A Catholic Introduction to the Bible: The Old Testament

By John Bergsma and Brant Pitre

Although many Catholics are familiar with the four Gospels and other writings of the New Testament, for most, reading the Old Testament is like walking into a foreign land. Who wrote these forty-six books? When were they written? Why were they written? What are we to make of their laws, stories, histories, and prophecies? Should the Old Testament be read by itself or in light of the New Testament?

John Bergsma and Brant Pitre offer readable in-depth answers to these questions as they introduce each book of the Old Testament. They not only examine the literature from a historical and cultural perspective but also interpret it theologically, drawing on the New Testament and the faith of the Catholic Church. Unique among introductions, this volume places the Old Testament in its liturgical context, showing how its passages are employed in the current Lectionary used at Mass.

Accessible to nonexperts, this thorough and up-to-date introduction to the Old Testament can serve as an idea textbook for biblical studies. Its unique approach, along with its maps, illustrations, and other reference materials, makes it a valuable resource for seminarians, priests, Scripture scholars, theologians, and catechists, as well as anyone seeking a deeper understanding of the Bible.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ignatius Press
• Release date: Sep 4, 2018
• ISBN: 9781642290486

Book preview

1. THE VISION OF THIS BOOK

A Catholic Introduction to the Old Testament

The world of publishing offers an amazingly wide spectrum of introductions to the Old Testament. Many books adopt a completely secular approach, subjugating the claims of any religious confession to the supposed objectivity of a critical method. Others proceed from a Protestant world view, whether mainstream or evangelical, and reflect the questions, debates, and theological outlooks that prevail in their own ecclesial communities. Still others are written for an ecumenical classroom setting, where faith is not opposed, but no particular faith is privileged. All these approaches have their own value, and we will draw on many of their insights throughout this work.

However, it is also important for there to be an in-depth introduction to Scripture that is both thoroughly informed by contemporary scholarship and explicitly written from a Catholic perspective of faith and reason, embracing what might be called an ecclesial method of biblical exegesis. In particular, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, there is a real need for an up-to-date Catholic introduction to the Bible that is truly integrated, uniting exegesis and theology, faith and reason, Scripture and Tradition, and the Old and New Testaments. As we will see in a moment, just such an approach was called for by Pope Benedict XVI in the first major papal document on the Bible in over fifty years and the longest papal document on Scripture ever written: his Apostolic Exhortation on the Word of God, Verbum Domini.¹ In the wake of the publication of Verbum Domini, and in the light of the many exciting advances taking place in contemporary biblical studies, now seems a very fitting time to provide a fresh introduction to the Old and New Testaments that takes into account the significant developments in the study of Scripture both in biblical scholarship and in recent magisterial teaching. That is what this volume—A Catholic Introduction to the Bible: The Old Testament—and the next volume—A Catholic Introduction to the Bible: The New Testament—are designed to provide.

Therefore, this book has been written for anyone who wants to gain an in-depth understanding of the Old Testament from a Catholic perspective. In particular, the text was designed with two key audiences in mind:

1. Catholic Seminarians, Graduate Students, and Ordained Ministers: The present volume was written first and foremost to serve as a robustly historical, literary, and theological introduction to the Old Testament for Catholic seminarians and lay students in graduate programs in religion and theology. As such, it is ideally suited for a standard single-semester course on the Old Testament. However, the book was also deliberately designed to be thorough enough to be utilized in courses on the various parts of the Old Testament: (1) the Pentateuch, (2) the historical books, (3) the wisdom literature and Psalms, and (4) the prophetic literature. (In this format, it could be supplemented by other readings.) Finally, the text was also designed to serve as a refresher course for ordained ministers, both priests and deacons, who are no longer in the classroom but who may want to brush up on what ancient interpreters as well as contemporary scholars have discovered about the books of the Old Testament.

2. College Students, Directors of Religious Education, Scripture Teachers, and Interested Lay People: Although intended primarily to be a graduate-level textbook, this introduction does not presuppose any previous study of the Old Testament. Instead, it is written as clearly as possible in order to be accessible to anyone interested in learning more about the Bible. It is our hope, then, that it could also be used as a reference work for undergraduate students, directors of religious education, Bible study leaders, and any interested lay people. Indeed, the text covers every book of the Old Testament precisely so that the teacher or reader has the freedom to select those parts of the canon (and those portions of the book) that he or she deems most important, whether it be the introductions, the sidebars, the sections on theological issues, or the sections on the living tradition. In particular, the sections in each chapter on how that particular Old Testament book is utilized in the Lectionary will prove extremely valuable for pastors and ministers who preach the Scriptures regularly. Finally, in terms of personal Scripture study, each chapter has been designed to be long enough so that it could even be utilized as a short individual Bible study on that particular book of the Old Testament.

In sum, there is something for everyone in this introduction to the Old Testament. Although one might wonder at the accuracy of referring to a book of this length as an introduction, as the reader will soon discover—and as the bibliographies for further reading that are attached to each chapter make clear—this book only scratches the proverbial surface of the sacred library of forty-six books known as the Old Testament.

An Integrated Approach to Scripture

Before diving into the text of the Old Testament itself, it is important first to say a few words about what we mean by an integrated Catholic approach to the Old and New Testaments. To be precise: inspired by the teachings of Pope Benedict XVI in Verbum Domini, this introduction aims to bring together the following aspects of scriptural study: historical exegesis and theology, faith and reason, Scripture and Tradition, and the Old and New Testaments. As we will see, taken together, these will culminate in a distinctly liturgical approach to Scripture, one that is tied to the contemporary Lectionary of the Catholic Church. In what follows, we will take a few moments to reflect on each of these principles as guideposts to how the rest of the book will proceed.

1. Historical Exegesis and Theology

It is critical to emphasize: this introduction is self-consciously both historical and theological in its approach.

The reason for the emphasis on history in a Christian introduction to the Bible is simple: Christianity is a historical religion, and divine revelation is inextricably bound up with the deeds and words performed by God in the history of salvation.² In his Apostolic Exhortation on the Word of God, Pope Benedict reiterated the reasons for a historical approach to Scripture when he wrote:

Before all else, we need to acknowledge the benefits that historical-critical exegesis and other recently developed methods of textual analysis have brought to the life of the Church. For the Catholic understanding of sacred Scripture, attention to such methods is indispensable, linked as it is to the realism of the Incarnation: "This necessity is a consequence of the Christian principle formulated in the Gospel of John 1:14: Verbum caro factum est. [The Word became flesh.] The historical fact is a constitutive dimension of the Christian faith. The history of salvation is not mythology, but a true history, and it should thus be studied with the methods of serious historical research." The study of the Bible requires a knowledge of these methods of enquiry and their suitable application. (VD 32 [emphasis added])

Notice here that the pope describes historical-critical exegesis of Scripture not only as helpful but as indispensable. For Benedict, this need for historical exegesis is rooted in the historical reality of the Incarnation itself. Because the Word became flesh and dwelt in history (Jn 1:14), any Catholic approach to Scripture must give serious attention to the historical-critical and textual questions surrounding the Bible. As a result, in this book, we will have constant recourse to contemporary historical-critical studies and literary-critical analyses of each book of the Old Testament. Each chapter will focus on the literary structure and the historical issues raised by that particular book. It will also examine what scholars are saying about the historical origins of the various books of the Old Testament and the historicity of the events depicted therein. We hope that in this way the book can help serve as a corrective to what Pope Benedict calls the fundamentalist interpretation of sacred Scripture, which has wreaked such havoc in recent times, leading many Catholics to leave the Church (VD 44). According to the pope, one major problem with the fundamentalist interpretation of the Bible is that it refuses to take into account the historical character of biblical revelation and thereby makes itself incapable of accepting the full truth of the incarnation itself (VD 44).

At the same time, this historical approach to the Scriptures will be balanced by a theological approach. The reason for this is equally straightforward: according to the Catholic faith, Sacred Scripture is not just a human book; it is also inspired by God (2 Tim 3:16). In the final analysis, this means that God is the author of Sacred Scripture and that the divinely revealed realities, which are contained and presented in the text of Sacred Scripture, have been written down under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.³ As Pope Benedict points out, one implication of the truth of inspiration is that Scripture must be interpreted not only from a historical-critical or literary perspective, but also from a theological perspective:

On the one hand, the [Second Vatican] Council emphasizes the study of literary genres and historical context as basic elements for understanding the meaning intended by the sacred author. On the other hand, since Scripture must be interpreted in the same Spirit in which it was written, the Dogmatic Constitution indicates three fundamental criteria for an appreciation of the divine dimension of the Bible: 1) the text must be interpreted with attention to the unity of the whole of Scripture; nowadays this is called canonical exegesis; 2) account is be taken of the living Tradition of the whole Church; and, finally, 3) respect must be shown for the analogy of faith. Only where both methodological levels, the historical-critical and the theological, are respected, can one speak of a theological exegesis, an exegesis worthy of this book. (VD 34)

In this book, we will attempt to engage in this kind of theological exegesis, following the three criteria of Vatican II, by paying close attention to (1) the content and unity of the whole Bible, both Old and New Testaments, (2) the living tradition of the Church, and (3) the analogy of faith. For example, in the Living Tradition section in each chapter, we will examine how key passages from the Old Testament are interpreted in the New Testament, in the writings of the Church Fathers and Doctors, as well as in the teachings of the Magisterium.

In this way, we will try to help realize Vatican II’s goal of making the study of the sacred page the soul of sacred theology (DV 24). As many contemporary biblical scholars and theologians have noted, this reintegration of historical exegesis and theological interpretation is desperately needed. Pope Benedict puts it strongly when he writes: "In a word, ‘where exegesis is not theology, Scripture cannot be the soul of theology, and conversely, where theology is not essentially the interpretation of the Church’s Scripture, such a theology no longer has a foundation’ " (VD 35 [emphasis added]).

2. Faith and Reason

Of course, in order to integrate exegesis and theology, one must also interpret Scripture from the perspective of faith and reason. As mentioned above, many contemporary introductions to the Bible, often written for a secular university context, take the approach of bracketing or prescinding from faith, in order to study the Scriptures from the vantage point of human reason alone. Although such studies have their value, they are intrinsically secular in character and, as a result, can never be properly theological. In Verbum Domini, the pope called for an interpretation of Scripture that utilizes all of the tools of natural human reason (such as historical-critical exegesis) but unites them to supernatural faith:

[A] hermeneutical approach to sacred Scripture inevitably brings into play the proper relationship between faith and reason. Indeed, the secularized hermeneutic of sacred Scripture is the product of reason’s attempt structurally to exclude any possibility that God might enter into our lives and speak to us in human words. Here too, we need to urge a broadening of the scope of reason. In applying methods of historical analysis, no criteria should be adopted which would rule out in advance God’s self-disclosure in human history. The unity of the two levels at work in the interpretation of sacred Scripture presupposes, in a word, the harmony of faith and reason. On the one hand, it calls for a faith which, by maintaining a proper relationship with right reason, never degenerates into fideism, which in the case of Scripture would end up in fundamentalism. On the other hand, it calls for a reason which, in its investigation of the historical elements present in the Bible, is marked by openness and does not reject a priori anything beyond its own terms of reference. In any case, the religion of the incarnate Logos can hardly fail to appear profoundly reasonable to anyone who sincerely seeks the truth and the ultimate meaning of his or her own life and history. (VD 36 [emphasis added])

In this book, we will strive to maintain such a harmony of faith and reason, recognizing that though faith is above reason, there can never be any real discrepancy between faith and reason. Since the same God who reveals mysteries and infuses faith has bestowed the light of reason on the human mind, God cannot deny himself, nor can truth ever contradict truth (CCC 159). Therefore, in each chapter, we will use reason to examine openly the historical and exegetical questions that are raised by the text, while at the same time taking into account what we also know from faith, avoiding a viewpoint that is ultimately based on the outlook that the Divine does not intervene in human history or one that would explain away all of the divine elements in Scripture (cf. VD 35). This is no secular introduction to the Bible, but one animated by faith seeking understanding (Latin fides quaerens intellectum).

3. Scripture and Tradition

A third distinctive aspect of this book is that it will study the Old Testament from the perspective of both the Sacred Scripture, which is the biblical text, and Sacred Tradition, which is how that text has been interpreted in the doctrine, life, and worship of the Church (cf. CCC 77-78). In the words of the Second Vatican Council:

Sacred Tradition and sacred Scripture, then, are bound closely together, and communicate one with the other. For both of them, flowing out from the same divine well-spring, come together in some fashion to form one thing, and move towards the same goal. Sacred Scripture is the speech of God as it is put down in writing under the breath of the Holy Spirit. And Tradition transmits in its entirety the Word of God which has been entrusted to the apostles by Christ the Lord and the Holy Spirit. It transmits it to the successors of the apostles so that, enlightened by the Spirit of truth, they may faithfully preserve, expound and spread it abroad by their preaching. Thus it comes about that the Church does not draw her certainty about all revealed truths from the holy Scriptures alone. Hence, both Scripture and Tradition must be accepted and honored with equal feelings of devotion and reverence.⁴

In light of such teaching, Pope Benedict has stressed that knowledge of the Tradition is not just helpful for interpreting Scripture, but essential: The living Tradition is essential for enabling the Church to grow through time in the understanding of the truth revealed in the Scriptures (VD 17).

In this book, we will attend to the relationship between Scripture and the living tradition of the Church by giving special attention to how the text of the Old Testament has been interpreted by the early Church Fathers, the medieval Doctors, the living Magisterium, and, above all, the liturgy of the Church. With regard to this last element, a liturgical approach is justified by the historical fact that the Christian canon of Scripture itself was gathered, edited, and canonized to serve as a liturgical text. Indeed, the canon of Scripture is nothing other than the collection of sacred books authorized to be read publicly in the liturgy. As a result, the privileged place for the proclamation, interpretation, and actualization of the Scriptures is and remains the liturgical celebration, especially the Eucharist. At the very outset of his discussion of biblical interpretation, Pope Benedict XVI stresses that a fundamental criterion of biblical hermeneutics is that the primary setting for scriptural interpretation is the life of the Church (VD 29). Later on, he makes clear that in a special way this refers to the proclamation and interpretation of Scripture in the liturgy:

In considering the Church as the home of the word, attention must first be given to the sacred liturgy, for the liturgy is the privileged setting in which God speaks to us in the midst of our lives; he speaks today to his people, who hear and respond. Every liturgical action is by its very nature steeped in sacred Scripture. In the words of the Constitution Sacrosanctum Concilium, sacred Scripture is of the greatest importance in the celebration of the liturgy. From it are taken the readings, which are explained in the homily and the psalms that are sung. From Scripture the petitions, prayers and liturgical hymns receive their inspiration and substance. From Scripture the liturgical actions and signs draw their meaning.. . . A faith-filled understanding of sacred Scripture must always refer back to the liturgy, in which the word of God is celebrated as a timely and living word. (VD 52 [emphasis added])

One of the most unique elements of this introduction is its close attention to the reception of Scripture within the liturgical texts and rites of the Catholic Church. For example, in the final section of each chapter on the individual books of the Old Testament, we will examine how that particular book is utilized (or not utilized) in the contemporary Lectionary (Roman Missal, 3rd ed.). This makes the book particularly useful for ministers who have the task of preaching the Scriptures to congregations of the faithful on a weekly or even daily basis. In addition, this emphasis on the Lectionary should also prove relevant to non-Catholic readers who may be familiar with the Revised Common Lectionary (1983), which is used in many Protestant communities and which was originally based on the Roman Catholic Lectionary published in 1969.

4. The Old Testament and the New Testament

As anyone who has spent any time reading the Old Testament already knows, one of the greatest difficulties that arises is the question: How does the Old Testament relate to the New? Is the God of the Old Testament the same as the God of the New? If so, how do we explain the significant differences between the two Testaments?

In light of such questions, the fourth and final notable aspect of this book is its deliberate attempt to integrate the Old and New Testaments. Once again, this emphasis on the unity of the two Testaments is described by Pope Benedict XVI:

From apostolic times and in her living Tradition, the Church has stressed the unity of God’s plan in the two Testaments through the use of typology; this procedure is in no way arbitrary, but is intrinsic to the events related in the sacred text and thus involves the whole of Scripture. Typology discerns in God’s works of the Old Covenant prefigurations of what he accomplished in the fullness of time in the person of his incarnate Son. Christians, then, read the Old Testament in the light of Christ crucified and risen. While typological interpretation manifests the inexhaustible content of the Old Testament from the standpoint of the New, we must not forget that the Old Testament retains its own inherent value as revelation, as our Lord himself reaffirmed (cf. Mk 12:29-31). Consequently, "the New Testament has to be read in the light of the Old. Early Christian catechesis made constant use of the Old Testament (cf. 1 Cor 5:6-8; 1 Cor 10:1-11). For this reason the Synod Fathers stated that the Jewish understanding of the Bible can prove helpful to Christians for their own understanding and study of the Scriptures." (VD 41 [emphasis added])

As we will see many times in the course of this book, one of the most exciting aspects of studying the Old Testament from the perspective of faith and reason and through the lens of Scripture and Tradition is the way in which typological interpretation does indeed open up the inexhaustible content of the Old Testament. To be sure, typology must not be arbitrary, but must flow from the events and realities described by the text itself. As we will see, when this is done, the ancient Christian saying will prove true: The New Testament lies hidden in the Old and the Old Testament is unveiled in the New.⁵

Invitation to the Old Testament

With these basic principles of interpretation in mind, we now invite the reader to enter (or reenter) the amazing world of the Old Testament. It is our hope that, with the help of this introduction, readers will not only learn more about the Old Testament but encounter the truth that the books of the Old Testament bear witness to the whole divine pedagogy of God’s saving love (CCC 122). Indeed, these writings are a storehouse of sublime teaching on God and of sound wisdom on human life, as well as a wonderful treasury of prayers; in them, too, the mystery of salvation is present in a hidden way.⁶

For Further Reading

The Interpretation of Scripture

Andrews, James A. Hermeneutics and the Church: In Dialogue with Augustine. ND Reading the Scriptures. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 2012.

Augustine, Saint. Teaching Christianity (De Doctrina Christiana). Translated by Edmund Hill. Hyde Park, N.Y.: New City Press, 2002.

Bechard, Dean P. The Scripture Documents: An Anthology of Official Catholic Teachings. Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press, 2002.

Benedict XVI, Pope. Verbum Domini (Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation, the Word of the Lord). Boston: Daughters of Saint Paul, 2010.

Daniélou, Jean. From Shadows to Reality: Studies in the Biblical Typology of the Fathers. Translated by Dom Wulstan Hibberd. Westminster, Md.: Newman Press, 1960.

De Lubac, Henri. Medieval Exegesis: The Four Senses of Scripture. 3 vols. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1997-2009.

Farkasfalvy, Denis, O. Cist. Inspiration and Interpretation: A Theological Introduction to Sacred Scripture. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 2010.

Hahn, Scott. Letter and Spirit: From Written Text to Living Word in the Liturgy. New York: Image, 2005.

_____, ed. Promise and Fulfillment: The Relationship between the Old and New Testaments. Letter & Spirit 8. Steubenville, Ohio: St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology, 2013.

Johnson, Luke Timothy, and William S. Kurz, S.J. The Future of Catholic Biblical Scholarship: A Constructive Conversation. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2002.

Levering, Matthew J. Participatory Biblical Exegesis: A Theology of Biblical Interpretation. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 2008.

Pontifical Biblical Commission. The Inspiration and Truth of Sacred Scripture. Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press, 2014.

_____. The Interpretation of the Bible in the Church. Boston: Pauline Press, 1993.

_____. The Jewish People and Their Sacred Scriptures in the Christian Bible. Boston: Pauline Press, 2003.

Ratzinger, Joseph Cardinal. God’s Word: Scripture, Tradition, Office. Edited by Peter Hünermann and Thomas Söding. Translated by Henry Taylor. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2008.

Shökel, Luis Alonzo. A Manual of Hermeneutics. London: T&T Clark, 1998.

Smith, Steven. The Word of the Lord: Seven Essential Principles for Catholic Scripture Study. Huntington, Ind.: Our Sunday Visitor, 2012.

A Note on Frequently Used Texts and Translations

Unless otherwise noted, all translations of the Bible, the writings of the early Church Fathers, ancient Jewish writings, the Summa Theologica, and Vatican II contained herein are from the editions listed below. Note: from a pedagogical perspective, it is essential to highlight key elements of scriptural passages and other ancient texts. For this reason we will frequently italicize key portions of ancient texts quoted herein for the sake of emphasis. Thus, all emphasis in quotations of Scripture and other ancient texts is our own. When emphasis is added to modern texts cited herein, it will be duly noted.

The Bible

Holy Bible. Revised Standard Version. Second Catholic edition. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2006.

Ancient Jewish Writings

Charlesworth, James H., ed. The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha. 2 vols. New York: Doubleday, 1983-1985.

Danby, Herbert. The Mishnah. New York: Oxford University Press, 1933.

Epstein, Isidore, ed. The Babylonian Talmud. Soncino edition. 35 vols. London: Soncino, 1935-1952.

Josephus. Works. Edited and translated by H. St. J. Thackeray, Ralph Marcus, and Louis Feldman. 10 vols. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1926-1965.

Philo. Works. Edited and translated by F. H. Colson and G. H. Whitaker. 10 vols. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1929-1943.

Early Church Fathers

Eusebius of Caesarea. Ecclesiastical History. Books 1-5 translated by Kirsopp Lake. Books 6-10 translated by J. E. L. Oulton. 2 vols. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1926, 1932.

Roberts, A., and J. Donaldson, eds. Ante-Nicene Fathers. 10 vols. 1885-1887. Repr., Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1994.

Schaff, Philip, et al., eds. A Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers. 2 series. 14 vols. each. 1886-1900. Repr., Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1994.

Summa Theologica

Aquinas, Saint Thomas. Summa Theologica. Translated by the Fathers of the English Dominican Province. 5 vols. 1948. Westminster, Md.: Christian Classics, 1981.

Vatican Council II

Flannery, Austin, ed. Vatican Council II. Vol. 1, The Conciliar and Post Conciliar Documents. New rev. ed. Northport, N.Y.: Costello, 1975.

2. INTRODUCING THE OLD TESTAMENT

Most readers of the Old Testament today encounter it as the first part of one two-part book we know as the Bible—from the ancient word for book or scroll (Greek biblos). Yet the Old Testament is in fact an enormous library of books that were written by human beings and gathered together over the course of centuries. Unlike many ancient books, it was preserved through time and continues to be the object of intense study up to our own day. Therefore, before diving into the text of Scripture itself, it is important to address topics such as the formation of the Bible as a collection of sacred books (the canon), the transmission of the words of each of its component books (the text), and various modern theories about the composition of the Bible as a human endeavor (critical theories).

The Canon of the Old Testament

Most people today never give a thought to the question of what books should be included in the Bible. The typical modern-day reader who wants a Bible, for example, simply goes to a bookstore and asks for one. Decisions about which books are included have already been made. Protestant Christians will be directed to racks and racks of various English translations of a book consisting of the thirty-nine sacred volumes from the Jews bound together along with the twenty-seven documents of the New Testament. Catholic Christians will be directed to a single rack displaying two or three different translations of the forty-six books of the Christian Old Testament and the twenty-seven books of the New. The Eastern Orthodox Christian will likely have even fewer options from which to choose but would find still more books in the Old Testament of the Bible he eventually purchases.

Why the difference in the number and order of the books of the Old Testament between these different communities? Who made those decisions, and when? The answers to these questions are what is known as the canon of Scripture, which is defined as either (1) the list of inspired and authoritative books or (2) the collection of books themselves—that is, the Bible.

The term canon is Latin, derived from the Greek kanon, which itself stems from the Hebrew qaneh, meaning a cane or reed. Since reeds were used as measuring sticks in antiquity, the word canon in early Christianity came to mean a rule, measure, or authoritative standard against which to evaluate doctrine. Although Origen first used the term with respect to Scripture in the late second century A.D., it was Saint Athanasius in the mid- to late fourth century A.D. who popularized it. During this same period (late fourth and early fifth centuries), a number of early Church Fathers and councils were called to discuss and proclaim decisions regarding the canonical status of different biblical and nonbiblical books.

When discussing the scriptural canons of Judaism and Protestantism, care must be taken not to impose on these other faith communities concepts that apply only within the Catholic Church. For example, neither Judaism nor Protestantism (as a whole) has a central hierarchy or authoritative body (such as an ecumenical council) invested with infallible authority on matters of faith. Therefore, while the canonization of the Scriptures in the Catholic Church can be identified with formal decisions of Church councils, canonization in Judaism and Protestantism took place differently, often without formal decisions.

The Contents of the Old Testament

The Jewish, Catholic, Protestant, and Eastern Orthodox communities all have different traditions concerning the order and divisions of the books of the Old Testament.

The Jewish Bible is often called the Tanakh. This word is an acronym formed from the first letters of the three divisions of the Jewish Scriptures: the Torah (Law), the Nevi’im (Prophets), and the Ketuvim (Writings) (cf. Lk 24:44). The Law corresponds to the Books of Moses, or the Pentateuch. The Prophets are divided into the Former, corresponding to the historical books Joshua through 2 Kings, and the Latter, corresponding to Isaiah through Malachi. The Writings embrace all the other books that do not fall into the previous two categories.

The divisions and order of the Christian Old Testament have been considerably more diverse through history and currently differ between Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox Bibles. The Jewish division of the canon exerted some influence on the Church’s views, especially for Saint Jerome, yet was never fully embraced. More often, the canonical ordering has been arranged according to the historical sequence of events and/or the literary genres of the various books. The result is that the Christian Old Testament in its various forms is arranged according to literary genres: the Pentateuch, historical books, wisdom literature, and prophets (see chart on next page).

Given the diversity of canonical order and contents in the Christian Old Testament, scholars have adopted different strategies for

a There are variations in the canons of various Eastern and Oriental Orthodox churches.

introducing these books. Some follow the Jewish divisions and order, treating those books that are in the Christian Old Testament but not in the Jewish Tanakh—known as deuterocanonical books—at the end. Others arrange the books according to a chronological reconstruction of their dates of composition or according to the book’s claimed chronological setting or according to a hybrid compromise between canonical order and chronological order. All these systems have both advantages and disadvantages. To follow the Jewish canonical divisions, however, seems to privilege the Jewish theological appropriation of the Scriptures, which is different from a Christian one. Likewise, to follow a purely historical arrangement unduly privileges prevailing historical reconstructions (which are always in flux) over the canonical form of the sacred text.

In light of the present volume’s commitment to interpreting Scripture within the context of the liturgy, we will follow the canonical order that has become standard in the Catholic Church, which is largely that of the Latin Vulgate (see CCC 120). Again, in this canon, the biblical books are arranged by genre: (1) the Pentateuch, (2) the historical books, (3) the wisdom literature, and (4) the prophetic literature. The one exception to this rule consists of the books of Maccabees, which are sometimes placed at the end of the historical books and at other times placed at the end of the Old Testament, after the book of Malachi, as an indication of the transitional period before the arrival of the Messiah and the inauguration of the New Covenant.

The Development of the Old Testament Canon

The Bible’s own account of its origins begins with references to Moses writing down the laws of God at Sinai (Ex 24:4; 34:27-28; 33:2) and receiving from God tablets of stone containing the Ten Commandments (Ex 24:12; 31:18; 32:15; 34:1; Deut 5:22; 9:10). These holy documents were stored in the Ark of the Covenant (Deut 10:2-4; 1 Kings 8:8), revealing from the very first the close proximity between the preservation of sacred writings and the liturgical worship of ancient Israel.

At the end of the wilderness wanderings, there are further references to Moses writing down the laws that comprise the book of Deuteronomy in a book or scroll (Deut 28:58, 61; 29:20-21, 27; 30:10; 31:19, 22) and entrusting it to the Levitical priests (Deut 31:9), who were to store it next to the ark (Deut 31:24-26). Significantly, Moses instructed the Levitical priests to read the Book of the Law (Hebrew sepher hattorah) to the people of Israel every seven years, during the Feast of Booths, when the covenant was renewed (Deut 31:9-13). This Book of the Law was the first Bible in Israel’s religious history, and its function is both significant and paradigmatic: it was intended as a guide for faith and morals, to be proclaimed in the context of the liturgy, as an integral part of the renewal of God’s covenant with his people. This continues to be the function of the Scriptures in the New Covenant. The Christian Bible continues to be a covenant document (in two divisions, the Old and the New) proclaimed publicly in the celebration of the covenant-renewing liturgy.

According to Moses’ command (Deut 27:3-8), Joshua wrote a publicly accessible copy of the Book of the Law on tablets of stone on Mount Ebal in a covenant-making ceremony with the people of Israel after entering the Promised Land (Josh 8:32). At the end of his life, Joshua added supplementary material to the Book of the Law (Josh 24:26), presumably the copy kept by the Levites next to the ark. Following the ministries of Moses and Joshua, there is a long hiatus in references to sacred writing in the Scriptures. Samuel wrote the laws of the kingship in a book to be kept in the sanctuary (1 Sam 10:25), and later mention is made of chronicles that he kept (1 Chron 29:29). Roughly half the psalms are attributed to David; presumably these were composed orally and reduced to writing by royal scribes. Likewise, Solomon is remembered for having uttered 3,000 proverbs and composed 1,005 songs (1 Kings 4:32). Thus, during the reign of these two great kings (ca. 900s B.C.), the Psalms and wisdom literature begin to take shape.

The middle of the eighth century B.C. witnessed the rise of the literary prophets. While we have no evidence that the early prophetic figures such as Elijah and Elisha left any written materials, the eighth-century prophets Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, and Micah did write down at least some of their oracles, recorded in the books that bear their names. The seventh century B.C. saw the ministries of Habakkuk (Hab 2:2) and Zephaniah, but it is especially the prophets Jeremiah and Ezekiel, ministering at the end of the Judean monarchy and the beginning of the exile (ca. 630-570 B.C.), who provide us the most information about the literary activity of the prophets. Both Jeremiah and Ezekiel are filled with clear references to texts that we now find in the books of the Pentateuch, Jeremiah being strongly influenced by material from Deuteronomy and Ezekiel by material from Leviticus (although both prophets allude to various passages scattered throughout the entire Pentateuch). It is clear, therefore, that these Mosaic texts were available and authoritative in the late Judean monarchy—indeed earlier, since references to them are not lacking in the older prophets as well. The book of Jeremiah, in particular, abounds with references to the writing down of Jeremiah’s prophecies (Jer 25:13, 30:2, 36:2; 51:60), which took place by Jeremiah’s dictation to his scribe Baruch (Jer 36:4, 6, 17-18; 45:1). An initial copy of Jeremiah’s prophecies was burned by the king (Jer 36:27) and then rewritten and expanded (Jer 36:28-32). Far fewer explicit references to Ezekiel’s writing down of his own prophecies are extant, but the prophetic book of Ezekiel is, in its style and structure, notable for its written rather than oral style. Ezekiel also contains the greatest evidence of intentional reuse of older written sources, particularly the second half of the book of Leviticus (Lev 17-27), called the Holiness Code by contemporary scholars.

Sometime during the Babylonian exile (sixth century B.C.), it appears that an unknown scribe undertook to compose a history of the people of Israel from the entrance to the land until the exile, comprising what we now know as the historical books Joshua through Kings. This scribal historian used preexisting written sources, which he occasionally mentions: the Book of Jashar (Josh 10:13; 2 Sam 1:18), the Book of the Acts of Solomon (1 Kings 11:41), and the Books of the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel and Judah (for example, 1 Kings 14:19, 29; 2 Kings 1:18; 8:23).

After the Persians conquered Babylon (539 B.C.), the priest Ezra led a large group of Babylonian exiles back to the land of Judah and was heavily invested in teaching the postexilic Judean community to live according to the law of Moses (Ezra 1-6). Later Jewish and Christian tradition, as well as some modern scholars, credit Ezra with editing the Books of Moses into their present form. Ezra’s younger contemporary Nehemiah also led the postexilic community and left literary remains, as did the prophets Nahum, Haggai, Zechariah, Joel, Obadiah, and Malachi.

The conquest of the Near East by Alexander the Great (333 B.C.) ushered in the final cultural epoch of the Old Testament. In the last three centuries before Christ, additional wisdom books were written (for example, the Wisdom of Solomon, Sirach) that show the influence of Greek thought. The books of Maccabees, recording the battle for the freedom of the Jews against the Hellenistic king Antiochus IV, who ruled over one of Alexander’s successor kingdoms centered in Syria, were perhaps the last of the Old Testament books to be written.

No Closed Canon of Jewish Scripture in the Days of Jesus

In the development of a canon of Scripture, two steps need to be distinguished: the composition of the sacred books and the collection of these same books together into a sacred library that would later come to be known as the Bible. Although the composition of the books that constitute what we now know as the Old Testament was likely complete before the turn of the first century A.D., the process of their collection and canonization was long and complex.

On the one hand, we have clear evidence that by the second century B.C., the collections of Jewish Scriptures were being gathered together into three main groups: (1) the Law (the five Books of Moses); (2) the Prophets (books such as Joshua, Judges, 1-2 Samuel, and 1-2 Kings, as well as works of major and minor prophets like Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Hosea, and so on); and (3) other Writings. For example, during the late Second Temple period—sometime around the composition of the book of Sirach in 150 B.C.—we begin to find evidence that these three collections were widely recognized as inspired and authoritative. As the prologue to Sirach states:

[M]any great teachings have been given to us through the law and the prophets and the others that followed them, on account of which we should praise Israel for instruction and wisdom. . . . [M]y grandfather Jesus, after devoting himself especially to the reading of the law and the prophets and the other books of our fathers, and after acquiring considerable proficiency in them, was himself also led to write something pertaining to instruction and wisdom. . . . You are urged therefore to read with good will and attention, and to be indulgent in cases where, despite our diligent labor in translating, we may seem to have rendered some phrases imperfectly. For what was originally expressed in Hebrew does not have exactly the same sense when translated into another language. Not only this work, but even the law itself, the prophecies, and the rest of the books differ not a little as originally expressed.

Notice here that the book of Sirach provides clear evidence of an accepted body of Jewish Scriptures consisting of three parts as well as the translation of the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek—a distinct reference to the ancient Greek translation later known as the Septuagint (LXX).

On the other hand, although certain parts of the Jewish Scriptures were widely agreed upon, other parts were the subject of continuing debate, with the result that by the time of Jesus in the first century, there was still no closed canon of Scripture, demarcating exactly which books were inspired and which were not. Instead, different sects within Judaism had divergent views of exactly which books were inspired and authoritative. For example, the Samaritans and the Sadducees, although very different in their religious views and practice, were agreed that only the five Books of Moses were divinely inspired Scripture. The first-century Jewish historian Josephus tells us that the Sadducees own no observance of any sort apart from the laws,¹ and the early Christian biblical scholar Origen further clarifies: the Samaritans and Sadducees . . . receive the books of Moses alone.²

The Pharisees, on the other hand, accepted a larger canon very close to that of modern Jews and Protestants. One of the earliest witnesses to this canon is Josephus himself, who was a follower of the Pharisees and a contemporary of Saint Paul, and who has this to say about the Jewish Scriptures:

For we have not an innumerable multitude of books among us, disagreeing from and contradicting one another [as the Greeks have], but only twenty-two books, which contain the records of all the past times; which are justly believed to be divine; and of them five belong to Moses, which contain his laws and the traditions of the origin of mankind till his death. This interval of time was little short of three thousand years; but as to the time from the death of Moses till the reign of Artaxerxes, king of Persia, who reigned after Xerxes, the prophets, who were after Moses, wrote down what was done in their times in thirteen books. The remaining four books contain hymns to God, and precepts for the conduct of human life. It is true, our history hath been written since Artaxerxes very particularly, but hath not been esteemed of the like authority with the former by our forefathers, because there hath not been an exact succession of prophets since that time; and how firmly we have given credit to those books of our own nation, is evident by what we do; for during so many ages as have already passed, no one has been so bold as either to add anything to them, to take anything from them, or to make any change in them; but it becomes natural to all Jews, immediately and from their very birth, to esteem those books to contain divine doctrines, and to persist in them, and, if occasion be, willingly to die for them.³

Unfortunately, it is not at all clear which books Josephus meant by his thirteen books of the prophets and "four

books of hymns . . . and precepts". Several different reconstructions are possible. Moreover, the list of Scriptures to which Josephus refers is that of his own sect, the Pharisees.

Moreover, after the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in the 1940s and 1950s, it is now apparent that the group known as the Essenes—a large sect of Jews given to asceticism, prayer, and rigorous observance of the law—accepted an even larger body of Scriptures than that given by Josephus. The Essenes esteemed as divinely revealed certain apocryphal works like the Book of Jubilees and various books that are now found together in 1 Enoch. They may even have viewed the deuterocanonical book of Tobit as inspired, along with some sectarian works like The Temple Scroll. Furthermore, the large numbers of Greek-speaking Jews scattered around the Mediterranean outside the land of Israel read the Scriptures almost exclusively in the Greek translation later known as the Septuagint (see below) and, based on the extant Greek manuscripts we possess, seem to have accepted as inspired a larger collection than that of the Pharisees, one that roughly corresponds with the books of the Old Testament eventually accepted by the Catholic Church.

When the Jewish community did reach consensus on their canon of Scripture is a matter of dispute. Canon and canonization are Christian ecclesiastical terms that presuppose a single teaching authority (Latin magisterium) competent to make formal decisions on religious matters that are universally binding. The Jewish tradition does not have any such hierarchy or magisterium and does not claim to hold infallible councils. In 1871, the German scholar Heinrich Graetz suggested that the Jews may have reached closure on their biblical canon in A.D. 90 at the Council of Jamnia [Jabneh], a city on the coast of Israel to which the Sanhedrin relocated after the destruction of Jerusalem. This theory was popular for about a century but has now been discredited due to a lack of evidence.⁴ The Mishnah records debates about the status of the Song of Solomon and Ecclesiastes still ongoing in the second century A.D., but there is simply no evidence that there was ever a council of Jamnia in which the first-century rabbis promulgated an authoritative ruling on which books belong to the Jewish canon of Scripture and which do not.

In short: during the life of Jesus and at the time of the birth of the early Church, there was significant and widespread disagreement within Judaism over exactly which ancient Jewish writings were inspired Scripture, and this was just one of many disputed religious questions that were expected to be resolved by the coming of the Messiah (cf. Jn 4:25).

The New Testament Evidence for a Developing Canon

Although the New Testament does not record Jesus communicating a list of inspired books to the apostles, some indication of what books were considered inspired can be seen in those books cited as Scripture by Jesus and his disciples. Many of the books of the Jewish Scriptures are quoted in the New Testament, almost always according to the Greek translation now known as the Septuagint (abbreviated LXX, Latin for Seventy). However, several undisputed books of the Old Testament (such as Esther and Lamentations) are never cited in the New Testament, whereas some non-canonical books (like the Book of Enoch) are quoted (see Jude 14-15). Therefore, New Testament quotation cannot be a criterion for canonicity, as is sometimes proposed by non-Catholics. If it were, 1 Enoch would be in the Bible, but Esther would not.

The Development of the Canon in the Early Church

In the first three centuries, the exact boundaries of the canon did not constitute a pressing theological issue. Of much greater concern were questions like the manner of inclusion of Gentiles into the Church (Acts 15), the relationship of the law to salvation in Jesus Christ (Romans; Galatians), and maintaining the visible unity of the Church (see 1 Clement and the Letters of Ignatius of Antioch).

The second and third centuries witnessed frequent persecutions of the Church that threatened her very survival. This probably explains why it is not until after the legalization of Christianity by Constantine in the early fourth century that we begin to have extant lists of the canon of Scripture from various Church Fathers and councils. By the end of the fourth century, the Churches in communion with Rome settled on the canon recognized by the Catholic Church today, as can be seen from the Councils of Rome (382), Hippo (383), and Carthage (397 and 419) and by Augustine (see chart on pp. 26-27).

It is important to stress here that for the early Church, the fact that a book was biblical or canonical did not mean that it was printed between the covers of a leather-bound, gold-leafed Bible. These would not be invented for many centuries. Canonicity was not a literary reality as much as it was a liturgical reality. For the early councils and Church Fathers, canonical books were those which were authorized by legitimate apostolic authority to be read publicly in worship. Non-canonical (sometimes called apocryphal) texts were, by contrast, not approved for public proclamation. Notice the liturgical character of the decrees of these early councils on the biblical books:

No psalms composed by private individuals nor any uncanonical books may be read in the church, but only the Canonical Books of the Old and New Testaments. (Canon 59, Council of Laodicea, A.D. 364)⁵

ITEM, that besides the Canonical Scriptures nothing [is to] be read in church under the name of divine Scripture. (Canon 24, Council of Carthage, A.D. 419, citing Canon 36, Council of Hippo, A.D. 383)⁶

Therefore, the designation of canonical versus apocryphal referred not only to a theological difference but to a liturgical one. The canon defines the books approved for the Church’s worship; the Bible is the Church’s liturgical book.

Further insight into the thought of the early Church on the issue of canon is provided by Saint Augustine in On Christian Doctrine. Since Saint Augustine holds such authority in Western Christendom, not only in the Catholic Church but also among Christians in the Lutheran and Calvinist traditions, it is well worth quoting his views on canon in full:

Now, in regard to the canonical Scriptures, [one] must follow the judgment of the greater number of catholic churches; and among these, of course, a high place must be given to such as have been thought worthy to be the seat of an apostle and to receive epistles. Accordingly, among the canonical Scriptures he will judge according to the following standard: to prefer those that are received by all the catholic churches to those which some do not receive. Among those, again, which are not received by all, he will prefer such as have the sanction of the greater number and those of greater authority, to such as are held by the smaller number and those of less authority. If, however, he shall find that some books are held by the greater number of churches, and others by the churches of greater authority (though this is not a very likely thing to happen), I think that in such a case the authority on the two sides is to be looked upon as equal.

Now the whole canon of Scripture on which we say this judgment is to be exercised, is contained in the following books:—Five books of Moses, that is, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy; one book of Joshua the son of Nun; one of Judges; one short book called Ruth, which seems rather to belong to the beginning of Kings; next, four books of Kings, and two of Chronicles,—these last not following one another, but running parallel, so to speak, and going over the same ground. The books now mentioned are history, which contains a connected narrative of the times, and follows the order of the events. There are other books which seem to follow no regular order, and are connected neither with the order of the preceding books nor with one another, such as Job, and Tobias, and Esther, and Judith, and the two books of Maccabees, and the two of Ezra, which last look more like a sequel to the continuous regular history which terminates with the books of Kings and Chronicles. Next are the Prophets, in which there is one book of the Psalms of David; and three books of Solomon, viz., Proverbs, Song of Songs, and Ecclesiastes. For two books, one called Wisdom and the other Ecclesiasticus, are ascribed to Solomon from a certain resemblance of style, but the most likely opinion is that they were written by Jesus the son of Sirach. Still they are to be reckoned among the prophetical books, since they have attained recognition as being authoritative. The remainder are the books which are strictly called the Prophets: twelve separate books of the prophets which are connected with one another, and having never been disjoined, are reckoned as one book; the names of these prophets are as follows:—Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi; then there are the four greater prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel, Ezekiel. The authority of the Old Testament is contained within the limits of these forty-four books.⁷

Augustine’s teachings on the canon are noteworthy for a number of different reasons.

First and foremost, it is significant that for a criterion of canonicity Augustine does not propose (1) the personal experience of the believer, (2) the opinions of scholars, (3) the beliefs of the Jews, (4) the quotation of a book by the New Testament, or (5) any abstract principle like prophetic character. Instead, Augustine states clearly that the judgment of the Church is the principal criterion of canonicity. With that said, it is also important to stress that Augustine does not endorse the view that the Church confers inspired status on a book, much less that approval by the Church makes the book inspired. Rather, the Church recognizes or, to use his terms, receives books as sacred and inspired. The Scriptures do not require the approval of the Church to become inspired; they were

inspired by God during their composition. However, the individual believer does require the guidance of the Church in order to know which books are inspired. In other words, the Church has an epistemological, not ontological, role with respect to Scripture; she does not make the Scriptures inspired, but she does make known which Scriptures are inspired.

Secondly, and equally importantly, already in the fifth century A.D., Augustine gives the complete Catholic canon of Scripture, including the so-called deuterocanonicals. Although he does not explicitly mention Baruch and Lamentations, these were widely regarded as part of Jeremiah, as made explicit by Cyril of Jerusalem, Athanasius, and the Council of Laodicea. Some of the earlier Church Fathers and the Council of Laodicea (A.D. 364) were influenced by Jewish views of canon and felt constrained to restrict the list of Old Testament books to twenty-two only—a pious Jewish tradition related to the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Significantly, however, even these early decrees included at least one book—Baruch—considered deuterocanonical by Jews and Protestant Christians today. Nonetheless, perusal of the table of patristic use of the deuterocanonicals below shows that all of them were used, and frequently affirmed, as Scripture by various Church Fathers. As the discussion of the canon developed, the late fourth-century Councils of Rome, Hippo, and Carthage clarified that the Church was not restricted to the twenty-two books of the Pharisees but, rather, affirmed as Scripture all those books which had been employed as such by the Church for centuries, as the following chart demonstrates (see chart on next page).

The canon of Scripture endorsed by the late fourth-century councils became the standard for churches in communion with Rome through the rest of antiquity and the Middle Ages. The question of canon did not become pressing again until the Ecumenical Council of Florence in the mid-ffteenth century A.D., during attempts to heal the schism between the Western (Latin Catholic) and Eastern (Greek Orthodox) Churches. The Council of Florence, with the full participation of the pope, the ecumenical patriarch, and the emperor of Constantinople, arrived at a common statement of faith, including a common canon of Scripture, in 1441. The canon proposed was the same affirmed by the late fourth-century councils and repeated afterward by the ecumenical Council of Trent (A.D. 1546). It is important for ecumenical dialogue to be aware that the Roman Catholic canon was established by an ecumenical council that included ample Eastern representation about a century prior to the outbreak of the Protestant Reformation.

The So-Called Deuterocanonical Books

The Old Testament canon of the Catholic Church includes seven books not found in the Jewish canon of Scripture or in the Protestant Old Testament: the books of Tobit, Judith, the Wisdom of Solomon, Sirach (traditionally known as Ecclesiasticus), Baruch, 1 Maccabees, and 2 Maccabees. For the sake of convenience, we will follow common scholarly parlance and refer to these seven books as the deuterocanonical books, although, as we will see momentarily, this terminology is misleading. Indeed, these seven books are subject to several misconceptions that need to be dispelled:

1. The deuterocanonical books do not, and did not, form a discrete, recognized collection within Scripture. The deuterocanonical books are not a genre division like the Pentateuch or the Prophets. Instead, they fall under different genre categories. Baruch is considered part of the prophets; Tobit, Judith, and 1-2 Maccabees are narratives or histories; Wisdom and Sirach are wisdom books.

There is a widespread notion, especially among Protestant writers, that the deuterocanonical books constituted a discrete collection of books that were

accepted or rejected as a group in antiquity. Thus, it is not hard to find scholars who will claim that one or another of the Church Fathers rejected the deuterocanonicals as a group, while others accepted them.

In point of fact, the deuterocanonical books differ from one another in their individual canonical histories, and the Fathers and ancient councils treated them book by book, and not as a collection. For example, there is no evidence that Baruch was disputed by any Father or council in antiquity: the entire book was considered, along with Lamentations, as part of the book of Jeremiah. On the other hand, certain Church Fathers, particularly Saint Jerome, did express doubts about, or even deny, the canonicity of some or all of the other deuterocanonical books. Even then, however, there was frequently inconsistency, for Saint Jerome can be found quoting Wisdom and Sirach as Scripture in his various writings, although in his prefaces to the Vulgate he relegates them to a non-canonical status. The situation is similar with Saint Athanasius.

2. The deuterocanonicals do not have a secondary level of inspiration. The term deuterocanonical comes from the Greek words deuteros (second) and kanon (canon or rule), hence meaning second canon. Although widely used today, this can be a misleading expression, because it implies that these books are secondary to the other canonical books and are perhaps less inspired or authoritative. In Catholic doctrine, however, there is only one canon of Scripture, of which these books are part (see CCC 120). Hence, according to the teaching of the Church, these seven books of the Old Testament are fully inspired by God and are no less a part of Scripture than any of the other biblical books.

3. The deuterocanonicals are not the same as the "apocrypha. The term apocrypha (Greek for hidden") refers to books that might be studied privately but were not to be read in the public liturgy. Which books are considered apocryphal varies in different religious communities. Jews and Protestants consider the deuterocanonicals as apocryphal. The Eastern Orthodox generally accept as canonical certain books considered apocryphal by the Catholic Church, including 1 Esdras and 3 Maccabees, sometimes also 4 Maccabees and the Odes of Solomon. The Ethiopic Orthodox accept 1 Enoch and the Book of Jubilees, both of which are considered apocrypha by Jews, Protestants, Catholics, and Orthodox alike. The category apocrypha is therefore broader than the deuterocanonicals.

4. The deuterocanonicals were included in