Within these books two really stand out to me the two Wisdom books. Which of these books do you like best or find the best?
Ecclesiasticus/Sirach, Tobit, Prayer of Manasseh. Tobit is my favorite and some of my favorite devotional reading in the Bible.
Enoch is a really interesting case since St. Jude quoted from it in his epistle. It's a non-canonical book with content that became part of the canon
2 Peter, similar to Jude, …there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive opinions. They will even deny the Master who bought them—bringing swift destruction on themselves. Even so, many will follow their licentious ways, and because of them the way of truth will be maligned.
It's only non canonical of course if you don't belong to certain Jewish and Christian churches in the Ethiopian and Eritrean region. These churches go back to Patristic days and earlier.
I quite like Baruch, and I think it helps us understand the discourse in John 3 a little better and deeper.
I've read that there are no N.T. references to the dueterocanonical books. Any apparent references are coincidental due to the same topics and ideas being discussed in both collections. This conjecture may just be a Protestant idea to discredit the Apocrypha. What think Ye?
Some references are more obvious than others but it's silly to think the NT writers weren't influenced at all by ideas and writings that were influencing contemporaneous Jewish minds....especially given that the Septuagent included at least some of the deuterocanonical texts in it. Probably motivated just as you said by protestant distrust of the apocryphal books.
That is just imagination. The LXX was the text that provided the Greek that was generally accepted as scripture. Greek was the lingua fanci of the empire, and was the GOTO reference of the writers on the New Testament. I believe the balance of the 39 and BCP was that we received the Deutercanonicals, but did not establish that which must be believed as a reasonable approach. It seems that there is a mind in some sectors to remove and discredit them. They certainly form part of the KJV, one the team responsible for their translation included Nicholas Rigby.
Nonsense. Jesus refers in John ch. 10 to the “Feast of the Dedication” (Hanukkah), which is first recounted in 1 Maccabees. There was no fixed canon in the 1st century.
Someone might arrive at the conclusion there are no Apocryphal quotations in the NT text if they impose a modern academic standard for quotation on these ancient texts. But that's not how the Biblical authors wrote and it is not an intelligent approach to the text. An allusion was as meaningful and acceptable as a verbatim quotation. And let's not forget the authors may have been working from verbal recollection much of the time rather than having a manuscript for reference.
The New Testament quotes from many extra-biblical sources. Such as for instance, “God, in whom we live, and move, and have our being” is actually a quotation from a pagan poet Aratus. By what measure should we include apocrypha but exclude that poem from the Canon, if both were quoted? Citation does not prove that the whole of the original text was inspired. A good rule by which to see the original Old Testament is the rule invoked by St. Jerome. There are as many OT hooks as the letters in the Hebrew alphabet. This among other reasons is why he did not consider the apocrypha to be inspired. (That does not mean the Church should not read from the apocrypha; they are wise and important and beautiful human works.)