What is the Deutercanon?

[RCIAGraduate]

They are excluded in some translations-but why? And why is it replaced in the Apocrypha in other translations?

 

[anruari]

The Deuterocannon is a group of 7 books (or sections of some books) which were written in Hellenistic Greek in the last few centuries before the birth of Christ.
These books were extensively Quoted by Jesus and the Apostles in the Gospel and the Epistles. They were part of the Septuagint (The Greek version of the Hebrew Scriptures used widely by the Early Christians and all Jews outside the Holy Land).

Martin Luther chose to reject these books as they are the books of the Old Testament which proclaim Resurrection from the Dead, Prayer for the Dead, and the concept that Catholics call “Purgatory”. He also tried to trim some books out of the New Testament, but didn’t get away with that.

Many Protestant groups followed Martin Luthers lead in excluding these books, and some claim that the “Council of Jamnia” proves that the Jews did not consider them to be Canonical… They fail to point out that this was not a council of all Jews, but was an individual rabbinical school which existed AFTER the fall of Jerusalem. they rejected these books in the 2nd century explicitly because they were so important to Christians.

They include the following books or sections:
Tobit
Judith
Additions to Esther (Vulgate Esther 10:4-16:24)[21]
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)[22]
Additions to Daniel:
Prayer of Azariah and Song of the Three Holy Children (Vulgate Daniel 3:24-90)
Susanna (Vulgate Daniel 13, Septuagint prologue)
Bel and the Dragon (Vulgate Daniel 14, Septuagint epilogue)
1 Maccabees
2 Maccabees

Some of the Orthodox Churches acknowledge more books as part of their Duterocannon.
Most bibles “With Apocrypha” include all the books or book sections that are considered to be part of the Deuteronomy by any of the Orthodox faiths. they almost always include them in a separate section at the end of the Old Testament, or at the back of the Bible, and not in their correct palces. They tend to not differentiate between the books that are considered canonical by the different churches unless they have an extensive commentary.
In doing this they are copying the format used in the first versions of the King James Bible.

The total removal of these books from printed bibles was also an innovation in the King James bible… Being owned by the British Crown, and subject to printing costs by the Crown, an act of parliament banned the printing of these books within the bible. - AS a money saving measure!!! This occurred despite the 39 articles (of the Anglican Faith) listing these books as suitable for reading as Scripture in Church.

I’m sure others will correct some of what I have written… but I hope it gives a good overview.

 

[Steveabrous]

The deutercanon are books from the Septuagint, a collection of the Hebrew scriptures written in Greek. it was around at the time of Christ and was mainly used outside of Judea in the Greek speaking world. At the time of Christ the Jews had not determined a set canon. The Sadduccess accepted only the torah (the first 5 books), and the Pharisees only accepted the 39 books currently used.
When Christianity spread to the Greek speaking world (early on we’re talking Paul here) the Septuagint was used as reference to write the New testament and quickly became the old testament of the early church.
After the fall of Jerusalem the surviving Jews (mainly Pharisees) threw out the Septuagint and those books and canonized the 39 books currently used.
Over the next 300 years or so the church was divided among those who felt we should follow suit (and that the Jews had the right to determine the old testament), and those who felt we should keep them since the Septuagint is the Old testament of the early church and the church had always used it.
In the fourth century The matter was settled by Pope Damasus in a letter from the council of Rome listing what is to be considered canon. the list is exactly what we Catholics use today. The list was ratified by several councils and Popes over the next 2 centuries.
these 7 books are called Deutercanon or 2nd canon since they are OT books that were canonized 2nd after the original 39 books were canonized at the end of the 1st century by the Jews.
The Reformers in the 16th century felt, as some in the early church did, that the Jews had the right to determine the OT and removed the books.

 

[Joe_5859]

Here’s the Catholic Answers tract for some more background info as well:

The Old Testament Canon

 

[QNDNNDQDCE]

The total removal of these books from printed bibles was also an innovation in the King James bible… Being owned by the British Crown, and subject to printing costs by the Crown, an act of parliament banned the printing of these books within the bible. - AS a money saving measure!!! This occurred despite the 39 articles (of the Anglican Faith) listing these books as suitable for reading as Scripture in Church.

This is a disingenuous representation. The reason that these books were not printed has little to do with saving money and more to do with the influence of the Scottish Presbyterians who opposed funding the printing of these books because they were already opposed to their content on doctrinal grounds. After all, 2 Maccabees says (in the KJV), “Whereupon he made a reconciliation for the dead, that they might be delivered from sin.” This is blasphemy to a Calvinist. Remember that there was more than one religious current in England.

 

[pablope]

They are excluded in some translations-but why? And why is it replaced in the Apocrypha in other translations?

handsonapologetics.com/King_James_Bible.htm

Now You Read Them, Now You Don’t…
Those who viewed the “Apocrypha” as somehow being the last vestige of “popery” pressed for the Apocrypha appendix and its cross-references to be removed altogether from the Bible. In 1615, George Abbott, the Archbishop of Canterbury, went so far as to employ the power of law to censure any publisher who did not produce the Bible in its entirety (i.e. including the “Apocrypha”) as prescribed by the Thirty-nine Articles. However, anti-Catholic hatred and the obvious financial advantages of printing smaller Protestant Bibles began to win out against the traditionalists who wanted the Bible in the form that was given in all previous Protestant translations up until that point (in the form of Luther’s Bible - with the Apocrypha between the Old and New Testaments). The “Apocrypha” remained in the King James Bible through the 1626, 1629, 1630, and the 1633 editions. By 1632, public opinion began to decidedly turn against the “bigger” Protestant Bibles. Of the 227 printings of the Bible between 1632 and 1826, about 40% of Protestant Bibles contained the “Apocrypha.” The Apocrypha Controversy of the early 1800’s enabled English Bible Societies to flood the bible-buying market with Apocrypha-less Protestant Bibles and in 1885 the “Apocrypha” was officially removed with the advent of the Revised Standard Version, which replaced the King James Version.
It is hard to pin point the exact date where the King James Bible no longer contained the “Apocrypha.” It is clear that later editions of the KJV removed the “Apocrypha” appendix, but they continued to include cross-references to the “Apocrypha” until they too (like the Geneva Bible) were removed as well. Why were they removed? Was it do to over-crowded margins? The Anglican scholar William H. Daubney points out the obvious:
“These objectionable omissions [of the cross-references] were made after the custom arose of publishing Bibles without the Apocrypha. These apparently profess to be what they are not, entire copies of the Authorized Version … Plainly, the references to the Apocrypha told an inconvenient tale of the use which the Church intended should be made of it; so, either from dissenting influence without, or from prejudice within the Church, these references disappeared from the margin.” [The Use of the Apocrypha In the Christian Church (London: C. J. Clay and Sons, 1900), 17]
What was the inconvenient tale these cross-references told? They showed that the so-called Apocrypha actually plays a much greater role that most modern Protestants are willing to admit. Moreover, the cross-references showed that the church believed that knowledge of the so-called “Apocrypha” and their use in the New Testament benefited Christians who wished to understand the Bible. Sadly today, many Protestants use the King James Bible have been handed on to them in an unaltered and uncompromised form. The reality is that its contents had undergone several substantial changes beginning with Martin Luther’s gathering together the Deuterocanon and placing it in an “Apocrypha” appendix and later when that appendix (and its cross-references) were removed altogether from Protestant Bibles.

 

[pablope]

They are excluded in some translations-but why? And why is it replaced in the Apocrypha in other translations?

\

British and Foreign Bible Society House,
London, February 10, 1826.

We beg leave to inform you that important reasons have induced the Committee of the British and Foreign Bible society to adopt the subjoined Resolution:—
“That the funds of the Society be applied to the printing and circulation of the Canonical Books of Scripture, to the exclusion of those books, and parts of books, which are usually termed Apocryphal; and that all copies printed, either entirely or in part, at the expense of the Society; and whether such copies consist of the whole or of any one or more of such books, be invariably issued bound; no other books whatever being bound with them: and further, that all money grants to societies or individuals be made only in conformity with the principle of this regulation.”
While the Committee of the British and Foreign Bible Society have adopted this Regulation for their own guidance, nothing is further from their intention than to interfere, in the smallest degree, with the religious views and opinions, or with the rites and usages, of foreign churches; —they respect that liberty of conscience in others which they themselves so happily enjoy.
The Committee of the British and Foreign Bible Society embrace this opportunity of assuring all their continental brethren of their most unfeigned Christian regard, and of their anxious desire to contribute as liberally as possible to the Foreign Societies consistently with their present Resolution; and they shall deem it their privilege and happiness invariably to maintain that pleasing bond of harmony and union which has so long and so beneficially subsisted between the British and Foreign Bible Society and the kindred Institutions of the Continent.

We remain, respectfully,
Your obedient humble Servants,
(Signed) A. BRANDRAM,
Jos. HUGHES,
C.F.A. STEINKOPFF [Secretaries]

*However, starting in 1630, volumes of the Geneva Bible were occasionally bound with the pages of the Apocrypha section excluded. In 1644 the Long Parliament forbade the reading of the Apocrypha in Church, and 1666, the first editions of the King James Bible without Apocrypha were bound.

The standardisation of the text of the Authorized Version after 1769 together with the technological development of Stereotype printing made it possible to produce Bibles in large print-runs at very low unit prices. For commercial and charitable publishers, editions of the Authorized Version without the Apocrypha reduced the cost, while having increased market appeal to non-Anglican Protestant readers. With the rise of the Bible societies, most editions have omitted the whole section of Apocryphal books.

The Apocrypha were excluded from most Bibles following a withdrawal of subsidies by the British and Foreign Bible Society in 1826, which resolved
That the funds of the Society be applied to the printing and circulation of the canonical books of Scripture, to the exclusion of those books and parts of books usually termed Apocryphal

The society revised its position in 1966.*