Christians have disputed over this group of books since earliest times.
Indeed, this dispute goes back to even before the Christian era. Although they never formed part of the original Hebrew canon of Scripture, they were gradually included in the Greek version of the Hebrew Scriptures (the Septuagint), and, after some initial hesitation, also in the Latin version derived from it (the Vulgate).
The Septuagint was a translation made initially for the benefit of the Greek-speaking Jews of Alexandria around 200 BC. The name is derived from the Latin for
seventy as tradition holds it was prepared by a team of seventy-two
translators, consisting of six elders from each of the twelve tribes of Israel.
The Septuagint is particularly important to readers and students of the New
Testament because not only is it the version of the Old Testament most
frequently quoted by the writers of the New, but it also established many of the
words used by the New Testament writers when referring to Old Testament
institutions.
The Vulgate became the official Latin version of the Scriptures in the Western Church until the Reformation. It was made by
(or under the direction of) Jerome in consultation with
Jewish teachers, and drew heavily on Jewish tradition. Although Jerome at first excluded the
apocryphal books, as he called them, on the grounds that they did not appear in the Hebrew canon, he was later persuaded to include them. It was only from the thirteenth century onwards that, perhaps rather ironically, Jerome's translation became known as the
Vulgate,
deriving its name from the Latin word vulgare meaning "to make common", something it
signally failed to do, since by that time Latin was the language only of the educated classes.
At the Reformation, the Roman Catholic Church decided (1546) to continue to include most of the Apocrypha in its Bibles.
However, because of their rather uncertain pedigree, many of the Reformers thought the books were not truly Scripture in the same way as the Old and New Testaments. Others, including Luther and The Church of England, took a middle course.
So for example, Article 6 of the Church of England's 39 Articles states that the books may be read for instruction of manners
(that is, to determine Christian conduct) but not used to establish any doctrine.
Although the Apocrypha was included in the Authorised Version of
1611, largely because of its familiarity, it was relegated to a separate section between the Old and New Testaments,
and in those versions which include it, this has been its almost invariable position in Protestant Bibles
ever since. In Roman Catholic Bibles the books are normally retained in the main body of the Old Testament, where they are referred to as the
Deuterocanonical (= second canon [or secondary]) books.
Both the Greek and Russian Orthodox traditions
accept all the apocryphal books recognised by the Roman church as forming part
of the their canons of Scripture, together with certain additional books, as we
note below the main table in our next section.
The text of the
Decree of the Council of
Trent, which affirmed the books of the Apocrypha as canonical in the sight
of the Roman Catholic Church, may be viewed in both Latin and English.
For those who wish to explore
the origin of the Apocrypha and the issue of canonicity from the Protestant standpoint more fully, we recommend the articles
How Many Books are in the Bible?
and Old Testament Canon
and Apocrypha.
