Canonicity

Here is a question for you: Was God’s Word dropped from heaven, with sixty-six books finely bound together in Moroccan leather, gilt-edged, red-lettered, thumb-indexed, with study-notes, maps and concordance?

in genres of historical narrative, law, poetry, proverbs, songs, drama, prophecy, epistles, and apocalypse,

Eventually – and providentially – all of that came together in our sixty-six-book Bible. In this chapter we will consider the why and how of that process. Specifically, why did these 66 books end up comprising our Scripture, and how did it happen? That is the process we call “Canonization.”

Definition

Our word “canon” is derived from the Greek word kanōn, which originally meant “reed” or “rod”. Later a few derivative senses emerged, like “a measuring rod,” and still later “a rule or standard” in a metaphorical sense (Gal. 6:16).

Sometime around A. D. 350, Athanasius used the word, kanōn, in reference to the inspired Scripture, as the rule, or standard, or measurement, of all things spiritual.

Canon, then, is the collection of inspired writings that constitute the authoritative and final norm, rule or standard of faith and practice for churches and believers. The canon is the specific writings of God’s prophets that comprise the authoritative voice of God to the church.

Inspiration addresses the origin and nature of God’s Word. Canonicity addresses the composition of it. It answers the question, which books are inspired and authoritative? Which books constitute the standard for what I believe and how I live?

Differences in the Canon

Over the centuries different elements of the church have identified different canons for themselves. A brief (and very general) consideration is presented here.

The ancient Hebrew people identified twenty-four books as the authoritative Word of God. Actually this is the same as our 39 book Old Testament, only arranged and counted differently (e.g., one book of the Minor Prophets instead of twelve, etc.). They spoke of them in three categories: The Law, the Prophets, and the Writings.^¹

• The Writings (11) Psalms, Proverbs, Job, Song of Solomon, Ruth^², Lamentations², Ecclesiastes, Esther, Daniel, Ezra- Nehemiah, and Chronicles

2. The Protestant Canon – 66 books

3. The Roman Catholic Canon – 73 books

46 Old Testament books (the 39 Protestant OT books, plus: Tobit, Ecclesiasticus, Judith, Baruch/Sirach, Wisdom of Solomon, and 1 & 2 Maccabees)

4. The Greek Orthodox Canon – 76 books

5. The Slavonic Canon – 77 books

Others

add 1 Enoch, the epistles of Clement, or other books. Recently, a friend suggested to me that we should have 98 books in the canon, and he would omit James, Jude, Jonah, 1 & 2 Chronicles, and others. How does one get ninety-eight by subtraction? He added dozens of other books.

Clearly there exists no uniform recognition of canonical books in professing Christendom. Is that a fatal flaw in the doctrine of canonicity? Certainly not! It just makes it that much more important that we study the history of discovering, or recognizing, the canon. This is crucial! The canon (by whichever books you define it) is the foundation for our convictions (in doctrine and practice). If the foundation falters, how shall the house stand?

Discovery of the Canon

Were there identifiable developments that compelled the church to clarify what books are canonical? Indeed there were. First, the early church needed to identify the right documents for reading and preaching in worship. The apostolic instruction was for the churches to “give attention to the public reading of Scripture” (1 Tim. 4:13) and for leaders to “preach the Word” (2 Tim. 4:2). But that begged the question, what qualifies as Scripture to be read and the Word to be preached?

Second, in the early centuries the church encountered various doctrinal disputes. Many of these concerned the Trinity and the deity of Christ. The resolution of these disputes was in part governed by the teaching of Scripture. Church leaders often built their arguments on revealed truth. Which books could they cite authoritatively?

A third cause was attempts by heretics, like Marcion, to set forth an authoritative collection. Marcion, in the mid-second century A.D., proposed a canon limited to Luke’s Gospel (edited and reduced) and ten of Paul’s epistles. This demanded a response from the church.

A fourth cause for the church discovering and articulating the canon was the early church persecution, particularly under Diocletian (A.D. 303). Diocletian wanted Christians and their sacred writings destroyed. At such points in church history it was at risk of life that anyone owned copies of Scripture. Consider this: Are you willing to die for the possession of Tobit? Of Psalms? Would you risk your life and your family to possess a manuscript of the Gospel of John? Of Baruch?

On the basis of what criteria did the early church conclude a book to be canonical? We can reasonably point to several criteria that were considered.

1. Authorship. Was the book written by a prophet? In the case of a New Testament book, was it written by an apostle or the close associate of an apostle (e.g. Mark was an associate of Peter, and Luke was an associate of Paul)?

2. Agreement. Does it agree with the other revealed truth of God? If it is contradictory of recognized Scripture, then it is not of God. When Ecclesiasticus teaches there is atonement in almsgiving, we must deny its place in the canon.

3. Acceptance. Was it received by the people of God? For the Old Testament, did the Hebrew people and the early church accept it? For the New Testament, did the early church accept it? This test recognizes the self-attestation (or Holy Spirit-attestation) of God’s Word. Jesus said, “My sheep hear My voice,” and “when He, the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all the truth.” It should not surprise us that early Christians heard the voice of God speak the truth from the papyrus and parchment of inspired texts.

It is very important that we understand that the course of discovery was not limited to official church councils. The councils merely confirmed the consensus of the church. Bruce Metzger observed,

“ the canon was not the result of a series of contests involving church politics. The canon is rather the separation that came about because of the intuitive insight of Christian believers. They could hear the voice of the Good Shepherd in the gospel of John; they could hear it only in a … distorted way in the Gospel of Thomas…

When the pronouncement [of councils] was made about the canon, it merely ratified what the general sensitivity of the church had already determined. You see, the canon is a list of authoritative books more than it is an authoritative list of books. These documents didn’t derive their authority from being selected; each one was authoritative before anyone gathered them together. The early church merely listened and sensed that these were authoritative accounts.

For somebody now to say that the canon emerged only after councils and synods made these pronouncements would be like saying, ‘Let’s get several academies of musicians to make a pronouncement that the music of Bach and Beethoven is wonderful.’ I would say, ‘Thanks for nothing! We knew that before the pronouncement was made.’ We know it because of sensitivity to what is good music and what is not. The same with the canon.” ^³

The Hebrew canon of twenty-four books was identified early and without significant dispute. Likewise, the early church readily accepted the twenty-four books of the Hebrew Scripture as canonical. A handful of disputed books and the issue of the Apocrypha are addressed below.

There were three stages in the course of discovering the New Testament canon. The first stage was that of circulation and collection (A.D. 70-170). At first, the books circulated individually. Then partial gatherings began to appear. The earliest gatherings were the four gospels in a codex (our book format as contrasted with a scroll format). Then the Pauline epistles began to circulate in a codex, and still later the general epistles with Acts.^⁴

The second stage of discovering the New Testament canon was that of confirmation and separation (170-303). Here, the canonical books were confirmed and separated from the others. There was substantial agreement on the canonical books, and a growing distinction between the canonical and so-called ecclesiastical books (the latter having historical value for the church). In the third century, Origen, in his Homilies on Joshua, described our twenty-seven books as the trumpets of Christ: “So too our Lord Jesus Christ … sent His apostles as priests carrying well-wrought trumpets. First Matthew sounded the priestly trumpet in his gospel. Mark also, and Luke, and John…. Peter moreover sounds with the two trumpets of his Epistles; James also and Jude… and John gives forth the trumpet sound through his Epistles and Revelation; and Luke while describing the deeds of the apostles. Latest of all… [Paul] thundering on the fourteen trumpets of his Epistles, threw down, even to the very foundations, the walls of Jericho.”^⁵

The sudden advance of Christianity under Emperor Constantine was significant in the East’s recognition of the New Testament books. Around 330 B.C., Constantine assigned Eusebius, the historian, the task of preparing “fifty copies of the Divine Scriptures.” Those fifty copies surely contained the New Testament in our twenty-seven books, as identified by Eusebius in his History.^⁶

In A.D. 367 Athanasius, in his festal (Easter) letter, identified our twenty-seven New Testament books as canonical. “These [books] are the fountains of salvation, that he who thirsts may be satisfied with the living words they contain. In these alone the teaching of godliness is proclaimed. Let no one add to these; let nothing be taken away from them.”

Constantine’s conversion also allowed for the convening of numerous church councils, all of which confirmed our New Testament. These included: the Council of Hippo (A.D. 393), which was the first formal ratification of the 27 books; the 3^rd Council of Carthage (A.D. 397); and the 6^th Council of Carthage (A.D. 419).

books were occasionally debated as to their canonical status. Hebrews was sometimes questioned because of its unknown authorship. The authorship of 2 Peter, James, 2 and 3 John, and Jude were occasionally disputed, but usually accepted. And the authorship of Revelation was sometimes questioned. It is important to remember that there were pseudepigraphal writings in that day, which were usually falsely identified as of apostolic origin. Thus, any representation of authorship had to be questioned.

Many other books were considered, but rejected from the NT canon. These included the Gospel of Thomas, the Epistle to the Laodiceans, the Gospel of Nicodemus, the Epistle of Barnabas, and the Shepherd of Hermas.

A good illustration of why a book was excluded is The Gospel of Thomas. A relative once complained to me that the church, historically-speaking, had been very selective in defining its Bible. I responded, “Actually, God defined the Bible. The church simply discovered it, with the help of His Spirit’s providential guidance. But yes, the church was very selective. The early church used appropriate criteria to identify the Bible.” After I explained that criteria to him he asked why the Gospel of Thomas wasn’t included. I was not prepared to answer him at that time. Needless to say, I subsequently did some study on it.

The Gospel of Thomas was discovered in Egypt in 1945 on a 5^th Century Coptic manuscript. It seems to have had its origin in Syria in the middle of the 2^nd century A.D. It contains no narrative but 114 sayings attributed to Jesus, “the secret words which the living Jesus spoke and Didymus Judas Thomas wrote down.” Its content is both pantheistic and strongly anti-female. For example, Jesus is quoted as saying of Mary, “Lo, I shall lead her in order to make her male, so that she too may become a living spirit, resembling you males. For every woman who makes herself male will enter the kingdom of heaven.” Statements like these turned away the discerning eyes of Spirit-led Christians.

There was very few issues among the people of Israel regarding the identity of their canon. And there was very little dispute in the early church about the Old Testament books. Ecclesiastes was occasionally disputed because of its alleged pessimism and Epicureanism. The Song of Solomon was thought by some to be too sensual. Esther was sometimes questioned because it fails to mention the name of God. Proverbs was sometimes an issue because some of the maxims seemed contradictory (cf. 26:4-5). And finally, a few Jewish scholars thought Ezekiel’s description of the temple in his latter chapters differed from the temple of Jerusalem built by Zerrubabel.^⁷

In A.D. 90, a collection of Jewish scholars at Jamnia discussed the canonicity of Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs and Esther. The recent scholar, F. F. Bruce, observed, “the upshot of the Jamnia debates was the firm acknowledgement of all these books as Holy Scripture.”^⁸

Among the many books rejected from the OT canon were those called Pseudepigraphal (“false writings”). There are as many as fifty-two of these books, written under assumed names of biblical characters such as Moses, Enoch and others. In Jude 14-16 Jude quotes the pseudepigraphal book of Enoch. The book of Enoch was not referenced as inspired (and hence canonical). It is merely quoted as a true statement by Jude as we today might recognize truth in some statements of Augustine, Luther, or C. S. Lewis.

The Apocrypha is fourteen books written between 200 B.C. and A.D. 100, mainly by Alexandrian Jews. They were eventually included (in varying forms) in some manuscripts of the Septuagint. The Jews never saw them as canonical, but some believers in the early western church did. Eventually the Roman Catholic and Eastern Churches embraced most of them as canonical. They are important sources for intertestamental Jewish history (e.g., the Feast of Dedication in John 10 celebrates an event recorded in 1 Maccabees).

Recently I have seen an emerging interest in broadening the canon to include apocryphal books. This concerns me. In particular, I have observed a phenomenon that I will call “canonical relativism”. It says, “You research this matter yourself, and come to your own conclusion. We don’t really need to agree with one another. You have your own canon, I’ll have my own canon, and we’ll all live happily ever after.” That sounds so sweet and wholesome. The problem with it is it amounts to nothing more than a theological imprecision and ambiguity that threatens the very foundation of our beliefs. We are dealing with the source of truth that sets men, women, and children free. Truth frees, and error binds. We must be careful to point people to the inerrant, sanctifying truth of the Word of God. That is the one and only canon. We must not be comfortable with family, friends, or anybody embracing as truth various false teachings about the person or work of Christ, purgatory, or praying to the saints. There is one canon defined by God wherein is found redemptive truth. We must stand firmly on this issue.

Historically, Protestants excluded the Apocrypha from the canon. Although it was included in early printed English Bibles, it was usually included with an express qualification that it is noncanonical writings of historical value.^⁹ There were good reasons for its exclusion.

Why was the Apocrypha excluded from the Protestant canon? I will suggest several reasons.

1. The Apocrypha was never included in the Hebrew canon. The Jewish historian Josephus (A.D. 95) confirmed this. He said, “We have… only twenty-two books, which contain the records of all time, and are justly believed to be divine.” He then explicitly excluded the Apocrypha, saying, “From Artaxerxes to our own times a complete history has been written, but is not esteemed equally authoritative with the books already mentioned, because of the failure of the exact succession of the prophets.”^¹⁰ In other words, the Apocrypha was not regarded as canonical because it was not written by prophets.

Some argue that the Alexandrian Jews accepted the Apocrypha, offering as evidence the fact that the earliest complete manuscripts we have of the Septuagint include the Apocryphal books. In effect, they argue that we have two Jewish canons, the Palestinian canon of twenty-four books, and the larger Greek or Alexandrian canon that includes the Apocrypha. The problem with this argument is that those complete Septuagint manuscripts are from a much later time (4^th century A.D.). We don’t know whether the apocrypha was included in earlier Jewish gatherings of the Septuagint.

In fact, Dr. F. F. Bruce states there is no evidence that the Jews (neither Hebrew nor Greek speaking) ever accepted a wider canon than the twenty-two books of the Hebrew OT. He argues that when the Christian community took over the Greek OT some early Christians added the Apocrypha to it and "gave some measure of scriptural status to them also”. ^¹¹

Even the eminent Jewish scholar Philo of Alexandria, who used the LXX, never quotes from the Apocrypha. One would think that if the Greek Jews had accepted the additional books, he would have used them authoritatively. But he clearly did not regard them as such.

The inescapable conclusion is that there is no evidence that the Jews (neither Hebrew nor Greek speaking) ever accepted a wider canon than the twenty-four books of the Hebrew OT.

2. Jesus and the New Testament writers never formally quoted from the Apocrypha. Its influence is seen in occasional reference, but it is never quoted in an authoritative manner (i.e., with an introductory formula like: “it is written, …”; “God says, …”, etc.).

A mere reference without a canonical introduction is not persuasive. The New Testament writers sometimes allude to, or even quote, works that we do not claim to be inspired. For example, Paul may be thinking of the book of Wisdom (a book not even in the Apocrypha) when he wrote the first few chapters of Romans. And what of the much clearer reference in Jude 14 to 1 Enoch 1:9, which we do not receive as inspired? Or consider Jude’s possible use of a work called the Assumption of Moses that appears to be referenced in Jude 9? Why do we not assert the canonicity of this work? Then there is Paul's occasional, but undeniable, use of Greek authors to make a point. In Acts 17:28 Paul quotes line five from Aratus' Phaenomena; and in 1 Corinthians 15:33 he quotes from Menander's comedy, Thais. Yet, no one claims canonical status for these works. So mere inclusion or reference to a literary work does not argue for its canonicity.

3. The Apocryphal books make no claim of being inspired Scripture. In fact, 1 Maccabees states that the days of the prophets were past. If it and the other Apocryphal books were not written by

prophets, they are not canonical. And the writers of Sirach (prologue) and 2 Macabees (2:24-43; 15:38-40) indicate they were not inspired.

4. The great majority of early church fathers (with the notable exception of an ambiguous Augustine^¹² and a few others) rejected the Apocrypha. That number included Melito of Sardis, Origen, Athanasius, Gregory of Nazianzus, and Jerome.

The early church did not see it as canonical. And the apocryphal presence in some early church Septuagints is certainly not persuasive, because those manuscripts are late (4^th century) and are very inconsistent in their inclusion of apocryphal books. The three oldest complete copies we have of the Greek OT include different additional books. Codex Vaticanus (4th century) omits 1 and 2 Maccabees, which are canonical according to the Roman Catholic Church, and includes 1 Esdras, which they reject. Codex Sinaiticus (4th century) leaves out Baruch, which is supposedly canonical, but includes 4 Maccabees, which is universally excluded. Codex Alexandrinus (a 5th century manuscript) includes three non-canonical Apocryphal books, 1 Esdras and 3 and 4 Maccabees. So the Apocrypha’s inclusion in fourth century Bibles is very inconsistent and suspect.^¹³

5. Jerome, arguably the greatest scholar of the early church, in his Latin Vulgate, rejected the Apocrypha as “not in the canon” and “not for establishing the authority of the doctrines of the church.”^¹⁴ Jerome’s well-studied conclusion was that while the early church fathers sometimes included some apocryphal books in gatherings of Scripture, they and the Jews distinguished “canonical books” from “ecclesiastical books,” the latter being helpful to understand the history of the intertestamental period.^¹⁵ Jerome eventually made a hurried translation of them, but he kept them separate from his translation of the Bible. Later, others inserted it in the Vulgate, but Jerome’s opposition was clear.

Jerome’s opinion has since been generally respected by scholars and church leaders. In fact, Gregory the Great, the pope in A.D. 600, described the Apocrypha as “though not canonical, yet published for the edification of the church.”

6. The Apocrypha contains historical, chronological, and geographical errors. For example, Tobit...contains certain historical and geographical errors such as the assumption that Sennacherib was the son of Shalmaneser (1:15) instead of Sargon II, and that Nineveh was captured by Nebuchadnezzar and Ahasuerus (14:15) instead of by Nabopolassar and Cyaxares.

Also in Tobit, it is written that in Tobit’s youth the ten tribes revolted under Jeroboam (1:4, 5), which was in about 925 B.C., but that he was alive after the captivity of the ten tribes, which took place in 725 B.C. That span covers 200 years, but Tobit says he died when he was 158 years old (14:11). How can one die at 158 years of age, but live at two times 200 years part?

In Judith, Holofernes is described as the general of “Nebuchadnezzar who ruled over the Assyrians in the great city of Ninevah” (1:1). In point of fact, Holofernes was a Persian general, and Nebuchadnezzar was king over the Babylonians in Babylon.

7. The Roman Catholic Church did not officially accept the Apocrypha until 1546 at the Council of Trent.^¹⁶ Why then? The answer is that Trent was a response to the Reformation. The Apocrypha supports various beliefs and practices disputed by Luther and other reformers. Those disputed matters could not be supported by our sixty-six books, but they found support in the apocryphal books. For example, the Apocrypha supports:

8. The description of the Hebrew canon in its three divisions preceded the Apocrypha, as evidenced by the reference to “the Law, and the Prophets, and the other books of the fathers” in the prologue to Ecclesiasticus (c. 130 B.C.). Jesus seems to equate “Scripture” with that Hebrew canon in its three-fold division. He said, “This is what I told you while I was still with you. Everything must be fulfilled that is written about Me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms.”^¹⁷ Then He opened their minds so that they could understand the Scriptures. (Luke 24:44). This clear identification (and limitation) of “the Scriptures” with the three-fold Jewish canon is a compelling argument for excluding the Apocrypha.

9. Jesus clearly sees the Old Testament ending with the book of Chronicles, which is the last book in the Hebrew canon. He said, " Therefore, behold, I am sending you prophets and wise men and scribes; some of them you will kill and crucify, and some of them you will scourge in your synagogues, and persecute from city to city, so that upon you may fall the guilt of all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, the son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar.” (Mt. 23:34-35)

“All the righteous blood shed on earth” is intended to be all-encompassing. Specifically, Abel is the first martyr in the Bible, his murder being recorded in Genesis 4, the first book of the Scriptures. Zechariah’s murder is recorded in 2 Chronicles, the last book in the Hebrew canon. Jesus seems to identify those two books as the beginning

and the end of recorded Scripture, which would mean He did not consider the subsequent Apocrypha as part of their inspired record.

blood of all the prophets shed since the foundation of the world….” He then uses the same parameters, “from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah….” Zechariah is the last OT prophet murdered in the canon, if the canon ends at 2 Chronicles. Jesus seems to indicate that the prophetic voice of God ceased with 2 Chronicles, the end of the Hebrew canon.^¹⁸ Inasmuch as prophetic origin was a key criteria in recognizing the canon, this would exclude the apocryphal books, from the canon.

Clearly Jesus sees the Hebrew Scripture of 24 books (Genesis – 2 Chronicles) as the extent of the authoritative, prophetic canon. This is another very compelling argument for excluding the Apocrypha.

Does all of this mean that the Apocrypha has no value? No. To the contrary, the Apocrypha has great value in two respects. First, the Apocrypha is the best source of historical information about the Jewish people of the intertestamental period. Second, the Apocrypha is a

rguably the most popular and inspirational devotional reading (outside the canon) in all of church history. It contains many examples of godly living and perseverance in times of adversity. But it is not God-breathed like the canonical books.

God in His grace has given us an extraordinary gift in His Word, to reveal Himself, to birth spiritual life, to grow the virtues of faith, hope and love, and to equip us for lives of joy and impact. In His providence and by His Spirit’s inner confirmation, He has led the church to distinguish the sixty-six God-breathed books that comprise our canon from all other books, however good and virtuous those others may be.

The Apocrypha in Early

(pre-17^th cent.) English Bibles

In discussions concerning the Apocrypha, I have often heard statements like, “the early English Protestant Bibles all contained eighty books. In fact, the Bible of Protestant Christianity contained eighty books up until 1885. The Bible of Spurgeon, Moody, Jonathon Edwards, George Whitefield, John Wesley, and John Newton contained eighty books.” Are such statements true? That depends. If by “Bible” one means all the paper (or parchment) and ink between the covers, then the statements are mostly true. But if by “Bible” he means the books consciously accepted by people as inspired by God and carrying divine authority, then the statements are false.

The earliest English Bibles usually included the apocryphal books. They were, however, almost always accompanied by qualifying statements that such books were profitable for understanding the history of the intertestamental period and seeing examples of godly living, but were not of equal authority as those books called canonical, and were not to be used to establish doctrine.

What follows is a survey of how English Bibles before the seventeenth century treated the Apocrypha.

Wycliffite Bibles

The early Wycliffite Bibles, both the initial 1384 translation and the 1395 revision, included the apocryphal books. That should not surprise us – they were part of the Vulgate, from which those versions were translated. The “General Prologue” to the second version (Purvey’s) contains a strong commendation of the book of “Tobias” (Tobit) because of the encouragement it offered to Lollard believers who were persecuted. There was, however, a recognition of Jerome’s distinction between those books which might be used for the confirmation of doctrine and those which were used only for ethical lessons: “Though the book of Tobias is not of belief, it is a full devout story, and profitable to the simple people, to make them keep patience and God’s hests” (i.e. behests). The point is that the book of Tobias should not be used to establish doctrine (belief), but is profitable for examples of patient endurance in the context of adversity and persecution.

1534 Luther Bible

Though not an English Bible, the influence of Luther on the development of the English Bible cannot be overstated. In this, his first complete Bible, Luther included the apocryphal books as a collection separate from the other Old Testament books. The section was entitled: “The Apocrypha: Books which are not to be held equal to holy scripture, but are useful and good to read.”

1535 Coverdale Bible

In this, the first printed English Bible, Coverdale followed Luther’s example of separating the apocryphal books from the rest of the Old Testament. His title page read, “Apocripha: the bokes and treatises which amonge the fathers of old are not rekened to be of like authorite with the other bokes of the byble, nether are they founde in the Canon of Hebrue.” The next page was an introduction indicating the inferior authority of these books: “These bokes (good reader) which be called Apocrypha, are not indged (sic) amonge the doctors to be of like reputacion with the other scripture…. And the chief cause thereof is this: there be many places in them that seme to be repugnaunt unto the open and manifest trueth in the other bokes of the byble…. As for soch dreames, visions and hard sentences as be hyd from thy understondinge, commit them unto God, and make no articles of them.”

John Rogers reproduced Coverdale’s Apocrypha, but added the Prayer of Manessah. He then included an introduction that strongly showed their inferior status. He leaned heavily on Jerome’s criticism of it, and stated, “they are not received nor taken as legyttimate and lauful as wel of the Hebrues as of the whole Churche.”

The Great Bible, first published in 1539, was edited by Miles Coverdale. The first four editions included Coverdale’s introduction, but called the books Hagiorapha, or “holy writings.” The fifth edition (1541) omitted the introduction and retitled the section, “The fourth part of the Bible, containing these bokes.”

1560 Geneva Bible

The Geneva Bible, produced by English Protestants who sought refuge at Geneva during the reign of (Bloody) Mary Tudor (1553-1558), included the apocrypha in a section following the Old Testament. It began with “The Argument” that clarified the limited value and use of the apocryphal books: “These bokes that follow in order after the Prophetes unto the New testament, are called Apocrypha, that is bokes, which were not received by a commune consent to be red and expounded publikely in the Church, nether yet served to prove any point of Christian religion, save in asmuche as they had the consent of the other Scriptures called Canonical to confirme the same… but as bokes … to be red for the advancement and furtherance of the knowledge of the historie, & for the instruction of godlie maners…”

This perspective on the Apocrypha is illustrated in a marginal note at 2 Maccabees 12:44, which supports prayers for the dead. The note cautions the reader: From this verse to the end of this chapter the Greek text is corrupt so that no good sense, much less certain doctrine can be gathered thereby. Also it is evident that this place was not written by the Holy Ghost, … because it differs from the rest of Holy Scripture…”

1568 Bishops’ Bible

This Bible, made by bishops in an attempt to replace the popular but strongly Protestant Geneva Bible, included the Apocrypha. Nothing was said to distinguish it from the rest of the Bible. This became the basis of the King James Bible of 1611.

1 Even today, in Judaism, the Hebrew Scripture is called the “Tanak,” an acronym reflecting the three divisions of the Old Testament: “T” is for Torah or Law, “N” is for Nepiim or Prophets, and “K” is for Ketubim or Writings.

2 Sometimes Ruth is attached to Judges and Lamentations is attached to Jeremiah, reducing the number of books to twenty-two.

4 Acts occasionally appeared with the gospels or the Pauline epistles.

5 Lightfoot, How We Got the Bible, 158. Origen was of the (fairly common) opinion that Paul penned Hebrews; hence, fourteen.

Elsewhere Origen wrote of his uncertainty about the authority of Hebrews, James, 2 Peter, and 2 & 3 John. It seems that his uncertainty with each was caused by questions about their apostolic authorship. But he was not uncertain about the inclusion of only four gospels: “The Church possesses four Gospels, heresy a great many…”

7 Ezekiel is speaking of a different temple – the millennial temple.

10 Josephus, Against Apion, 1.38-41. See footnote 2 for his counting of twenty-two books.

12 Augustine considered the Septuagint (and hence the Apocrypha) to have been inspired and authoritative (Bruce, 96). But he sometimes spoke of the Apocrypha as inferior (cf. Gleason Archer, A Survey of Old Testament Introduction, 77, and R. Laird Harris, Inspiration and Canonicity of the Bible, 190-191)

13 I say “suspect” because, based on Jerome’s writings, the books may have been included for noncanonical purposes (history and devotion).

15 To dismiss Jerome’s conclusions with simple explanations that he could not find the apocryphal books in Hebrew is to be guilty of insufficient research. He went far beyond that observation. In fact, while he considered 1 Maccabees to be noncanonical, he once wrote, “I have found the first book of Maccabees in Hebrew.” He said that he had also seen Ecclesiasticus in Hebrew. Yet he rejected the canonicity of these books. (Bruce, The Canon of Scripture, 90-91.)

17 He substituted “Psalms” for “Writings,” a literary device called metonomy (substitute) of the first for the whole. Psalms is the first book in the “Writings.”

18 The cessation of the prophetic voice is attested in the apocryphal book of 1 Maccabees (9:27; cf. 4:45-46; 14:41).