Actually, Pauls letters were written within a couple of years of his conversion, which was no more than a few years after the crucifixion. I wish that people
who appear to espouse knowledge about biblical history and dating actually did some more research. The oldest fragment of scripture we have at the moment
is from John and is no older that 120AD. This fragment was found in Egypt. Yup, within these mysterious hundreds of years of christian scriptures being doctored, somehow the scriptures had already made their way down to Egypt. The implications of this is that the entire collection of NT scriptures that we have were all written and completed in the first century. In fact, the first gospel written by Mark, has been dated to about no more than 15-20 years after the crucifixion. As far as the apocryphal books, they went against the teaching, character and person of Jesus written in the other gospels etc. I.e, they were not right and therefore rejected as being man-made.
Please know what you are talking about friends.
OOH!
Such presumption!
Said with such conviction, a smidgeon of arrogance and unbridled certainty, too! Well done!
Unfortunately, the attitude that rears up from that post is one that is commonly and unflatteringly ascribed to many xians: dogmatic insistence that you are right and no room for movement. I'd rather you didn't reinforce those stereotypes.
My sources' information differs even from each other - as well as from yours - as does my Concordance and Bible, no doubt. Certainly our interpretations would be poles apart. We start from different paradigms.
So, let's just assume that the jury is still out on actual dates, eh?
But, back to the issue as discussed. Paul of Tarsus is believed to have been born a scant few years after JC. His epistles were pontifical in nature although there remains doubt about whether he authored all of them. Many of the documents found are actually transcriptions, rather than writings in the original hand, and were written after the events they portray. Just when, and by whom, is an esoteric debate such as the one we are having. Ultimately, it is probably of little real value.
Your take on the Apochrypha is typical of a number of evangelical churches. You have made that judgement based on that attitude, I would guess. I am far more open minded about it. I just don't know - or even care, really.
The final selection of the books for the NT, it would seem, was an arbitrary one that was shrouded in dogmatism, legalistic argument, individual perception, political pressure and plain old human bigotry. In short, it was a decision by a committee.
The argument that the Apocrypha 'went against the teaching of Jesus' is rather subjective. They went against the interpretation that was formed by the majority of that committee. In essence, that decision could be understood as forming the basic dogma of xianity; creating the basis of the catholic church (in its literal sense) and destroying the dynamism of the early xian movement. Of course, anything that didn't align with their decision was deemed to be dubious or spurious in nature. Such is the essence of the hubris of man.
Then, this is simply more opinion.
Paul, Barnabas and Peter all had vastly different opinions. Antioch was the scene of much dissent for Paul with his mates. But, dare to declare which of them were wrong?
It comes down to what you want to think, I guess.