The 7 missing books of the protestant bible

[colliric]

I just want to also point out that although the Jews don’t have these books in their canon of scripture, that they are still actually required reading in Judaism due to the fact that one of their most holy festivals, Hannukkah, is based on the Maccabees.

Protestants tend not to realise the fact that Judaism still USES and reads these books, depite not being in their holy scriptures. Most Protestants have never even read these books.

The arguement that the Jews do not have these books in their scriptures is therefore a hollow irrelevent one to me, because most of them are still required reading in Judaism.

Here is a superb blog article written by an Orthodox author on where opposition to the deuterocanon originated from:
orthodox-apologetics.blogspot.com.au/2010/08/when-did-jewsnonbelieving-officially.html

Superb.

 

[patrick457]

Also, a Catholic mentioned on Yahoo Answers (I’ve been browsing around to find out the reason for the removal of the Apocrypha) that Luther dropped the books because of his selfish thinking that “You may only get to heaven through the Means of Grace.” I do not know why Catholics don’t believe this, as it is VERY CLEARLY stated in Ephesians 2: 8-9 “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith —and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9 not by works, so that no one can boast.” Catholics teach that good works will get you in to heaven. Sorry, but unless you think Paul is a liar, you’re wrong
Additional reference, Romans 3:28 “For we maintain that a person is justified by faith apart from the works of the law.”

Who said that Catholics teach salvation ONLY by works?

What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.
But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder! Do you want to be shown, you foolish person, that faith apart from works is useless? Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar? You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by his works; and the Scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness”—and he was called a friend of God. You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone. And in the same way was not also Rahab the prostitute justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out by another way? For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead.

Also, I suggest you read about the so-called New Perspective on Paul.

 

[Credo_ergo_sum]

A lot of books from the Old Testament that Protestants accept aren’t quoted in the NT. Esther, for example. Is Esther apocrypha now?

The Assyrians (seperated from Rome in 431), the Copts (seperated from Rome in 451) and the Eastern Orthodox (seperated from Rome in 1054) accept the “apocrypha” as scripture. They didn’t subscribe to Trent, so it could hardly be said that the deuterocanon was accepted only in the 16th century at Trent.

And here’s an article proving why praying to the dead is ACTUALLY A SIN gotquestions.org/praying-to-the-dead.html.

The Saints in heaven are more alive than we are.

So they likely blackmailed, tortured, or threatened him to make a public statement about agreeing with the Apocrypha. (The RCC killed anyone who disagreed with them, which delayed the Reformation, because many people (including Luther!!) did not want to break off of the Catholic church, simply correct the errors.

You’re out of your mind. The Catholic Church torturing St. Jerome?! Read these letters from the pope who lived in the same time as St. Jerome. This one and this one.

And just this one for you:

What [doth it] profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not works? can faith save him? If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food, And one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be [ye] warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what [doth it] profit? Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone. (James 2:14-17)

So, faith alone, without works is dead and not salvific.

 

[Credo_ergo_sum]

St Jerome also says the only ones who denied the perpetual virginity of Mary were heritics.

Of course, because that’s what they are. St. Augustine says the same.

• Jesus referenced the Jewish Old Testament canon from the beginning to the end and did not include the apocryphal in his reference.

Nowhere does he give a list of books that are in or out. “From the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who perished between the altar and the house of God; yes, I tell you, it shall be charged against this generation” tells something about slain prophets and the crimes of Israel, not whether Baruch or Ecclesiasticus is in or not.

The New Testament quotes the Septuagint, not the Jewish forgeries which we call the Masoretic and was only made in the 8th century AD. The Septuagint was handed down by the apostles, the Septuagint was quoted by the early Christians, and the Septuagint has the deuterocanon. If the apostles wouldn’t have wanted the deuterocanon they should at least have given some sorts of warning that some books in their Septuagint shouldn’t be used, but they didn’t.

I cannot edit my post further for some reason, but I want to add the part about what the pro Catholic article, “5 Myths about 7 books” says about Jerome. (Btw, you call Jerome a “saint”, but Catholics abuse this term and do not accept another one of Paul’s writings, that all Christians are saints. Read the New Testament, and there are SEVERAL passages talking about how all Christians are saints

The meaning of words change, so what? Saints refer to those glorified in heaven as well as orthodox Christians here on earth, it just happens to usually refer to the first category. Is that a big deal? No it isn’t.

denounced the teaching of purgatory?

St. Mark of Ephesus.

 

[Prieldedi]

St. Mark of Ephesus.

One swallow does not make a summer. He was the only Eastern bishop present at the Council of Florence who refuse to sign its decrees.

I was expecting for a movement or group, a show of force that objected to these teachings of the Church. Not until the 1500’s is that we see so many people together opposing the teachings of the Church and then leaving it, unless of course we go back to 1054 to the schism of the Eastern Orthodox Church.

 

[Credo_ergo_sum]

One swallow does not make a summer. He was the only Eastern bishop present at the Council of Florence who refuse to sign its decrees.

I was expecting for a movement or group, a show of force that objected to these teachings of the Church. Not until the 1500’s is that we see so many people together opposing the teachings of the Church and then leaving it, unless of course we go back to 1054 to the schism of the Eastern Orthodox Church.

The Eastern Orthodox and the Oriental Orthodox never believed in purgatory, unless you count tollhouses as purgatory, but that is not a fair comparisation, since the tollhouse theory is held by only a few among the ranks of the Orthodox.

 

[Prieldedi]

The Eastern Orthodox and the Oriental Orthodox never believed in purgatory, unless you count tollhouses as purgatory, but that is not a fair comparisation, since the tollhouse theory is held by only a few among the ranks of the Orthodox.

This is off topic of course, but I’d like to point out that the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox Churches consider the Early Church Fathers as their own, and some of them left writings assuring the doctrine of purgatory. This discrepancy should be the subject of another thread though.

 

[Credo_ergo_sum]

This is off topic of course, but I’d like to point out that the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox Churches consider the Early Church Fathers as their own, and some of them left writings assuring the doctrine of purgatory. This discrepancy should be the subject of another thread though.

Oh really? I’d like to see some quotes for that. Never have I seen some quotes from Scriptue (deuterocanon or not) or the Fathers which clearly and unmistakenly point to Purgatory.

 

[Prieldedi]

Oh really? I’d like to see some quotes for that. Never have I seen some quotes from Scriptue (deuterocanon or not) or the Fathers which clearly and unmistakenly point to Purgatory.

Check this page, specially the sections “New Testament” and “Tradition”.

 

[Roy5]

I just want to also point out that although the Jews don’t have these books in their canon of scripture, that they are still actually required reading in Judaism due to the fact that one of their most holy festivals, Hannukkah, is based on the Maccabees.

Protestants tend not to realise the fact that Judaism still USES and reads these books, depite not being in their holy scriptures. Most Protestants have never even read these books.

orthodox-apologetics.blogspot.com.au/2010/08/when-did-jewsnonbelieving-officially.html

Superb.

Hm! It is true that the ‘Protestant’ Bible is like the Jewish Old Testament in that neither includes the apocryphal books, However, they often have been included in old and big Protestant editions - placed between the Old and New Testaments. And some Protestant hymnals, maybe many, include excerpts from one or another of the seven books. They are not rejected, but simply not included in the 66 books in Protestant texts.

 I guess I don't see why this is a hot issue. There is a rather strong argument in both directions, so why the heated debate? Catholics and Protestants should be more concerned with those who would undermine all religious faith and be less concerned about their differences, so many of them minor. 

 Frankly, I have trouble with some parts in both Old Testaments. Are we really expected to believe that God actually decided to drown everybody, including babies, in the days of Noah (except for Noah and family)? That Joshua was directed by God to slaughter all the inhabitants of Jericho once the walls fell? That God insisted that Saul go and murder the last remaining Amalekites? Did God really send two bears to maul 42 young people who poked fun at Elisha's bald head? (II Kings 2:23-25)

  Sorry, but my belief in a loving and forgiving and compassionate God means that I cannot accept such wild nationalistic hate material, whether or not it's in the Bible. These and other stories iinsult and distort my God. Would God break his own ten commandments? And what Christian would join joyously in shouting: "Saul has killed his thousands, but David has killed his ten thousands!" Genocide was evil in the time of Hitler and also evil in the time of Noah, Joshua, Saul and David. God would never have ordered it. 

  How can people get so excited about abortion today yet believe that the Lord demanded the wholesale slaughter of entire tribes, including their babies, in and out of the womb?

 

[Credo_ergo_sum]

Check this page, specially the sections “New Testament” and “Tradition”.

To read Purgatory into Matthew 12:32 and 1 Corinthians 3:11-15 is far-fetched. I just read St. John Chrysostom’s homily on 1 Corinthians 3:11-15 and he has a very different interpretation. And when St. John Chysostom talking about prayers to the dead, he didn’t mention purgatorial fire.

Gregory the Great seems to have believed in it. New Advent tells me that in the Enarrations on Psalm 37 (38) Augustine advocates Purgatory, yet I’m not convinced he does. So it isn’t as clear cut as you would want it to be. Prayers for the dead doesn’t automatically equal the existence of purgatory. I can’t find the other sources mentioned in that part at the moment.

 

[Prieldedi]

To read Purgatory into Matthew 12:32 and 1 Corinthians 3:11-15 is far-fetched. I just read St. John Chrysostom’s homily on 1 Corinthians 3:11-15 and he has a very different interpretation. And when St. John Chysostom talking about prayers to the dead, he didn’t mention purgatorial fire.

Gregory the Great seems to have believed in it. New Advent tells me that in the Enarrations on Psalm 37 (38) Augustine advocates Purgatory, yet I’m not convinced he does. So it ist as clear cut as you would want it to be. Prayers for the dead doesn’t automatically equal the existence of purgatory. I can’t find the other sources mentioned in that part at the moment.

If purgatory doesn’t exist, then why pray for the dead? If the deceased are in hell there is no use to pray for them. If they are in heaven there is no need to pray for them. Why pray for them if the only two places you can go after death prayer has no effect?

Purgatory is a purification process. I don’t know if the word “process” existed in early Christianity, they used other figures to convey the need for the soul to be purified, to be cleansed.

In Matthew 12:32 Jesus says “And whosoever shall speak a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but he that shall speak against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, nor in the world to come.”

This means to some ECF that there are sins that will be forgiven in the new world to come, and together with 1 Corinthians 3:15 “but if your work becomes ashes, you will pay for it. You will be saved, but it will be as if passing through fire”, they concluded that there is a place to finish the cleansing process as if passing through fire. But, pay what? Pay where? “You will be saved”… but after making the payment, right? Where do you make this payment? Again, not in hell neither in heaven, so where?

This teaching is also supported by 2 Samuel 12:13-14, where David, though forgiven, is still punished for his sin, just like Paul says in 1 Corinthians 3:15, saved but paying a price. Also look at Matthew 5:26 (and previous), “There you will stay, until you have paid the last penny.” Jesus mentions a jail from which you’ll come out until you pay the last penny. Where is this jail? Why are you put there? Again, a process of purification. The Church calls it purgatory.

From the dictionary, to purge:
a) To free from impurities; purify.
b) To remove (impurities and other elements) by or as if by cleansing.

And to keep this in line with the topic, 2 Maccabees 12:44-46, one of the Deuterocanonical books:

“This was the reason why Judas had this sacrifice offered for the dead - so that the dead might be pardoned for their sin.” (v. 46)

You believe dead = hell OR heaven. If they are dead and in heaven, how can their sins be pardoned at this point?

 

[Jerry_Parker]

Rightlydivide,

You wrote: Luther did not take them out. He moved them. They were still in there.​

This is true. It is easy to distort this issue from familiarity with modern sectarian and Protestant editions of the Bible that omit these writings from the Old Testament. Even some of the early Anabaptists, as radical as they certainly were, accepted the deuterocanonical writings (“Apocrypha”) as fully canonical. The modern hard-line banishment of the deuterocanonical books was not typical until mid-19th century or so, although some sectarian and Protestant editions of the Authorised “King James” Version (A.V.) before then had omitted the A.V. Apocrypha. There is in the A.V., properly printed to include the Apocrypha, not even a separate title page to the part of the Bible where the O.T. Apocrypha appears, despite there being such partial title pages for both the Old and New Testaments within a single volume containing the entire Bible. It would seem that the Anglican translators regarded the Apocrypha, whatever its merits, as part of the O.T., simply moving these writings as a group to the end of the O.T. canon in their Bible version. Early A.V. editions had a legal obligation in England thus to include the Apocrypha in the A.V. Bible So to say that this Protestant Bible excised the Apocrypha is utterly an error or an exaggeration.

Luthers Bible, right from its first complete edition, included the Apocrypha in the same way. Lutheran Bibles, if they **really** are **fully** Lutheran, include the Apocrypha. I have the publisher Taschens facsimile of the first edition of Luthers complete Bible. Luther, of course, includes the Apocrypha, but, unlike the A.V., there is a separate title page for the Apocryphal (deuterocanonical) writings in the Luther Bible. Thus Luther went a step further than the later A.V.s translators in delimiting the Apocrypha as truly a separate part of the O.T.; nevertheless, it is there. Leaving out the Apocrypha was not, originally, even common in distinctly Calvinist Bibles, which included the deuterocanonical writings, good examples being the state-approved Dutch Protestant Bible of the Reformation and England`s Geneva Version.

So, let`s not fog up the issue. This is not a matter of whether or not to include the deuterocanonical writings in the BIble; to be faithful to the Reformers, it concerns how to place these writings and on what standing they have in the O.T. canon.

 

[meme1961]

Hm! It is true that the ‘Protestant’ Bible is like the Jewish Old Testament in that neither includes the apocryphal books, However, they often have been included in old and big Protestant editions - placed between the Old and New Testaments. And some Protestant hymnals, maybe many, include excerpts from one or another of the seven books. They are not rejected, but simply not included in the 66 books in Protestant texts.

They are, in fact, rejected. The process wasn’t a black and white one, but they were rejected by Luther. They were considered by Luther to NOT be scripture. They were left in place by Protestants as being somewhat the Christian version of Hadith, but were not considered scripture.

That is, in fact, what a Catholic means by “removed”, that these books were removed from the Canon of Scripture.

I guess I don’t see why this is a hot issue. There is a rather strong argument in both directions, so why the heated debate?

Because the Truth is important. The most important thing, in point of fact. The Truth can be attacked in many different ways, and one way is to slowly erode it, bit by bit (book by book, if you will).

Catholics and Protestants should be more concerned with those who would undermine all religious faith and be less concerned about their differences, so many of them minor.

Minor to you, but not necessarily unimportant when seeking the Truth.

Frankly, I have trouble with some parts in both Old Testaments. Are we really expected to believe that God actually decided to drown everybody, including babies, in the days of Noah (except for Noah and family)? That Joshua was directed by God to slaughter all the inhabitants of Jericho once the walls fell? That God insisted that Saul go and murder the last remaining Amalekites? Did God really send two bears to maul 42 young people who poked fun at Elisha’s bald head? (II Kings 2:23-25)

Yes, he did. So what? Death is the supernatural consequence of original sin. That God has the right to judge us is indisputable. So, what’s your problem?

Sorry, but my belief in a loving and forgiving and compassionate God means that I cannot accept such wild nationalistic hate material, whether or not it’s in the Bible.

You mischaracterize God. God is not just loving, forgiving and compassionate. To reduce God to just those attributes is to make unto yourself a graven idol.

God is also justice and truth. A just and loving God would indeed allow us to exercise our free will, and to garner the conseqences of that exercise. To do otherwise is not loving, it is a form of enslavement.

These and other stories iinsult and distort my God.

You have it exactly right: YOUR God. It is hubris to claim the right to control or judge God.

Would God break his own ten commandments?

The Ten Commandments are his commands to his creatures, not a contract or covenant, and not binding on him.

And what Christian would join joyously in shouting: “Saul has killed his thousands, but David has killed his ten thousands!”

I would. What God has judged as righteous, I will happily submit to accepting as righteous. Then again, he is my Lord and Master, and I his creation. Not the other way around.

Genocide was evil in the time of Hitler and also evil in the time of Noah, Joshua, Saul and David. God would never have ordered it.

Yes he would. If necessary, he would even offer up his own son to torture and execution.

The word genocide is, all by itself, a straw man argument in this context. A better phrasing: “Would God order the execution of people who have chosen evil, and that are acting in accordance to this choice?”

How can people get so excited about abortion today yet believe that the Lord demanded the wholesale slaughter of entire tribes, including their babies, in and out of the womb?

Did God order the abortion of those children? If not, they are perfectly innocent, their lives sacred, and thus murdering them is an abomination before the Lord.

Your problem is that you view death as always a punishment or a judgement. You may be correct in viewing those that God ordered killed as innocent. But if so, they entered into paradise. Indeed, is it not possible that God ordered these deaths so that they might die in a state of grace, rather than live to embrace the evil that their nations would teach them, and thus end up rejecting him and ending up in eternal torment?

Human reason is imperfect, and incomplete. Only God’s reason is complete and perfect. And sometimes, death is a mercy. But only a fool judges God.

 

[Jerry_Parker]

Meme wrote: They [the writings of the “Apocrypha”] were left in place by Protestants as being somewhat the Christian version of Hadith, but were not considered scripture.​

That is an odd comparison between the Protestant O.T. (without Apocrypha) and its deuterocanonical writings (Apocrypha), with The Quran and the Hadith. For one thing, Muslims themselves never bind the Quran with the Hadith (Sunna) in the same volume, together as scripture. They are separate and one is not part of the other.

The contents of the Sunna, if ever you have looked at it (as I have on numerous occasions) is not at all like the books of narrative and of theology or of pastoral council in the Apocrypha, though there is some resemblance to the deuterocanonical Wisdom writings. Muslims regard Hadith as revealed scripture, but subsidiary at all times to the Quran itself. The Sunna thus has, loosely speaking, a sort of "deutero" status to the Quran, without, as I said before, ever being close enough in stature to be bound as a single book of scripture.

A better comparison would be that of the Book of Mormon (B.o.M.) and of the Bible, as increasingly liberal R.L.D.S. Community of Christ (Mormons in a very different way from the heathenish L.D.S. Mormons) look at it. The R.L.D.S. used to set the B.o.M. on a par with the Bible, but decades of examinging the B.o.M.`s claims have made them sceptical about it, though they still do bind the B.o.M. with the Bible and the R.L.D.S. edition of the Doctrine and Coveants together in combination volumes. Thus for the R.L.D.S. Community of Christ faithful, the B.o.M. is rather like what the Apocrypha is as Anglicans, Lutherans, and Presbyterians/Reformed regard the deuterocanonical O.T. writings.

 

[chickenwrangler]

Vahva98,
One resource you might find helpful in better understanding your Catholic Brothers and Sister’s view of Salvation, is a book by James Akin, “The Salvation Controversy” I believe is the title. In this work he lays out what Catholics and Protestants believe in regards to salvation and where in the sacred scriptures these views stem from. You might find the two positions are much closer than you suppose, and perhaps reader authors from the other side of the hallway may open your eyes to the historic church’s position.
Blessings

 

[meme1961]

Meme wrote: They [the writings of the “Apocrypha”] were left in place by Protestants as being somewhat the Christian version of Hadith, but were not considered scripture.​

That is an odd comparison between the Protestant O.T. (without Apocrypha) and its deuterocanonical writings (Apocrypha), with The Qur`an and the Hadith

Hence the word “somewhat”.

For one thing, Muslims themselves never bind the Qur`an with the Hadith (Sunna) in the same volume, together as scripture.

Nor do Protestants, any more. But whether or not bound into the same physical volume, matters little in this comparison, does it? The comparison is between the purpose of the two, and I grant the comparison is not one of equality, only similarity.

There are still some Protestant sects that will use the Deuterocanonical books in much the same way as some Catholics use the writings of the Doctors of the Church. To elucidate, elaborate and extend, but not as scripture, per se.

They are separate and one is not part of the other.

As are the deuterocanonicals, for Protestants. Which is why almost no modern Protestant Bible includes them, and you will almost never hear a Protestant Minister refer to them in a sermon.

In this, more than how bound or exactly how defined, my comparison lacks, as of course the Hadith are necessary to Islam, while the Protestant sects no longer use the deuterocanonicals for even the purpose that Luther grudingly allowed.

The contents of the Sunna, if ever you have looked at it (as I have on numerous occasions) is not at all like the books of narrative and of theology or of pastoral council in the Apocrypha, though there is some resemblance to the deuterocanonical Wisdom writings.

I have looked (Islam is one of the religions I considered when making my reasoned argument for choosing a religion), and I agree, but again, that is why I used the word “somewhat”.

The comparison was more one of abstract similiarity than concrete equality.

Muslims regard Hadith as revealed scripture, but subsidiary at all times to the Quran itself. The Sunna thus has, loosely speaking, a sort of "deutero" status to the Quran, without, as I said before, ever being close enough in stature to be bound as a single book of scripture.

Hence my loose comparison. That, loosely, is the way the deuterocanonicals were first perceived of by the post-Luther Protestant Churches. The anti-Catholic bias that arose in the Protestant Churches slowly but surely eroded this perception of the deuterocanonicals until they are no longer read or considered as meaningful in any but a few of the oldest Protestant sects.

A better comparison would be that of the Book of Mormon (B.o.M.) and of the Bible, as increasingly liberal R.L.D.S. Community of Christ (Mormons in a very different way from the heathenish L.D.S. Mormons) look at it. The R.L.D.S. used to set the B.o.M. on a par with the Bible, but decades of examinging the B.o.M.`s claims have made them sceptical about it, though they still do bind the B.o.M. with the Bible and the R.L.D.S. edition of the Doctrine and Coveants together in combination volumes. Thus for the R.L.D.S. Community of Christ faithful, the B.o.M. is rather like what the Apocrypha is as Anglicans, Lutherans, and Presbyterians/Reformed regard the deuterocanonical O.T. writings.

And being closer to the True Church, it would have been more similar, and thus a better example, had I thought people as familiar with it as they are with Islam. But I didn’t, so I didn’t.

 

[Jerry_Parker]

Chicken Wrangler wrote: One resource … helpful in better understanding … Catholic … view of Salvation, is a book by James Akin, “The Salvation Controversy”. I believe is the title. In this work he lays out what Catholics and Protestants believe in regards to salvation and where in the sacred scriptures these views stem from. You might find the two positions are much closer than you suppose, and perhaps reader authors from the other side of the hallway may open your eyes to the historic church’s position.​

How right you are, Chicken Wrangler (gotta love that name!). I have the book and have read it and gone back to consult it many times. You got the title right, too. This book helps not only Protestants (and others) to understand salvation – and the other doctrines of grace, too – but also helps Catholics themselves to understand what Catholic tradition truly teaches about salvation, predestination and election, reprobation, and other teachings about grace and the Divine and human wills. Too many Catholics go to the extreme of dismissing “Calvinist” ideas without realising how close, even if not yet quite close enough, Luther, Chemnitz, and Calvin really were to the full Catholic truth. In denigrating their teachings, such Catholics can fall ignorantly into the opposite errors of Pelagianism and Semi-Pelagianism, which are far worse heresies. Catholic Answers was wise, indeed, providentially sage and prudent (given the need for clarification of what Catholicism, especially Augustinian and Scholastic Catholicism) really teaches. Get Akin`s book and illumine your mind about Catholic teaching and also, of course, at the same time support Catholic Answers with the proceeds of your purchase.

 

[Jerry_Parker]

Meme, Thanks for replying, in comment no. 35, about what I wrote. Dont worry, I was not trying to refute you. I just feared that some Catholics and others might misunderstand your own comments, due to their brevity. Thats why I expanded upon them. Of course, I knew that you were making loose comparisons, but just how loose such parallels are is important to clarify.

 

[Jerry_Parker]

Fortunately, there is a recovery of interest among genuine Protestants (Anglicans, Lutherans, Presbyterian-Reformed, Moravians) in the deuterocanonical writings (“Apocrypha”). In the case of the Anglicans, the Apocrypha never disappeared in regular use, thanks largely to the Book of Common Prayer`s continued use of them over the centuries in public worship, in the canticles and the B.C.P. Lectionary. Editions of the Bible specifically meant for Anglican use tended to include the Apocrypha with the rest of the Old Testament. Some Lutheran Bible editions also have included these writings. It is the sectaries (Baptists, Cambellites, Methodists, Pentecostalists, and other “subprotestant” sectarians) who rigidly held (and continue to hold) to excluding the Apocrypha from their Bibles and from being read publicly in worship.

Recently, however, Presbyterian-Reformed denominations and others of “mainstream” (or “oldline”) Protestantism have had a renewal of interest in the deuterocanonical writings which are in the Catholic Bible (including those in the appendix of the Clementine Latin Vulgate) and, in some cases even the somewhat larger Eastern Orthodox canon of Scripture. This is especially true of study or annotated editions of the Bible. Examples frequently encountered are the well-known “Oxford Annotated Bible with the Apocrypha: an Ecumenical Study Bible” and “The Oxford Study Bible, Revised English Bible with the Apocrypha”. Publishers, including the pan-Protestant, pan-sectarian American and Canadian Bible Societies, publish a wide choice of “text Bibles” (those without extensive study notes) for Protestant use (as well as “Catholic editions” of some of the same Bible translations, editions now so familiarm to Catholics and Orthodox). It is no longer true that a Protestant Bible lacks the Apocrypha or that the deuterocanonical books are only included in separately published Protestant editions of the Apocrypha.

Perhaps someday the Protestant, Eastern Orthodox, and Catholic canons of Scripture will converge, something that seems gradually to be happening.