The term apocrypha is used with various meanings, including "hidden", "esoteric", "spurious", "of questionable authenticity", ancient Chinese "revealed texts and objects" and "Christian texts that are not canonical".
The Hebrew bible does not include the apocrypha, but it was preserved in the Septuagint, which is the Greek O.T.
Though in the times of Jesus and the apostles, the most popular version of the OT is the Septuagint, however, authors of the NT did not refer to the apocrypha books in it.
However, in the 4-5th century, many church fathers like Gregory of Nazianzus started to suspect the canonizing of these books. Jerome, accepted only the Hebrew bible books to be the canon. He felt that it was necessary to distinguish the books of the Hebrew bible and the other books. Thus, he started using the term 'Apocrypha' to refer to the books not canonized into the Hebrew bible. The Latin bible which edited, Vulgate did not include the Apocrypha books in the bible. because of Jerome, the churches of the middle ages suspected the legality of the apocrypha.
In the 16th century, in the council of trent, 1546 by the RCs, they announced the apocrypha had authority and included them into the canon, thus which became the RC bible of the Deuterocanonical books. The Protestants however denied the canon of the Apocrypha. Thus, the Christian OT has 39 books (same as Judaism) and the RC, 46 books in the OT.
However, Martin Luther when he was translated the German bible, included the Apocrypha books and included in his preface, that reading the Apocrypha has its benefits. But he did not place them on the same level of authority. In England, later, initally the apocrypha was included but then, the Puritans after it gained strength, pointed out in the Westminster Confession that the Apocrypha is just the work of man, and it cannot be placed on the same authority as the bible. This was accepted widely by the Protestants.
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