How Catholics and Protestants Got Different Old Testaments

I wrote this essay on the formation of the Old Testament canon because it is remarkably difficult to find good information on the subject online. I am a Catholic and an amateur historian, but I hope this essay will prove helpful for all Christians or any interested readers. I deliberately stuck to the history and tried to avoid any theological commentary on why one canon of Scripture might be better than the other, except insofar as it was tied in with the history. Enjoy!

What is the difference between the Catholic and Protestant Old Testaments?

There are seven-plus books found in the Catholic Old Testament that are not included in the Protestant Old Testament. They are 1 and 2 Maccabees, Wisdom, Sirach, Baruch, Judith, Tobit, and the additions to Daniel and Esther. Protestants call them the apocrypha. Catholics call them the deuterocanonical books, deuterocanonical meaning “second canon.” The word apocrypha is more confusing because in other contexts it can be used to mean all kinds of Christian and Jewish writings, both orthodox and heretical, but I will use the word apocrypha in this paper for two reasons: I am writing this at the request of Protestants, and it has fewer syllables.

Here is a very brief description of each book in the apocrypha:

1 & 2 Maccabees: History. They tell the story of the successful Jewish revolt against the Greeks in the 2nd century BC, which includes the origins of Hanukkah. They are considered solid history.

Wisdom: Wisdom literature. Reads like Proverbs.

Sirach: Wisdom literature. Reads like Proverbs.

Baruch: A letter from Jeremiah’s scribe Baruch after the beginning of the Babylonian captivity.

Judith: How Judith saves the Israelites from the Assyrians in a Samarian village.

Tobit: Fun story about a faithful Jewish family in the northern kingdom after the Assyrian invasion. Just remember never to let a bird poop in your eye.

Additions to Daniel: The prayer of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the fiery furnace, and the stories of Susannah and Bel and the Dragon.

Additions to Esther: Adds some theological commentary.

The New Testaments of Catholics and Protestants are identical.

Where do the apocryphal books come from?

To overgeneralize, the apocryphal books were written in Greek by Jews during the 400 years before the time of Christ. They fill in the oft-noted time gap between the end of the Protestant Old Testament and the beginning of the New Testament.

What did the Old Testament canon look like at the time of Christ?

The Old Testament canon was still open at the time of Christ. That is the main underlying reason why different Christians have different Old Testament canons. There are three parts to Jewish scripture: the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings. The books of the Law and the Prophets were considered closed by the time of Jesus, but the Writings were still open. The Writings varied from place to place, including books that would be included in all Bibles, such as Psalms and Song of Songs, books that would be included in Catholic Bibles like 1 and 2 Maccabees, and books that would be included in neither of the two, such as Psalm 151, Enoch, and 3 and 4 Maccabees.

One practical reason why the canon remained open for so long was because there were no bound books at the time, only scrolls. Hence, you were unlikely to find the exact same collection of sacred scrolls in every synagogue, in every village. There were regional variations. Decisions on which books were truly authoritative came with time and discernment.

What is the earliest historical basis for the Protestant and Catholic Old Testaments?

The Protestant Old Testament is the Hebrew Bible. It contains all of the Old Testament books that were originally written in the Hebrew language. In the time of Jesus, it was widely used by the Hebrew-speaking Jews of Judea.

The Catholic Old Testament is the Septuagint, the authorized Greek translation of the Jewish scriptures. It includes all of the books in the Hebrew Bible as well as several books originally written in Greek, after Greek had become the international language. In the time of Jesus, the Septuagint was widely used by the Greek-speaking Jews of the diaspora, from Egypt to Greece to Rome.

It is very important to remember that this description is a vast oversimplification – there were not two closed canons at the time of Christ. The Greek and Hebrew collections of scriptures themselves had different tables of contents in various places.

The important point to take away from this is that both the Catholic and Protestant Old Testament canons that exist today were within the range of acceptability to Jews 2000 years ago.

Which is quoted more in the New Testament, the Hebrew Bible or the Septuagint?

Both are quoted extensively by the authors of the New Testament. Jesus quotes both. The Septuagint is quoted somewhat more than the Hebrew Bible, but that is only to be expected since the New Testament, like the Septuagint, is written in Greek.

Which was used more often in the first couple centuries of Christianity, the Hebrew Bible or the Septuagint?

The Septuagint was used among early Christians almost exclusively, certainly after the first few years of Christianity when Gentiles and Greek-speaking Jews began joining the faith. This was because Greek was the international language, and the Hebrew language was all but unknown outside of Judea. Latin-speaking Christians used various Latin translations of the Septuagint.

How did the Hebrew Bible get 39 books?

Jewish religious leaders closed their canon over the course of the second century AD. (This is often described as happening at the "Council of Jamnia," but the importance and even the existence of such a council is very speculative.) The Hebrew Bible has the same books in it as the Protestant Old Testament, and it remains the canon of scripture for the Jews to this day. The Jews purposely rejected the Septuagint translation and all books written in Greek. Some of their reasons were:

1. to reject the large number of heretical writings in general circulation
2. to shore up Jewish culture and religion after the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD.
3. to distance themselves from the Christians, who had essentially co-opted the Septuagint.

Christians of the era did not view the closing of the Jewish canon of scripture as binding on Christians, but they were influenced by it.

It is worth keeping in mind that during the second century, Christians themselves did not see the canon as a very important issue in the grand scheme of things. They were more focused on the big questions like, “How can we convince the heretical Marcionites to use the Old Testament at all?” “How can Jesus be both God and the Son of God?” “How can we not get killed by lions?”

How did the Septuagint get 46 books?

The canon of the Septuagint was effectively closed in the late fourth century. The African Synod of Hippo in 393 affirmed the 46-book Septuagint and the New Testament as Scripture, a decision that was repeated by Councils of Carthage in 397 and 419. This is the canon of the Catholic Bible as it exists down to this day. The Councils of Carthage were led by Augustine, who regarded the canon as already closed. It is possible that the Council of Rome in 382 under Pope Damasus I officially affirmed the same canon of Scripture as well, but the evidence is not clear.

In 383, Pope Damasus I commissioned Jerome to translate the Bible into Latin. Jerome, who was living in Jerusalem, preferred the 39-book canon of the Hebrew Bible, viewing it as more authentic, but he was essentially overruled by Pope Damasus I and force of opinion among the other bishops. Jerome then translated Tobit and Judith himself and used Old Latin texts for the rest of the apocrypha, but he also wrote an introduction to the Old Testament where he expressed his view that the apocryphal books should have secondary status.

For the next thousand years, Jerome’s Latin Vulgate was the standard Bible of Western Christendom. It included both the apocrypha and Jerome’s commentary. Hence, medieval Christians had the awareness that the apocrypha were perhaps not quite equal to the other books, but in all practical matters they treated and quoted the apocrypha as Scripture.

So the fourth century councils in North Africa canonized the 46-book Septuagint. But why?

Presumably it was the most widely used and acceptable canon in that time and place.

I have the impression that earlier Christians – I’m talking second century – mostly preferred a shorter Old Testament. Bishop Melito of Sardis (c. 170 AD) is the first Christian we know of who recorded what books he thought belonged in the Old Testament. He chose the “Protestant 39 books” minus Esther, perhaps plus Wisdom. I speculate that second-century Christians preferred a shorter Old Testament because they were still relatively close to their Jewish roots, they were influenced by the closing of the Jewish canon of Scripture, and the more recently written books were less widely circulated.

But by the time of Augustine – the late fourth century – most Christians used a longer Old Testament. I speculate that this is because the apocrypha had been around long enough by then that they had acquired the authority of antiquity, were widely read and approved, and were integrated into public worship.

I support my speculations by looking to the history of the Eastern Orthodox. You see, the North African councils were only locally binding – they were not ecumenical councils. And the opinions of Pope Damasus, Augustine, and Jerome concerning the canon had little to no influence in the Greek-speaking East. I am not certain when or if the Orthodox closed their canon of Scripture, but if they did it was much later than in the West. As such, the standard Orthodox Old Testament is a 49 book Septuagint, though different Eastern Christian groups might include another book or three. Hence, a few more books entered the canon through wide use and antiquity. The Latin Vulgate also included those 3 additional books, by the way, but in an appendix. Christians in the West didn’t regard them as scripture.

Why did the Protestant Reformers decide to use the Hebrew Bible instead of the Septuagint as the basis for the Old Testament?

The era of the Reformation was also the dawn of modern textual analysis. This is the era when scholars debunked the Donation of Constantine, an eighth century forgery in which Constantine supposedly gave the pope temporal authority over the Roman Empire. This is the era when Biblical scholars realized that the venerable Latin Vulgate was far from a perfect translation, the most famous error being where Moses comes down from Mount Sinai with “horns” on his head instead of “light.”

More to the point, this is the era when Biblical scholars in Western Europe started learning Greek and Hebrew and had the opportunity to examine the Biblical texts in their original languages. And when they looked at the Hebrew Bible, they discovered that – gasp! – it had only 39 books. I think from that point on the Protestant Reformers were inclined to dismiss the apocrypha as "just another late Catholic addition to the faith." Like Jerome, they viewed the Hebrew Bible as more authentic in the selection of books as well as the language.

Another factor was the doctrinal implications of the Apocrypha. Now, there are surprisingly few doctrinal implications in the Apocrypha, but the biggest one is prayers for the dead and Purgatory. 2nd Maccabees commands prayers for the dead, which strongly implies that the dead benefit from our prayers – hence, Purgatory.

In 1519, only two years after the 95 Theses, Martin Luther was debating a fellow Catholic priest, Johannes Eck, who was defending the doctrine of Purgatory. When Eck quoted 2nd Maccabees at him, Luther replied that he did not recognize 2nd Maccabees as Scripture. Was Luther motivated by a reverence for the Hebrew Bible or a dislike of the doctrine of Purgatory? I don’t know. I venture to guess both, in that order.

How have Catholics viewed the apocrypha since the Reformation?

The Council of Trent revisited the topic of the canon of Scripture in the wake of the Protestant Reformation, and in 1563 it reaffirmed the use of the traditional 46-book Old Testament. Catholics today continue to consider the apocrypha as the inspired word of God and an integral part of the Bible.

On a practical level, none of the apocryphal books are anywhere near as “important” as the Gospel of John, or Romans, but I think it’s easy to make the case that 1 Maccabees is a more important book than, say, Nahum. (My husband Frank, an evangelical, agrees that 1 Maccabees is vital for understanding the book of Daniel, his favorite book of the Bible, but he insists that I need to develop a greater appreciation for Nahum, because he also likes fire and brimstone sermons.)

That said, there’s some very powerful and irreplaceable material in the apocrypha. Wisdom 2:12-20 is considered to be a prophecy of the crucifixion of Christ:

“Let us beset the just one, because he is obnoxious to us; he sets himself against our doings, reproaches us for transgressions of the law and charges us with violations of our training. He professes to have knowledge of God and styles himself a child of the LORD. To us he is the censure of our thoughts; merely to see him is a hardship for us, because his life is not like other men's, and different are his ways. He judges us debased; he holds aloof from our paths as from things impure. He calls blest the destiny of the just and boasts that God is his Father.

Let us see whether his words be true; let us find out what will happen to him. For if the just one be the son of God, he will defend him and deliver him from the hand of his foes. With revilement and torture let us put him to the test that we may have proof of his gentleness and try his patience. Let us condemn him to a shameful death; for according to his own words, God will take care of him.”

How have Protestants viewed the apocrypha since the Reformation?

Protestants do not consider the apocrypha to be the inspired word of God, and none would classify it with the rest of the Bible. However, early Protestant Bibles such as the Luther Bible, the Geneva Bible (supported by John Calvin and John Knox), and the 1611 King James Bible included the apocrypha in a middle section. Luther and the Anglicans believed that it was good and useful reading, but not to be used for the purposes of doctrine. The Anglicans have always had the option of reading it in their church services.

The apocryphal books were dropped from Protestant Bibles over the course of centuries due to gradual shifts in public opinion. Most Anglicans and Lutherans used Bibles with the apocrypha in a middle section until the beginning of the twentieth century, while the Calvinists and other more evangelical Protestants dropped the apocrypha long before. The evangelical-leaning British and Foreign Bible Society, for example, ceased to distribute Bibles containing the apocrypha in 1825.

I think that while the twentieth century saw the greatest division yet between the Protestant 66-book Bible and the Catholic 73-book Bible, the separation between the two is diminishing somewhat, at least in the US. American Catholics often purchase Protestant Bibles because they are more readily available and have far more choice of translations. American Protestants, especially serious Bible readers or seminary students, often purchase one of the newer study Bibles that once again contain the apocrypha in a middle section.

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I hope this was informative and fair! I welcome all corrections and comments!

My main sources were

Joseph Lienhard’s The Bible, the Church and Authority, chapter 5.

Karl Joseph von Hefele's A History of the Councils of the Church from the Original Documents, Volume 2.

Wikipedia articles, especially “Biblical canon," “Development of the Old Testament canon,” and "Council of Rome."

Eusebius’s Church History

Augustine’s De Doctrina Christiana

And a whole host of websites, some more trustworthy than others.

For anyone that really, REALLY wants to know more about canon formation, The Canon Debate, edited by Lee Martin McDonald and James Sanders, is a 700-page collection of essays that expresses the current scholarship. It is available on Amazon or in academic libraries.

January 24 - St. Francis de Sales - Part 2

Here are some tidbits from his biography that I haven’t yet mentioned:

 

Francis de Sales (1567-1622) was the first of six children of an aristocratic family.  His father had great ambitions for him – he literally had a Senate seat set aside for his son right out of school -- and was strongly opposed to his becoming a priest.  His father grudgingly agreed to his son’s plans for the priesthood only after the provost of Geneva died (the #2 man after the bishop), and he was able to arrange for his son to take the position.

 

When Francis was studying in Paris, he spent six weeks of spiritual attack convinced that he was predestined to hell.  (Recall that predestination was the hot topic of the day.)  He was released from this fear after praying a prayer of surrender to God's will in front of a statue of Mary, and he consecrated himself to her protection.

 

When he became a priest, the first thing he did was go on mission, alone, to the Chablais region near Geneva, which was very Calvinist.  He did not make a single convert for years.  He could not preach in public, and people refused to talk to him, feed him or help him in any way.  One winter night he secured himself high in a tree with his belt to escape from wolves, became frozen to the tree, and had to be rescued.  Two things eventually changed the situation.  First, Francis invented the religious tract (a dubious distinction if you ask me!).  He wrote down the positions of the Catholic Church on disputed issues and stuck them under people’s doors at night.  Second, the people of the Chablais came to admire and respect him for his kindness, affability, and continual ability to offer the other cheek when the first one was struck.  It is said that when he arrived in the Chablais, there were not one hundred Catholics, and when he left the Chablais, there were not one hundred Calvinists.  Over the course of his ministry, he is thought to have converted 72,000 people.

 

In retrospect, it’s easy to ask – why put all that effort into converting fellow Christians?  Remember that this is the era when Catholic-Protestant relations were at their absolute lowest, when each thought the other was “unsaved”, and their leaders hurled wild invectives at each other when they weren’t actively persecuting each other.  Given this situation, it was seen as incredible when Francis de Sales and Theodore de Beza, Calvin’s personal successor in Geneva, sat down with one another for amicable discussions.  To this day, Francis de Sales is remembered as an example of how to love everyone, not just the people who agree with you.

 

When Francis became bishop of Geneva in 1602, he was a very busy man.  He frequently traveled around his diocese and preached eloquently, and was on occasion seen with a halo of light around him as he preached.  People flocked to hear his sermons.  He made sure his people were well taught.  He invented a sign language so he could personally prepare a deaf man for his First Communion, and found him a job as well.  He also administered his diocese and co-founded an order of nuns that thrives to this day.

 

He thought that the main duty of bishop, however, was to provide personal spiritual direction to the people entrusted to his care.  As such, he spent hours every day writing letters to people who asked him questions, giving them practical advice on how they could be freed from their sins and live more Christlike lives.  From these letters came “Introduction to the Devout Life,” the manual of holiness for ordinary Christians. 

 

Next time, I’ll write about what I learned from that book.

January 24 - St. Francis de Sales - Part 1

This Sunday is the feast day of my patron saint, Francis de Sales (1567-1622).  As he is the patron saint of writers, his picture shows up on quite a few blogs, but I also chose him to be my patron saint at Confirmation last year.  So instead of writing a biography the way I usually do, I'm going to start by giving a few answers to the question:  Why St. Francis de Sales?

 

He was known for making Catholics out of Protestants.  I find it amusing that he helped bring another Protestant into the Catholic Church 400 years later. 

 

I used to live in his diocese.  He grew up in the Savoy region of eastern France.  He became bishop of Geneva, but because Catholicism was illegal in Calvinist Geneva, he lived in Annecy.  I spent 2 years living perhaps 10 miles from his house when I was a child.

 

He got a first-rate education in the humanities, studied at the College de Clermont in Paris, got his graduate degree in Italy, and was supposed to embark on a career in diplomacy, but decided instead to become a priest.  Clearly, we have nothing in common.  I got married and had kids instead. 

 

He wrote the first and best manual on holiness for busy moms.  His most famous work, “Introduction to the Devout Life,” is taken from letters he wrote giving spiritual advice to his cousin, Marie de Charmoisy.

 

He makes holiness sound attractive and attainable.  Let’s face it, some of the saints are less imitable than others.  Who wants to go live in the desert, wear a hairshirt and eat nothing but the Eucharist while attempting to pray around the clock?  Any takers?  Didn’t think so.  Now, who wants to experience the love of God and become a more loving, gentle and altogether happy person right in the comfort of your own home?  Doesn’t that sound like a great idea?

 

I’ll try to write a couple more posts on his life and writings this weekend!

January 21 - St. Agnes

Since I’m a history buff and love original sources (not because I'm lazy or anything), I’m going to let St. Ambrose tell us about St. Agnes.  Agnes was a child martyr executed in Rome in the year 304, during the vicious persecutions of Diocletian.  Ambrose gave this sermon on Agnes's feast day about a century after her death.

 

St. Agnes is said to have suffered martyrdom at age twelve.  The cruelty that did not spare so young a child was hateful, but the power of faith in the child was greater.  Was there room for a wound in that small body?  The sword could barely strike her, yet she had the inner strength to strike back.  Girls of her age usually can’t even bear a parent’s angry glance.  They cry at needles’ pricks as though they were wounds.  Agnes, however, faced her persecutors fearlessly.  When they attempted to force her to worship at the pagan altars, she stretched out her hands and made the sign of the cross over the sacrificial fires.  She was not fazed by the chains they wrapped around her.  And she freely offered her body to the executioner’s sword.

 

The executioner used both threats and allurements to try to change her mind.  He encouraged young men to beg her to marry them.  But she answered, “I already have a spouse, and I will not offend him by pretending that another might please me.  I will give myself only to him who first chose me.  So, executioner, what are you waiting for?  Destroy this body that unwanted eyes desire.”

 

Agnes stood and prayed.  Then she bent down her neck.  The executioner trembled as though he himself had been condemned.  His right hand shook and his face grew pale, but the virgin showed no fear at all.

 

So in one victim, we have a twofold martyrdom of purity and faith, for Agnes both remained a virgin and also obtained martyrdom.

 

There exist ancient variations of the story of St. Agnes, with some possible basis in actual events.  It is said that she was beautiful, and many men sought to marry her, but she refused them for the sake of Christ.  When she refused the son of the prefect of Rome, he was angered and reported her as a Christian to the local magistrate.  When she refused to give up her faith, she was sentenced to death, but not before being stripped and dragged to a brothel, as it was unlawful to execute a virgin.  However, only one of the men dared try to touch her.  He was immediately struck blind, but Agnes healed him.  The magistrate ordered her to be burned anyway, but she survived this, and she was decapitated.

 The church "St. Agnes outside the walls" was built over her grave in the time of Constantine, remodeled in the seventh century, and still stands today.

While the details of her story have been blurred with time, her situation as a twelve-year old girl who willingly faced death for Christ has inspired Christians throughout the ages.  Agnes shows us that holiness does not depend on age, experience, or own efforts, but is a gift that God offers us all.

January 20 - St. Fabian

Since St. Fabian and St. Sebastian were both martyred on January 20^th, the first in 250 and the second around 288, they are sometimes found together in paintings.  This, of course, leads to the artistic spectacle of an anachronistically dressed pope wincing in the direction of the arrow-stricken man, thinking, “Ouch.  Looks painful,” as St. Sebastian prays that God will rescue him from the man holding the curious-looking spear.

Fabian was pope during an age in which the job implied the distinct possibility of an early death, as opposed to, say, regal robes, a triple tiara, and cushy living quarters at the Lateran Palace.  Bishops of Rome in the third century were still very much underground figures, and often little is known about them beyond a line or two detailing their accomplishments in the Liber Pontificalis.

 

Because Fabian was much revered by his contemporaries, we know a little more than that.

 

Fabian was an undistinguished layman visiting Rome in the year 236 when Christians were assembling to elect a new bishop.  In the middle of the deliberations, a dove came down from the ceiling and landed on his head.  This was taken as a sign by everyone present that the Holy Spirit had chosen the unknown Fabian, and he was unanimously elected. 

 

Fabian’s election ushered in a period of peace for the Church.  He appointed new deacons, sent missionaries to Gaul, and appointed people to write down the stories of the martyrs so they would be remembered.

 

In 250, he himself was martyred when the new emperor Decius reinstituted the persecution of Christians.  Some of the newer Christians who had joined the church in peacetime were tempted to sacrifice that pinch of incense to the Roman gods, and save their own lives, but Pope Fabian set an example by being one of the first to die.

 

He was buried in the Roman catacombs, and the inscription on his tomb survives to this day.

January 20 - St. Sebastian

Here he is.  St. Sebastian.  The guy with the arrows.  You can’t miss seeing him in any great art museum.  Renaissance painters loved him because he provided a socially acceptable opportunity to paint a nude male torso with arrows sticking out of it. 

 

Plus, his story is fantastic.

 

Sebastian (lived approximately 257-288) joined the army in Rome around the year 283 to provide secret protection and support to fellow Christians who were being persecuted.  Once, twin brothers Marcus and Marcellinus were in prison awaiting execution for their faith, and their non-Christian family was pleading for them to renounce the faith and stay alive.  Sebastian intervened, preaching so fervently about the eternal glory that awaited them in heaven that not only did Marcus and Marcellinus remain firm in their faith until the end, but their family converted as well.  When Chancellor Nicostratus, who was in charge of the prisoners, caught wind of this, Sebastian made the sign of the cross over the lips of Zoe, his deaf-mute wife, and healed her.  She began to speak and professed her faith in Jesus as Lord.  Nicostratus then brought in the other 16 prisoners to be converted.

 

Marcus, Marcellinus, Nicostratus, and Zoe were all martyred.

 

Sebastian also cured Chromatius, the prefect of Rome, from gout.  He and his son converted.  Chromatius freed all of the prisoners under him, freed his slaves, and retired to the countryside.  His son was martyred.

 

Meanwhile, Sebastian was appointed captain of the Praetorian Guard by Emperors Diocletian and Maximian, who were unaware that he was Christian.  When Diocletian found out, he sentenced Sebastian to death by firing squad.  Sebastian was tied to a stake and shot by archers “till he was full of arrows as a hedgehog.”

 

Miraculously, he survived.

 

When a Christian widow went to retrieve his body, she found him still alive.  She secretly nursed him back to health.  As soon as he was able, Sebastian went out into the street and taunted Diocletian as he passed by.  The astonished emperor, taking no chances, ordered him clubbed to death on the spot.

 

He was a very popular saint in his own time and become even more popular in the Middle Ages, when he was known as the patron saint of plague sufferers.  Everyone admired the heroism of Sebastian, the saint who was martyred twice.