Deuterocanonical books

Seven books are accepted as deuterocanonical by all the ancient churches: Tobit, Judith, Baruch, Ecclesiasticus, Wisdom, First and Second Maccabees and also the Greek additions to Esther and Daniel.

[27][3][d] Forms of the term “deuterocanonical” were adopted after the 16th century by the Eastern Orthodox Church 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 to apply to works believed to be of Jewish origin translated in the Old Testament of the Ethiopic Bible, a wider selection still.

The first is the so-called "Decretal of Gelasius", the essential part of which is now generally attributed to a synod convoked by Pope Damasus in the year 382.

The Synod of Hippo (393) and the three of Carthage (393, 397, and 419), in which, doubtless, Augustine was the leading spirit, found it necessary to deal explicitly with the question of the Canon, and drew up identical lists from which no sacred books are excluded.

)[52] Pope Innocent I (405 AD) sent a letter to the bishop of Toulouse citing deuterocanonical books as a part of the Old Testament canon.

Moreover, the epistle of Jude and two of the above-mentioned (or, bearing the name of) John are counted (or, used) in the catholic [Church]; and [the book of] Wisdom, written by the friends of Solomon in his honour.

[57][58] According to Decretum Gelasianum, which is a work written by an anonymous scholar between 519 and 553, the Council of Rome (382 AD) cites a list of books of scripture presented as having been made canonical.

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.

[69]The Council of Trent (1546) adopted an understanding of the canons of these previous councils as corresponding to its own list of deuterocanonical books: Of the Old Testament, the five books of Moses, namely, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy; Josue, Judges, Ruth, the four books of Kings [1 Samuel, 2 Samuel, 1 Kings, 2 Kings], two of Paralipomenon [1 Chronicles, 2 Chronicles], the first and second of Esdras [Ezra, Nehemiah], Tobias, Judith, Esther, Job, the Davidic Psalter of 150 Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, the Canticle of Canticles [Song of Songs], Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Isaias, Jeremias, with Baruch, Ezechiel, Daniel, the twelve minor Prophets, namely, Osee, Joel, Amos, Abdias, Jonas, Micheas, Nahum, Habacuc, Sophonias, Aggeus, Zacharias, Malachias; two books of Machabees, the first and second.

He mentions Baruch by name in his Prologue to Jeremiah[71] and notes that it is neither read nor held among the Hebrews, but does not explicitly call it apocryphal or "not in the canon".

[74][75][76] 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.

But when I repeat what the Jews say against the Story of Susanna and the Hymn of the Three Children, and the fables of Bel and the Dragon, which are not contained in the Hebrew Bible, the man who makes this a charge against me proves himself to be a fool and a slanderer; for I explained not what I thought but what they commonly say against us.

[83] Deuterocanonical and Apocryphal books included in the Latin Vulgate are:[84] The existence of the Septuagint, Samaritan Pentateuch, and the Peshitta 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 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.

Albert J. Sundberg writes that Judaism did not exclude from their scriptures the deuterocanonicals and the additional Greek texts listed here.

[91] The Septuagint translation of the Hebrew Bible into Greek, which the early Christian church used as its Old Testament, included all of the deuterocanonical books.

[97] Protestant theologian Philip Schaff 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.

"[98] Schaff says that this canon remained undisturbed till the 16th century, and was sanctioned by the Council of Trent at its fourth session,[98] although as the Catholic Encyclopedia 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.

[103] 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.

When Eastern Orthodox theologians use the term "deuterocanonical", it is important to note that the meaning is not identical to the Roman Catholic usage.

In Eastern Orthodox Christianity, deuterocanonical means that a book is part of the corpus of the Old Testament (i.e. is read during the services) but has secondary authority.

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.

For churches which espouse sola scriptura independent of ecclesiastical authorities or sacred Tradition, it is necessary and critical to have a clear and complete list of the canonical books.

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.

[124] The Thirty-nine Articles of Religion of the Church of England 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".

[128] There is a great deal of overlap between the Apocrypha section of the original 1611 King James Bible and the Catholic deuterocanon, but the two are distinct.

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 canon of the Bible.

[133] 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.

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.