Over the last 500 years, Protestants and Catholics have disagreed over the content of the scriptures. The Catholic Bible contains 7 additional Old Testament books: Tobit, Judith, Wisdom of Solomon, Ecclesiasticus (also known as The Wisdom of Jesus Son of Sirach), Baruch and 1&2 Maccabees. Also found in the Catholic Bible are additions to the books of Esther & Daniel.
The Catholic Church insists that these writings, which they refer to as the deuterocanonical books, must be accepted as inspired scripture. But Protestants do not acknowledge these books as canonical, referring to them as the Apocrypha.
Who is correct? Is the Protestant Bible too small? Have Protestants rejected part of God’s word? Do they deprive themselves of God’s full revelation? Or are Catholics mistaken? Is their Bible too large? Have they added merely human documents to the canon?
Full disclosure: the present author comes from a Protestant background. Readers of this blog know that I’m not afraid to critique my own traditions. But I do believe that the Protestant canon is the correct one. That being said, I hope to address the issue in a way that’s fair to the Catholic position. The subject is perhaps not as clear-cut as either side would wish.
The most compelling question in this: what did the Lord Jesus think constituted the scriptures? The Hebrew canon contains three parts: the Law (Torah), the Prophets (Nevi’im) and the Writings (Ketuvim). In Luke 24, Jesus affirms this tripartite canon: “Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms.” Notably, Jesus had many bitter disagreements with his fellows Jews; but the gospels don’t record any dispute about the content of the scriptures.
The Hebrew canon contains 24 books identical to the 39 books of the Protestant OT. (Remember that the Hebrew Bible combines the twelve minor prophets into a single book; they also regard Samuel, Kings, Chronicles & Ezra-Nehemiah as single volumes rather than splitting these into separate books.)
Some ancient Jews (such as Flavius Josephus) appended Ruth to the book of Judges (since the story of Ruth occurs during the time of the Judges) and Lamentations to Jeremiah (since the prophet Jeremiah also wrote the book of Lamentations). Thus, these Jews counted only 22 books in the canon. But again, it’s the same content, just grouped differently.
Josephus, writing near the end of the first century, explicitly informs us that the Jews recognized 22 books as inspired scripture. He clearly does not include the Apocrypha. Josephus also informs us that the time of divine revelation had ended with the reign of the Persian King Artaxerxes (reigned 464 to 425 BC). We know that Nehemiah returned to Judea in 444 BC to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem and that Malachi prophesied around 430 BC. The Jews regarded these books as the last scriptures to be written.
It was not until centuries later that the Apocrypha were produced. For instance, 1 & 2 Maccabees recount the Jewish rebellion which began in 167 BC. The Maccabees were most likely written around 100 BC or perhaps a bit later. Ecclesiasticus is dated to 180 BC, with a prologue added after 132 BC.
Josephus writes, “It is true, our history has been written since Artaxerxes very particularly but has not been regarded as bearing the same authority with the former by our forefathers, because there has not been an exact succession of prophets since that time.”
Here Josephus explicitly states that the line of authoritative prophets who composed the holy scriptures had ended during the reign of Artaxerxes. Since that time, additional works had been produced, but these writings did not possess the same divine authority.
Josephus also emphasizes that during the four centuries since the scriptures were completed, the contents were regarded as fixed and unchangeable: “For during so many ages as have already passed, no one has been so bold as either to add anything to them [or] to take anything from them.”
These comments provide strong evidence that the Hebrew canon was closed well before the time of Jesus. They also indicate that 1st century Jews were well acquainted with the Apocrypha, but did not attribute the same authority to these works.
Fascinatingly, the authors of the apocryphal books recognize a clear distinction between their own writings and the scriptures. For instance, 1 Maccabees describes a time of great hardship following the death of Judas Maccabeus in 160 BC: “So there was great distress in Israel, the worst since the time when prophets ceased to appear among them.” (1 Macc. 9:27) The writer acknowledges that the time of God’s accredited prophets had ended. Although no specific timetable is given, the language suggests that a considerable amount of time had elapsed.
Later in the book of 1 Maccabees, Simon (the brother of Judas Maccabeus) was appointed governor of the Jews: “The Jews and their priests have resolved that Simon should be their leader and high priest forever, until a trustworthy prophet should arise.” Once again, the author recognizes that no authorized prophet capable of composing sacred scripture was then active in Israel.
The writers of the New Testament directly quote the Hebrew scriptures around 300 times, often using introductory phrases such as “as it is written” or “as the scriptures say.” But the Apocrypha is never quoted as scripture.
The NT does contain a number of allusions (an allusion is not a direct quote but an indirect reference) to the Apocrypha. For instance, Hebrews 11:35 states, “others were tortured, not accepting their release, so that they might obtain a better resurrection.” This verse almost certainly refers to 2 Maccabees 6 & 7 which contains grisly stories of pious Jews who were tortured & killed by Antiochus Epiphanes. The Apostle Paul also alludes to the Wisdom of Solomon in the book of Romans.
However, these examples cannot be used to support the canonical status of the Apocrypha, because the Bible refers to various writings which no Christian would accept as scripture. For example, Jude famously quotes from the pseudepigraphal book of Enoch. In Acts 17, Paul quotes the pagan poet Aratus while preaching in Athens. Like pastors today, the writers of the New Testament used various noncanonical sources to illustrate their point.
Catholics are quite right to point out that the Apocrypha was incorporated into the Greek Septuagint – the Bible of the early church. They are also correct to point out that many of the church fathers quote the Apocrypha as scripture.
However, several key figures never accepted the canonicity of the Apocrypha. Jerome is widely regarded as the greatest scholar of the early church. In 405 AD, he completed a Latin translation of the Bible known as the Vulgate, which effectively became the authorized version of the Catholic Church for well over a thousand years. (The Vulgate’s exalted status was officially confirmed by the Council of Trent in 1546.) But Jerome explicitly rejected the canonicity of the Apocrypha, accepting only the Hebrew scriptures as authoritative.
The Alexandrian scholar Origin (185-254 AD) and Athanasius (293-373 AD), the bishop of Alexandria, only acknowledged the Hebrew scriptures as divinely inspired.
Despite his stance against the Apocrypha, Jerome nonetheless included these works in the Latin Vulgate since they were so well known. Jerome composed prefaces indicating that the Apocrypha should not be given the same authority as sacred scripture. However, Jerome’s prefaces were not always included in later copies and most readers made no distinction between Hebrew scripture & Apocrypha.
From Jerome until the Reformation, the Vulgate was the Bible used by the Catholic Church. Yet during this time period, very few people had direct access to the Bible. Prior to the invention of the printing press (15th century), manuscripts had to be copied by hand and thus Bibles were rare. Additionally, few people outside the church or university could read the Latin Vulgate.
Catholics polemicists often claim that Martin Luther removed 7 books from the Bible. This charge is not without some merit. As we’ve noted, for over a thousand years, the majority of Christians who read the Septuagint and the Vulgate probably accepted the Apocrypha as inspired scripture. But from another point of view, Martin Luther merely removed books which were never in the Hebrew scriptures in the first place.
What are we to think about the Apocrypha today? Many evangelical Christians struggle just to read the Bible. It makes little sense to try and tackle the Apocrypha as well. But serious students of the scriptures can richly benefit from these writings. In particular, 1 & 2 Maccabees provide a wealth of historical knowledge. The Apocrypha can help us comprehend how Jews understood their place in the world just before a young rabbi from Nazareth stepped onto the pages of history.
