What about reading books excluded from the Bible?

Then you are asking the wrong question,you want to ask ,”which books excluded from the Bible are ok to read”?

Although the Jewish cannon with the exception of smaller traditions ,the mainline Orthodox Jewish canon is uniform.The Christian Canon varies a bit more.The Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches have book in the old Testament not included in the protestant canon or Jewish Tanakh.

Slightly varying collections of apocryphal, deuterocanonical or intertestamental books of the Bible form part of the Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox canons. The deuterocanonical or intertestamental books of the Catholic Church include Tobit, Judith, Baruch, Sirach, 1 Maccabees, 2 Maccabees, Wisdom and additions to Esther, Daniel, and Baruch.

These books are not in a protesant old testament or the Jewish Tanakh and the protestant Christian OT is based on the Jewish Tanakh.What is Tanakh,it’s all the books in English protestant OT’s accept the books are ordered differently.Tanakh is an acronym for

T for Torah ,the teachings

N for Nevi’im ,the prophetic books

KH for Khetuvim ,meaning the writings or poetic books

So why do certain traditions accept these books of the Apocrypha and others reject them.This is a difficult question because there is much debate on this matter.The main reason why Judaism rejected the books of the Maccabees is that they were seen a good and valid but were seen as Jewish history.The Rabbi’s and scribes thought the books of Maccabees were great for history and reading education but these books were not seen as having prophetic or spiritual guidence so they were not cannonized.Relax you are not doing anything occult by reading them but they history not spiritual teaching.

I will say I am not an expert on the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Apochrypha but most like say Ezra 2&3 were considered superfluous when the original Ezra was just fine.I would say being superfluous or just historical was why most extra canonical books were excluded from the Jewish and protestant canon.There is nothing occult about Catholic and EO and Oriental Orthodox books not found in most other Bibles ,they were not seen overly relevent.However though a lot Protestants and jews read these book quite a bit but these are mostly Biblical scholars for high level study but not for everyday spiritual guidence.Actually the original printing of the King James Bible in 1611 had the Catholic Apochrypha but the radical puritans later took them out likely for being superfluous and pedantic but not evil or occult at all.So yes it’s fine to read those books but they are most useful to historians and scholars.

How about the Ge’ez Ethiopic books not included in most old Testaments? So the 4 volumes of Enoch and book of Jubilees that are in the canon of the Ethiopian Christian church or also known as the Tewahedo church,a subset of the Oriental Orthodox Church.Also Ethiopian Jews accept Jubilees as scripture but not the 4 Enoch’s.

Same as before ,they are fine but pedantic and superfluous for non scholars ,your likely reason the Ethiopians accept them is mainly they wrote them.They are fine reading but they offer detailed information which is very interesting if you are interested in things like ,who was Cain and Seth’s wives or Shem or Ham’s wives.What were the names of the angels that mated with women in Gen 6 ,and how were the angels punished afterward.Also Enoch 3 has a important propecy on the existence of the Holy Trinity in pre Cross times.

Yes Tewahedo books (4 books of Enoch and Jubilees) are fine reading but non scholars would find them pedantic.

Some would ask if this opens the door to bringing credence to heretical texts,no not at all.

The books of previous discussion are all written in the name of the God of the Bible YHVH.

The Quran is written in the name of Allah ,which is a conjuction of “Ilah” an early Mesopotamian pagan god not YHVH. And the Quran says that Jesus or Isa in the Quran was merely a prophet and did not shed blood on the cross for us but went to heaven without dying like Elijah did,so in the Quran Jesus was a mere prophet and not divine!The symbol of Islam is the crescent moon ,the symbol of an ancient pagan moon god.

So the Quran is pagan,occult and heretical,no question!If you are a Middle Eastern historian or a missionary who wants to understand Islam better to witness to Muslims then that is ok.I would not ever read the Quran for any spiritual need.

What about the so called lost Gospels? I am not an expert here but something like the Gospel of Thomas I think was a lot of sayings of Jesus that were mostly in the other Gospels anyway.I don’t know the lost Gospels super well but Thomas is not evil but likely not worth your time either.

As far as the Gospel of Marcion and other in the Gnostic tradition, these are dangerous.Marcion and other Gnostic style type Christology’s they more or less say that the Father of the Old Testament and the Son of the New Testament are not the same.They say the OT creator was an evil god who only punishes man and Jesus saves you from that.But they also say the incarnation of Jesus was an illusion ,almost like Jesus from outer space type thing.And the Holy name of Tanakh/Old Testament is against the Son in the New Testament.The Gnostic’s throw out the whole Torah,God of Israel and the Jewish people with the proverbial bath water.Here is an excerpt from the Marcion wikipedia.

While Marcion preached that the God who had sent Jesus Christ was an entirely new, alien god, distinct from the vengeful God of Israel who had created the world,^[15]: 2 this view was not explicitly taught in Marcion’s gospel.^[14]: 169 The Gospel of Marcion is, however, much more amenable to a Marcionite interpretation than the canonical Gospel of Luke, because it lacks many of the passages in Luke that explicitly link Jesus with Judaism.

Also note the Christian Gnosticism is highly studied by pagans and witches and other mystics.Again I am no expert here but Gnosticism is very very dangerous stuff.Here is another quote from a article written by overviewbible.com

The Gnostic Gospels are ancient religious writings which falsely claim to be written by famous biblical figures such as Peter, Thomas, and Mary.

Most of the Gnostic Gospels that have survived were found in a collection of 13 books from the third and fourth century AD. The books contain a total of 52 Gnostic texts, not all of which are “gospels” or even claim to be Christian.

These were found buried in a jar near an Egyptian town called Nag Hammadi in 1945. (This is why the collection is also known as the Nag Hammadi Library.) These are the only surviving copies of many important Gnostic writings.

Scholars call these gospels “pseudepigrapha,” meaning that the claimed author is not the real author. Clues within the text—such as significant deviations in writing style and theology or references to events—point instead to the Gnostics (a catch-all term for ambiguous religious sects that sought divine knowledge). Gnosticism was a diverse spiritual movement with many branches, some of which had roots in Christianity.”

Can we conclude that Gnostic Gospels are heresy,as to whether these beliefs are a deadly heresy meaning that you will loose your place in the world to come.I’m a historian not a minister or Rabbi ,ask that to them but the Marcion and other Gnostic type writings are pagan,occult and heretical for sure.I would not read them,so lets do part 2