Short Apologetic: Apocrypha or Deuterocanon?

What Should Protestants Call These Books?

Occasionally, someone like me, Martin Luther, or Thomas Cranmer will make the argument there are books which are important to be read, adjacent to the Bible, but unfortunately aren’t printed within most physical Bibles nowadays. This is a truly unfortunate reality, because most Bibles printed before the 1830s contained these writings which are to be “read for example of life and instruction.” If you want to read more about these books, commonly called the Apocrypha, check out my two-part series, Thēsauros.

However, a predicament arises as there are various names for these books. The naming largely is based on tradition.

• Protestants generally call them the Apocrypha—contested authority.

• Roman Catholics call some of them Deuterocanon—the second canon.

• The Eastern Orthodox synods have used Greek, anagignoskomena—worthy to be read.

In Thēsauros, I argued for them to be called ecclesiastical books, but I doubt that’ll catch on anytime soon, so we really have to pick a word, don’t we?

As much as I like anagignoskomena, in English we really have the choice between Apocrypha and Deuterocanon. When it comes down to it, I believe Protestants should refer to them as the Apocrypha. I have one overruling reason for this: it is to identify our collection of books as distinct from the Roman Catholic collection of books, which is shorter. Secondarily, the King James Version calls them “The Books called Apocrypha.” Why deviate from a long-standing tradition and formulary?

The Belgic Confession of 1561 and the English Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion have identical canon lists. They list several ‘other books’ which the Reformed Churches and the English Church have both received—they are the books of the Apocrypha listed just as found in the King James Bible. Article VI of the Article of Religion says (the exact same list is found in Article VI of the Belgic Confession):

And the other Books (as Hierome saith) the Church doth read for example of life and instruction of manners; but yet doth it not apply them to establish any doctrine; such are these following:

The Third Book of Esdras, The Fourth Book of Esdras, The Book of Tobias, The Book of Judith, The rest of the Book of Esther, The Book of Wisdom, Jesus the Son of Sirach, Baruch the Prophet, The Song of the Three Children, The Story of Susanna, Of Bel and the Dragon, The Prayer of Manasses, The First Book of Maccabees, The Second Book of Maccabees.

The article does not claim this is the exhaustive list of the ‘other books’ (leaving open the possibility for us to be informed by the ones the East has received), but by listing the books it does, it separates the Protestant Apocrypha from the Roman Catholic Deuterocanon as two different collections. It is not really a matter of which term is better suited—in plain meaning deuterocanonical is better suited—but it is a matter of distinction.

Though this is primarily directed to Reformed and Anglican Christians, even Lutherans recognize the benefits of a larger Apocrypha. The Apocrypha: Lutheran Edition with Notes (Concordia, 2012) includes the full ESV Apocrypha, not just the books Luther included in his Lutherbibel. The principle of recovering what the Church in all time and in all places has maintained is a continuing Reformation practice.

Practically, this just means Protestants have more books than Roman Catholics. We simply have to distinguish our larger canon from the Roman Catholic canon, and referring to them as Apocrypha does that well and keeps us grounded in tradition. At the very least, we have the books spelled out in the two Article VI’s. At most, we have what is commonly being translated in modern Bibles like the ESV, recovering for us more of what the Orthodox have preserved. As these are for “example and instruction,” we have more example and instruction to receive. The Prayer of Manasseh, for example, is one of the finest prayers to imitate.

Therefore, next Michaelmas, the Feast of St. Michael and All Angels, remember the Archangel Uriel, who helped Ezra discern apart from the evil of the heart (Jeremiah 17:9).

Then the angel that had been sent to me, whose name was Uriel, answered and said to me, “Your understanding has utterly failed regarding this world, and do you think you can comprehend the way of the Most High?” Then I said, “Yes, my lord.” And he replied to me, “I have been sent to show you three ways, and to put before you three problems. If you can solve one of them for me, I also will show you the way you desire to see, and will teach you why the heart is evil.”
- 2 Esdras 4:1-4 (RSV)

You won’t find Uriel in a Roman Catholic Bible. Now, the next time a Roman Catholic apologist tells you that your Protestant Bible is missing books, you can confidently say, “no, actually, you are the one missing books!”