Hebrew Bible
- genesis
- Exodus
- Leviticus
- numbers
- deuteronomy
- joshua
- judges
- ruth
- 1-2 samuel
- 1-2 kings
- 1-2 chronicles
- ezra
- nehemiah
- esther
- work
- psalms
- proverbs
- ecclesiastes
- song of solomon (song of songs)
- isaias
- jeremiah
- lamentations
- ezekiel
- daniel
- other minor prophets
The deuterocanonical books of the Bible are books considered by the Roman Catholic Church and Eastern Orthodoxy to be canonical parts of the Christian Old Testament, but are not present in the Hebrew Bible. the word deuterocanonical comes from the Greek and means ‘belonging to the second canon’. the etymology of the word is misleading, but indicates the hesitancy with which some accepted these books into the canon. note that the term does not mean non-canon; despite this, it has sometimes been used as a euphemism for the Apocrypha.
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Protestant Christians do not generally classify any text as “deuterocanonical”; they omit them from the bible or include them in a section called apocrypha. the similarity between these different terms contributes to the confusion between the Roman Catholic and Orthodox deuterocanon and texts considered non-canonical by other groups of Christians.
catholicism
deuterocanonical is a term first coined in 1566 by the converted Jew and Catholic theologian Sixtus of Siena to describe Old Testament biblical texts whose canonicity was defined for Catholics by the Council of Trent, but that it had been omitted from some of the early canons, especially in the east. their acceptance among early Christians was not universal, but regional councils in the west published official canons that included these books as early as the fourth and fifth centuries.[1]
The deuterocanonical biblical texts are:
- tobit
- judith
- additions to esther (vulgate esther 10:4-16:24, but see also esther in the new american bible)
- wisdom
- ben sira, also called sirac or ecclesiastic
- baruch, including the letter of jeremiah (additions to jeremiah in the septuagint[2])
- additions to daniel:
- song of the three children (vulgate daniel 3:24-90)
- story of susanna (vulgate daniel 13, prologue to the septuagint)
- the idol bel and the dragon (vulgate daniel 14, septuagint epilogue)
there is a lot of overlap between the apocryphal section of the 1611 king james bible and the catholic deuterocanon, but the two are distinct. the apocryphal section of the king james bible includes, in addition to the deuterocanonical books, the following three books, which were not declared canonical by trent:
- 1 esdras (also known as 3 esdras)
- 2 esdras (also known as 4 esdras)
- prayer of manasseh
These three books alone make up the apocryphal section of the Clementine Vulgate, where they are specifically described as “outside the canon series”. The 1609 Douai Bible includes them in an appendix, but they are not included in recent Catholic Bibles. they are found, along with the deuterocanonical books, in the apocryphal section of the Protestant bibles.
influence of the septuagint
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The vast majority of Old Testament references in the New Testament are taken from the Greek Septuagint, which includes the Deuterocanonical and Apocryphal books, which are collectively called the anagignoskomena. several appear to have been originally written in Hebrew, but the original text has long since been lost. However, archaeological finds from the last century have provided a text for nearly two-thirds of Sirach’s book, and fragments of other books have also been found. The Septuagint was widely accepted and used by first-century Jews, even in the region of the Roman province of Iudaea, and thus naturally became the most widely used text by early Christians.
in the new testament, Hebrews 11:35 refers to an event that was only recorded explicitly in one of the deuterocanonical books (2 Maccabees 7). even more revealing, 1 cor 15:29 “what will those do who are baptized for the dead, if the dead rise by no means? why then are they baptized for the dead?”, is an allusion to 2 macabees 12 :44, “for if he did not expect the fallen to rise again, it would have been useless and foolish to pray for them in death.” 1 cor 15:29 is an obvious reference to suffering to help the dead to be freed from their sins.
however, josephus (a jewish historian) completely rejected the deuterocanonical books,[3] while athanasius believed that they were useful for reading, but that, with the exception of baruch and the letter of jeremiah, they were not in the fee.[ 4]
vulgate influence
Jerome in his prologues[5] describes a canon that excludes the deuterocanonical books, possibly accepting baruch.[6] however, Jerome’s vulgate did include the deuterocanonical books as well as the apocryphal books. he referred to them as biblical and cited them despite describing them as “not in canon”. in his foreword to judith, without using the word canon, he mentioned that the first council of nicaea considered judith to be scriptural.[7] In his response to Rufinus, he strongly defended the deuterocanonical portions of Daniel, even though the Jews of his day did not:
thus Jerome recognized the principle by which the canon was established: the judgment of the church, rather than his own judgment or the judgment of the Jews.
The vulgate is also important as a touchstone for which books are canonical. when the council of trent listed the books included in the canon, it called the books “whole with all their parts, as used to be read in the catholic church, and as contained in the old Latin vulgate edition”.[8] ]
term used outside of Catholicism
Using the word apocryphal (Greek: “hidden”) to describe texts, while not necessarily pejorative, implies to some people that the writings in question should not be included in the biblical canon. this classification associates them with certain other New Testament Gospels and Apocrypha. the style manual for the society of biblical literature recommends the use of the term deuterocanonical literature instead of apocryphal in scholarly writing.
outside Roman Catholicism, the term deuterocanonical is sometimes used, by way of analogy, to describe books that Eastern Orthodoxy and Eastern Orthodoxy included in the Old Testament that are not part of the tanakh Jewish, nor the Protestant Old Testament. Among the Orthodox, the term is understood to mean that they were composed after the Hebrew Bible.
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In the Amharic Bible used by the Ethiopian Orthodox Church (an Eastern Orthodox Church), Old Testament books that are still counted as canonical, but not by all other churches, are often found in a separate section titled ‘ “deeyutrokanoneekal”‘, which is the same word. these books include, in addition to the standard set listed above, some books that are still canonical only by the Ethiopian church, including henok (i enoch) and kufale (book of jubilees) . however, the “books of the Maccabees” found there are completely different works from those used by any other church, with no resemblance apart from the titles.
eastern orthodoxy
The Eastern Orthodox Church has traditionally included all the books of the Septuagint in its Old Testament. regional differences have generally been based on different variations of the Septuagint.
The Greeks use the word anagignoskomena to describe those books of the Greek Septuagint that are not present in the Hebrew tanakh. These books include the entire Roman Catholic deuterocanon mentioned above, plus the following additional texts:
- 3 Maccabees
- 4 Maccabees
- 1 Esdras (also included in the Clementine Vulgate)
- odes including Manasseh’s prayer
- psalm 151
Like the Catholic deuterocanonical books, these texts are integrated with the rest of the Old Testament, not printed in a separate section. most protestant versions of the bible exclude these books. It was once widely believed that Judaism officially excluded the deuterocanonical and additional Greek texts listed here from its writings at the Council of Jamnia around AD 100, but this claim is disputed today.[9]
The various orthodox churches generally include these (originally Greek) texts, with some adding the Psalms of Solomon. In these churches, 4 Maccabees is often relegated to an appendix, because it has certain tendencies that are close to pagan thought.
In Ethiopian Orthodoxy, a denominational family within Eastern Orthodoxy, there is also a strong tradition of studying the Book of Enoch and the Book of Jubilees. enoch is mentioned by the author of the book judas of the new testament (1:14-15).
new testament
The term deuterocanonical is sometimes used to describe the canonical antilegomena, those New Testament books which, like the Old Testament deuterocanonicals, were not universally accepted by the early church, but are now included in the 27 books of the new testament recognized by almost all Christians. the deuterocanonicals of the new testament are the following:
- the book of hebrews
- the second epistle of peter
- the second epistle of john
- the third epistle of john
- the epistle of james
- the epistle of judas
- the apocalypse of john
notes
references
- anonymous. deuterocanonical books of the apocryphal bible. hard press, 2006. isbn 978-1406941807
- metzger, bruce. Revised Standard Version Apocryphal/Deuterocanonical Books. william b. eerdmans, 1983.
- reiterator, friedrich v. (ed.). Deuterocanonical and related literature: yearbook. walter de gruyter inc., 2004. isbn 978-3110180183
- xeravits, geza, and jozef zsengeller (eds.). the book of tobit: text, tradition, theology. brill academic publishers, 2005. isbn 978-9004143760
external links
all links retrieved on July 26, 2022.
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- old testament canon
- deuterocanonical books: full text from saint takla haymanot church website (full text also available in arabic).