Why do Orthodox Churches include more deuterocanonical books?

[Zach]

As a companion to the Protestant rejection of deuterocanonical books thread why do Orthodox include more than Catholics? Psalm 151 and 3 Maccabees, which idea misnomer and isn’t set at the same time as 1 and 2 Maccabees, are among those included. The Ethiopian Church even adds more. Were these all included in the Septuagint?

 

[Lenten_ashes]

There were several versions of the septuagint floating around the first few centuries of the Churches life.

Basically the early Church had local canonicty. They were pretty much unified on the NT but not on the OT. The Churches of the west were unified on a complete canon from 382 AD till today. But they were hammered out at North African synods, not ecumenical councils because the Church as a whole, was fighting heresy and had bigger fish to fry. Therefore, since it didn’t take place at an ecumenical council, it was not technically binding on the universal Church prior to our split.

 

[dopeyMS]

This first is Michael, the merciful and long-suffering: and the second, who is set over all the diseases and all the wounds of the children of men, is Raphael: and the third, who is set over all the powers, is Gabriel: and the fourth, who is set over the repentance unto hope of those who inherit eternal life, is named Phanuel. (1 Enoch 40:9)

The four angels of Presence

 

[RaisedCatholic]

Like Catholicism, both the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox (which includes the Ethiopian Church) base their OTs on the Septuagint. As others have said, there were different versions of the Septuagint in the early church. Psalm 151, 3 & 4 Maccabees, 2 Baruch, 3 & 4 Esdras, Jubilees, the Prayer of Manasseh, & others were in some of these early versions of the Septuagint. Oxyrhynchus included 23 early versions of the Septuagint & at least 1 Old Latin (the version of Latin before the Latin Vulgate), which included some of these books, which was also prior to the fourth century church councils which did not include some of these books. 1 Esdras (sometimes called 3 Esdras), which are the additions to Ezra-Nehemiah, were originally in the fourth century councils of Hippo & Carthage, because they were included in these early versions of the Septuagint. But it was not included in Jerome’s Vulgate (even though it did show up in later versions of it), nor was it in the later Ecumenical Councils of Florence (1441) & Trent (1546). Protestants don’t include any of these books, as well as the Deuterocanon, because it is believed that although the NT cites or alludes to most of the Deuterocanon as well as many of these Apocryphal books, they never cite them specifically as Scripture like it does with the books in the Hebrew Bible.