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Deuterocanonical books is a term used to describe certain books and parts of books of the Bible. It is a Catholic theological term sometimes applied by way of analogy to the canons of non-catholic Christians. The word deuterocanonical comes from the Greek meaning 'second canon', although such etimology does not apply in the full sense of the words as this term simply means that they were disputed books in the early church. Canonization is the official acceptance of authority and standardization of a text.

The term apocryphal is sometimes used pejoratively, leading to the use of deuterocanonical as a euphemism. This euphemistic use of deuterocanonical contributes to the confusion between the deuterocanon and the Apocrypha.

Catholicism

Deuterocanonical books is a term first coined in 1566 by Catholic theologian Sixtus of Sienna to describe those books of the Old Testament decreed to be canonical by the Council of Trent but which were not universally considered canonical by the early Church. The term is in distiction to protocanonical, which describes those books of the Old Testament which were accepted by almost all Christians from the very first. Deuterocanonical is not used to describe books considered to be non-canonical.

The deuterocanonical books of the Old Testament, and parts of books, are:

There is a great deal of overlap between the Apocrypha of the King James Bible and the Catholic deuterocanon, but the two are distinct. The Apocrypha of the King James Bible typically includes, in addition to the works above, the following three books, which are not in the Catholic canon.

Anaginoskomena and Other Books

Outside of Roman Catholicism, the term deuterocanonical is sometimes used, by way of analogy, to describe books that Eastern Orthodoxy, and Oriental Orthodoxy include in the Old Testament that are not part of the Jewish Tanakh, nor the Protestant Old Testament. Among Orthodox, the term is understood to mean that they were composed later than the Hebrew Bible. The Greeks use the word Anaginoskomena to describe those books of the Greek Septuagint which are not present in the Hebrew Tanakh.

Like the Tanakh, most Protestant Bible versions exclude these books, although they were included in the original King James version as the Apocrypha1611 King James Version including Apocrypha. They were also included in the original Luther's Bible, although in a separate section, until he exclude them altogether in later versions. Their acceptance among early Christians was not universal. As early as the Council of Rome in 382, the Catholic Church published an official canon that included these books. The large majority of Old Testament references in the New Testament are taken from the Greek Septuagint which includes the deuterocanonical books. In the New Testament, Hebrews 11:35 refers to an event that was only explicitly recorded in one of the deuterocanonical books (2 Maccabees 7). However, Josephus (a Jewish historian) completely rejected the deuterocanonical books, while Athanasius (except for the Baruch) and Jerome (during his early years) believed that they were useful for reading, but that they should not be in the canon.

Using the word apocrypha (Greek: hidden away) to describe texts, although not necessarily pejorative, implies to some people that the writings in question should not be included in the Bible. This classification commingles them with certain other gospels and New Testament Apocrypha. The Style Manual for the Society of Biblical Literature recommends the use of the term deuterocanonical literature instead of Apocrypha in academic writing.

The Prayer of Manasses, and 1 and 2 Esdras were included in the 1609 Douai Bible in an appendix. They are not included in recent Catholic Bibles. They are found, along with the deuterocanonical books, in the Apocrypha section of Protestant bibles.

The various Orthodox churches include a few others, often including 3 Maccabees, Psalm 151, 1 Esdras, Odes, Psalms of Solomon, and occasionally even 4 Maccabees. This last book is often relegated to an appendix, because it has certain tendencies approaching pagan thought.

There is also a strong tradition of studying the Book of Enoch and the Book of Jubilees in Ethiopian Orthodoxy, a denominational family in Oriental Orthodoxy. Enoch is mentioned by the author of the New Testament book Jude(1:14-15).

Most Septuagint manuscripts include the deuterocanonical books and passages. Like the New Testament, the deuterocanonical books were mostly written in Greek. Several appear to have been written originally in Hebrew, but the original text has long been lost. Archeological finds in the last century, however, have provided a text of almost 2/3 of the book of Sirach, and fragments of other books have been found as well. The Septuagint was widely accepted and used by Jews in the first century, even in the region of Roman Iudaea Province, and therefore naturally became the text most widely used by early Christians.

New Testament

The term deuterocanonical is sometimes used to describe those books of the New Testament which, just as the deuterocanonicals of the Old Testament, were not universally accepted by the early Church, but which are now included in the 27 books of the New Testament recognized by almost all Christians. The deuterocanonicals of the New Testament are as follows:

For more information concerning the development of the New Testament canon, see the article Biblical canon.

See also

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References

Deuterocanonical books | Bible

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