[sirchtruth]

Will you first shed some light on what the “Apocrypha”
is? I ask Catholics all the time what it is and
not a soul is able to tell me. Why is this?

[Pyro7480]

Apocrypha, also know as Deuterocanonical books. Not only do Catholics think they're legitimate books of the Bible, but so do the Eastern Orthodox.

[vladimir998]

This should REALLY help:

http://socrates58.blogspot.com/2006/11/apocrypha-why-its-part-of-bible.html

Also, you might want to buy: http://www.grottopress.org/

[NYer]

Will you first shed some light on what the “Apocrypha” is?

The Apocryphya are the Deuterocanonical books which were removed from the King James Bible. Protestant Bibles have only 39 books in the Old Testament, however, while Catholic Bibles have 46. The seven additional books included in Catholic Bibles are Tobit, Judith, 1 and 2 Maccabees, Wisdom, Sirach, and Baruch. Catholic Bibles also include additions to the Books of Esther and Daniel which are not found in Protestant Bibles. These books are called the deuterocanonical books. The Catholic Church considers these books to be inspired by the Holy Spirit.

Protestants attempt to defend their rejection of the deuterocanonicals on the ground that the early Jews rejected them. However, the Jewish councils that rejected them (e.g., School of Javneh (also called “Jamnia” in 90 - 100 A.D.) were the same councils that rejected the entire New Testatment canon. Thus, those who reject the Catholic Bible are following a Jewish council that rejected Christ and the Revelation of the New Testament.

[AnAmericanMother]

Basically, here's how the Apocrypha (or "deuterocanonical books" as the Catholics call them) came to be:

In Jesus's time, the Old Testament canon used by most Jews, including those in Roman Palestine, was the Septuagint (so called because according to Jewish tradition it was prepared by 70 (septuaginta) scholars). This was a translation of the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek, because by that time most Jews could not speak Hebrew fluently.

The Septuagint contained a number of books that were later dropped from the Jewish canon - 1st & 2nd Maccabees, part of the book of Esther, Ecclesiasticus, etc. By the time the committee that prepared the King James Bible got organized, these books had been dropped from the Jewish canon and thus did not get into the KJV.

But the original Catholic OT was taken from the Septuagint, so it did include those books.