Maccabees is interesting in several doctrinal ways. It shows the origin of the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah and how praying FOR the dead is shown to be a practice. Daniel and the Dragon, and the Three Holy Children are extra chapters that give us extra details on the lives of daniel, Shadrak, meeshak, and abendego (not going to even pretend i spelled those right 😅). Tobit was a beautiful love story of the providence of God working outside of time, hearing the prayers of individuals and going back in time and working out details in the past, this has implications for praying for those who lived a less than holy life. Then of course the extra chapters of esther, the only book in the protestant bible that doesnt once mention God oddly enough. Well, that is definitely not true of the unredacted story.

In regards to what to make of it, its important to know that the early church saw these books as legitimate scripture, that was sufficient for me. Luther had issues with certain doctrines and would have started redacting books in the new testament like James had it not been for a friend of his to speak reason to him. Id rather trust the church than a man who was so convinced of a single point of doctrine that he was willing to delete chunks of the bible to make it work, calling the epistle of james an "epistle of straw" at one point. While I respect him for seeking moral purity in the church, there are several other issues that we cant really overlook. Youll know a tree by its fruit right?