Deuterocanonical books?

[jas84173]

So most Catholics are aware that our Bibles contain more books than Protestant Bibles, but less than Eastern Orthodox and especially the Ethiopian Orthodox Church who has 81 books including Enoch and Jubilees.
Our Bibles include all books in the Hebrew/Protestant Bibles however also have Tobit, Judith, 1 Maccabees, 2 Maccabees, Ben Sira, additions to Esther, and additions to Daniel(prayer of the three holy children, Susanna, Bel and the Dragon). Our bibles however unlike Orthodox traditions do not include 3 and 4 Maccabees, 1 and 2 Esdras, which are all in the Oxford Annotated Bible with Apocrypha/Deuterocanonical books. Why did the Latin Vulgate not include these from the Greek Septuagint? And what are opinions on the Deuterocanonical books? Are they inspired or were the reformers right in taking them out?

 

[MarcoPolo]

The Deuterocanonical books are inspired––the same Church that identified the ancient canon the Protestants borrow from today recognized those Deuterocanonical books overwhelmingly, such as at councils at Rome, Carthage, and Hippo in the fourth-fifth centuries. Again at Nicea in the 8th, Florence in the 15th, and Trent in the 16th. Gary Michuta’s book Why Catholic Bibles Are Bigger also catalogues source material of Early Church Fathers recognizing the Scriptural quality of the Deuterocanon.

The Orthodox canon is a little tricky to p(name removed by moderator)oint, according to at least this Orthodox resource:
*“there are also inconsistencies in the different Traditions of Orthodoxy on which books are to be included in the greater Canon.”
orthodoxchristian.info/pages/old_testament.html*I’m not an expert on the Orthodox canon and might defer to a more learned person. But for a perhaps oversimplified answer to your question as to why the Catholic canon is not as long as some Orthodox, the answer is because the Holy Spirit has no so moved the Church to recognize those books.

 

[The_Serpent]

In regards to the prophet Daniel, and the extra books from him. The historian Josephus states in Antiquities 10.11.7 {267}, that Daniel wrote several books. So here is one Jewish source that supports the Roman Catholic acceptance of those books.

 

[HungerNThirst4R]

Most Orthodox Churches have the same number of books as Catholics do. These books were taken out of the Protestant Bibles because they weren’t included in the Hebrew Canon which wasn’t established until AFTER the Christian Canon.

As for the Ethiopian Orthodox Bible, just like the “extra” books we have were used by Jews for a long, long time before the Hebrew Canon was established the same is most likely true about the “extra” books in their Bible. There have been Jewish Ethiopians since Moses, and most likely way before, so they also used books that were not included in the Hebrew Canon. Therefore when certain Ethiopian communities converted from Judaism to Christianity they kept the books they traditionally used.

 

[CalCatholic]

So most Catholics are aware that our Bibles contain more books than Protestant Bibles, but less than Eastern Orthodox and especially the Ethiopian Orthodox Church who has 81 books including Enoch and Jubilees.
Our Bibles include all books in the Hebrew/Protestant Bibles however also have Tobit, Judith, 1 Maccabees, 2 Maccabees, Ben Sira, additions to Esther, and additions to Daniel(prayer of the three holy children, Susanna, Bel and the Dragon). Our bibles however unlike Orthodox traditions do not include 3 and 4 Maccabees, 1 and 2 Esdras, which are all in the Oxford Annotated Bible with Apocrypha/Deuterocanonical books. Why did the Latin Vulgate not include these from the Greek Septuagint? And what are opinions on the Deuterocanonical books? Are they inspired or were the reformers right in taking them out?

The reformers had no authority to remove anything from the Bible.