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Course 4 · Lesson 1.4

Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant canons compared

12 minute read

Lessons in this course

Course 4 outline

Module 1: How the Canon Formed

  1. What a canon is, and what canonical means
  2. The Old Testament canon: Law, Prophets and Writings
  3. The New Testament canon: from gospels and letters to a list
  4. Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant canons compared

Module 2: The Hebrew Bible and the Septuagint

  1. The Hebrew Bible and the work of the Masoretes
  2. Origin and character of the Septuagint
  3. The Dead Sea Scrolls and the state of the Old Testament text
  4. How New Testament writers quote the Old Testament

Module 3: Transmission of the New Testament Text

  1. Copying by hand: papyri, codices and scribes
  2. Manuscript traditions: Alexandrian, Western and Byzantine texts
  3. Kinds of variants and how they arise
  4. The principles of textual criticism
  5. Reading a critical apparatus and a translation footnote

Module 4: Reading Responsibly: Exegesis and Method

  1. Exegesis and eisegesis with worked examples
  2. Source, form and redaction criticism: what each asks
  3. Strengths and limits of the historical method
  4. Literary and canonical reading

Module 5: Meaning Beyond the Surface: Typology, Allegory and Genre

  1. Typology in the New Testament and the fathers
  2. Allegory and its critics: Alexandria and Antioch
  3. Reading by genre: narrative, law, poetry, prophecy, gospel and letter
  4. Setting, authorship and audience as questions to ask of any passage

Module 6: Christian Approaches to Interpretation

  1. The fourfold sense of Scripture in the medieval church
  2. Reformation principles: Scripture, clarity and the grammatical and historical sense
  3. Orthodox and Catholic approaches: Scripture within Tradition
  4. Historical scholarship and theological interpretation in conversation

Module 7: Writing an Exegesis

  1. Choosing a passage and framing a question
  2. Observation and context: what the text says and where it stands
  3. Using commentaries and reference works without being led by them
  4. Writing up, checking conclusions and revising

All courses

Program / Course 4: Biblical Studies and Hermeneutics / Lesson 1.4

What you will learn

  • List the books that Catholic and Orthodox Bibles include and most Protestant Bibles do not.
  • Explain the historical reasons each tradition gives for its list.
  • State the strongest argument on each side of the dispute.
  • Describe how Protestant churches differ in their use of the extra books.

The big idea

All three traditions receive the same twenty-seven New Testament books. The difference lies in the Old Testament. Protestants follow the Hebrew list of thirty-nine books. Catholics receive those and seven more, along with additions to Esther and Daniel. Orthodox churches receive these and a few further books, with some variation. Each position rests on a serious argument. One appeals to the Hebrew Scriptures of the Jewish people. The other appeals to the Greek Scriptures that the early church used. Understanding both is part of reading fairly.

Key terms

Deuterocanonical
A word meaning of the second canon. Catholics and Orthodox use it for Old Testament books received by the church but not found in the Hebrew Bible.
Apocrypha
The Protestant name for the same group of books. In this use it means books read in the church but not placed on the level of Scripture.
Anagignoskomena
A Greek word meaning books worthy to be read. The Orthodox sometimes use it for the books outside the Hebrew list.
Septuagint
The ancient Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures, which also contains books that were not in the later Hebrew list. It is studied in Module 2.
Hebrew Bible
The collection of Scriptures that the Jewish community in the early rabbinic period regarded as Scripture, in Hebrew with a few Aramaic passages.
Trent
The Council of Trent, a Catholic council in the sixteenth century that issued a decree naming the books of the Old and New Testament.
Sola scriptura
A Latin phrase meaning Scripture alone. It names the Protestant principle that Scripture is the supreme authority for faith and teaching.

Background

Open a Catholic Bible and a Protestant Bible side by side and you will find the same Gospels, Acts, letters and Revelation. The Old Testament differs. A Catholic Old Testament has seventy-three books in all. Alongside the Protestant thirty-nine it contains Tobit, Judith, Wisdom (also called the Wisdom of Solomon), Sirach (also called Ecclesiasticus), Baruch with the Letter of Jeremiah, and 1 and 2 Maccabees. It also has longer versions of Esther and Daniel, including the stories of Susanna and of Bel and the Dragon.

Orthodox churches receive all of these and add further books. Greek Orthodox Bibles usually include 1 Esdras, 3 Maccabees, the Prayer of Manasseh and Psalm 151. Some include 4 Maccabees as an appendix. Slavonic and other Orthodox traditions differ in the details, and the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church has a still wider collection. There is no single list that every Orthodox church has defined in exactly the same way, and an Orthodox reader would say that this reflects the way the Orthodox Church understands the canon as a lived reality.

Why do the lists differ? The answer begins with the Greek Old Testament, which Christians used from the start. When Jewish teachers and the churches later went their ways, the Jewish community held to the Hebrew list and the church kept using the Greek. The Reformers in the sixteenth century revisited the question and decided for the Hebrew.

Step-by-step explanation

Step 1: The argument for the wider list

The first Christians read the Old Testament mainly in Greek, in the Septuagint. This translation contained the books that Catholics and Orthodox call deuterocanonical. Many early Christian writers quote them as Scripture or cite them with respect. Augustine defended their inclusion, and the North African councils at Hippo in 393 and Carthage in 397 listed them. The Council of Trent in 1546 stated the Catholic list formally, in response to the Reformation.

The Catholic and Orthodox argument is that the church, not the later Jewish community, was the heir of the apostles and had authority to say which books belong in the Old Testament. The church did not need the rabbis’ list to tell it what to read. In their view, the wide use of the Greek books in the early church is itself a witness of the Spirit.

Step 2: The argument for the Hebrew list

The Reformers answered that the books Christ and the apostles received as Scripture were those of the Hebrew Bible. Paul says that to the Jews “were committed the oracles of God” (Romans 3:2), and the New Testament does not quote the deuterocanonical books by name as Scripture. Jerome, who made the Latin Vulgate in the late fourth century, also held that books outside the Hebrew list were to be read for edification but not used to establish doctrine. He translated them, but he said so.

The Protestant argument therefore has historical roots in the early church and not only in the Reformation. Protestants also point out that the deuterocanonical books were disputed in earlier centuries, and some of their teaching, such as prayer for the dead in 2 Maccabees 12, was cited by Catholics in debate, which made the Reformers wary of resting doctrine upon them.

Step 3: Weigh what the evidence shows

Both sides can point to real evidence. The New Testament quotes the Greek translation often, which supports the first position. Yet the New Testament does not clearly cite the extra books as Scripture, which supports the second. Some New Testament passages may echo them, such as Hebrews 11:35 which many take to refer to the martyrs of 2 Maccabees 7, but scholars debate how strong the echoes are. Jude 14 quotes the book of Enoch, which neither Catholics nor most Protestants accept as canonical, so a New Testament quotation does not alone settle whether a book is canonical.

Discoveries of the twentieth century also bear on the question. The Dead Sea Scrolls include Hebrew copies of Sirach and Aramaic copies of Tobit, so these books existed in Hebrew and Aramaic before the Greek translation. That weakens the old claim that they were only written in Greek. It does not decide whether they belong to the canon.

Step 4: See how Protestants actually use the books

Protestant practice varies. Luther placed the extra books in a separate section of his Bible and called them useful and good to read but not equal to Scripture. The Anglican Thirty-nine Articles say they are read for example of life and instruction of manners but not to establish doctrine. The Westminster Confession says they are not of divine inspiration and are no part of the canon. The King James Bible of 1611 printed them between the testaments, and many English Bibles did so for centuries. Most modern Protestant Bibles omit them, although study Bibles with the books are widely sold.

  1. Which list does this Bible follow, and how can I tell?
  2. Is the argument I am reading about history or about authority?
  3. Which early writers quote the book, and do they call it Scripture?
  4. What does the Hebrew Bible have to say about the book, if anything?
  5. How would a member of the other tradition state this argument?
  6. Does the doctrine in question depend on a disputed book, or on the whole of Scripture?

Examples

Reading Sirach

Sirach is a book of wisdom sayings written in Hebrew around the early second century BC and translated into Greek by the author’s grandson. A Catholic reader treats it as inspired Scripture. A Protestant reader may read it for wisdom and for what it shows about Jewish life before the time of Christ. Both can read the same lines, such as its praise of wisdom, and recognize the same merit.

Two Bibles on a table

A table has a Protestant Bible and a Catholic Bible. The Gospels are identical in content, and a reader can follow along from one to the other. The Protestant Old Testament moves straight from Esther to Job and ends with Malachi. The Catholic Old Testament has Tobit and Judith among the histories, Wisdom and Sirach among the wisdom books, and Baruch among the prophets. The difference is a matter of a few books and where they sit.

Jerome’s preface

In prefaces to his Latin translation, Jerome said the church reads some books for edification, but not to confirm doctrine. Catholic scholars note that Jerome also translated these books for the church and that later Latin tradition included them. Protestant scholars note his careful words. The example shows how a single witness can be used by both sides.

Different perspectives

Catholic

The Council of Trent declared that the books of both Testaments, with all their parts as read in the Catholic Church and as found in the old Latin Vulgate, are sacred and canonical. Catholics hold that this confirmed the practice of the early church, which read the Greek books as Scripture.

Orthodox

Orthodox churches receive the Septuagint as the Old Testament of the church. The Synod of Jerusalem in 1672 affirmed the deuterocanonical books, though the Orthodox Church has not issued a single definition accepted in the same way as Trent. Orthodox readers stress use in worship, where many of the books are read.

Protestant

Most Protestants receive the thirty-nine books of the Hebrew list as their Old Testament. They hold that the church should follow the Scriptures given to Israel, and they treat the other books as valuable for historical understanding and edification. Anglican and Lutheran traditions are more willing to read them in worship than many other Protestants.

Jewish

Jewish tradition does not receive the deuterocanonical books as Scripture. They were preserved by Christians, and Jews did not copy them as part of the Tanakh, although some are valued as history or wisdom. Jewish scholars note that the Hebrew list was not fully fixed in a single act and that the books were composed in a period of diversity.

Scholarly

Historians stress that the boundaries of the Old Testament were not fully settled in the first century and that Jews and Christians both took time to form lists. They treat the dispute over the extra books as a real result of that history, with no simple resolution available by evidence alone.

Why it matters

This is the point where churches disagree most visibly about the contents of the Bible, and it affects arguments about prayer for the dead, purgatory, wisdom literature and the Maccabean history. A reader who understands the reasons each tradition gives can discuss the difference without caricature. It also shows how history and authority work together in each tradition’s account of its Bible.

Common misunderstandings

Misunderstanding: Luther removed books from the Bible.

Correction: Luther placed the extra books in a separate section and judged them useful but not equal to Scripture. He argued from the Hebrew list and from earlier writers such as Jerome. Whether that was correct is the matter in dispute, but he was not inventing a new list from nothing.

Misunderstanding: Catholics added books to the Bible at Trent.

Correction: Trent stated a list for the Catholic Church, but Catholics hold that the books had been read as Scripture long before, and the North African councils had listed them in the fourth century.

Misunderstanding: The Orthodox have a fixed list identical to the Catholic one.

Correction: Orthodox churches receive the Catholic books and more, and not every Orthodox church has the same list. The Orthodox generally do not define the canon through a single decree in the way Trent did.

Misunderstanding: The extra books are bad or heretical.

Correction: Protestants who do not count them as Scripture usually still respect them. Many editions of the Reformation Bibles printed them.

Knowledge check

Which books does the Catholic Old Testament have that most Protestant Bibles omit?

Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Sirach, Baruch with the Letter of Jeremiah, and 1 and 2 Maccabees, along with the longer versions of Esther and Daniel. These are called deuterocanonical by Catholics and Orthodox, and the Apocrypha by many Protestants.

State the main reason Catholics and Orthodox give for the wider list.

The early church used the Greek Old Testament, which contained these books, and many early writers cited them as Scripture. They hold that the church, as the heir of the apostles, had the authority to receive them, and that the practice of the church is a witness of the Spirit.

State the main reason Protestants give for the Hebrew list.

They argue that the Scriptures received by Christ and the apostles were those of the Hebrew Bible, that the New Testament does not clearly cite the extra books as Scripture, and that writers such as Jerome distinguished them. They respect the books as useful but not as a basis for doctrine.

What do the Dead Sea Scrolls show about Sirach and Tobit?

They contain Hebrew fragments of Sirach and Aramaic fragments of Tobit, which shows these books existed before the Greek translation. This corrects an old claim that they were only composed in Greek, but it does not settle whether they are canonical.

Think it through

  1. Which argument, the appeal to the Hebrew Bible or the appeal to the early church’s Greek Bible, do you find stronger, and what would persuade you otherwise?
  2. How should a Protestant and a Catholic talk about prayer for the dead given the dispute over 2 Maccabees?
  3. Why might the Orthodox hesitate to define the canon by a single decree?
  4. What does it mean that Jerome translated books he did not use to establish doctrine?

Independent assignment

A fair summary of both sides

In your notebook, write 400 to 600 words. State the Catholic or Orthodox argument for the wider canon, and then the Protestant argument for the Hebrew list, each in terms its members would accept. Then write a paragraph naming one point on which the two sides agree and one piece of evidence that neither side can fully explain. Do not choose a winner. Keep the work in your notebook.

Further study