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VirginiaHuguenot · #7 (**permalink**) 03-01-2008, 01:00 PM

J. Van Bruggen, The Church Says Amen: An Exposition of the Belgic Confession, pp. 41-42:

Quote:

2. Church usage

In the translation of the Septuagint (approximately two hundred hundred years before Christ) ten books were added to the Old Testament. The Jews had never included these in the canon and Christ and His apostles never quoted from them. Athanasius and Jerome did not recognize them as divine. However, because Hebrew was not known and the Septuagint was used for the Old Testament, its apocryphal additions found their way into the Churches. The Roman Catholic Church has included them in the Vulgate (approved translation), among the books of the Old Testament, and regards them as semi-canonical, which means canonical but to a second degree. The reformers did not recognize them as divine, but did not completely break from using them. At the Synod of Dort the question arose whether or not the apocryphal books should be included in the translation of the Bible. The Dutch were strongly opposed to it, but because no other Church outside their country had previously excluded them, and for fear of embarrassing the foreign delegates, it was decided to include them. However, they were to be inserted after the books of the New Testament so that it would be clear to all that they did not belong to the Bible but were merely an appendix. Besides, they were prefaced, warning the reader along the lines of this article. The apocryphal books were also printed in smaller print and were not accompanied with annotations.

From the Introduction to the 2002 facsimile reprint of the 1657 (Haak translation of the) Dutch Annotations (which does not include the Apocrypha):

Quote:

The annotators were to be knowledgeable about many things. It becomes clear from the marginal notes that they were well versed in the writings of the church fathers and the classics, the heathen as well as the Christian historians, and even in the work of the Jewish rabbis. Philosophers, heretics, Roman Catholic popes, councils, the Reformers - they can all be found. Sporadically something from the Apocryphal books can be read in the marginal notes, as well as facts about weights and measures, illnesses, the art of singing, etc.

Also, see Daniel R. Hyde, With Heart and Mouth: An Exposition of the Belgic Confession, pp. 89-100.