Hi Rowland

I receive a lot of email questions about Prot/Catholic issues. You may like to add the message below to the JMM archive and I’ll direct enquirers there in future. JMM is a very helpful resource.

Rod Benson

Why do you think that the protestants removed seven books of the old testament. And when did this happen? Tina Dalecki Thank you for your enquiry. I assume you are referring to the Apocrypha. Josephus, the late first century Jewish historian, identifies 22 Old Testament books by combining as one book each Samuel, Kings, Chronicles, Ezra-Nehemiah, Ruth-Judges and Jeremiah-Lamentations (see also 2 Esdras 14:44-48). The OT canon was apparently closed by about the time of Judas Maccabaeus in the mid-second century BC. The apocryphal books, as their name indicates, were not generally recognised as Scripture by classical Judaism. Their inclusion with OT and NT books was a gradual Christian process formally reversed at the time of the Reformation in the sixteenth century. The great church scholars such as Origen and Jerome opposed the identification of the Apocrypha with Scripture. Luther, Calvin and other leaders of the Reformation did not recognise the Apocrypha as equivalent to the Old Testament. After the Reformation the apocryphal books were sometimes printed in a separate section between the OT and NT in English Bibles. In 1546 the Roman Catholic Church, at the fourth session of the Council of Trent, reacted to the Reformation by endorsing the list of the Scriptures found in a sixth-century pseudo-Gelasian decree. This included the Apocrypha. Christians and others will continue to argue over issues of canonicity. I do not believe the apocryphal books were or are part of the OT. They contain good literature and much of their theology is biblical. Jude, for example, quoted the book of Enoch. But I believe the Rabbinic scholars, the early church Fathers and the sixteenth century Reformers were correct in regarding the apocryphal books as inferior spiritual literature. I hope this helps you. Rod Benson

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