they did not include the Apocrypha in it.
Paul verbalizes to us that the Jews were entrusted with the oracles of God. This means that they are the ones who understood what inspired Scriptures were, and they never accepted the Apocrypha.
Scripture itself does not tell us how many and which books belong to both Old and New Testaments. The Jews still quoted Sirach as part of their Scripture in their Talmud, composed after 2nd century AD. Some early Christians accepted apocrypha and some rejected them together with Esther; and this also applies to seven books of New Testament (2 Peter, 2 & 3 John, James, Jude, Hebrews and Revelation).
New Testament does not quote from apocrypha directly but neither does it quote from Esther and Song of Songs. New Testament does not give us what comprises Old Testament. For example we do not know what Scripture is referred in James 4:5 and John 7:38, even both verses are preceded with the phrase “Scripture says”. Jude 9 cites from Ascension of Moses (according to Origen as no manuscript of Ascension of Moses survives today) and Jude 14 cites from 1 Enoch 1:9. In 2 Peter 2:22 quotation from unknown Scripture (“the sow is washed only to wallow in the mire”) is placed together with Proverbs 26:11. Therefore which books and how many of them belong to Scripture must be decided by authority outside Scripture.