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Biblical Apocrypha are portions of Bible that are printed in old edition of Bible between Old and New Testament, sometimes called inter-testament. When Martin Luther was translating Latin bible into German language, he left the translation to other people, and labeled it as "Apocrypha: These Books Are Not Held Equal to the Scriptures, but Are Useful and Good to Read".

My Question is, why are they not included in the Bible? Why are they removed from today's versions?

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Maybe you can check out the book "Cheap Bibles: Nineteenth-Century Publishing and the British and Foreign Bible Society" by Leslie Howsam, there seems to be some relevant discussion there. – user1539 Apr 10 '12 at 10:22
...Fiddler on the Roof music, ... "Tradition!" – Affable Geek Apr 10 '12 at 22:56

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These books of the Bible were accepted as part of the canon (part of the Bible). These books have been around for a long time. First of all, the books called apocrypha are related to the Old Testament. The New Testament is accepted with its 27 books among the major Christianity branches (Catholics, Protestants, Evangelicals).

The Old Testament Canon was taken from the Jewish Bible. The Jewish recognized an historical value to the apocrypha, but not one of authority. The Catholics started to view the apocrypha as part of the Bible during the counter-reforme in 1546 (Concile of Trente). Principally to object the protestant attack on particular doctrine like the purgatory.

In fact, the protestants returned to the position of Jerome, who presented the Old Testament with the apocrypha separated to the Old Testament (Prologus galeatus) around 390.

--Source Magazine Theologie Systematique, Article : Apocryphes ou Deuterocanoniques by Henri Blocher. (Sorry for the French source) Here is the English transcript

Why are those books not included in the post-reformed Bible? Simply beacause for the Protestants these books were never part of the Old Testament. The New Testament does not quote them, as it does for most of the Old Testament. The Jewish people did not see those books on the same levels then the rest of the Old Testament Canon.

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-1 St. Jerome may have had the position that they didn't really belong, but he was obedient to the magesterium and included them in the vulgate. The deuterocanonical books and parts of books were certainly not added to the Bible because of the counter reformation. And only one passage in Maccabees has anything whatsoever to do with purgatory. – Peter Turner Apr 10 '12 at 17:51
I'm not sure if the poster is looking for a long involved answer or a quick simple one. The simple answer is, Protestants and Catholics disagreed on whether these books should be included in the Canon. The long answer is to discuss why and debate which side is right. – Jay Apr 11 '12 at 5:24
@PeterTurner, I did not entended to be mean in anyway. I tried to provided a simple/quick answer of the evangelical point of view. Most of the answer is a taken from the article of Henri Blocher. – David Laberge Apr 11 '12 at 10:08
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It should be noted that the Apocrypha is still included in the Catholic versions of the Bible. They are just omitted in Protestant Bibles. As David Laberge pointed out, these books were never recognized by the Jews as being authoritative or on the same level as Scripture.

The 1611 version of the King James Bible--which was widely used by Catholic and Protestant alike--did, in fact, include the Apocrypha.

So, in order to distinguish between canonical books and the Apocrypha, these books are not included in Protestant Bibles.

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Yes, it's not "old" versus "new" as stated in the question, but "Catholic" versus "Protestant". – Jay Apr 11 '12 at 5:23

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