The deuterocanonical books, meaning 'of, pertaining to, or constituting a second

canon Canon or Canons may refer to: Arts and entertainment * Canon (fiction), the material accepted as officially written by an author or an ascribed author * Literary canon, an accepted body of works considered as high culture ** Western canon, th ...

', collectively known as the Deuterocanon (DC), are certain books and passages considered to be canonical books of the

Old Testament The Old Testament (OT) is the first division of the Christian biblical canon, which is based primarily upon the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible, or Tanakh, a collection of ancient religious Hebrew and occasionally Aramaic writings by the Isr ...

by the

Catholic Church The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

, the

Eastern Orthodox Church The Eastern Orthodox Church, officially the Orthodox Catholic Church, and also called the Greek Orthodox Church or simply the Orthodox Church, is List of Christian denominations by number of members, one of the three major doctrinal and ...

, the

Oriental Orthodox Church The Oriental Orthodox Churches are Eastern Christian churches adhering to Miaphysite Christology, with approximately 50 million members worldwide. The Oriental Orthodox Churches adhere to the Nicene Christian tradition. Oriental Orthodoxy is ...

, and the

Church of the East The Church of the East ( ) or the East Syriac Church, also called the Church of Seleucia-Ctesiphon, the Persian Church, the Assyrian Church, the Babylonian Church, the Chaldean Church or the Nestorian Church, is one of three major branches o ...

. In contrast, modern

Rabbinic Judaism Rabbinic Judaism (), also called Rabbinism, Rabbinicism, Rabbanite Judaism, or Talmudic Judaism, is rooted in the many forms of Judaism that coexisted and together formed Second Temple Judaism in the land of Israel, giving birth to classical rabb ...

and

Protestants Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that emphasizes Justification (theology), justification of sinners Sola fide, through faith alone, the teaching that Salvation in Christianity, salvation comes by unmerited Grace in Christianity, divin ...

regard the DC as

Apocrypha Apocrypha () are biblical or related writings not forming part of the accepted canon of scripture, some of which might be of doubtful authorship or authenticity. In Christianity, the word ''apocryphal'' (ἀπόκρυφος) was first applied to ...

. Seven books are accepted as deuterocanonical by all the ancient churches: Tobit,

Judith The Book of Judith is a deuterocanonical book included in the Septuagint and the Catholic Church, Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Christianity, Christian Old Testament of the Bible but Development of the Hebrew Bible canon, excluded from the ...

, Baruch,

Ecclesiasticus The Book of Sirach (), also known as The Wisdom of Jesus the Son of Sirach, The Wisdom of Jesus son of Eleazar, or Ecclesiasticus (), is a Jewish literary work originally written in Biblical Hebrew. The longest extant wisdom book from antiqui ...

Wisdom Wisdom, also known as sapience, is the ability to apply knowledge, experience, and good judgment to navigate life’s complexities. It is often associated with insight, discernment, and ethics in decision-making. Throughout history, wisdom ha ...

, First and

Second Maccabees 2 Maccabees, also known as the Second Book of Maccabees, Second Maccabees, and abbreviated as 2 Macc., is a deuterocanonical book which recounts the persecution of Jews under King Antiochus IV Epiphanes and the Maccabean Revolt against him. It c ...

and also the Greek additions to

Esther Esther (; ), originally Hadassah (; ), is the eponymous heroine of the Book of Esther in the Hebrew Bible. According to the biblical narrative, which is set in the Achaemenid Empire, the Persian king Ahasuerus falls in love with Esther and ma ...

and Daniel. In addition to these, the

and the

include other books in their canons. The deuterocanonical books are included in the

Septuagint The Septuagint ( ), sometimes referred to as the Greek Old Testament or The Translation of the Seventy (), and abbreviated as LXX, is the earliest extant Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible from the original Biblical Hebrew. The full Greek ...

, the earliest extant Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible. They date from 300 BC to 100 AD, before the separation of the Christian church from Judaism, and they are regularly found in old manuscripts and cited frequently by the

Church Fathers The Church Fathers, Early Church Fathers, Christian Fathers, or Fathers of the Church were ancient and influential Christian theologians and writers who established the intellectual and doctrinal foundations of Christianity. The historical peri ...

, such as

Clement of Rome Clement of Rome (; ; died ), also known as Pope Clement I, was the Pope, Bishop of Rome in the Christianity in the 1st century, late first century AD. He is considered to be the first of the Apostolic Fathers of the Church. Little is known about ...

Clement of Alexandria Titus Flavius Clemens, also known as Clement of Alexandria (; – ), was a Christian theology, Christian theologian and philosopher who taught at the Catechetical School of Alexandria. Among his pupils were Origen and Alexander of Jerusalem. A ...

Origen Origen of Alexandria (), also known as Origen Adamantius, was an Early Christianity, early Christian scholar, Asceticism#Christianity, ascetic, and Christian theology, theologian who was born and spent the first half of his career in Early cent ...

Irenaeus Irenaeus ( or ; ; ) was a Greeks, Greek bishop noted for his role in guiding and expanding Christianity, Christian communities in the southern regions of present-day France and, more widely, for the development of Christian theology by oppos ...

Tertullian Tertullian (; ; 155 – 220 AD) was a prolific Early Christianity, early Christian author from Roman Carthage, Carthage in the Africa (Roman province), Roman province of Africa. He was the first Christian author to produce an extensive co ...

, among others. According to the

Gelasian Decree The Gelasian Decree () is a Latin text traditionally thought to be a decretal of the prolific Pope Gelasius I (492-496). The work reached its final form in a five-chapter text written by an anonymous scholar between 519 and 553. The second chapt ...

, the

Council of Rome The Council of Rome was a synod which took place in Rome in AD 382, under the leadership of Pope Damasus I, the then-bishop of Rome. The only surviving conciliar pronouncement may be the that contains a canon of Scripture, which supposedly was is ...

(382 AD) defined a list of books of scripture as canonical. It included most of the deuterocanonical books.

Patristic Patristics, also known as Patrology, is a branch of theological studies focused on the writings and teachings of the Church Fathers, between the 1st to 8th centuries CE. Scholars analyze texts from both orthodox and heretical authors. Patristics em ...

and synodal lists from the 200s, 300s and 400s usually include selections of the deuterocanonical books.

List of deuterocanonicals

Canonical for the Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Oriental Orthodox Church, and the Church of the East: * Tobit *

* Baruch including the

Letter of Jeremiah The Letter of Jeremiah, also known as the Epistle of Jeremiah, is a deuterocanonical book of the Old Testament; this letter is attributed to Jeremiah and addressed to the Jews who were about to be carried away as captives to Babylon by Nebuchadnez ...

(Baruch chapter 6) * Sirach (or Ecclesiasticus) *

1 Maccabees 1 Maccabees, also known as the First Book of Maccabees, First Maccabees, and abbreviated as 1 Macc., is a deuterocanonical book which details the history of the Maccabean Revolt against the Seleucid Empire as well as the founding and earliest hi ...

2 Maccabees 2 Maccabees, also known as the Second Book of Maccabees, Second Maccabees, and abbreviated as 2 Macc., is a deuterocanonical book which recounts the persecution of Jews under King Antiochus IV Epiphanes and the Maccabean Revolt against him. It ...

* Greek additions to Esther * Greek additions to Daniel Canonical only for the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Oriental Orthodox Church: * Prayer of Manasseh *

1 Esdras 1 Esdras (), also Esdras A, Greek Esdras, Greek Ezra, or 3 Esdras, is the ancient Greek Septuagint version of the biblical Book of Ezra in use within the early church and among many modern Christians with varying degrees of canonicity. 1 Esdra ...

2 Esdras 2 Esdras, also called 4 Esdras, Latin Esdras, or Latin Ezra, is an apocalyptic book in some English versions of the Bible. Tradition ascribes it to Ezra, a scribe and priest of the fifth century BC, whom the book identifies with the sixth-ce ...

* 3 Maccabees * 4 Maccabees as an appendix * Psalm 151

Dates of composition

Historical background

''Deuterocanonical'' is a term coined in 1566 by the theologian Sixtus of Siena, who had converted to

Catholicism The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

from

Judaism Judaism () is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic, Monotheism, monotheistic, ethnic religion that comprises the collective spiritual, cultural, and legal traditions of the Jews, Jewish people. Religious Jews regard Judaism as their means of o ...

, to describe scriptural texts considered canonical by the Catholic Church, but which recognition was considered "secondary". For Sixtus, this term included portions of both Old and New Testaments. Sixtus considers the final chapter of the Gospel of Mark to be deuterocanonical. He also applies the term to the

Book of Esther The Book of Esther (; ; ), also known in Hebrew language, Hebrew as "the Scroll" ("the wikt:מגילה, Megillah"), is a book in the third section (, "Writings") of the Hebrew Bible. It is one of the Five Megillot, Five Scrolls () in the Hebr ...

from the canon of the Hebrew Bible. The term was then taken up by other writers to apply specifically to those books of the Old Testament which had been recognised as canonical by the Councils of Rome (382 AD),

Hippo The hippopotamus (''Hippopotamus amphibius;'' ; : hippopotamuses), often shortened to hippo (: hippos), further qualified as the common hippopotamus, Nile hippopotamus and river hippopotamus, is a large semiaquatic Mammal, mammal native to su ...

(393 AD),

Carthage Carthage was an ancient city in Northern Africa, on the eastern side of the Lake of Tunis in what is now Tunisia. Carthage was one of the most important trading hubs of the Ancient Mediterranean and one of the most affluent cities of the classic ...

(397 AD and 419 AD),

Florence Florence ( ; ) is the capital city of the Italy, Italian region of Tuscany. It is also the most populated city in Tuscany, with 362,353 inhabitants, and 989,460 in Metropolitan City of Florence, its metropolitan province as of 2025. Florence ...

(1442 AD) and Trent (1546 AD), but which were not in the Hebrew canon. Forms of the term “deuterocanonical” were adopted after the 16th century by the

to denote canonical books of the Septuagint not in the Hebrew Bible, a wider selection than that adopted by the Council of Trent, and also by the

Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church () is the largest of the Oriental Orthodox Churches. One of the few Christian churches in Africa originating before European colonization of the continent, the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church dates bac ...

to apply to works believed to be of Jewish origin translated in the Old Testament of the Ethiopic Bible, a wider selection still. The acceptance of some of these books among early Christians was widespread, though not universal, and surviving Bibles from the early Church always include, with varying degrees of recognition, books now called ''deuterocanonical''. Some say that their canonicity seems not to have been doubted in the Church until it was challenged by Jews after 100 AD, sometimes postulating a hypothetical Council of Jamnia. Regional councils in the

West West is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sun sets on the Earth. Etymology The word "west" is a Germanic word passed into some Romance langu ...

published official canons that included these books as early as the 4th and 5th centuries. The ''

Catholic Encyclopedia ''The'' ''Catholic Encyclopedia: An International Work of Reference on the Constitution, Doctrine, Discipline, and History of the Catholic Church'', also referred to as the ''Old Catholic Encyclopedia'' and the ''Original Catholic Encyclopedi ...

'' states:

Dead Sea scrolls

The Book of Sirach, whose

Hebrew Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and ...

text was already known from the

Cairo Geniza The Cairo Geniza, alternatively spelled the Cairo Genizah, is a collection of some 400,000 Judaism, Jewish manuscript fragments and Fatimid Caliphate, Fatimid administrative documents that were kept in the ''genizah'' or storeroom of the Ben Ezra ...

, has been found in two of the

Dead Sea Scrolls The Dead Sea Scrolls, also called the Qumran Caves Scrolls, are a set of List of Hebrew Bible manuscripts, ancient Jewish manuscripts from the Second Temple period (516 BCE – 70 CE). They were discovered over a period of ten years, between ...

(2QSir or 2Q18, 11QPs_a or 11Q5) in Hebrew. Another Hebrew scroll of ''Sirach'' has been found in

Masada Masada ( ', 'fortress'; ) is a mountain-top fortress complex in the Judaean Desert, overlooking the western shore of the Dead Sea in southeastern Israel. The fort, built in the first century BCE, was constructed atop a natural plateau rising ov ...

(MasSir). Five fragments from the

Book of Tobit The Book of Tobit (), also known as the Book of Tobias, is a deuterocanonical pre-Christian work from the 3rd or early 2nd century BC which describes how God tests the faithful, responds to prayers, and protects the pre-covenant community (i.e., ...

have been found in Qumran written in

Aramaic Aramaic (; ) is a Northwest Semitic language that originated in the ancient region of Syria and quickly spread to Mesopotamia, the southern Levant, Sinai, southeastern Anatolia, and Eastern Arabia, where it has been continually written a ...

and in one written in Hebrew (papyri 4Q, nos. 196–200). The ''

'' (or '' Baruch'' chapter 6) has been found in cave 7 (papyrus 7Q2) in

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

. Recent scholars have suggested that the Qumran library of approximately 1,100 manuscripts found in the eleven caves at

Qumran Qumran (; ; ') is an archaeological site in the West Bank managed by Israel's Qumran National Park. It is located on a dry marl plateau about from the northwestern shore of the Dead Sea, about south of the historic city of Jericho, and adjac ...

was not entirely produced at Qumran, but may have included part of the library of the Jerusalem Temple, that may have been hidden in the caves for safekeeping at the time the Temple was destroyed by Romans in 70 AD.

Influence of the Septuagint

Deuterocanonical and Apocryphal books included in the Septuagint are: The large majority of Old Testament references in the

New Testament The New Testament (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus in Christianity, Jesus, as well as events relating to Christianity in the 1st century, first-century Christianit ...

are taken from the

Koine Greek Koine Greek (, ), also variously known as Hellenistic Greek, common Attic, the Alexandrian dialect, Biblical Greek, Septuagint Greek or New Testament Greek, was the koiné language, common supra-regional form of Greek language, Greek spoken and ...

(LXX), editions of which include the deuterocanonical books, as well as apocrypha – both of which are called collectively ("readable, worthy of reading"). No two Septuagint codices contain the same apocrypha. Greek Psalm manuscripts from the fifth century contain three New Testament "psalms": the

Magnificat The Magnificat (Latin for "y soulmagnifies he Lord) is a canticle, also known as the Song of Mary or Canticle of Mary, and in the Byzantine Rite as the Ode of the Theotokos (). Its Western name derives from the incipit of its Latin text. This ...

, the

Benedictus Benedictus, Latin for "blessed" or "a blessed person", may refer to: Music * "Benedictus" (canticle), also called the "Canticle of Zachary", a canticle in the Gospel of Lukas * Part of the "Sanctus", a hymn and part of the eucharistic prayer in W ...

, the Nunc dimittis from Luke's birth narrative, and the conclusion of the hymn that begins with the "Gloria in Excelsis". Beckwith states that manuscripts of anything like the capacity of Codex Alexandrinus were not used in the first centuries of the Christian era, and believes that the comprehensive codices of the Septuagint, which start appearing in the 4th century AD, are all of Christian origin. In the New Testament, Hebrews 11:35 is understood by some as referring to an event that was recorded in one of the deuterocanonical books,

. For instance, the author of Hebrews references oral tradition which spoke of an Old Testament prophet who was sawn in half in Hebrews 11:37, two verses after the 2nd Maccabees reference. Other New Testament authors such as Paul also reference or quote period literature.

Influence of early authors

The Jewish historian

Josephus Flavius Josephus (; , ; ), born Yosef ben Mattityahu (), was a Roman–Jewish historian and military leader. Best known for writing '' The Jewish War'', he was born in Jerusalem—then part of the Roman province of Judea—to a father of pr ...

() wrote that the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
. '' Athanasius Athanasius I of Alexandria ( – 2 May 373), also called Athanasius the Great, Athanasius the Confessor, or, among Coptic Christians, Athanasius the Apostolic, was a Christian theologian and the 20th patriarch of Alexandria (as Athanasius ...

, but they might differ on the exact content (see below for Athanasius), as Josephus did not provide a detailed list.

Origen of Alexandria Origen of Alexandria (), also known as Origen Adamantius, was an early Christian scholar, ascetic, and theologian who was born and spent the first half of his career in Alexandria. He was a prolific writer who wrote roughly 2,000 treatises i ...

(), cited by

Eusebius Eusebius of Caesarea (30 May AD 339), also known as Eusebius Pamphilius, was a historian of Christianity, exegete, and Christian polemicist from the Roman province of Syria Palaestina. In about AD 314 he became the bishop of Caesarea Maritima. ...

, described the Hebrew Bible as containing 22 canonical books. Among these books he listed the Epistle of Jeremiah and the

Maccabees The Maccabees (), also spelled Machabees (, or , ; or ; , ), were a group of Jews, Jewish rebel warriors who took control of Judea, which at the time was part of the Seleucid Empire. Its leaders, the Hasmoneans, founded the Hasmonean dynasty ...

. Eusebius wrote in his ''

Church History Church history or ecclesiastical history as an academic discipline studies the history of Christianity and the way the Christian Church has developed since its inception. Henry Melvill Gwatkin defined church history as "the spiritual side of t ...

'' () that Bishop Melito of Sardis in the 2nd century AD considered the deuterocanonical

Wisdom of Solomon The Book of Wisdom, or the Wisdom of Solomon, is a book written in Greek and most likely composed in Alexandria, Egypt. It is not part of the Hebrew Bible but is included in the Septuagint. Generally dated to the mid-first century Anno Domini, ...

as part of the Old Testament and that it was considered canonical by Jews and Christians. On the other hand, the contrary claim has been made: "In the catalogue of Melito, presented by Eusebius, after Proverbs, the word Wisdom occurs, which nearly all commentators have been of opinion is only another name for the same book, and not the name of the book now called 'The Wisdom of Solomon'." Cyril of Jerusalem () in his ''Catechetical Lectures'' cites as canonical books "Jeremiah one, including Baruch and Lamentations and the Epistle (of Jeremiah)". In

Athanasius Athanasius I of Alexandria ( – 2 May 373), also called Athanasius the Great, Athanasius the Confessor, or, among Coptic Christians, Athanasius the Apostolic, was a Christian theologian and the 20th patriarch of Alexandria (as Athanasius ...

's canonical books list (367 AD) the

Book of Baruch The Book of Baruch is a deuterocanonical book of the Bible, used in many Christian traditions, such as Catholic and Orthodox churches. In Judaism and Protestant Christianity, it is considered not to be part of the canon, with the Protestant B ...

and the

are included while

is omitted. At the same time, he mentioned that the Wisdom of Solomon, the Wisdom of Sirach, Judith and Tobit, the book of Esther and also the

Didache The ''Didache'' (; ), also known as ''The Lord's Teaching Through the Twelve Apostles to the Nations'' (), is a brief anonymous early Christian treatise ( ancient church order) written in Koine Greek, dated by modern scholars to the first or (l ...

and

The Shepherd of Hermas ''The Shepherd of Hermas'' (; ), sometimes just called ''The Shepherd'', is a Christian literary work of the late first half of the second century, considered a valuable book by many Christians, and considered canonical scripture by some of the ...

, while not being part of the Canon, "were appointed by the Fathers to be read". He excluded what he called "apocryphal writings" entirely.

Epiphanius of Salamis Epiphanius of Salamis (; – 403) was the bishop of Salamis, Cyprus, at the end of the Christianity in the 4th century, 4th century. He is considered a saint and a Church Father by the Eastern Orthodox Church, Eastern Orthodox, Catholic Churche ...

() mentions that "there are 27 books given the Jews by God, but they are counted as 22, however, like the letters of their Hebrew alphabet, because ten books are doubled and reckoned as five". He wrote in his that Jews had in their books the deuterocanonical Epistle of Jeremiah and Baruch, both combined with Jeremiah and Lamentations in only one book. While Wisdom of Sirach and the Wisdom of Solomon were books of disputed canonicity.

Augustine of Hippo Augustine of Hippo ( , ; ; 13 November 354 – 28 August 430) was a theologian and philosopher of Berber origin and the bishop of Hippo Regius in Numidia, Roman North Africa. His writings deeply influenced the development of Western philosop ...

(), in his book ''On Christian Doctrine (Book II Chapter 8)'', cites a list of the canon of the Old Testament and the New Testament, including the deuterocanonical books as canonical: According to the monk Rufinus of Aquileia () the deuterocanonical books were not called canonical but ecclesiastical books. In this category Rufinus includes the Wisdom of Solomon, Sirach, Judith, Tobit and two books of Maccabees. Baruch is not specified by name in Rufinus's list, but it is in Cyril's, as though a part of Jeremiah, "Jeremiah, with Baruch, and the Lamentations and the Epistle." (Catech. 4, §36.)

Pope Innocent I Pope Innocent I () was the bishop of Rome from 401 to his death on 12 March 417. From the beginning of his papacy, he was seen as the general arbitrator of ecclesiastical disputes in both the East and the West. He confirmed the prerogatives of ...

(405 AD) sent a letter to the bishop of Toulouse citing deuterocanonical books as a part of the Old Testament canon. In the 7th century Latin document the Muratorian fragment, which some scholars actually believe to be a copy of an earlier 170 AD Greek original, the book of the Wisdom of Solomon is counted by the church.

Synods

In later copyings of the canons of the

Council of Laodicea The Council of Laodicea was a regional Christian synod of approximately thirty clerics from Asia Minor which assembled about 363–364 in Laodicea, Phrygia Pacatiana. Historical context The council took place soon after the conclusion of the wa ...

(from 364 AD) a canon list became appended to Canon 59, likely before the mid fifth century, which affirmed that Jeremiah, and Baruch, the Lamentations, and the Epistle (of Jeremiah) were canonical, while excluding the other deuterocanonical books. According to

Decretum Gelasianum The Gelasian Decree () is a Latin text traditionally thought to be a decretal of the prolific Pope Gelasius I (492-496). The work reached its final form in a five-chapter text written by an anonymous scholar between 519 and 553. The second chapte ...

, which is a work written by an anonymous scholar between 519 and 553, the

(382 AD) cites a list of books of scripture presented as having been made canonical. This list mentions all the deuterocanonical books as a part of the Old Testament canon: (According to the

, Cyril of Jerusalem, and

, the Book of Jeremiah forms a single book together with Baruch, Lamentations and the Letter of Jeremiah, also called the Epistle of Jeremiah.) The

Synod of Hippo The Synod of Hippo refers to the synod of 393 which was hosted in Hippo Regius in northern Africa during the early Christian Church. Additional synods were held in 394, 397, 401 and 426. Some were attended by Augustine of Hippo. The synod of 393 ...

(in 393 AD), followed by the

Council of Carthage (397) The Councils of Carthage were church synods held during the 3rd, 4th, and 5th centuries in the city of Early centers of Christianity#Carthage, Carthage in Africa. The most important of these are described below. Synod of 251 In May 251 a synod, as ...

and the Council of Carthage (419), may be the first councils that explicitly accepted the first canon which includes a selection of books that did not appear in the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
. '' McDonald & Sanders, editors of ''The Canon Debate'', 2002, chapter 5: ''The Septuagint: The Bible of Hellenistic Judaism'' by Albert C. Sundberg Jr., p. 72, Appendix D-2, note 19. the councils were under significant influence of

, who regarded the canon as already closed.Everett Ferguson, "Factors leading to the Selection and Closure of the New Testament Canon," in ''The Canon Debate''. eds. L. M. McDonald & J. A. Sanders (Hendrickson, 2002) p. 320.F. F. Bruce (1988), ''The Canon of Scripture''. Intervarsity Press, p. 230.Augustine, ''De Civitate Dei'' 22.8 Canon XXIV from the Synod of Hippo (in 393 AD) records the scriptures which are considered canonical; the Old Testament books as follows: On 28 August 397, the

Council of Carthage The Councils of Carthage were church synods held during the 3rd, 4th, and 5th centuries in the city of Carthage in Africa. The most important of these are described below. Synod of 251 In May 251 a synod, assembled under the presidency of Cyprian ...

confirmed the canon issued at Hippo; the recurrence of the Old Testament part is stated: In 419 AD, the

in its canon 24 lists the deuterocanonical books as canonical scripture: (According to the

, Cyril of Jerusalem, and

, the Book of Jeremiah forms a single book together with Baruch, Lamentations and the Letter of Jeremiah, also called the Epistle of Jeremiah.) The Apostolic Canons approved by the Eastern Council in Trullo in 692 AD (not recognized by the Catholic Church) states as venerable and sacred the first three books of Maccabees and Wisdom of Sirach. The

Council of Florence The Council of Florence is the seventeenth ecumenical council recognized by the Catholic Church, held between 1431 and 1445. It was convened in territories under the Holy Roman Empire. Italy became a venue of a Catholic ecumenical council aft ...

(1442) promulgated a list of the books of the Bible, including the books of Judith, Esther, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch and two books of the Maccabees as Canonical books: The

Council of Trent The Council of Trent (), held between 1545 and 1563 in Trent (or Trento), now in northern Italy, was the 19th ecumenical council of the Catholic Church. Prompted by the Protestant Reformation at the time, it has been described as the "most ...

(1546) adopted an understanding of the canons of these previous councils as corresponding to its own list of deuterocanonical books:

Influence of Jerome

Jerome Jerome (; ; ; – 30 September 420), also known as Jerome of Stridon, was an early Christian presbyter, priest, Confessor of the Faith, confessor, theologian, translator, and historian; he is commonly known as Saint Jerome. He is best known ...

in one of his Vulgate prologues describes a canon which excludes the deuterocanonical books. In these prologues, Jerome mentions all of the deuterocanonical and apocryphal works by name as being apocryphal or "not in the canon" except for '' Prayer of Manasses'' and ''Baruch''. He mentions ''Baruch'' by name in his ''Prologue to Jeremiah'' and notes that it is neither read nor held among the Hebrews, but does not explicitly call it apocryphal or "not in the canon". The inferior status to which the deuterocanonical books were relegated by authorities like Jerome is seen by some as being due to a rigid conception of canonicity, one demanding that a book, to be entitled to this supreme dignity, must be received by all, must have the sanction of Jewish antiquity, and must moreover be adapted not only to edification, but also to the "confirmation of the doctrine of the Church". J. N. D. Kelly states that "Jerome, conscious of the difficulty of arguing with Jews on the basis of books they spurned and anyhow regarding the Hebrew original as authoritative, was adamant that anything not found in it was 'to be classed among the apocrypha', not in the canon; later he grudgingly conceded that the Church read some of these books for edification, but not to support doctrine." Jerome's

Vulgate The Vulgate () is a late-4th-century Bible translations into Latin, Latin translation of the Bible. It is largely the work of Saint Jerome who, in 382, had been commissioned by Pope Damasus I to revise the Gospels used by the Diocese of ...

included the deuterocanonical books as well as apocrypha. Jerome referenced and quoted from some as scripture despite describing them as "not in the canon". Michael Barber asserts that, although Jerome was once suspicious of the apocrypha, he later viewed them as scripture. Barber argues that this is clear from Jerome's epistles; he cites Jerome's letter to Eustochium, in which Jerome quotes Sirach 13:2. Elsewhere Jerome apparently also refers to Baruch, the Story of Susannah and Wisdom as scripture. Henry Barker states that Jerome quotes the Apocrypha with marked respect, and even as "Scripture", giving them an ecclesiastical if not a canonical position and use. Luther also wrote introductions to the books of the Apocrypha, and occasionally quoted from some to support an argument. In his prologue to

, without using the word canon, Jerome mentioned that Judith was held to be scriptural by the

First Council of Nicaea The First Council of Nicaea ( ; ) was a council of Christian bishops convened in the Bithynian city of Nicaea (now İznik, Turkey) by the Roman Emperor Constantine I. The Council of Nicaea met from May until the end of July 325. This ec ...

. In his reply to Rufinus, Jerome affirmed that he was consistent with the choice of the church regarding which version of the deuterocanonical portions of Daniel to use, which the Jews of his day did not include: Thus Jerome acknowledged the principle by which the canon would be settled—the judgment of the Church (at least the local churches in this case) rather than his own judgment or the judgment of Jews; though concerning translation of Daniel to Greek, he wondered why one should use the version of a translator whom he regarded as a

heretic Heresy is any belief or theory that is strongly at variance with established beliefs or customs, particularly the accepted beliefs or religious law of a religious organization. A heretic is a proponent of heresy. Heresy in Christianity, Judai ...

and judaizer (

Theodotion Theodotion (; , ''gen''.: Θεοδοτίωνος; died c. 200) was a Hellenistic Jewish scholar, perhaps working in Ephesus, who in c. A.D. 150 translated the Hebrew Bible into Greek. History Whether he was revising the Septuagint, or was wor ...

). The Vulgate is also important as the touchstone of the canon concerning which parts of books are canonical. When the

confirmed the books included in the first canon, it qualified the books as being "entire with all their parts, as they have been used to be read in the Catholic Church, and as they are contained in the old Latin vulgate edition". This decree was clarified somewhat by

Pope Pius XI Pope Pius XI (; born Ambrogio Damiano Achille Ratti, ; 31 May 1857 – 10 February 1939) was head of the Catholic Church from 6 February 1922 until his death in February 1939. He was also the first sovereign of the Vatican City State u ...

on 2 June 1927, who allowed that the

Comma Johanneum The Johannine Comma () is an interpolated phrase (comma) in verses of the First Epistle of John. The text (with the comma in italics and enclosed by brackets) in the King James Version of the Bible reads: In the Greek Textus Receptus (TR), th ...

was open to dispute. The Council of Trent also ratified the

Bible as the official Latin version of the Bible for the Roman Catholic Church. Deuterocanonical and Apocryphal books included in the Latin Vulgate are:

Masoretic Text

The existence of the

Samaritan Pentateuch The Samaritan Pentateuch, also called the Samaritan Torah (Samaritan Hebrew: , ), is the Religious text, sacred scripture of the Samaritans. Written in the Samaritan script, it dates back to one of the ancient versions of the Torah that existe ...

, and the

Peshitta The Peshitta ( ''or'' ') is the standard Syriac edition of the Bible for Syriac Christian churches and traditions that follow the liturgies of the Syriac Rites. The Peshitta is originally and traditionally written in the Classical Syriac d ...

versions of the Hebrew scriptures demonstrate that different versions of Judaism used different texts, and it is debated which is closest to the Urtext (a theoretical "original" text from which all of these emerged). The

contain some of the deuterocanonical books, while the

Masoretic Text The Masoretic Text (MT or 𝕸; ) is the authoritative Hebrew and Aramaic text of the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible (''Tanakh'') in Rabbinic Judaism. The Masoretic Text defines the Jewish canon and its precise letter-text, with its vocaliz ...

excludes them. Since the Enlightenment, it was wrongly believed that the Masoretic Text was the "original" Hebrew Bible when this was in fact a medieval version created by the

Masoretes The Masoretes (, lit. 'Masters of the Tradition') were groups of Jewish scribe- scholars who worked from around the end of the 5th through 10th centuries CE, based primarily in the Jewish centers of the Levant (e.g., Tiberias and Jerusalem) an ...

. The oldest nearly-complete manuscripts of the Old Testament include the

Codex Vaticanus The Codex Vaticanus ( The Vatican, Bibl. Vat., Vat. gr. 1209), is a manuscript of the Greek Bible, containing the majority of the Old Testament and the majority of the New Testament. It is designated by siglum B or 03 in the Gregory-Aland numb ...

(4th century) and the

Codex Alexandrinus The Codex Alexandrinus (London, British Library, Royal MS 1. D. V-VIII) is a manuscript of the Greek Bible,The Greek Bible in this context refers to the Bible used by Greek-speaking Christians who lived in Egypt and elsewhere during the early ...

(5th century), while the oldest complete manuscript of the Masoretic text is the Codex Leningradensis from 1008. The Septuagint was the version of the Hebrew Bible from which the early Christians emerged. The Christian Bible contained these deuterocanonical books until Martin Luther, assuming the Masoretic text to be the original, removed them to match this new Jewish canon. Rabbinic Judaism is a newer form of Judaism that created the Masoretic text in part to deter a Christian reading of the Old Testament.

In Judaism

Although there is no scholarly consensus as to when the Hebrew Bible canon was fixed, some scholars hold that the Hebrew canon was established well before the 1st century AD – even as early as the 4th century BC, or by the

Hasmonean dynasty The Hasmonean dynasty (; ''Ḥašmōnāʾīm''; ) was a ruling dynasty of Judea and surrounding regions during the Hellenistic times of the Second Temple period (part of classical antiquity), from BC to 37 BC. Between and BC the dynasty rule ...

(140–40 BC).Philip R. Davies in ''The Canon Debate'', page 50: "With many other scholars, I conclude that the fixing of a canonical list was almost certainly the achievement of the Hasmonean dynasty." The canon of modern

excludes the deuterocanonical books. Albert J. Sundberg writes that Judaism did not exclude from their scriptures the deuterocanonicals and the additional Greek texts listed here. The Septuagint translation of the Hebrew Bible into Greek, which the

early Christian church Early Christianity, otherwise called the Early Church or Paleo-Christianity, describes the historical era of the Christian religion up to the First Council of Nicaea in 325. Christianity spread from the Levant, across the Roman Empire, and bey ...

used as its Old Testament, included all of the deuterocanonical books. The term distinguished these books from both the

protocanonical books The protocanonical books are those books of the Old Testament that are also included in the Hebrew Bible (the Tanakh) and that came to be considered canonical during the formational period of orthodox Christianity. The Old Testament is entirely ...

(the books of the Hebrew canon) and the biblical apocrypha (books of Jewish origin that were sometimes read in Christian churches as

scripture Religious texts, including scripture, are texts which various religions consider to be of central importance to their religious tradition. They often feature a compilation or discussion of beliefs, ritual practices, moral commandments and ...

but which were not regarded as canonical). Some commentators see texts from these particular books being paraphrased, referred, or alluded to many times in the New Testament, depending in large measure on what is counted as a reference; other scholars point to a correspondence of thought.

In the Catholic Church

The Catholic Church considers that in the

in 382 AD, under the Papacy of Damasus I, was defined the complete canon of the Bible, accepting 46 books for the Old Testament, including what the Reformed Churches consider as deuterocanonical books, and 27 books for the New Testament. Based in this first canon, Saint

compiled and translated the 73 books of the Bible into Latin, later known as the

Bible version, which has been considered during many centuries as one of the official Bible translations of the Catholic Church.''What is the Vulgate and why is it important?'', Philip Kosloski - published on 30 September 2019, Aleteia, viewed on 20 June 2021, https://aleteia.org/2019/09/30/what-is-the-vulgate-and-why-is-it-important/ The

(in 393 AD), followed by the

and the Council of Carthage (419), also explicitly accepted the first canon from the

. These councils were under significant influence of

, who also regarded the Biblical canon as already closed. The Roman Catholic

(1442) confirmed the first canon too, while the

(1546) elevated the first canon to dogma. Protestant theologian

Philip Schaff Philip Schaff (January 1, 1819 – October 20, 1893) was a Swiss-born, German-educated Protestant theologian and ecclesiastical historian, who spent most of his adult life living and teaching in the United States. Life and career Schaff was ...

states that "the Council of Hippo in 393, and the third (according to another reckoning the sixth) Council of Carthage in 397, under the influence of Augustine, who attended both, fixed the catholic canon of the Holy Scriptures, including the Apocrypha of the Old Testament, ...This decision of the transmarine church, however, was subject to ratification; and the concurrence of the Roman See it received when Innocent I and Gelasius I (AD 414) repeated the same index of biblical books." Schaff says that this canon remained undisturbed till the 16th century, and was sanctioned by the

at its fourth session, although as the ''

'' reports, "in the Latin Church, all through the Middle Ages we find evidence of hesitation about the character of the deuterocanonicals. ... Few are found to unequivocally acknowledge their canonicity," but that the countless manuscript copies of the Vulgate produced by these ages, with a slight, probably accidental, exception, uniformly embrace the complete Roman Catholic Old Testament. Subsequent research qualifies this latter statement, in that a distinct tradition of large format pandect bibles has been identified as having been promoted by the 11th and 12th century reforming Papacy for presentation to monasteries in Italy; and now commonly termed ' Atlantic Bibles' on account of their very great size. While not all these bibles present a consistent reformed Vulgate text, they generally exclude the deuterocanonical books. The Paris Bible was a new fairly standard format for portable personal Bibles developed by preaching friars in the 13th century; these included the deuterocanonical books but not the previously common apocryphal Epistle to the Laodiceans or the Fourth Book of Esdras.

Baruch

According to the canon lists of the

(367 AD), Cyril of Jerusalem (), and

(), the Book of Jeremiah forms a single book together with Baruch, Lamentations and the Letter of Jeremiah (also called Epistle of Jeremiah). In the Old Latin version of the Bible, Baruch and the Letter of Jeremiah appear to have been incorporated into the

Book of Jeremiah The Book of Jeremiah () is the second of the Latter Prophets in the Hebrew Bible, and the second of the Prophets in the Christian Old Testament. The superscription at chapter Jeremiah 1#Superscription, Jeremiah 1:1–3 identifies the book as "th ...

, and Latin Fathers of the 4th century and earlier always cite their texts as being from that book. However, when Jerome translated Jeremiah afresh from the Hebrew text, which is considerably longer than the Greek Septuagint text and with chapters in a different order, he steadfastly refused to incorporate either Baruch or the Letter of Jeremiah from the Greek. In the 9th century these two works were reintroduced into the Vulgate Bibles produced under the influence of Theodulf of Orleans, originally as additional chapters to the Vulgate book of Jeremiah. Subsequently, and especially in the Paris Bibles of the 13th century, they are found together as a single, combined book after Lamentations.

Esdras

For the Roman Catholic Church and Protestant Churches, Greek Esdras is now considered apocryphal. The Orthodox Church considers it as canonical. The earlier canonical status of this book in the Western church can be less easy to track, as references to

Esdras The name "Esdras" is found in the title of four texts (entitled Ezra, Nehemiah, 1 Esdras, 2 Esdras in most English versions) attributed to, or associated with, the prophet Ezra. The naming convention of the four books of Esdras differs betwee ...

in canon lists and citations may refer either to this book, or to Greek

Ezra–Nehemiah Ezra–Nehemiah (, ) is a book in the Hebrew Bible found in the Ketuvim section, originally with the Hebrew title of Ezra (, ), called Esdras B (Ἔσδρας Βʹ) in the Septuagint. The book covers the period from the fall of Babylon in 539&nbs ...

, or both together. In the surviving Greek pandect Bibles of the 4th and 5th centuries, Greek Esdras always stands as 'Esdras A' while the Greek translation of the whole of canonical Ezra–Nehemiah stands as 'Esdras B'. The same is found in the surviving witness of the Old Latin Bible. When Latin fathers of the early church cite quotations from the biblical 'Book of Ezra' it is overwhelmingly 'First Ezra/Esdras A' to which they refer, as in Augustine 'City of God' 18:36. Citations of the 'Nehemiah' sections of Old Latin Second Ezra/'Esdras B' are much rarer. No Old Latin citations from the 'Ezra' sections of Second Ezra/'Esdras B' are known before

Bede Bede (; ; 672/326 May 735), also known as Saint Bede, Bede of Jarrow, the Venerable Bede, and Bede the Venerable (), was an English monk, author and scholar. He was one of the most known writers during the Early Middle Ages, and his most f ...

in the 8th century. Consequently Gallagher and Meade conclude that "when the ancient canon lists, whether Greek or Latin, mention two books of Esdras, they must have in mind the books known in the LXX and Old Latin as Esdras A and Esdras B; i.e. our 1 Esdras and Ezra-Nehemiah." In his prologue to Ezra Jerome refers to four books of Ezra in the Latin tradition. Jerome's first and second Latin books of Ezra are those of the Old Latin Bible - corresponding to Greek Esdras and Ezra-Nehemiah in the Septuagint. These two books he considers each to be a corrupt version of the single Hebrew book of Ezra, so he claims that his Vulgate version of Ezra from the Hebrew replaces both of them. Jerome condemns the third and fourth Latin books of Ezra as apocrypha. His third book must correspond to the Jewish Apocalypse of Ezra while the fourth book is likely to comprise other material from Latin Ezra. From the 9th century, occasional Latin Vulgate manuscripts are found in which Jerome's single Ezra text is split to form the separate books of

Ezra Ezra ( fl. fifth or fourth century BCE) is the main character of the Book of Ezra. According to the Hebrew Bible, he was an important Jewish scribe (''sofer'') and priest (''kohen'') in the early Second Temple period. In the Greek Septuagint, t ...

and

Nehemiah Nehemiah (; ''Nəḥemyā'', "Yahweh, Yah comforts") is the central figure of the Book of Nehemiah, which describes his work in rebuilding Jerusalem during the Second Temple period as the governor of Yehud Medinata, Persian Judea under Artaxer ...

. In the Paris Bibles of the 13th century this split has become universal, with Esdras A being reintroduced as ' 3 Esdras' and Latin Esdras being added as '4 Esdras'. At the Council of Trent neither ' 3 Esdras' nor ' 4 Esdras' were accepted as canonical books, but were eventually printed in the section of '

' in the Sixto-Clementine Vulgate, along with the Prayer of Manasses. The

in 1546 stated the list of books included in the canon as it had been set out in the

. In respect to the deuterocanonical books this list conformed with the canon lists of Western synods of the late 4th century, other than including Baruch with the Letter of Jeremiah (Baruch chapter 6) as a single book. While the majority at Trent supported this decision there were participants in the minority who disagreed with accepting any other than the protocanonical books in the canon. Among the minority, at Trent, were Cardinals Seripando and Cajetan, the latter an opponent of Luther at Augsburg.

In Eastern Orthodoxy

The

Eastern Orthodox Churches The Eastern Orthodox Church, officially the Orthodox Catholic Church, and also called the Greek Orthodox Church or simply the Orthodox Church, is List of Christian denominations by number of members, one of the three major doctrinal and ...

have traditionally included all the books of the

in their Old Testaments. The Greeks use the word (, "readable, worthy to be read") to describe the books of the Greek

that are not present in the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
. '' The Eastern Orthodox synod, the Synod of Jerusalem, held in 1672 receive as its canon the books found in the

, and in the

Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred on Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Having survived the events that caused the fall of the Western Roman E ...

, and

liturgical Liturgy is the customary public ritual of worship performed by a religious group. As a religious phenomenon, liturgy represents a communal response to and participation in the sacred through activities reflecting praise, thanksgiving, remembra ...

tradition A tradition is a system of beliefs or behaviors (folk custom) passed down within a group of people or society with symbolic meaning or special significance with origins in the past. A component of cultural expressions and folklore, common e ...

. The Synod declared the Eastern Orthodox canon as follows:

specifically, "The Wisdom of Solomon," "Judith," "Tobit," "The History of the Dragon" el and the Dragon "The History of Susanna," "The Maccabees," and "The Wisdom of Sirach." For we judge these also to be with the other genuine Books of Divine Scripture genuine parts of Scripture. For ancient custom, or rather the Catholic Church, which has delivered to us as genuine the Sacred Gospels and the other Books of Scripture, has undoubtedly delivered these also as parts of Scripture, and the denial of these is the rejection of those. And if, perhaps, it seems that not always have all of these been considered on the same level as the others, yet nevertheless these also have been counted and reckoned with the rest of Scripture, both by Synods and by many of the most ancient and eminent Theologians of the Universal Church. All of these we also judge to be Canonical Books, and confess them to be Sacred Scripture.

Other texts printed in Eastern Orthodox Bibles are included as an appendix, which is not the same in all churches; the appendix contains 4 Maccabees in Greek-language bibles, while it contains

in Slavonic-language and Russian-language.

In Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church

In the Bible used by the Eritrean and

es, those books of the Old Testament that are still counted as canonical, but which are not agreed upon by all other Churches, are often set in a separate section titled “deuterocanonical” (ዲዩትሮካኖኒካል). The Ethiopian Orthodox Deuterocanon, in addition to the standard set listed above, and with the books of

and the Prayer of Manasseh, also includes some books that are still held canonical by only the Ethiopian Church, including the

Book of Enoch The Book of Enoch (also 1 Enoch; Hebrew language, Hebrew: סֵפֶר חֲנוֹךְ, ''Sēfer Ḥănōḵ''; , ) is an Second Temple Judaism, ancient Jewish Apocalyptic literature, apocalyptic religious text, ascribed by tradition to the Patriar ...

, the

Book of Jubilees The Book of Jubilees is an ancient Jewish apocryphal text of 50 chapters (1,341 verses), considered canonical by the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, as well as by Haymanot Judaism, a denomination observed by members of Ethiopian Jewish ...

, and the three books of Meqabyan (which are sometimes wrongly confused with the

Books of the Maccabees The Books of the Maccabees or the Sefer HaMakabim (the ''Book of the Maccabees'') recount the history of the Maccabees, the leaders of the Jewish rebellion against the Seleucid dynasty. List of books The Books of the Maccabees refers to canonical ...

). The Book of Enoch is unusual as it was quoted in the New Testament. 1 Enoch 1:9 is directly and explicitly quoted in Jude 1:14-15 and may be alluded to in Galatians 5:19. It is not part of the canon of any other churches.

In Protestantism

For churches which espouse ''

sola scriptura (Latin for 'by scripture alone') is a Christian theological doctrine held by most Protestant Christian denominations, in particular the Lutheran and Reformed traditions, that posits the Bible as the sole infallible source of authority for ...

'' independent of ecclesiastical authorities or

sacred Tradition Sacred tradition, also called holy tradition, Anno Domini tradition or apostolic tradition, is a theological term used in Christian theology. According to this theological position, sacred Tradition and Scripture form one ''deposit'', so sacred T ...

, it is necessary and critical to have a clear and complete list of the canonical books. The

largely relied upon the

in the canonization of the Christian Bible. In the 16th century,

Martin Luther Martin Luther ( ; ; 10 November 1483 – 18 February 1546) was a German priest, Theology, theologian, author, hymnwriter, professor, and former Order of Saint Augustine, Augustinian friar. Luther was the seminal figure of the Reformation, Pr ...

argued that many of the received texts of the New Testament lacked the authority of the Gospels, and therefore proposed removing a number of books from the New Testament, including

Hebrews The Hebrews (; ) were an ancient Semitic-speaking peoples, ancient Semitic-speaking people. Historians mostly consider the Hebrews as synonymous with the Israelites, with the term "Hebrew" denoting an Israelite from the nomadic era, which pre ...

, James, Jude, and the

Book of Revelation The Book of Revelation, also known as the Book of the Apocalypse or the Apocalypse of John, is the final book of the New Testament, and therefore the final book of the Bible#Christian Bible, Christian Bible. Written in Greek language, Greek, ...

. While this proposal was not widely accepted among Protestants, the deuterocanonical books—which had previously been deprecated by Jewish scholars—were moved by Luther into an intertestamental section of the Bible called the

apocrypha Apocrypha () are biblical or related writings not forming part of the accepted canon of scripture, some of which might be of doubtful authorship or authenticity. In Christianity, the word ''apocryphal'' (ἀπόκρυφος) was first applied to ...

Lutherans Lutheranism is a major branch of Protestantism that emerged under the work of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German friar and reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practices of the Catholic Church launched the Reformation in 15 ...

and

Anglicans Anglicanism, also known as Episcopalianism in some countries, is a Western Christianity, Western Christian tradition which developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the ...

do not consider these books to be canonical but do consider them worthy of reverence. As such, readings from the Protestant apocrypha are found in the lectionaries of these churches.

Anabaptist Churches

Anabaptists Anabaptism (from Neo-Latin , from the Greek : 're-' and 'baptism'; , earlier also )Since the middle of the 20th century, the German-speaking world no longer uses the term (translation: "Re-baptizers"), considering it biased. The term (tra ...

use the

Luther Bible The Luther Bible () is a German language Bible translation by the Protestant reformer Martin Luther. A New Testament translation by Luther was first published in September 1522; the completed Bible contained 75 books, including the Old Testament ...

, which contains the Apocrypha as intertestamental books, which has much overlap with the Catholic deuterocanonical books;

Amish The Amish (, also or ; ; ), formally the Old Order Amish, are a group of traditionalist Anabaptism, Anabaptist Christianity, Christian Christian denomination, church fellowships with Swiss people, Swiss and Alsace, Alsatian origins. As they ...

wedding ceremonies include "the retelling of the marriage of Tobias and Sarah in the Apocrypha". The fathers of Anabaptism, such as

Menno Simons Menno Simons (; ; 1496 – 31 January 1561) was a Roman Catholic priest from the Friesland region of the Low Countries who was excommunicated from the Catholic Church and became an influential Anabaptist religious leader. Simons was a contempor ...

, quoted "them he Apocryphawith the same authority and nearly the same frequency as books of the Hebrew Bible" and the texts regarding the martyrdoms under Antiochus IV in

and

are held in high esteem by the Anabaptists, who faced persecution in their history.

Anglican Communion

The Thirty-nine Articles of Religion of the

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the State religion#State churches, established List of Christian denominations, Christian church in England and the Crown Dependencies. It is the mother church of the Anglicanism, Anglican Christian tradition, ...

lists the deuterocanonical books as suitable to be read for "example of life and instruction of manners, but yet doth not apply them to establish any doctrine". The early lectionaries of the Anglican Church (as included in the

Book of Common Prayer The ''Book of Common Prayer'' (BCP) is the title given to a number of related prayer books used in the Anglican Communion and by other Christianity, Christian churches historically related to Anglicanism. The Book of Common Prayer (1549), fi ...

of 1662) included the deuterocanonical books amongst the cycle of readings, and passages from them were used regularly in services (such as the Kyrie Pantokrator and the Benedicite). Readings from the deuterocanonical books are now included in many modern lectionaries in the

Anglican Communion The Anglican Communion is a Christian Full communion, communion consisting of the Church of England and other autocephalous national and regional churches in full communion. The archbishop of Canterbury in England acts as a focus of unity, ...

, based on the Revised Common Lectionary (in turn based on the post-conciliar Roman Catholic

lectionary A lectionary () is a book or listing that contains a collection of scripture readings appointed for Christianity, Christian or Judaism, Jewish worship on a given day or occasion. There are sub-types such as a "gospel lectionary" or evangeliary, ...

), though alternative readings from protocanonical books are also provided. There is a great deal of overlap between the

section of the original 1611

King James Bible The King James Version (KJV), also the King James Bible (KJB) and the Authorized Version (AV), is an Early Modern English translation of the Christian Bible for the Church of England, which was commissioned in 1604 and published in 1611, by ...

and the Catholic deuterocanon, but the two are distinct. The Apocrypha section of the original 1611 King James Bible includes, in addition to the deuterocanonical books, the following three books, which were not included in the list of the canonical books by the

: *

(

3 Esdras) *

(Vulgate 4 Esdras) * Prayer of Manasseh These books make up the

section of the Clementine Vulgate: 3 Esdras (a.k.a. 1 Esdras); 4 Esdras (a.k.a. 2 Esdras); and the Prayer of Manasseh, where they are specifically described as "outside of the series of the canon". The 1609 Douai Bible includes them in an appendix, but they have not been included in English Catholic Bibles since the Challoner revision of the Douai Bible in 1750. Using the word ''apocrypha'' (Greek: "hidden away") to describe texts, although not necessarily pejorative, implies that the writings in question should not be included in the

of the

Bible The Bible is a collection of religious texts that are central to Christianity and Judaism, and esteemed in other Abrahamic religions such as Islam. The Bible is an anthology (a compilation of texts of a variety of forms) originally writt ...

. This classification commingles them with certain non-canonical

gospel Gospel originally meant the Christianity, Christian message ("the gospel"), but in the second century Anno domino, AD the term (, from which the English word originated as a calque) came to be used also for the books in which the message w ...

s and

New Testament apocrypha The New Testament apocrypha (singular apocryphon) are a number of writings by early Christians that give accounts of Jesus and his teachings, the nature of God, or the teachings of his apostles and of their lives. Some of these writings were cit ...

. ''The Society of Biblical Literature'' recommends the use of the term ''deuterocanonical books'' instead of ''Apocrypha'' in academic writing.

Lutheran Churches

Luther termed the deuterocanonical books "Apocrypha, that is, books which are not considered equal to the Holy Scriptures, but are useful and good to read."
The Popular and Critical Bible Encyclopædia and Scriptural Dictionary, Fully Defining and Explaining All Religious Terms, Including Biographical, Geographical, Historical, Archæological and Doctrinal Themes
', p. 521, edited by Samuel Fallows et al., The Howard-Severance company, 1901, 1910. –

Google Books Google Books (previously known as Google Book Search, Google Print, and by its code-name Project Ocean) is a service from Google that searches the full text of books and magazines that Google has scanned, converted to text using optical charac ...

These are included in copies of the

as intertestamental books between the Old Testament and New Testament.

Methodist Churches and Moravian Churches

The first

Methodist Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a Protestant Christianity, Christian Christian tradition, tradition whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and John's brother ...

liturgical book, ''

The Sunday Service of the Methodists ''The Sunday Service of the Methodists'' is the first Christian liturgical book given to the Methodist Churches by their founder, John Wesley. It has its basis in the 1662 ''Book of Common Prayer''. Editions were produced for Methodists in bot ...

'', employs verses from the deuterocanonical books, such as in the Eucharistic liturgy. The Revised Common Lectionary, in use by most mainline Protestants including Methodists and Moravians, lists readings from the deuterocanonical books in the liturgical kalendar, although alternate Old Testament scripture lessons are provided.

Presbyterian Churches

The

Westminster Confession of Faith The Westminster Confession of Faith, or simply the Westminster Confession, is a Reformed confession of faith. Drawn up by the 1646 Westminster Assembly as part of the Westminster Standards to be a confession of the Church of England, it becam ...

, a

Calvinist Reformed Christianity, also called Calvinism, is a major branch of Protestantism that began during the 16th-century Protestant Reformation. In the modern day, it is largely represented by the Continental Reformed Protestantism, Continenta ...

document that serves as a systematic summary of doctrine for the

Church of Scotland The Church of Scotland (CoS; ; ) is a Presbyterian denomination of Christianity that holds the status of the national church in Scotland. It is one of the country's largest, having 245,000 members in 2024 and 259,200 members in 2023. While mem ...

and other

Presbyterian Presbyterianism is a historically Reformed Protestant tradition named for its form of church government by representative assemblies of elders, known as "presbyters". Though other Reformed churches are structurally similar, the word ''Pr ...

Churches worldwide, recognizes only the sixty-six books of the Protestant canon as authentic scripture. Chapter 1, Article 3 of the Confession reads: "The books commonly called Apocrypha, not being of divine inspiration, are no part of the Canon of Scripture; and therefore are of no authority in the Church of God, nor to be any otherwise approved, or made use of, than other human writings."

Reformed Churches

The

Belgic Confession The ''Confession of Faith'', popularly known as the Belgic Confession, is a confession to which many Reformed churches subscribe as a doctrinal standard. The Confession forms part of the Three Forms of Unity, which are the official subordinate st ...

, used in

Reformed churches Reformed Christianity, also called Calvinism, is a major branch of Protestantism that began during the 16th-century Protestant Reformation. In the modern day, it is largely represented by the Continental Reformed Christian, Presbyterian ...

, devotes a section (Article 6) to "the difference between the canonical and apocryphal books" and says of them: "All which the Church may read and take instruction from, so far as they agree with the canonical books; but they are far from having such power and efficacy as that we may from their testimony confirm any point of faith or of the Christian religion; much less to detract from the authority of the other sacred books."

New Testament deuterocanonicals

The term ''deuterocanonical'' is sometimes used to describe the canonical

antilegomena ''Antilegomena'' (from Ancient Greek, Greek ) are written texts whose authenticity or value is disputed. Eusebius in his ''Church History (Eusebius), Church History'' (c. 325) used the term for those Christian scriptures that were "disputed", lite ...

, those books of the

which, like the deuterocanonicals of the Old Testament, were not universally accepted by the early Church. The antilegomena or "disputed writings" were widely read in the Early Church and include: * The

Epistle to the Hebrews The Epistle to the Hebrews () is one of the books of the New Testament. The text does not mention the name of its author, but was traditionally attributed to Paul the Apostle; most of the Ancient Greek manuscripts, the Old Syriac Peshitto and ...

* The

Epistle of James The Epistle of James is a Catholic epistles, general epistle and one of the 21 epistles (didactic letters) in the New Testament. It was written originally in Koine Greek. The epistle aims to reach a wide Jewish audience. It survives in manusc ...

* The Second Epistle of Peter * The

Second Epistle of John The Second Epistle of John is a book of the New Testament attributed to John the Evangelist, traditionally thought to be the author of the other two epistles of John, and the Gospel of John (though this is disputed). Most modern scholars beli ...

* The

Third Epistle of John The Third Epistle of John is the third-to-last book of the New Testament and the Christian Bible as a whole, and attributed to John the Evangelist, traditionally thought to be the author of the Gospel of John and the other two epistles of John ...

* The

Epistle of Jude The Epistle of Jude is the penultimate book of the New Testament and of the Christianity, Christian Bible. The Epistle of Jude claims authorship by Jude the Apostle, Jude, identified as a servant of Jesus and brother of James (and possibly Jesu ...

* The

* The Apocalypse of Peter * The

Acts of Paul The Acts of Paul is one of the major works and earliest pseudepigraphal series from the New Testament apocrypha also known as Acts of the Apostles (genre), Apocryphal Acts. This work is part of a body of literature either about or purporting to ...

* The

Shepherd of Hermas A shepherd is a person who tends, herds, feeds, or guards flocks of sheep. Shepherding is one of the world's oldest occupations; it exists in many parts of the globe, and it is an important part of pastoralist animal husbandry. Because t ...

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Epistle of Barnabas The Epistle of Barnabas () is an early Christian Greek epistle written between AD 70 and AD 135. The complete text is preserved in the 4th-century Codex Sinaiticus, where it appears at the end of the New Testament, following the Book of Revelati ...

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Notes

References

External links

Prophecies in the Deuterocanonical books
by Jimmy Akin

( ttps://web.archive.org/web/20120225151009/https://catholiceducation.org/articles/apologetics/ap0120.html webarchive link
Deuterocanon Use in New Testament
– Full text from Saint Takla Haymanot Church Website (also available, the full text in Arabic)
The Apocrypha: Inspired of God?
{{DEFAULTSORT:Deuterocanonical Books Biblical criticism Development of the Christian biblical canon Christian terminology Ancient Hebrew texts

List of deuterocanonicals

Dates of composition

Historical background

Dead Sea scrolls

Influence of the Septuagint

Influence of early authors

Synods

Influence of Jerome

Masoretic Text

In Judaism

In the Catholic Church

Baruch

Esdras

In Eastern Orthodoxy

In Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church

In Protestantism

Anabaptist Churches

Anglican Communion

Lutheran Churches

Methodist Churches and Moravian Churches

Presbyterian Churches

Reformed Churches

New Testament deuterocanonicals

See also

Notes

References

Further reading

External links