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Jesus at the feast of the dedication
"And it was at Jerusalem the feast of the dedication, and it was winter. And Jesus walked in the temple in Solomon's porch". This we read in John, 10:22-23. What is the feast of the dedication? When was it instituted? You can't find anything about it in the Protestant Bibles. To find what the feast was about you have to look at the books that the Protestants consider apocryphal and the Catholics (and Eastern Orthodox) consider deuterocanonical. The feast of the dedication was instituted by Judas Maccabeus, as we read in 1 Maccabees (4:59): "Moreover Judas and his brethren with the whole congregation of Israel ordained, that the days of the dedication of the altar should be kept in their season from year to year by the space of eight days, from the five and twentieth day of the month Casleu, with mirth and gladness." (Both quotations are from the KJV Bible.)

If the "apocryphal" books are Alexandrine additions to the Bible, why was the feast celebrated in Jerusalem? Why did Jesus himself celebrate it? This example, if nothing else, shows the historical significance of the "Apocrypha" for understanding the New Testament. Having decided that the Apocrypha are important, at least as historical documents, which version should you use?

The KJV Pitt Brevier Apocrypha, from Cambridge University Press (ISBN 0521506743) gives you the Apocrypha that were included in the original KJV Bible. It is a little book with no notes, concordances or any commentary. Still it is a well-bound little book that will complement any KJV Bible, giving you all the text that was included in the edition of 1611.

Oxford University offers at least two versions of the Apocrypha, with notes and commentaries. One is "The New Oxford Annotated Apocrypha: New Revised Standard Version" (ISBN: 0195288009). It is a new translation, but this is not a big loss: the KJV apocrypha were translated poorly. This edition has introductions to the various books and notes: it is the recommended stand-alone version of the Apocrypha in English.

Also from Oxford is the "Parallel Apocrypha: Greek Text, King James Version, Douay Old Testament, the Holy Bible by Ronald Knox, Today's English Version, New Revised Standard Version" (ISBN: 0195284445). It gives the Greek text (from the Septuagint) plus several Catholic and Protestant English translations. This is all the Apocrypha anybody would ever want!

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Finally an easy way to get a "complete" Bible
So often we act as if the only Bible canon dispute was between Catholics and Protestants. We leave the Orthodox with no complete Bible as the editions of "Bible with Apocrypha" have only the Catholic/Protestant books. This book includes texts for both Greek and Slavonic Orthodox and the one "appendix" accepted by the Greek Orthodox.

So the articles prefacing the texts are written as dogma rather than history or theology ... who cares? At least now I can have a truly complete parallel Bible for Bible studies.

Footnote: I am not Orthodox but some texts accepted only by the Orthodox as canonical appear as antiphons in Catholic liturgy.

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Interesting text comparisons, but skip the introduction.
Many modern protestants refuse to use Catholic Bibles because they contain these texts. What this book proves is that early protestants believed in their authenticity and it is only in the last hundred years or so that these books have been removed from protestant bibles. However, most of the introductory essays are so opinionated as to be almost useless.