What caused the Protestant reformation to reject the Apocrypha?

The apocryphal books were never acknowledged as sacred scriptures by the Jews, custodians of the Hebrew scriptures

No apocryphal book is referred to in the New Testament whereas the Old Testament is referred to hundreds of times.

>>3043485
>no apocryphal book is referred to in the New Testament
>what is Enoch

>>3043485
>No apocryphal book is referred to in the New Testament
False
>>3043447
They are manifestly uninspired. But the reformers were not alone in their rejection of those books. Plenty of Roman Catholics did as well until finally the Catholic canon was "infallibly" composed in 1546 at the council of Trent.

>>3043564
>They are manifestly uninspired. But the reformers were not alone in their rejection of those books. Plenty of Roman Catholics did as well until finally the Catholic canon was "infallibly" composed in 1546 at the council of Trent.

This guy nailed it. Trent basically took anything Luther had published or said and made the official Roman Catholic stance as "We disagree."

Also generally speaking Protestants have their beginnings in Scripture, or in the attempt to faithfully expound Scripture. Rome and the Orthodox churches have the extra legs of "tradition" and "church authority" to stand on, so they don't really care what books are in or out of the canon, as they are not the church's final authority in matters of doctrine.

>>3043593
Was it common knowledge at the time that the Church predates the Bible, as we now know?

They weren't generally considered Scripture at the time. Certain questions of canonicity had never really been settled prior to the Reformation.

Protestants have genreally considered the Apocrapha as useful for reading and as historical Christian texts, but not the Word of God or authoritative. Similarly to how the Didache was viewed. Hell, the Apocrypha had been included in many Protestant Bibles.

The Orthodox also take a somewhat different view than Catholics, including all the Apocrypha of the Septuagint (and probably some other books too, I'm not sure), but acknowledging that they have secondary authority.

The distinction between the 3 main branches is often truncated thusly:
Protestantism = Scripture
Catholicism = Scripture and Tradition
Orthodoxy = Tradition (of which Scripture is a part).

It's certainly more complicated than that, but understanding that for the Orthodox, it's all Tradition, helps to explain why their Bibles are larger.

Reformed/Calvinist and Anabaptist/Baptist derived sects are more averse to apocryphal writings than the Lutherans were because they decided to follow contemporary Judaic rulings as opposed to those selected by the church and their ideology was more reverted to the Yahwism of the OT. Luther thought more highly of the OT apocrypha than the NT antilegomena which today is relied on bit too excessively by Christians of all stripes.
There are readings from the apocrypha sometimes used in Lutheran lectionaries. They were removed from Moravian ones though.

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>>3043721
The Belgic Confession, Article 6
>We distinguish those sacred books from the apocryphal, viz.: the third book of Esdras, the books of Tobias, Judith, Wisdom, Jesus Syrach, Baruch, the appendix to the book of Esther, the Song of the three Children in the Furnace, the history of Susannah, of Bell and the Dragon, the prayer of Manasses, and the two books of the Maccabees. All of which the Church may read and take instruction from, so far as they agree with the canonical books; but they are far from having such power and efficacy, as that we may from their testimony confirm any point of faith, or of the christian religion; much less detract from the authority of the other sacred books.

The early Reformed seemed to have taken several views on the usefulness of reading the Apocrypha in church, but none of them seemed to deny their usefulness to the Christian life in general, just not as inspired Scripture or sources of church doctrine. As the Reformed held that church teaching and liturgy were to be normed by Scripture, it is natural that the reading of apocryphal books eventually dropped off, but it's kind of sad that now most Reformed people are utterly ignorant of them. But I observe that even in confessional Lutheran circles, the same is true. I know Lutherans like to blame the Calvinists for everything bad in the world, but a lot of the same historical circumstances applied to both.

>>3043751
Lutheran pietism and pietism in general seem to have taken hold in places with greater Calvinist influence.

>>3043751
Anafaptists radicals are also to blame.

>>3043485
They were accepted by the Jews until it's condemnation along with the New Testament by the Jewish leaders at the council of jamnia around 100 A.D.