Talk:Deuterocanonical books

message: I am led to believe that the following statement:
:When Orthodox theologians use the term "deuterocanonical," it is important to note that the meaning is not identical to the Roman Catholic usage. In Orthodox Christianity, deuterocanonical means that a book is part of the corpus of the Old Testament (i.e. is read during the services) but has secondary authority. In other words, deutero (second) applies to authority or witnessing power, whereas in Roman Catholicism, deutero applies to chronology (the fact that these books were confirmed later), not to authority.
Is not one which many Eastern Orthodox would agree with. See Joel Kalvesmaki, "All Scripture Is Inspired by God: Thoughts on the Old Testament Canon", see also S. T. Kimbrough, Orthodox and Wesleyan Scriptural Understanding and Practice (2005), p. 23 (which we already cite.) I am left with the impression that Fr. Laurent's views are ones that many Eastern Orthodox would disagree with. I'm hesitant about relying on this very brief "Q&A"-style page for anything unless it can be confirmed by a more serious source. ZackMartin (talk) 19:57, 30 July 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, this notion was also inserted in the lede paragraph of Eastern Orthodox Church in my memory, and I remember thinking that it was suspect at the time, but it was added with a reference I could not check: 'Pomazansky, Michael, Orthodox Dogmatic Theology, pp. 33-34', so I permitted the edit to stand. The Kimbrough reference given directly afterwards refutes this idea neatly, though. Elizium23 (talk) 19:39, 31 July 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Article mis-states Eastern Orthodox position 

message: There has been a lot of cruft inserted into this article over the years, and it seems to have obscured the heart of this article, which is the list of the deuterocanonical books. Is there some reason why this cannot be restored to near the top of the article, where the information will be easier to find?
Since the concept of deuterocanonical is a Roman Catholic one, is there some reason why the Roman Catholic position is spelled out after the Jewish position section, after the history section, and after the Septuagint section? Doesn't this obscure the relevant matter about these books, rather than help explicate it? 
I propose that the basic facts of the matter come up near the beginning, and the historical background and reaction from other religions follow. Rwflammang (talk) 05:19, 18 June 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lede is buried 

message: 'Deuterocanonical books' is a 16th century Roman Catholic coinage, arising in connection with the Council of Trent. It stands specifically for those Old Testament books and passages that were accepted as canonical by that Council, but were not in the Hebrew Bible.  The term was subsequently taken up by a number of other churches to denote their own particular lists of canonical O.T. Books outside the Hebrew canon; none of which correspond to that adopted at Trent; just as the 1546 Trent list does not correspond to the list of 'Ecclesiastical books' recognised by Rufinus and Augustine, or to any corresponding list formulated by authoritative councils and synods of the Latin church. As I read it, the lede as phrased now implies that the 1546 'dueterocanon' represented a fixed list of books recognised as canonical from antiquity.  Which may well be what some of the Fathers at Trent believed, but more recent scholarship does not support them.  I propose rewriting the lede para to make this point clear; with the counterpart usages of Eastern, Ethiopic and sundry Protestant churces clarified in a second par.  Is this acceptable to other editors? TomHennell (talk) 18:12, 18 February 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: You say: "Which may well be what some of the Fathers at Trent believed, but more recent scholarship does not support them." Who are they?, do recent Protestants and Jews have more authority than councils theologians? Jews and Protestants have no authority over the biblical canon. For Jews all New Testament books are not canonical.Rafaelosornio (talk) 00:09, 21 February 2018 (UTC)
replies: text:  I am chiefly relying on Pierre-Maurice Bogaert, both his article in Revue Benedictine (2005) 'Le livre de Baruch dans les manuscrits de la Bible latine. Disparition et réintégration' and his chapter in Volume II of the New Cambridge History of the Bible 'The Latin Bible, c. 600 to c. 900'.  Plus Edmon Gallagher and John Meade; 'The Biblical Canon Lists from Early Christianity' OUP 2017.  Bogaert is beyond question the most notable current scholar in this particular field.  http://www.unige.ch/colloqueBiblesAtl/conferenciers/bogaert/  As he is a Benedictine monk and Professor emeritus at a leading Catholic university, I doubt whether Bogaert is either a Protestant or a Jew.  Bogaert's particular point is that the category of 'deuterocanonical' books is anachronistic when applied to the 5th/6th century; it is essentially a 16th century term used by the Fathers at Trent to designate a sub-set of the books and passages found in various versions of the Christian Old Testament but not in the canonical Hebrew Bible; and which would have been termed 'ecclesiastical' in the earlier period.  But the exact list of deuterocanonical books adopted at Trent does not correspond with any actual list from antiquity.  This article (perhaps because it has become infested with citations from controversial contributions in a Protestant/Catholic debate), has tended to obscure this basic observations. It is anachronistic to refer to any list from antiquity as 'the dueterocanonical books' as the contents of such a list varied greatly one synod or authority to another; and even when titles on the list was the same, it was by no means certain that the same texts were being understood as being denoted by those titles. For instance, in Athanasius's canon list the 'two books of Esdras' are noted - corresponding to Greek Esdras and canonical Ezra-Nehemiah; but at Trent the phrase 'two books of Ezra is understood as denoting Ezra and Nehemiah as separate books. TomHennell (talk) 10:10, 21 February 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Propose rewrite of Lede

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Arrticle at present quotes Philip Schaff extensively; but I propose to remove these. Schaff's scholarship is now 150 years old; and as a Victorian High Calvinist, not really in tune with what is essentially a 16th century Catholic discourse.  I suggest that Lee Mcdonald's recent publications - especially 'The Canon Debate' (2002); and 'The Formation of the Bible'  (2012) are better representations of current notable scholarship. TomHennell (talk) 11:31, 26 February 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Philip Schaff; propose remove references. 

message: Some issues over discussion of the lede para.  Key point is that printed editions of the Vulgate circulating at the time of the Council of Trent did not have a standardised content; in particular commonly including a number of texts that had not been in the canon list proposed at the Council of Florence ; and incorporated into the associated Papal Bull.  Trent decided to adopt the Florence list (with only a few clarifications).  Partly this represented a new view of what 'canonical' implied; as Bogaert has consistently observed, medieval churchmen were entirely happy with the principle that the standard content of the Bible should not be confined to those books that were considered 'canonical'.  Printing Bibles was big business, and printers were strongly motivated to include every text that the market wanted - which in practice meant every text that had been cited as scripture in standard Patristic works. But the new pressure from Reformers implied tighter rules for what was 'in' and 'out' TomHennell (talk) 09:20, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Vulgate bible 

message: I have reverted the following from the lede.
:"..that had been a part of the original biblical canon as decided by the early church in the council of Rome 382 but would later come into question during the Protestant reformation and would be ratified again in the council of Trent. The term would come to distinguish these texts both from those that were termed protocanonical books"
The proposition that the list of deuterocanonical books adopted by the Council of Trent corresponded exactly with those put forward in Latin Councils of the late 4th century is clearly wrong in detail (though maintaining a broad equivalence).  The councils and synods of the African Church were indeed the first to accept as canonical the six 'ecclesiastical' books specifed by Rufinus; Wisdom of Solomon, Sirach, Tobit, Judith, two books of Maccabees.  All previous authoritative canon lists (notably those of Cyril and Athanasius) had excluded these books - as had the enigmatic list attached to canon 59 of the Synod of Laodicea.  This, of course, is implicit in the term 'deuterocanonical'; these were books and passages that were not considered 'canonical' when that term first began to be used by Jews and Christians after the 2nd century CE; but came to be considered canonical at a later stage.   But the deuterocanonical list of Trent includes some books and passages that are not mentioned in the African 4th century lists (e.g. Baruch, Letter of Jeremiah).  Moreover it included only one of the two books of Ezra specified in those canon lists; hence excluding Esdras A ( = 1 Esdras/3 Esdras), and splitting Esdras B into two books that Trent (following the medieaval Paris bibles) renamed 'Ezra' and 'Nehemiah'.  All this is explained in detail in Gallagher and Meade, drawing mainly from the scholarship of Pierre-Maurice Bogaert; which I think is agreed to represent the current scholarly consensus. TomHennell (talk) 00:58, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Edmon Gallagher and John Meade "The Biblical Canon Lists from Early Christianity"; OUP 2017 

message: I have reverted from the lede, for the moment, the proposed citation of the Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church stub article on 'Deuterocanonical books'; in which the phrase is defined as an alternative (Catholic) name for the books more generally categorised as Biblical Apocrypha; which were which found in the Septuagint but not in the Hebrew Bible.  The stub article then links to main ODCH article 'Apocrypha'.  While this makes sense for the likely users of the Oxford Dictionary - who only have to read one article, not two - the stub clearly was not intended to stand as a formal encyclopedic definition.  There are books in the KJV Apocrypha that were not in the Septuagint (and vice versa), and several books in the Septuagint that are neither listed by Trent as deuterocanonical, nor found in the Hebrew Bible. Unravelling all this should be, in my view, of the  main functions of this article.  Please discuss further on this page. TomHennell (talk) 09:06, 11 July 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church - Deuterocanonical books and Apocrypha 

message: The article refers to the Amharic Bible used by the Ethiopian church. Shouldn't this be the Ge'ez Bible? My understanding is that the Bible used by this church is in Ge'ez and that any Amharic translation would be a derivative.Bill (talk) 00:54, 23 July 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: well spotted; I have edited as suggested.  The version is commonly referred to as "Ethiopic"; although strictly that is the script in which it is written. TomHennell (talk) 10:52, 23 July 2019 (UTC)
thread_title: Ethiopian Orthodox

message: the relevant section from Bogaert is as below
"The preferred terms in our period were ‘canonical’ and ‘ecclesiastical’; ‘apocryphal’
was derogatory. ‘Canonical’ simply indicated books or parts of books
accepted in a particular received list or ‘canon’ of scripture; the contents of the
canon varied (see below, passim), though for the Old Testament it commonly
meant at least the books of the masoretic Hebrew Bible. Books and parts of
books that were not in that Bible and not in our New Testament are sometimes
called libri ecclesiastici – ‘ecclesiastical books’ – to signify books that were
accepted for reading in church. They may be divided into three groups. In
the first group were those books or parts of a book translated from the Greek
Septuagint and commonly found in the Latin Bibles: Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus
(Ben Sirach), Tobit and Judith, 1–2 Maccabees, Baruch (1–5) and the Letter
of Jeremiah (Baruch 6), and supplements to Daniel and to Esther. Today they
may be called ‘apocryphal’ (along with 3 Esdras and the Oratio Manasse of the
following group) or ‘deuterocanonical’. Of the Greek texts, Jerome translated
only Tobit, Judith and the supplements to Daniel and Esther. The second
group contains those books or parts of books translated from the Greek and
occasionally found in Latin Bibles during our period: 3 Esdras (Esdras A in the
Septuagint), 4 Esdras, the Confessio Esdrae, the Passio Maccabaeorum (4 Maccabees
in the Septuagint), the Oratio Manasse and Psalm 151. Third, attached
to the New Testament during our period were sometimes the Epistle to the
Laodiceans and, rarely, the Shepherd of Hermas and the Third Epistle to the
Corinthians."
So the books that are the subject of this article are commonly referred to as "ecclesiastical" in the ancient sources.  This should be stated in the article.  TomHennell (talk) 10:08, 11 November 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: are SOMETIMES called libri ecclesiastici – ‘ecclesiastical books’ (but by whom?) Rufinus is the only person, who relates: "But it should be known that there are also other books which our fathers call not Canonical but Ecclesiastical... all of which they would have read in the Churches, but not appealed to for the confirmation of doctrine. The other writings they have named Apocrypha. These they would not have read in the Churches. Rafaelosornio (talk) 13:11, 11 November 2019 (UTC)
replies: text:  Apparently are called ecclesiastical by "our fathers".  This is not just Rufinus's usage; but his summary of the common usage of his day.  Or so Bogaert understands it - and Bogaert's opinion is the one that counts here. The 'ecclesiastical' books are also 'canonical' (for some fathers); but they are still recognised as a distinct category from those that are in the Hebrew bible. This distinction (as it perceived in authoritative scholarship) should also be set out in the article.  TomHennell (talk) 14:06, 11 November 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  canonical, ecclesiastical, apocryphal 

message: Hi, I'm a newb on the subject, so I ask this as a genuine question:
The second paragraph explicitly references 'the seven deuterocanonical books', which creates the impression that there is an undisputed list of seven such books.  But then the article lists considerably more than seven and indicates some disagreement between various groups about which books are in and which out.  ???
(I suspect the opening paragraphs should be re-written in a more wholesale manner to talk about how the Protestant tradition takes the books included in the Masoretic text as canon, excluding all others, rather than the current approach of trying to start by defining the deuterocanon explicitly - it doesn't seem to lend itself to that.)
Thanks!  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Heduanna (talk • contribs) 17:23, 20 June 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: It depends on the Western & East Churches. Canonical by the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church:
#Tobit
#Judith
#Baruch including the Letter of Jeremiah as the 6th chapter or standalone book
#Sirach
#1 Maccabees
#2 Maccabees
#Wisdom of Solomon
These are additions to the canonical books:
#Additions to Esther
#Additions to Daniel: The Prayer of Azariah and Song of the Three Holy Children (Septuagint Daniel 3:24–90) Susanna and the Elders (Septuagint prologue, Vulgate Daniel 13) Bel and the Dragon (Septuagint epilogue, Vulgate Daniel 14)
Canonical only by the Orthodox Church:
#Prayer of Manasseh
#1 Esdras
#3 Maccabees
#Psalm 151
Rafaelosornio (talk) 21:47, 20 June 2020 (UTC)
replies: text:  The page on Biblical canon has a great table showing all the variations. I am adding better links to it. I have also move text naming the Catholic deuterocanonicals (which are also accepted by Eastern and Oriental Orthodox and Ethopian/Eritreans) to the lead, as it was buried earlier. Rick Jelliffe (talk) 02:07, 28 April 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  How many Deuterocanonical Books are there? 

message: Today's edits have introduced Manual of Style errors and a factual error. Elizium23 (talk) 20:27, 8 February 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with  and reverted your edits. Veverve (talk) 20:48, 8 February 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: You entered false information. The Books you put under the Orthodox Church should be divided like I had them because only the Russian (or Slavonic Bible) Orthodox Church has 2 Esdras in its canon. (Source: New Oxford Annotated Bible NRSV 2018 Fifth Edition) WillWestHark (talk) 23:37, 8 February 2021 (UTC)
replies: text:  I used the source you have given here, and I added information from it. Veverve (talk) 08:03, 9 February 2021 (UTC)
replies: text:  could you stop adding unsourced content? Veverve (talk) 18:45, 9 February 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  MOS and factual errors