Postby Dawud » Mon Dec 06, 2004 5:26 am
I believe there is some confusion here. I and II Maccabees etc. are considered canonical by the Roman Catholic, Orthodox, and Oriental Churches, but not by Jews or Protestants (because they were written in Greek, not Hebrew). These are sometimes referred to as the "Apocrypha," but are in an entirely different category from such works as the Testament of the 12 Patriarchs (Old Testament Apocrypha), or the Gospel of Barnabas (New). Many ancient writings have been discovered much more recently (for example, many of the Dead Sea Scrolls or Nag Hammadi codices) and constitute yet another category, at least in the eyes of Christian exegetes (who would view many of them as heretical, as opposed to just unofficial).
The idea that Muslims would have used non-canonical texts is hardly surprising, since both Old and New Testament writers cite works not a part of the later canons. For several centuries the Bible did not exist as a book as we have, but as a somewhat fluid collection of writings. The Greek fathers tended not to distinguish between the authority of say, Paul or Clement.