People don’t talk much about deuterocanon these days. the people who do are mostly Christians, and they generally fall into two general groups: Catholics, who generally don’t know their bibles very well and therefore don’t know much about the deuterocanonical books, and Protestants, who may know their bibles a little better, although their bibles don’t have the deuterocanonical books in them anyway, so they don’t know anything about them either. With the stage set for an informed ecumenical dialogue, it’s no surprise that most people think of Deuterocanon as some kind of particle weapon recently perfected by the Pentagon.
the deuterocanon (i.e. “second canon”) is a set of seven books: sirac, tobit, wisdom, judith, 1 and 2 macabees, and baruch, as well as longer versions of daniel and esther, found in the Old Testament canon used by Catholics, but they are not in the Old Testament canon used by Protestants, who generally refer to them by the mildly pejorative term “Apocrypha”. this group of books is called “deuterocanonical” not (as some imagine) because they are a “second-rate” or lower canon, but because their status as part of the scriptural canon was established later than certain books that always and everywhere Parts were considered scripture, such as Genesis, Isaiah, and Psalms.
You are reading: When were 7 books removed from the bible
Why are these books missing from Protestant bibles? Protestants offer various explanations for why they reject the deuterocanonical books as scripture. I call these explanations “myths” because they are wrong or simply inadequate reasons to reject these scripture books. Let’s explore the five most common of these myths and see how to respond to them.
myth 1
The deuterocanonical books are not found in the Hebrew Bible. They were added by the Catholic Church at the Council of Trent after Luther rejected them.
The background of this theory is as follows: Jesus and the apostles, being Jews, used the same bible that the Jews use today. However, after they left the scene, the confused hierarchs began adding books to the bible, either out of ignorance or because these books helped support various wacky catholic traditions that were added to the gospel. in the 16th century, when the reformation came, the early protestants, finally able to read their bibles without the ecclesial propaganda of rome, noted that the jewish and catholic old testaments differed, recognized this medieval addition for what it was, and scraped it from the word of god like so many barnacles of a diamond. Always grumpy, Rome reacted by officially adding the deuterocanonical books at the Council of Trent (1545-1563) and began telling Catholics that “they had always been there.”
This is a good theory. the problem is that its base in history is very thin. As we’ll see in a moment, accepting this myth leads to some notable dilemmas a little later.
The problems with this theory are first, it is based on the incorrect notion that the modern jewish bible is identical to the bible used by jesus and the apostles. This is false. In fact, the Old Testament was still in flux at the time of Christ and there was no fixed canon of writing in the Apostolic period. Some people will tell you that it must have existed since, they say, Jesus made people responsible for obeying the scriptures. but this is also false. because, in fact, jesus held people responsible for obeying their conscience, and therefore for obeying scripture to the extent that they could understand what constituted “scripture.”
consider the Sadducees. they only considered the first five books of the old testament as inspired and canonical. The rest of the Old Testament was viewed by them in the same way that Deuterocanon is viewed by Protestant Christians today: nice, but not the inspired word of God. this is precisely why the sadducees argued with jesus against the reality of the resurrection in matthew 22:23-33: they could not see it in the five books of moses and did not consider the later books of scripture that spoke of it explicitly (like isaiah and 2 Maccabees) to be inspired and canonical. Jesus tells them “you are very wrong, ignoring Isaiah and 2 Maccabees”? Does he force them to recognize these books as canonical? No. he’s not trying to drag the kicking, screaming Sadducees into an expanded Old Testament. he simply holds the Sadducees accountable for taking seriously the portion of scripture they acknowledge: that is, he argues for the resurrection based on the five books of the law. but of course this does not mean that jesus commits himself to the reduced canon of the sadducees.
When addressing the Pharisees, another Jewish faction of the time, Jesus does the same thing. these Jews seem to have held a canon similar to the modern Jewish canon, one much larger than that of the Sadducees but not as large as other Jewish collections of scripture. That is why Christ and the apostles did not hesitate to argue with them from the books they recognized as scripture. But as with the Sadducees, this does not imply that Christ or the apostles limited the canon of scripture to only what the Pharisees recognized.
when the lord and his apostles addressed the greek-speaking diaspora jews, they made use of an even larger collection of scriptures: the septuagint, a translation of the hebrew scriptures into greek, which many jews (the vast majority , in fact) regarded as inspired scripture. In fact, we find that the New Testament is full of references to the Septuagint (and its particular translation of various Old Testament passages) as scripture. It is a strange irony that one of the favorite passages used in anti-Catholic polemics over the years is Mark 7:6-8. In this passage, Christ condemns “teaching human traditions as doctrines.” This verse has formed the basis of countless complaints against the Catholic Church for allegedly “adding” man-made traditions, such as the “merely human works” of the Deuterocanonical books, to Scripture. but few realize that in mark 7:6-8 the lord was quoting the version of isaiah found only in the 70s version of the old testament.
but therein lies the problem: the septuagint version of scripture, from which christ quoted, includes the deuterocanonical books, books that were supposedly “added” by rome in the 16th century. and this is by no means the only quote from the septuagint in the new testament. In fact, two-thirds of the Old Testament passages quoted in the New Testament are from the Septuagint. so why are the deuterocanonical books not in the jewish bible today? because the Jews who formulated the modern Jewish canon were a) not interested in apostolic teaching, and b) driven by a very different set of concerns from those that motivate the apostolic community.
In fact, it was not until the end of the apostolic era that the Jews, seeking a new focal point for their religious practice after the destruction of the temple, focused with great intensity on the scriptures and fixed their canon on meeting rabbinic, known as the “council of chavneh” (sometimes called “jamnia”), circa 20 AD 90. Prior to this point in time, there was never any formal effort among Jews to “define the canon” of scripture. in fact, the scriptures nowhere indicate that the Jews had any conscious idea that the canon should be closed at some point.
the canon the rabbis arrived at in chavneh was essentially the medium-sized canon of the palestinian pharisees, not the shorter one used by the sadducees, who had been all but annihilated during the jewish war with rome. this new canon was also not consistent with the Greek version of the Septuagint, which the rabbis regarded rather xenophobically as “too gentile”. remember, these palestinian rabbis were in no mood for multiculturalism after the catastrophe they had suffered at the hands of rome. its people had been massacred by foreign invaders, the temple desecrated and destroyed, and the Jewish religion in Palestine was in ruins. so for these rabbis, the Greek Septuagint went overboard and the medium-sized Pharisaic canon was adopted. eventually, this version was adopted by the vast majority of Jews, though not by all. Even today, Ethiopian Jews still use the Septuagint version, not the shorter Palestinian canon established by the rabbis in Chavneh. In other words, the Old Testament canon recognized by Ethiopian Jews is identical to the Catholic Old Testament, including the seven deuterocanonical books (cf. Encyclopedia Judaica, vol. 6, p. 1147).
But remember that by the time of the Javneh Jewish Council, the Catholic Church had existed and used the Septuagint scriptures in its teaching, preaching and worship for almost 60 years, just as the Apostles had. so the church felt no more an obligation to conform to the wishes of the rabbis in excluding the deuterocanonical books than it felt an obligation to follow the rabbis in rejecting the writings of the new testament. the fact is that after the birth of the church on the day of pentecost, the rabbis no longer had the authority from god to resolve such matters. That authority, including the authority to define the canon of scripture, had been given to the church of Christ.
Thus, the church and the synagogue went their separate ways, not in the middle ages or the sixteenth century, but in the first century. The Septuagint, complete with the Deuterocanonical books, was first adopted, not by the Council of Trent, but by Jesus of Nazareth and his apostles.
myth 2
Christ and the apostles frequently cited the Old Testament scriptures as their authority, but they never cited the deuterocanonical books, or even mentioned them. clearly, if these books were part of the scriptures, the lord would have quoted them.
This myth is based on two fallacies. the first is the “citation equals canonicity” myth. It assumes that if a book is quoted or alluded to by the Apostles or Christ, it is ipso facto shown to be part of the Old Testament. conversely, if a given book is not cited, it must not be canonical.
This argument fails for two reasons. First, numerous non-canonical books are cited in the New Testament. These include the Book of Enoch and the Assumption of Moses (quoted by St. Jude), the Ascension of Isaiah (alluded to in Hebrews 11:37), and the writings of the pagan poets Epimenides, Aratus, and Menander (quoted by St. Paul in Acts , 1 Corinthians and Titus). if citation equals canonicity, then why are these writings not in the OT canon?
Second, if citation equals canonicity, then there are numerous proto-canonical Old Testament books that would have to be excluded. This would include the Song of Songs, Ecclesiastes, Esther, Obadiah, Zephaniah, Judges, 1 Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, Lamentations, and Nahum. Not a single one of these Old Testament books is quoted or alluded to by Christ or the Apostles in the New Testament.
The other fallacy behind myth #2 is that, far from being ignored in the New Testament (such as Ecclesiastes, Esther, and 1 Chronicles), the Deuterocanonical books are indeed cited and alluded to in the New Testament. Wisdom 2:12-20, for example, says in part, “For if the righteous be a son of God, he will defend him and deliver him out of the hand of his enemies. Try so that we may have proof of his meekness and test his patience. let us condemn him to a shameful death, because according to his own words, god will take care of him.”
This passage was clearly on the minds of the synoptic gospel writers in their accounts of the crucifixion: “He saved others; he cannot save himself. so he is the king of israel! let him descend now from the cross, and we will believe in him. he trusted in god; let him free him now if he wants him. because he said: ‘i am a son of god'” (cf. matthew 27:42-43).
Similarly, st. Paul clearly alludes to Wisdom chapters 12 and 13 in Romans 1:19-25. Hebrews 11:35 unequivocally refers to 2 Maccabees 7. And more than once, Christ himself relied on the text of Ecclesiasticus 27:6, which says: “The fruit of a tree shows the care that has been taken, so also the It speaks of a man revealing the bent of his mind”. Note also that the Lord and his Apostles observed the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah (cf. John 10:22-36). but the divine establishment of this key holiday is recorded only in the deuterocanonical books of 1 and 2 Maccabees. it is not discussed in any other book of the old testament. in light of this, consider the importance of christ’s words on the occasion of this feast: “is it not written in your law: ‘i have said that you are gods’? and the scripture cannot be broken: what about whom the father set apart as his own and sent into the world? Jesus, standing near the temple during the Hanukkah festival, speaks of being “set apart,” just as Judas Maccabee “set apart” (i.e., consecrated) the temple in 1 Maccabees 4:36-59 and 2 Maccabees 10:1 – 8. in other words, our lord made a connection that was unmistakable to his jewish listeners by treating the festival of hanukkah and the account of it in the books of macabees as a picture or type of his own consecration by the father. that is, it treats the Hanukkah festival of the so-called “apocryphal” books of 1 and 2 Maccabees exactly as it treats the accounts of the manna (John 6:32-33; Exodus 16:4), the bronze serpent (John 3:14 ; numbers 21:4-9), and Jacob’s ladder (John 1:51; Genesis 28:12), as inspired, prophetic, and biblical images of himself. We see this pattern throughout the New Testament. there is no distinction made by christ or the apostles between the deuterocanonical books and the rest of the old testament.
myth 3
the deuterocanonical books contain historical, geographical and moral errors, so they cannot be inspired scriptures.
this myth could arise when it becomes clear that the claim that the deuterocanonical books were “added” by the catholic church is a fallacy. this myth is based on another attempt to distinguish between the deuterocanonical books and the “true scriptures”. let’s examine it.
first, from a certain perspective, there are “errors” in the deuterocanonical books. Judith’s book, for example, gets several points wrong in history and geography. Similarly, Judith, that glorious daughter of Israel, is decapitated (well, actually, it is the head of the evil king Holofernes that is decapitated). and the angel raphael appears under a false name to tobit. how can Catholics explain that such “divinely inspired” books support the lie and are wrong in their facts? just as we deal with other incidents in scripture where similar incidents of lies or “mistakes” occur.
Let’s first take up the problem of alleged “errors of fact”. The church teaches that to have an authentic understanding of scripture we must consider what the author was really trying to assert, how he was trying to assert it, and what is incidental to that assertion.
for example, when jesus begins the parable of the prodigal son by saying: “once upon a time there was a man with two sons”, he is not showing himself to be a bad historian when it is proven that the man with two sons he describes does not really exist . So too, when Nathan the prophet tells King David the story of the “rich man” who stole a “poor man’s” sheep and slaughtered it, Nathan is not a liar if he cannot show the carcass or identify the two men in his story . strictly speaking, there was no lamb, no theft, neither rich nor poor. These details were used in a metaphor to rebuke King David for his adultery with Bathsheba. we know what nathan was trying to say and how he was trying to say it. likewise, when the gospels say that the women arrived at the tomb at dawn, there is no scientific error here. this is not the claim of the Ptolemaic theory that the sun revolves around the earth. These and other examples that could be given are not “mistakes” because they are not truth statements about astronomy or historical events.
Similarly, both Judith and Tobit have a number of historical and geographical errors, not because they are presenting bad history and wrong geography, but because they are first-rate pious histories that do not claim to be even remotely interested in teaching history. or geography, just as the resurrection narratives in the gospels are not interested in astronomy. In fact, the author of Tobit goes out of his way to make it clear that his hero is fictional. He has Ahiqar’s uncle bitten, a figure in ancient Semitic folklore such as “jack the giant slayer” or “aladdin”. just as one wouldn’t wave a medieval history textbook and complain about a tale that begins “Once upon a time when king arthur ruled the earth,” so catholics aren’t reading tobit and judith to get a history lesson. /p>
Very well then, but what about moral and theological “mistakes”? judith lies rafael gives a false name. so they do. In the case of Judith lying to King Holofernes to save the people from him, we must remember that he was acting in light of Jewish understanding as it had developed up to that point. this meant that he viewed his deception as acceptable, even laudable, because he was eliminating a deadly enemy from his people. in misleading holofernes as to his intentions and asking the lord to bless this tactic, he was not doing something alien to jewish scripture or old testament morality. Another biblical example of this type of lying is when the Hebrew midwives lied to Pharaoh about the birth of Moses. they lied and were justified in lying because Pharaoh had no right to the truth; If they had told the truth, he would have killed Moses. if the book of judith is to be excluded from the canon on this basis, exodus must also be excluded.
regarding raphael, it is much more doubtful that the author intended, or that his audience understood him to mean, “angels lie. so do you”. Rather, Tobit is a classic example of a story of “inadvertently entertaining angels” (cf. Heb. 13:2). we know who rafael is all the time. When Tobit cried out to God for help, God immediately responded by sending Raphael. But, as is often the case, God’s deliverance was not noticed at first. Raphael introduced himself as “azariah,” meaning “yahweh helps,” and then recited a series of alleged mutual relationships, all with names meaning things like “yahweh is merciful,” “yahweh gives,” and “yahweh hears.” by this device, the author is saying (with a nudge and a wink), “psst, audience. got it?” and we, of course, understand it, particularly if we are reading the story in the original Hebrew. in fact, by using the name “yahweh help”, rafael is not “lying” about his real name, but is revealing the deeper truth about who god is and why god sent him to tobit. It is that truth and not some nonsense about history or geography or the fun of using an alias that the author of Tobit purports to tell.
myth 4
The deuterocanonical books themselves deny that they are inspired scriptures.
correction: two of the deuterocanonical books seem to deny inspiration, and even that is a risky proposition. the two in question are sirac and 2 macabees. sirach begins with a brief preface by the author’s grandson saying, in part, that he is translating grandfather’s book, that he believes the book is important, and that “therefore you are now invited to read it in a spirit of attentive goodwill.” with indulgence.” for any apparent failure on our part, despite serious efforts, in the interpretation of particular passages.” Similarly, the editor of 2 Maccabees begins with comments about how difficult the book was to compose, and closes with a sort of shrug shoulders saying, “here too I will finish my own story. if it’s well written and to the point.” , that’s what I wanted; if it’s poorly done and mediocre, that’s the best I could do.”
See Also: Best Book Series for 7th Graders (12 Year Olds) – Imagination Soup
that, and that alone, is the basis for the myth that deuterocanon (all seven books and not just these two) “denies that it is inspired writing”. Several things can be said in response to this argument.
First, is it reasonable to think that these typical Eastern expressions of humility really constitute more than a kind of polite gesture and the custom of downplaying one’s own talents, something common among ancient writers in Middle Eastern cultures? ? No. for example, one can also say that st. Paul’s declaration of himself as “abnormally born” or as the “chief of sinners” (he mentions it in the present tense, not the past tense) necessarily renders his writing worthless.
second, speaking of st. Paul, we are faced with even stronger and more explicit examples of disclaimers regarding the inspired status of his writings, yet no Protestant would feel compelled to exclude these Pauline writings from the New Testament canon. consider his statement in 1 corinthians 1:16 that he cannot remember whom he baptized. using the “should sound more like the holy spirit speaking” criterion of biblical inspiration, protestants apply to the deuterocanonical books, st. Paul would fail the test here. given this amazing criterion, are we to believe that the holy spirit “forgot” whom st. paul baptized, or inspired st. paul forget (1 cor. 1:15)?
1 Corinthians 7:40 provides an ambiguous statement that could, according to the principles of this myth, be understood to mean that st. Paul wasn’t sure if his teaching was inspired or not. elsewhere st. Paul makes it clear that certain teachings he is transmitting are “not I, but the Lord” speaking (1 Cor. 7:10), while in other cases, “I, not the Lord” am speaking (cf. 1 Cor. 7). ). :12). this is a much more direct “rejection of inspiration” than the oblique deuterocanonical passages quoted above, yet no one argues that st. Paul’s writings should be excluded from scripture, as some say the entire Deuterocanon should be excluded from the Old Testament, simply on the strength of these modest passages from Sirach and 2 Maccabees.
why not? because in st. in paul’s case, people recognize that a writer may be writing under inspiration even when he is unaware and unclaimed, and that inspiration is not such a silly matter as the “direct dictation” of holy spirit to the Author. . in fact, we even acknowledge that the spirit can inspire writers to make true statements about themselves, as when st. Paul tells the Corinthians that he couldn’t remember whom he had baptized.
to modify the old proverb, “what is gravy to the apostolic goose is gravy to the deuterocanonical goose”. the writers of the deuterocanonical books can tell the truth about themselves: that they think writing is difficult, translating is difficult, and that they are not sure they have done a great job, without such admissions calling into question the inspired status of what they say . wrote. this myth proves nothing more than the catholic doctrine that the books of holy scripture were really composed by human beings who remained fully human and free, even when they wrote under the direct inspiration of god.
myth 5
early church fathers like st. athanasius and saint jerome (who translated the official bible of the catholic church), rejected the deuterocanonical books as scripture, and the catholic church added these books to the canon at the council of trent.
first, no church father is infallible. that charism is reserved solely to the pope, in an extraordinary sense, and, in an ordinary sense, corporately to all legitimate bishops of the catholic church who are in full communion with the pope and are definitively teaching at an ecumenical council. Second, our understanding of the doctrine develops. this means that doctrines that may not have been clearly defined are sometimes defined. a classic example of this is the doctrine of the trinity, which was not defined until 10 AD. 325 at the Council of Nicaea, nearly 300 years after Christ’s earthly ministry. In the intervening time, we can find some fathers writing before Nicea who, in good faith, expressed theories about the nature of divinity that became inadequate after Nicea’s definition. this does not make them heretics. it just means that michael jordan misses layups from time to time. Likewise, the canon of scripture, though more or less assuming its current form, which included the deuterocanonical books, around A.D. 380, however, was not dogmatically defined by the church for another thousand years. In those thousand years, the stakes were high for believers to have some flexibility in how they viewed the canon. And this applies to the handful of church fathers and theologians who expressed reservations about deuterocanon. his private opinions on deuterocanon were just that: private opinions.
and finally, this myth begins to disintegrate when you point out that the overwhelming majority of the church fathers and other early christian writers considered the deuterocanonical books to have exactly the same biblical and inspired status as the other books of the old testament. Just a few examples of this acceptance can be found in the Didache, the Epistle of Barnabas, the Council of Rome, the Council of Hippopotamus, the Third Council of Carthage, the African Code, the Apostolic Constitutions, and the writings of Pope St. clement i (epistle to the corinthians), st. polycarp of izmir, st. Irenaeus of Lyons, St. hippolytus, st. Cyprian of Carthage, Pope St. damaso i, the , st. Augustine and Pope St. innocent me.
but last and most interesting of all in this stellar lineup is a certain father already mentioned: st. jerome in his later years st. Jerome actually accepted the deuterocanonical books of the bible. In fact, he ended up vigorously defending its status as inspired scripture, writing: “What sin have I committed if I followed the judgment of the churches? of the three children, and the story of bel and the dragon, which are not found in the Hebrew (i.e. canon) volume, proves that he is only a sycophantic fool. [the Jews] use to do against us” (contra rufinus 11:33 [402 a.d.]). In an earlier correspondence with Pope Damasus, Jerome did not call the books deuterocanonical nonbiblical, he simply said that the Jews he knew did not consider them canonical. but for himself, he recognized the authority of the church in defining the canon. when pope damasus and the councils of carthage and hippopotamus included deuterocanon in the scriptures, that was enough for st. Jerome he “followed the judgment of the churches.”
martin luther, however, did not. And this brings us to the “remarkable dilemmas” I referred to at the beginning of this article of trusting the private views of the Protestant Reformers on Deuterocanon. The fact is, if we follow luther in discarding the deuterocanonical books despite the overwhelming evidence of history that shows we shouldn’t (i.e. the unbroken tradition of the church and the teachings of councils and popes), we get a lot more than what was negotiated.
because luther also threw away a good part of the new testament. Of James, for example, he said, “I do not regard it as the writing of an apostle,” because he believed that “it is squarely against St. Paul and all other scriptures in attributing justification to works” (preface to James’ epistle). likewise, in other writings he underscores this rejection of james of the new testament, calling it “an epistle full of straw … because it has nothing of the nature of the gospel” (preface to the new testament).
But the epistle of James was not the only casualty on Luther’s blacklist. he also removed Hebrews, Jude, and Revelation from the canon, consigning them to near-canonical status. it was only by an accident of history that these books were not expelled by new testament protestantism like sirac, tobias, 1 and 2 macabees and the rest were expelled from the old. similarly, it is largely ignorance of this sad story that leads many to reject the deuterocanonical books.
Unless, of course, we reject the myths and realize what the canon of scripture is really based on, including the deuterocanonical books. The only basis we have for determining the canon of scripture is the authority of the church established by Christ, through which the scriptures came. like st. Jerome said that it is on the basis of the “judgment of the churches” and no other that the canon of scripture is known, since the scriptures are simply the written portion of the apostolic tradition of the church. and the judgment of the churches is issued throughout history as passed in acts 15 by means of a council of bishops in union with st. peter the books we have in our bibles were accepted according to whether or not they lived up to standards based entirely on sacred tradition and the divinely delegated authority of the body of christ in council and in union with peter.
the fact is that neither the council of trent nor the council of florence added anything to the canon of the old testament. rather, they simply accepted and formally ratified the ancient practice of the apostles and early christians in dogmatically defining a collection of old testament scriptures (including deuterocanon) that had been there since before the time of christ, used by our lord and his apostles, inherited and assumed by the fathers, formulated and reiterated by various councils and popes for centuries and read in the liturgy and prayer for 1500 years.
when certain people decided to cut part of this canon to suit their theological views, the church moved to prevent it by defining (both in florence and in trento) that this very canon was, in fact, the canon of the old testament of the church and always has been.
far from adding the books to the authentic canon of scripture, the catholic church simply went to great lengths to prevent people from subtracting books that belong there. that’s not a myth that’s history.
See Also: Who Is A In The Pretty Little Liars Books? Best Update 2022