Apocrypha

===Canonicity===
{{Main|Biblical apocrypha|Christian biblical canons}}
The establishment of a largely settled uniform [[Development of the Christian biblical canon|canon]] was a process of centuries, and what the term ''[[Biblical canon|canon]]'' (as well as ''apocrypha'') precisely meant also saw development. The canonical process took place with believers recognizing writings as being [[biblical inspiration|inspired by God]] from known or accepted origins, subsequently being followed by official affirmation of what had become largely established through the study and debate of the writings.<ref name="McDonald"/>

The first ecclesiastical decree on the Catholic Church's canonical books of the Sacred Scriptures is attributed to the [[Council of Rome]] (382), and is correspondent to that of Trent.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://taylormarshall.com/2008/08/decree-of-council-of-rome-ad-382-on.html |title=Decree of Council of Rome (AD 382) on the Biblical Canon |date=19 August 2008 |website=Taylor Marshall |access-date=1 December 2019}}</ref> [[Martin Luther]], like [[Jerome]], favored the [[Masoretic Text|Masoretic]] canon for the Old Testament, excluding apocryphal books in the [[Luther Bible]] as unworthy to be properly called scripture, but included most of them in a separate section.<ref>{{cite book|author-last1=Coogan |author-first1=Michael David |title=The New Oxford Annotated Bible with the Apocryphal/Deuterocanonical Books |date=2007 |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |location=Oxford, United Kingdom |page=457}}</ref> Luther did not include the [[deuterocanonical books]] in his Old Testament, terming them "Apocrypha, that are books which are not considered equal to the Holy Scriptures, but are useful and good to read."<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rl3lcbLkHV0C&q=luther+%22are+useful+and+good+to+read%22&pg=PA521 |title=The Popular and Critical Bible Encyclopædia and Scriptural Dictionary: Fully Defining and Explaining All Religious Terms, Including Biographical, Geographical, Historical, Archæological and Doctrinal Themes, Superbly Illustrated with Over 600 Maps and Engravings |author-first=Herbert Lockwood |author-last=Willett |year=1910 |publisher=Howard-Severance Company |access-date=21 April 2018 |via=Google Books}}</ref>

The [[Eastern Orthodox]] Church accepts four other books into its canon than what are contained in the Catholic canon: [[Psalm 151]], the [[Prayer of Manasseh]], [[3 Maccabees]], and [[1 Esdras]].<ref>S. T. Kimbrough (2005). Orthodox And Wesleyan Scriptural Understanding And Practice. St Vladimir's Seminary Press. p. 23. ISBN 978-0881413014.</ref>

====Disputes====
The status of the books which the Catholic Church terms ''[[deuterocanonical books|Deuterocanonicals]]'' (second canon) and Protestantism refers to as ''[[biblical apocrypha|Apocrypha]]'' has been an issue of disagreement which preceded the Reformation. Many believe that the pre-Christian-era Jewish translation (into Greek) of holy scriptures known as the [[Septuagint]], a Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures originally compiled around 280 BC, originally included the apocryphal writings in dispute, with little distinction made between them and the rest of the [[Old Testament]]. Others argue that the Septuagint of the first century did not contain these books but they were added later by Christians.<ref name="Wegner"/><ref>{{cite book|author-last1=Beckwith |author-first1=Roger T. |title=The Canon of the Old Testament |date=1 November 2008 |publisher=Wipf & Stock Pub |location=Eugene, OR |isbn=978-1606082492 |pages=62, 382–283 |url=http://biblicalstudies.org.uk/pdf/ejt/apocrypha_blocher.pdf |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221009/http://biblicalstudies.org.uk/pdf/ejt/apocrypha_blocher.pdf |archive-date=2022-10-09 |url-status=live |access-date=23 November 2015}}</ref>

The earliest extant manuscripts of the Septuagint are from the fourth century, and suffer greatly from a lack of uniformity as regards containing apocryphal books,<ref>{{cite book|author-last1=Ellis |author-first1=E. E. |title=The Old Testament in Early Christianity |date=1992 |publisher=Baker |location=Ada, MI |pages=34–35}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|author-last1=Archer, Jr |author-first1=Gleason |title=A survey of Old Testament introduction |date=2007 |publisher=Moody Press |location=Chicago, IL |isbn=978-0802484345 |pages=75–86 |edition=[Rev. and expanded].}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|author-last1=Biddle |author-first1=Martin Hengel |others=Roland Deines; introd. by Robert Hanhart; transl. by Mark E. |title=The Septuagint as Christian Scripture : its prehistory and the problem of its canon |date=2004 |publisher=Baker Academic |location=Grand Rapids |isbn=080102790X |pages=57–59 |edition=North American paperback}}</ref> and some also contain books classed as [[pseudepigrapha]], from which texts were cited by some early writers in the second and later centuries as being scripture.<ref name="McDonald" />

While a few scholars conclude that the Jewish canon was the achievement of the Hasmonean dynasty,<ref>{{cite book|author-last1=Davies |author-first1=Philip R. |title=Rethinking Biblical Scholarship: Changing Perspectives 4 |date=1 September 2013 |publisher=[[Routledge]] |isbn=978-1844657278 |page=225}}</ref> it is generally considered not to have been finalized until about 100 AD<ref>{{cite web|author-last1=Newman |author-first1=Robert C. |title=THE COUNCIL OF JAMNIA AND THE OLD TESTAMENT CANON |url=http://faculty.gordon.edu/hu/bi/ted_hildebrandt/OTeSources/00-Introduction/Text/Articles/Newman-CanonJamnia-WTJ.pdf |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221009/http://faculty.gordon.edu/hu/bi/ted_hildebrandt/OTeSources/00-Introduction/Text/Articles/Newman-CanonJamnia-WTJ.pdf |archive-date=2022-10-09 |url-status=live |website=Gordon Faculty Online |publisher=Gordon College |access-date=23 November 2015}}</ref> or somewhat later, at which time considerations of Greek language and beginnings of Christian acceptance of the Septuagint weighed against some of the texts. Some were not accepted by the Jews as part of the [[Hebrew Bible]] canon and the Apocrypha is not part of the historical Jewish canon{{Clarify|reason=The second clause is redundant, contradicts the first clause, and is unsourced.|date=May 2019}}.

Early church fathers such as [[Athanasius]], [[Melito of Sardis|Melito]], [[Origen]], and [[Cyril of Jerusalem]], spoke against the canonicity of much or all of the apocrypha,<ref name="Wegner">{{cite book|author-last1=Wegner |author-first1=Paul D. |title=The Journey from Texts to Translations: The Origin and Development of the Bible |date=2004 |publisher=Baker Academic |isbn=978-0801027994 |page=14 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kkVFOTsBOAEC}}</ref> but the most weighty opposition was the fourth century Catholic scholar [[Jerome]] who preferred the Hebrew canon, whereas Augustine and others preferred the wider (Greek) canon,<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.bible-researcher.com/vulgate2.html |title=Correspondence of Augustine and Jerome concerning the Latin Translation of the Scriptures |work=bible-researcher.com}}</ref> with both having followers in the generations that followed. The ''Catholic Encyclopedia'' states as regards the Middle Ages,
{{Blockquote|In the Latin Church, all through the [[Middle Ages]] [5th century to the 15th century] we find evidence of hesitation about the character of the deuterocanonicals. There is a current friendly to them, another one distinctly unfavourable to their authority and sacredness, while wavering between the two are a number of writers whose veneration for these books is tempered by some perplexity as to their exact standing, and among those we note St. Thomas Aquinas. Few are found to unequivocally acknowledge their canonicity.}}

The prevailing attitude of Western medieval authors is substantially that of the Greek Fathers.<ref>{{cite web|author-last1=Knight |author-first1=Kevin |title=Canon of the Old Testament |url=http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03267a.htm |website=New Advent |publisher=The Catholic Encyclopedia |access-date=26 November 2015}}</ref>
 
The wider Christian canon accepted by Augustine became the more established canon in the western Church<ref>{{cite book|author-last1=Lienhard |author-first1=Joseph |title=The Bible, the Church, and Authority |publisher=[[Fordham University]] |location=Collegeville, Minnesota |page=59}}</ref> after being promulgated for use in the Easter Letter of Athanasius (circa 372 A.D.), the Synod of Rome (382 A.D., but its [[Decretum Gelasianum]] is generally considered to be a much later addition<ref>{{cite web|author-last1=Burkitt |author-first1=F. C. |title=THE DECRETUM GELASIANUM. |url=http://www.tertullian.org/articles/burkitt_gelasianum.htm |website=tertullian.org |access-date=26 November 2015 |ref=Journal of Theological Studies}}</ref>) and the local councils of Carthage and Hippo in north Africa (391 and 393 A.D). Athanasius called canonical all books of the Hebrew Bible including Baruch, while excluding Esther. He adds that "there are certain books which the Fathers had appointed to be read to catechumens for edification and instruction; these are the Wisdom of Solomon, the Wisdom of Sirach (Ecclesiasticus), Esther, Judith, Tobias, the Didache, or Doctrine of the Apostles, and the Shepherd of Hermas. All others are apocrypha and the inventions of heretics (Festal Epistle for 367)".<ref>{{cite web|author=bible-researcher.com |title=Athanasius on the Canon|url=http://www.bible-researcher.com/athanasius.html |access-date=26 November 2015 |ref=Thirty-Ninth Festal Epistle, A.D. 367.}}</ref>

Nevertheless, none of these constituted indisputable definitions, and significant scholarly doubts and disagreements about the nature of the Apocrypha continued for centuries and even into Trent,<ref>{{cite book|author-last1=Jedin |author-first1=Hubert |title=Papal Legate At The Council Of Trent |date=1947 |publisher=B. Herder Book Co |location=St Louis |pages=270–271}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|author-last1=Wicks |author-first1=Jared |title=Cajetan Responds: A Reader in Reformation Controversy |date=1978 |publisher=[[The Catholic University Press of America]] |location=Washington}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|author-last1=Metzger |author-first1=Bruce |title=An Introduction to the Apocrypha |date=1957 |publisher=Oxford |location=New York |page=180}}</ref> which provided the first infallible definition of the Catholic canon in 1546.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Catholic Encyclopedia |title=Canon of the Old Testament |date=1908 |publisher=Robert Appleton Company |location=New York}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|author-last1=Tavard |author-first1=George H. |title=Holy Writ or Holy Church |date=1959 |publisher=Burns & Oates |location=London |pages=16–17}}</ref> This canon came to see appropriately 1,000 years of nearly uniform use by the majority, even after the 11th-century schism that separated the church into the branches known as the [[Roman Catholic]] and [[Eastern Orthodox]] churches.

In the 16th century, the Protestant reformers challenged the canonicity of the books and partial-books found in the surviving Septuagint but not in the [[Masoretic Text]]. In response to this challenge, after the death of Martin Luther (February 8, 1546) the ecumenical [[Council of Trent]] officially ("infallibly") declared these books (called "deuterocanonical" by Catholics) to be part of the canon in April, 1546 A.D.<ref>{{Cite book |title=Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent |publisher=George Routledge and Co. |year=1851 |location=London |pages=17-18 |language=en |translator-last=Buckley |translator-first=Theodore Alois}}</ref> While the Protestant Reformers rejected the parts of the canon that were not part of the [[Hebrew Bible]], they included the four New Testament books Luther considered of doubtful canonicity along with the Apocrypha in his non-binding [[Luther's canon]] (although most were separately included in his Bible,<ref name="McDonald">{{cite book|author-last1=McDonald |author-first1=Lee Martin |title=Forgotten Scriptures: The Selection and Rejection of Early Religious Writings |date=2009 |location=Louisville, KY |isbn=978-0664233570 |pages=11–33 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=n9U4T2aYQJ8C&q=Forgotten+Scriptures:+The+Selection+and+Rejection+of+Early+Religious+Writings+By+Lee+Martin+McDonald&pg=PR4 |publisher=Westminster John Knox Press |access-date=24 November 2015}}</ref> as they were in some editions of the KJV bible until 1947).<ref>{{cite book|author-last1=Hiers |author-first1=Richard H. |title=The Trinity Guide to the Bible |date=1 October 2001 |publisher=Trinity Press International |location=Norcross, GA |isbn=1563383403 |page=148 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=eKhBPOKzHkUC&q=luther+include+the+apocrypha+in+his+bible&pg=PA148 |access-date=23 November 2015}}</ref>

Protestantism therefore established a 66 book canon with the 39 books based on the ancient Hebrew canon, along with the traditional 27 books of the New Testament. Protestants also rejected the Catholic term "deuterocanonical" for these writings, preferring to apply the term "apocryphal" which was already in use for other early and disputed writings. As today (but along with other reasons),<ref name="Wegner"/> various reformers argued that those books contained doctrinal or other errors and thus should not have been added to the canon for that reason. The differences between canons can be seen under [[Biblical canon#Old Testament|Biblical canon]] and [[Development of the Christian biblical canon]].
 
Explaining the [[Eastern Orthodox]] Church's canon is made difficult because of differences of perspective with the [[Roman Catholic]] church in the interpretation of how it was done. Those differences (in matters of jurisdictional authority) were contributing factors in the [[East-West Schism|separation of the Roman Catholics and Orthodox]] around 1054, but the formation of the canon which Trent would later officially definitively settle was largely complete by the fifth century, if not settled, six centuries before the separation.{{citation needed|date=November 2021}} In the eastern part of the church, it took much of the fifth century also to come to agreement, but in the end it was accomplished. The canonical books thus established by the undivided church became the predominant canon for what was later to become Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox alike.{{citation needed|date=November 2021}}

The East already differed from the West in not considering every question of canon yet settled, and it subsequently adopted a few more books into its Old Testament. It also allowed consideration of yet a few more to continue not fully decided, which led in some cases to adoption in one or more jurisdictions, but not all. Thus, there are today a few remaining differences of canon among Orthodox, and all Orthodox accept a few more books than appear in the Catholic canon. The [[Psalms of Solomon]], [[3 Maccabees]], [[4 Maccabees]], the [[Epistle of Jeremiah]] the [[Book of Odes (Bible)|Book of Odes]], the [[Prayer of Manasseh]] and [[Psalm 151]] are included in some copies of the Septuagint,<ref>{{cite web|title=The Old Testament Canon and Apocrypha|url=http://www.bible-researcher.com/canon2.html |website=BibleResearcher |access-date=27 November 2015}}</ref> some of which are accepted as canonical by Eastern Orthodox and some other churches. Protestants accept none of these additional books as canon, but see them having roughly the same status as the other Apocrypha.{{citation needed|date=November 2021}}

[[Eastern Orthodoxy]] uses a different definition than the Roman Catholic Church does for the books of its canon that it calls [[Deuterocanonical books#In_Eastern_Orthodoxy|deuterocanonical]], referring to them as a class of books with less authority than other books of the Old Testament.<ref>[http://www.orthodoxanswers.org/answer/39/ Orthodox Answer To a Question About Apocrypha, Canon, Deuterocanonical – Answer #39] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120314205050/http://www.orthodoxanswers.org/answer/39/ |date=14 March 2012 }}</ref><ref>{{citation |url=http://www.crivoice.org/creeddositheus.html |title=The Confession of Dositheus (Eastern Orthodox, 1672) |others=Question 3 |editor=Dennis Bratcher |publisher=CRI / Voice, Institute}}</ref> In contrast, the [[Catholic Church]] uses this term to refer to a class of books that were added to its canon later than the other books in its Old Testament canon, considering them all of equal authority.