The term means hidden things. Of three applications of what it refers to, Jerome's is the one that is the generally accepted modern usage -- books that are outside the Hebrew canon. With the exception of one book, the books of the Apocrypha were in the Greek version of the Old Testament made for Greek-speaking Jews in Egypt. The books were accepted as Biblical by the early Church and quoted as Scripture by many early Christian writers, for their Bible was the Greek Bible.¹

The rabbis who met near Jerusalem after A.D. 70 accepted thirty-nine books, which came to be known as the Palestinian Canon. The rabbis in Alexandria accepted those and, in addition, other books -- called today the Apocrypha -- which came to be known as the Alexandrian Canon. It was translated into Greek by Jewish scholars and became the Scriptures of early Christian authors. Today, Jews and most Protestants accept the Palestinian Canon. Catholics follow the Alexandrian Canon.²

1. New English Bible, 1970. Introduction to the Apocrypha.
2. New American Bible, 1987. How the Bible Came About, page xxiv.