Deuterocanonicals

The deuterocanonicals are seven books with parts of two other historical books of the Old Testament, and seven books of the New Testament, for a total of fourteen books. These were accepted by the majority of Christian scholars and church leaders in the early Christian Church as part of the Biblical canon, but whose precise canonical status intermittently continued to be debated by a minority of independent scholars, from the 4th through the 16th centuries, many of them often citing and quoting from the disputed books as if they were authoritative scripture—books of the Bible accepted as divinely inspired by the majority of Christian believers in the United States and throughout the world. Since the 16th century these fourteen books and parts of books in the Old and New Testaments have been designated deuterocanonical, as distinct from the protocanonical books, those books of scripture which were universally accepted without debate from the 1st century of the church.

The Old Testament deuterocanonicals were first removed from the Old Testament and placed in the Apocrypha together with the noncanonical 1 Esdras, 2 Esdras and Prayer of Manasseh by Martin Luther in the 16th century. The Old Testament deuterocanonicals are regarded as apocryphal by less than one-third of Christian believers. They were dogmatically declared canonical by the Catholic Council of Trent in 1546 along with the New Testament deuterocanonicals, definitively bringing to an end all further debate over their canonical status in the Catholic Church.

History

When Constantine first made Christianity a legal religion in the Roman Empire in the early 300s, he called together leading Christians from the East and West parts of the empire to iron out the principles of Christianity, including cementing the canon. The entire canonical text was identified by Pope Damasus I and the Synod of Rome (382). Subsequent councils such as the Council of Hippo (393) and the Third Council of Carthage (397), dealt with minor questions of authenticity, affirming the canon of Damasus and the Synod of Rome, and set forth the first-ever listing of all 27 books of the New Testament, and together with them listed 46 books of the Old Testament, a canon of 73 books of the Bible, which quickly gained acceptance and remained unchanged for 1200 years. Still, 7 books of the Old Testament (and parts of 2 other books) and 7 books of the New Testament, 14 total, while accepted by the majority of Christian scholars and church leaders as part of the Biblical canon, continued to be debated by a minority of independent scholars, from the 4th through the 16th centuries, many of them quoting from the disputed books as if they were authoritative scripture. Jerome (Prologus Galeatus c. A.D. 420) listed the books rejected by the Jews as "apocryphal", a view regarded by his contemporaries as highly controversial, but he himself quoted them as if they were scripture. The canon of Damasus, and the Synods of Rome, Hippo and Carthage, was reaffirmed at the Council of Florence of the (briefly reunited) Church of the east and west in 1442.

List of deuterocanonical texts

The deuterocanonical Old Testament scriptural texts are:

• Tobit
• Judith
• Greek rabbinical Additions to Esther (Vulgate Esther 10:4-16:24)
• Wisdom (or Wisdom of Solomon)
• Wisdom of Jesus ben Sira (or Sirach or Ecclesiasticus)
• Baruch, including the Letter of Jeremiah (Additions to Jeremiah in the Septuagint)
• Greek rabbinical Additions to Daniel:

• Prayer of Azariah and Song of the Three Holy Children (Vulgate Daniel 3:24-90)
• Susanna (Vulgate Daniel 13, Septuagint prologue to Daniel)
• Bel and the Dragon (Vulgate Daniel 14, Septuagint epilogue of Daniel)

• 1 Maccabees
• 2 Maccabees

The term deuterocanonical is sometimes used to describe the canonical antilegomena, those books of the New Testament which, like the deuterocanonicals of the Old Testament, while accepted by the majority of Christian believers, 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 since the time of the Third Council of Carthage (397). The deuterocanonicals of the New Testament are as follows:

• The Epistle to the Hebrews
• The Epistle of James
• The Second Epistle of Peter
• The Second Epistle of John
• The Third Epistle of John
• The Epistle of Jude
• The Apocalypse of John (also known as the Book of Revelation)

The meaning of the term "deuterocanonical" is therefore not identical with "apocryphal". The apocryphal books are the deuterocanonical books and parts of books removed from the Old Testament of the Bible by Martin Luther in the 16th century and collected and placed together indifferently with the noncanonical books of 1 and 2 Esdras and Prayer of Manasseh in a separate section of his German Bible as The Apocrypha.

Martin Luther also initially placed four of the New Testament deuterocanonical books in an appendix after the New Testament of his German Bible, judging them to be unscriptural and hostile to the gospel of Christ: Hebrews, James, Jude and Revelation. When Protestant leaders in the 16th century approached the leaders of the separated Orthodox Church with their revised canon of 66 books, they were rebuffed.

Council of Trent 1546

For the Catholic Church, a formal dogmatic proclamation was made at the Council of Trent, that the Bible the Church had been using and the books it contained "with all their parts" was correct, in reaction to the Protestant Reformation's rejection of 7 of the deuterocanonical works as apocrypha, together with those parts of 2 other canonical books which had been long debated (parts of Esther and Daniel). However, 1 Esdras, 2 Esdras and Prayer of Manasseh, although they were part of the Vulgate, were not included in the canon of the Catholic Bible defined by the Council of Trent, but they were subsequently placed in an appendix to the definitive Clementine Vulgate, "lest they be lost altogether". This definitively closed 1400 years of intermittant debate over the traditional canon of the Bible in the Catholic Church, and declared henceforth anathema (cursed) any one who persisted in holding any dissenting opinion in the matter (see 1 Corinthians 16:22; Galatians 1:6-9; Romans 13:1-2; Hebrews 13:17; 2 Peter 1:20 and 3:16-17; Jude 8, 16-19; Revelation 22:19).

Orthodox Church

Orthodoxy in the east was never confronted with a need to officially define the canon of the Bible and has continued to use the Septuagint as passed down from the time of the apostles of the ancient Church in the 1st century to the present day.

See also

Apocrypha

Bible

Biblical Canon

Council of Jamnia

External links

• Refuting an Attack on the Deuterocanonicals. A Response to 11 ‘reasons’ that the Deuterocanonicals Should be Thrown Out of the Bible, By Matt1618. Introduction (matt1618.freeyellow.com)