Read the canonical biblical books and don't stray from them because there are 2000 years of confirmation of truth but that's in the Orthodox Church. The Protestant church (which comes from the word "protest") eliminated 10 books because they didn't like what they said.
The Septuagint books are all canon because the Jews created the Septuagint in Greek. At that time, the Jews didn't even understand Hebrew because Alexander the Great conquered the world and the Jews all spoke Greek for so long that they didn't know Hebrew. When Christianity came around, the Greeks used the Septuagint to prove that Jesus was the Messiah. The Jews didn't like it so they considered the Septuagint inferior and came out with the Masoretic texts, but the Dead Sea Scrolls proved that the Septuagint was more accurate than their Masoretic texts which were written 1200 years after the Septuagint. The pseudepigrapha were all in separate scrolls, so just because they were found in the same location, it doesn't mean that they're part of "official scripture."
The Christian Bible, New Testament, has similar books to the Book of Judas… which was written 200 years after the Resurrection. They are all called apocrypha but there are two types of apocrypha: the kind that are false and fiction that are not included in the Orthodox Bible. Then there are protestant apocrypha which were eliminated because Protestants didn't like what they said and confirmed orthodoxy, even though they were canon for 1500 years. 2 Maccabees 12:43-45 actually talks about praying for the Dead because the dead cannot pray for themselves. By praying for the dead, you lift them up which is why in the Orthodox Church we have memorials so we can pray to God to forgive the Sin of the reposed so that they may enter the kingdom of heaven
The Septuagint books are all canon because the Jews created the Septuagint in Greek. At that time, the Jews didn't even understand Hebrew because Alexander the Great conquered the world and the Jews all spoke Greek for so long that they didn't know Hebrew. When Christianity came around, the Greeks used the Septuagint to prove that Jesus was the Messiah. The Jews didn't like it so they considered the Septuagint inferior and came out with the Masoretic texts, but the Dead Sea Scrolls proved that the Septuagint was more accurate than their Masoretic texts which were written 1200 years after the Septuagint. The pseudepigrapha were all in separate scrolls, so just because they were found in the same location, it doesn't mean that they're part of "official scripture."
The Christian Bible, New Testament, has similar books to the Book of Judas… which was written 200 years after the Resurrection. They are all called apocrypha but there are two types of apocrypha: the kind that are false and fiction that are not included in the Orthodox Bible. Then there are protestant apocrypha which were eliminated because Protestants didn't like what they said and confirmed orthodoxy, even though they were canon for 1500 years. 2 Maccabees 12:43-45 actually talks about praying for the Dead because the dead cannot pray for themselves. By praying for the dead, you lift them up which is why in the Orthodox Church we have memorials so we can pray to God to forgive the Sin of the reposed so that they may enter the kingdom of heaven
