What Are the Apocrypha, and Why Don't All Bibles Include Them?
Open a Catholic Bible and you'll find Tobit, Judith, and Maccabees. Open most Protestant Bibles and you won't. Same Old Testament, different table of contents. Here's why.
8 min read · LovingBible
The same Old Testament, two different tables of contents
Pick up a Catholic or Orthodox Bible and count the Old Testament books. Then pick up a Protestant one. You'll get different numbers, not because anyone is hiding anything, but because Christian traditions have genuinely disagreed for centuries about a specific set of books written between the Old and New Testaments.
What the books actually are
The Apocrypha (Protestant terminology) or Deuterocanonical books (Catholic terminology, meaning "second canon," not "second-rate") are a set of Jewish writings composed roughly between 200 BC and the time of Christ, after the last Old Testament prophets and before the New Testament. The core list Catholic and Orthodox Bibles include:
Tobit
A short story of a righteous Israelite family, angelic guidance, and healing
Read for edification even where not treated as Scripture
Judith
A heroine who saves Israel from an invading general
Not treated as historically precise even by many who value it
Wisdom of Solomon
Reflective wisdom literature, similar in style to Proverbs
Widely admired for its content even by those who exclude it from the canon
Sirach (Ecclesiasticus)
Practical wisdom teaching, extensively used in the early church for moral instruction
Its Hebrew original was actually found among the Dead Sea Scrolls
Baruch
A short prophetic-style book attributed to Jeremiah's scribe
Includes the Letter of Jeremiah as its final chapter in most editions
1 and 2 Maccabees
Historical accounts of the Jewish revolt against Greek rule, the events behind Hanukkah
Valued by essentially everyone as real, useful history, whatever its canonical status
Additions to Esther and Daniel
Extra material (including the stories of Susanna, and Bel and the Dragon) not found in the Hebrew text of those books
The clearest example of the same book existing in a longer and shorter form
Why the disagreement exists at all
The Hebrew Bible (Masoretic Text)
Ancient Jewish canon, standardized by the first centuries AD
Does not include these books
Why this counts: The Old Testament the New Testament writers, Jesus included, would have known as Scripture in Hebrew form did not contain them
The Septuagint (LXX)
Greek translation of the Old Testament, widely used by Greek-speaking Jews and the early church, from roughly 200 BC
Includes these books alongside the standard Old Testament
Why this counts: The Bible most New Testament writers quote from when they cite the Old Testament in Greek
Jerome, translator of the Latin Vulgate
c. AD 400
Argued the Hebrew canon (without these books) should be the standard for doctrine, calling the extra books "apocrypha" (hidden/of doubtful authority) even while translating them for reading
Why this counts: The origin of the word "apocrypha" itself, from a scholar who included the books but flagged their different status
The Council of Trent
AD 1546, the Catholic Church's response to the Reformation
Formally declared these books canonical Scripture, on par with the rest of the Old Testament
Why this counts: The first time the Catholic church made this an official, binding dogma, in reaction to Protestant rejection of the books
Martin Luther and the Reformers
1500s
Removed the books from the Old Testament proper, placing them in a separate section, then eventually dropping them from most printings entirely
Why this counts: Followed Jerome's earlier preference for the Hebrew canon over the wider Greek one
The honest historical shape of the debate
The books were never universally rejected as worthless, and they were never universally accepted as Scripture on equal footing with the rest of the Old Testament, either. Both extremes overstate the actual history.
Notice what the timeline actually shows: this isn't a case of one side adding books that were always excluded, or the other side removing books that were always included without dispute. The status of these specific books was a live, debated question for well over a thousand years before the Reformation forced both sides to formally settle their own position.
Two positions, both with real historical footing
Deuterocanonical (Catholic, Orthodox)
These books were widely read as Scripture in the early church, quoted by early church fathers, included in the Septuagint the apostles themselves used, and formally recognized by regional church councils (such as Carthage, AD 397) centuries before Trent made it universally binding. Trent's 1546 declaration formalized existing widespread practice rather than inventing something new.
Apocrypha, valuable but not canon (Protestant)
The Hebrew canon, the Scripture Jesus and the apostles would have called "the Law and the Prophets," never included these books, and no New Testament writer directly quotes them as Scripture the way the Old Testament proper is quoted hundreds of times. Worth reading for history and edification (many Reformation-era Bibles printed them in a separate section for exactly this reason), but not treated as equally authoritative for doctrine.
What's not actually in dispute
However this settles for you, the core Old and New Testament, the 66 books nearly every Christian tradition holds in common, isn't touched by this debate at all. This is a real, historically interesting disagreement about a specific set of additional books, not a crack in the foundation of the Bible itself.
Examine it for yourself
If you're curious, most editions of these books are easy to find and read for yourself, several are genuinely good history and wisdom literature regardless of their canonical status. Bring the bigger question, "should I treat these as Scripture," to your own church tradition and its teaching, since this is exactly where Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant instruction differs by design.
Examine it yourself
Type this question (or your own) into LovingBible and see the passages, in English, Greek, and Hebrew. No verdict. You decide.
Open LovingBible →Quick questions
Are the Apocrypha in the Bible or not?
It depends which Bible. Catholic and Orthodox Bibles include them as Deuterocanonical ('second canon') books within the Old Testament. Most Protestant Bibles exclude them, or historically printed them in a separate section between the Testaments. Both traditions read the same core 66 books in common; this disagreement is specifically about this additional set.
Why did Protestants remove the Apocrypha?
The Reformers, following the earlier precedent of Jerome (translator of the Latin Vulgate, c. AD 400), preferred the Hebrew canon of the Old Testament, which never included these books, over the wider Greek Septuagint, which did. This wasn't a Reformation-era invention; it revived a much older debate that predates the Reformation by over a thousand years.
Did the Catholic Church add the Apocrypha at the Council of Trent to oppose Protestants?
Trent (1546) formally declared these books canonical in response to the Reformation, but it was formalizing a status these books had held in wide, though not universal, church practice for centuries beforehand, not inventing something new. The books appear in the Septuagint (used extensively by the early church) and were affirmed by earlier regional councils like Carthage in AD 397.
Should I read the Apocrypha?
Whether you treat them as Scripture is a question for your own church tradition. Many find them worthwhile reading for history (1-2 Maccabees) and wisdom literature (Sirach, Wisdom of Solomon) regardless of their canonical status, the way one might read other valuable ancient Jewish or Christian writing.
Keep examining
LovingBible never hands down a verdict. Read every passage in its full context, pray, and confirm with your local church and pastor. Scripture references open in the World English Bible (public domain).