On page 172 of Gary Michuta’s book, “Why Catholic Bibles Are Bigger,” there is a table of early copies of the Septuagint and the books they contain. I bring it up because I think it shows, perhaps, that there are not more books in the Septuagint than we have as Catholics.
Based on the information Michuta gives, the earliest copy of the Septuagint in existence is the Vaticanus codex from the 4th century. It contains all of the Old Testament – including the Deuterocanon, except the Maccabees. It does not contain additional books.
The next earliest is the 4th century Sinaiticus codex, which is missing Exodus, Leviticus, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Ruth, Baruch, Ezekiel, and Daniel, but includes the rest. It does not contain additional books.
The next earliest is the fifth century Alexandrinus codex, which lacks 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings, and 1 and 2 Chronicles, but contains all the Deuterocanon. It also includes 3-4 Maccabees and 1 Esdras, but not 2 Esdras or the Prayer of Manasseh. (I mention those last three documents because some Orthodox accept them as canonical – but they are not in the oldest copies of the Septuagint that we have.)
The next earliest is the fifth century Ephraemi Rescriptus, which has only Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Canticles, Job, Wisdom, and Sirach. It does not contain additional books.
Finally, there is the eighth century Codex Basilano-Vaticanus-Venetus, which lacks only Genesis, Exodus, Psalms, and the last chapter of Baruch. It also adds 3 and 4 Maccabees, but not the Prayer of Manasseh or the two Esdras books.
All of these manuscripts contain books from the Deuterocanon placed among the other Books of Scripture, but the majority of them do not appear to include 3-4 Maccabees, the Prayer of Manasseh, or the two Esdras books. (BTW Ezra and Nehemiah are two books that all Christians accept as canonical, and those are sometimes called 1 and 2 Esdras in older literature. The manuscripts I mentioned above Do contain those. But there are also two other books called 1 and 2 Esdras, which only the Orthodox accept as canonical, and those are the ones I am talking about in this post. As Catholics we count them as apocryphal.)
We can summarize the table this way (assuming I wrote down my notes correctly and Michuta’s table was complete):
There are 5 copies of the Septuagint in Michuta’s table on page 172 of his book.
5 of them contain Wisdom;
5 of them contain Sirach;
4 of them contain Judith; the one that lacks it lacks most of the Old Testament;
4 of them contain Tobit; the one that lacks it lacks most of the Old Testament;
3 of them contain Baruch; those that lack it lack much or most of the Old Testament;
3 of them contain 1 Maccabees; one of those that lacks it lacks most of the Old Testament;
2 of them contain 2 Maccabees; two of those that lack it lack much or most of the Old Testament.
2 of them contain 3 Maccabees;
2 of them contain 4 Maccabees;
1 of them contains 1 Esdras;
0 of them contain 2 Esdras;
0 of them contain the Prayer of Manasseh.
Anyway, I hope that helps. Please let me know. Perhaps you could get Gary Michuta’s book for more information.
