Development of the Old Testament canon

Martin Luther, holding to concurrent Jewish and some ancient precedent,[1] excluded all deuterocanonical books from the Old Testament of his translation of the Bible, placing them in a section he labeled "Apocrypha" ("hidden").

The Westminster Confession of Faith, published in 1647, was one of the first Reformed confessions in the English language to exclude the Apocrypha from the Bible, leading to the removal of these books in later Nonconformist Protestant Bible publications in the English-speaking world, though Lutherans and Anglicans retained these books as an intertestamental section that are regarded as non-canonical but useful for instruction.

It is true, our history hath been written since Artaxerxes very particularly, but hath not been esteemed of the like authority with the former by our forefathers, because there hath not been an exact succession of prophets since that time; and how firmly we have given credit to these books of our own nation is evident by what we do; for during so many ages as have already passed, no one has been so bold as either to add any thing to them, to take any thing from them, or to make any change in them; but it is become natural to all Jews immediately, and from their very birth, to esteem these books to contain Divine doctrines, and to persist in them, and, if occasion be willingly to die for them.Josephus mentions Ezra and Nehemiah in Antiquities of the Jews (Book XI, Chapter 5) and Esther (during the rule of Artaxerxes) in Chapter 6.

[18] In 1871, Heinrich Graetz concluded that there had been a Council of Jamnia (or Yavne in Hebrew) which had decided Jewish canon sometime in the late 1st century (c. 70–90).

While the Hebrew text was, according to Irenaeus, at that time interpreted by Theodotion and Aquila (both proselytes of the Jewish faith) as a young woman that shall conceive.

From Irenaeus' point of view that was pure heresy, facilitated by (late) anti-Christian alterations of the scripture in Hebrew, as evident by the older, pre-Christian, Septuagint.

[46] According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, "the inferior rank to which the deuteros were relegated by authorities like Origen, Athanasius, and Jerome, was due to too rigid a 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', to borrow Jerome's phrase.

According to J. N. D. Kelly, "It should be observed that the Old Testament thus admitted as authoritative in the Church… always included, though with varying degrees of recognition, the so-called Apocrypha or deuterocanonical books.

[22][53] Irenaeus wrote: With different perspective, Tertullian said: Everett Ferguson, in chapter 18 of The Canon Debate, makes a note that: "[Wolfram] Kinzig suggests that it was Marcion who usually called his Bible testamentum [Latin for testament]".

1 Esdras, Ezra-Nehemiah, Baruch and Letter of Jeremiah are also missing in Sinaiticus, but it cannot be determined whether this is intentional, or whether they were originally present in pages that are no longer extant.

"[76] Albeit that users of the two lists will have differed slightly in applying them, in that the 'first book of Ezra' in the Old Latin version was commonly cited as representing the canonical book of Ezra in the 4th and 5th centuries; while the corresponding Latin version of 3 Esdras found in the Vulgate tradition in the 16th century was not to be recognised as canonical in the Council of Trent.

[90] In his Vulgate's prologues, Jerome argued for Veritas Hebraica, meaning the truth of the Hebrew text over the Septuagint and Old Latin translations.

[93] In his reply to Rufinus, he 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: Michael Barber asserts that, although Jerome was once suspicious of the apocrypha, he later viewed them as Scripture.

[104] Augustine refers to both these texts when says: "and the two of Ezra, which last look more like a sequel to the continuous regular history which terminates with the books of Kings and Chronicles.

[118] The Decretum Gelasianum which is a work written by an anonymous scholar between 519 and 553 contains a list of books of Scripture presented as having been made Canonical by the Council of Rome (382 AD).

[120] John of Damascus accepted as canonical the Tanakh and said that the books of Sirach and Wisdom of Solomon "are virtuous and noble, but are not counted nor were they placed in the ark.

In the Latin West Pope Innocent I (405 AD) identifies the sixteen prophets (four major, plus 12 minor) as canonical, but does not specifically mention Baruch as associated with Jeremiah.

The Decretum Gelasianum, which is a work written by an anonymous Latin scholar between 519 and 553, contains a list of books of Scripture presented as having been declared canonical by the Council of Rome (382 AD).

The first Christian writer to reject the biblical Book of Baruch in its entirety (whether as a separate work, or as part of Jeremiah) is Jerome.

[138] The 7th century pandect Vulgate bible Codex Amiatinus, which was produced for presentation to the Pope as a comprehensive collection of canonical scriptures, omits both the Book of Baruch and the Letter of Jeremiah.

This form of text was then followed in printed Vulgate bibles of the 15th and 16th centuries, and is reflected in the biblical canon of the Council of Trent.

[2][3][140] The Roman Catholic Church uses them to support the doctrine of Purgatory, for prayers and Masses for the dead (2 Macc 12:43–45), and for the efficacy of good works in attaining salvation (Tobit 12:9; Sirach 7:33).

The Council of Trent on April 8, 1546, approved the enforcement of the present Catholic Bible canon including the deuterocanonical books as an article of faith and the decision was confirmed by an anathema by vote (24 yea, 15 nay, 16 abstain).

[146] 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.

[147]On 2 June 1927, Pope Pius XI decreed that the Comma Johanneum of the New Testament was open to dispute; on 3 September 1943, Pope Pius XII reiterated the teaching of the Church in Divino afflante Spiritu, reaffirming that Catholic translations of the Bible in vernacular languages, based on Aramaic, Greek, and Hebrew texts, had been allowed by the Church since the time of the Council of Trent.

[144][2][140] With the Restoration of the Monarchy to Charles II of England (1660–1685), the Church of England was once again governed by the Thirty-Nine Articles, as printed in the Book of Common Prayer (1662), which explicitly excludes the non-canonical Apocrypha from the inspired writings as unsuitable for forming doctrine, while eirenically conceding them value for education so permitting public reading and study.

Lessons from the Apocrypha are regularly appointed to be read in the daily, Sunday, and special services of Morning and Evening Prayer.

[156] They use the word Anagignoskomena (Ἀναγιγνωσκόμενα "readable, worthy to be read") to describe the books of the Greek Septuagint that are not present in the Hebrew Tanakh.

[157] Other texts printed in Orthodox Bibles are considered of some value (like the additional Psalm 151, and the Prayer of Manasseh) or are included as an appendix (like the Greek 4 Maccabees, and the Slavonic 2 Esdras).

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.