Are there other books of the Bible besides the 66 canonical ones? There are various groups of non-canonical books, each with its distinct classification. Today, we will discuss the Bible Apocrypha. Apocrypha is a term for works, usually written, of unknown authorship or doubtful origin.
There are four categories of Bible books:
1) Homologounmena: books that weren’t debated, which is most of the Bible.
2) Antilegomena: books that were included in the main Bible canon but were initially debated, such as Hebrews, James, Jude, 2nd and 3rd John, 2 Peter, and Revelation. They also include OT prophecy books, such as Ezekiel, Song of Solomon, Ecclesiastes, Esther, and Proverbs.
3) Pseudepigrapha: books written way later than the New Testament, usually falsely written in the names of the apostles long after they died. These books also philosophically contradict the Bible because they have many gnostic elements. They include the gospels of Judas, Thomas, the Book of Truth, and more.
4) Apocrypha: These books were written between the Old and New Testaments. They are found in Catholic and Orthodox Bibles, but not in Protestant Bibles. They were even in the original version of the KJV published in 1611; however, they were removed in 1647. This is because they are not considered spiritually inspired. Despite being written by Jews before the New Testament era, they are not part of the Jewish Canon, since there were no new prophets according to Judaism, after the era of Zechariah and Malachi. The canonicity of these books is still debated today among various Christian sects, since Christians believe that John the Baptist was the prophet after the era of silence and initiated the era of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Let’s focus on the Apocrypha
There were 14 apocryphal books in the original King James Version (KJV). They are 1 Esdras (Vulgate 3 Esdras), 2 Esdras (Vulgate 4 Esdras), Tobit, Judith (“Judeth” in Geneva), Rest of Esther (Vulgate Esther 10:4 – 16:24), Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus (also known as Sirach), Baruch and the Epistle of Jeremy (“Jeremiah” in Geneva), Song of the Three Children (Vulgate Daniel 3:24–90), Story of Susanna (Vulgate Daniel 13), The Idol Bel and the Dragon (Vulgate Daniel 14), Prayer of Manasseh (Daniel), 1 Maccabees, 2 Maccabees. Other books are also included in the Latin Vulgate, but these are the bulk of them. The Westminster Confession of Faith (1647) excluded the Apocrypha from the canon because they believed they were not spiritually inspired. So, Bibles printed by English Protestants who separated from the Church of England began to exclude these books.
Some of them are more historical than religious, like secular history books. For example, the Books of Maccabees 1 and 2 include historical events, such as the revolt of Judah Maccabee, which is retold in the story of Hanukkah. One of the apocryphal books is mentioned in Jude, where he references The First Book of Enoch. However, he doesn’t extrapolate anything for the New Covenant, but instead uses it to reiterate historical events to illustrate a point about the pairing of spiritual rebellion with natural rebellion. The tricky thing about the Book of Enoch is that there are three versions, and they all have significant differences. However, from what I’ve read, the First Enoch appears to be the most popular and oldest of the Enochian texts.
Did Jesus reference the Apocrypha?
Jesus says in Luke 24:44, “When I was with you before, I told you that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and in the Psalms must be fulfilled.” When Jesus says this, He is referring to the Tanakh. The five laws books (Torah), the Prophetic books (Nevi’im), and the writings/psalms (Ketuvim). This is the TaNaKh, an acronym for Torah, Nevi’im, and Ketuvim, also known as the Hebrew Bible or the Old Testament in Christian Bibles.
In Matthew 23:35 (and Luke 11:49-51), Jesus references the history of martyrs recorded in the Bible, from Abel, who is murdered by Cain in Genesis 4, to Zechariah, son of Berechiah, the author of Zechariah. Zechariah and Malachi were post-exilic prophets, and their books are chronologically the last of the Old Testament prophets. This was around the time of Ezra and Nehemiah, and the rebuilding of the Second Temple in the 6th to 5th century BC. The last books of the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) were written during this time, and the Gospels began just under 500 years later; therefore, the Apocrypha was written during this time gap. It appears that Jesus only considers the Tanakh scripture, not the Apocrypha. He never quotes it in the Gospels. There is some debate about Zechariah’s identity. At the same time, the latest Greek manuscripts do mention Berekiah, and some earlier ones refer to Zechariah, son of Jehoiada, whose death is recorded in the Bible in 2 Chronicles 24:20-22. This Zechariah was killed before the Babylonian exile. Meanwhile, the book of Zechariah was written by a post-exile prophet. However, the argument that Jesus didn’t acknowledge the Apocrypha is not affected since the death of Zechariah, son of Jehoiada, is recorded in Chronicles, the last book in the Tanakh, so it still ends around the same time in history.
What do Jewish Historians say about the Apocrypha?
There are 24 books in the Tanakh, 5 in the Torah, 8 in the Nevi’im, and 11 in the Ketuvim. In “Against Apion Book 1”, the first-century Jewish historian Flavius Josephus states that there are 22 books in the Tanakh. Some have suggested that Ruth was part of Judges, and that Lamentations was a part of Jeremiah at the time, as an explanation for the count being two books short. Others have said that at Josephus’ time, Esther and Ecclesiastes were not considered canonical, so these two are omitted. According to Josephus, there were 22 counted at the time of Jesus, excluding the Apocrypha.
In addition, in the Wisdom of Sirach (also known as Ecclesiasticus), written by Yeshua ben Sirach, a Jewish scribe from the 2nd century BC, there is a prologue written by his grandson, who translated his work into Greek, that points to the Tanakh as the scriptures. Prologue to the Wisdom of Ben Sirach: “Many great teachings have been given to us through the Law [Torah], and the Prophets [Nevi’im], and the others that follow them [Ketuvim] … So my grandfather Yeshua devoted himself, especially to the reading of the Law and the Prophets and the other scrolls of our Ancestors.”
The 1st Century Jewish philosopher, Philo of Alexandria, uses the same formula in his writing, which says, “laws and oracles delivered through the mouth of prophets, and psalms and anything else which fosters and perfects knowledge and piety.” (On the Contemplative Life, 25)
Even the Dead Sea Scrolls use this pattern: “The scrolls of Moses, the words of the prophets, and of David.” [Dead Sea Scrolls (4QMMT)]
Church History and Bible Construction:
The Christian Old Testament comprises 39 books because it divides some of them into two parts, such as Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles. The book Trei Asar (The Twelve) in the Tanakh is a composite of 12 prophets from the Old Testament period. In the Christian Bible, these are divided into individual prophets, such as Micah, Hosea, and Jonah, among others. Christian Bibles combine books that were previously split. In that case, that means the 19 prophetic books in the Christian Bible come from the eight prophetic books (Nevi’im) of the Hebrew Bible: Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings, Ezekiel, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and the Twelve (the twelve minor prophets: Hosea to Malachi in Christian Bibles). The Ketuvim comprises the following books: Ezra-Nehemiah, Ruth, Lamentations, Chronicles, Daniel, Psalms, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, Proverbs, Job, and Esther, totaling 11 books. Eleven writings plus eight prophets equal 19 books. Then add that to the five books of Moses in the Torah, and we get 24. Side Note: Daniel was not a part of the Prophets in the Hebrew Bible. Instead, his book was in the writings. The only explanation I could find for this was that Daniel was a “seer” and not a prophet since he did not preach to the people like the other prophets.
Most of the Apocrypha (extra books written between the Old and New Testaments) were written only in Greek, not in the original Semitic languages of the Ancient Israelites (Hebrew or Aramaic). The Book of Enoch and Jubilees are among the few exceptions because Aramaic copies were found at Qumran in 1948, among the Dead Sea Scrolls.
There are many misconceptions that these books were banned or removed for nefarious reasons, but they were never banned; they were simply not relevant to the main canonical, consistent books: different ancient Jewish communities and their Canons. Sadducees used only the Torah (the first five books); the Pharisees and the disciples of Jesus used the Tanakh (Torah, Prophets, Writings), which includes the same books as the Old Testament in Christian Bibles. This is also referred to as the Palestinian Canon because it was familiar to the Israelites living in the Holy Land around that time before the Romans destroyed Jerusalem in 70 AD. Then there were the outsider Jewish communities, such as the Essenes, who wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls, and the Jews in diaspora who read the Greek Septuagint and all of the Apocrypha.
The early church used the Tanakh because it was the familiar scripture for Jews living in the Holy Land, known as the Palestinian Canon. However, the Septuagint (a Greek translation of the Old Testament) includes the Apocryphal books, and was more commonly used by Greek-speaking Jews living in diaspora outside the Holy Land. The Septuagint was more widely disseminated because it was produced in Alexandria, a major port of trade for the Roman Empire. Later, Christians living in the eastern part of the Roman Empire continued the tradition of using only the Palestinian canon. At the same time, Christians in the West adopted the Apocrypha, which early church fathers, such as St. Augustine, endorsed. Today, Protestant Christians reject the Apocrypha as non-canonical, whereas Catholics, Orthodox, and others retain it in their canons.
Jesus and his disciples agreed the most with the Pharisees on theology and canon. Jesus main disagreement with them was on their hypocritical behavior and their traditions based on the Talmud (Old Testament commentary that reinterpreted Jewish laws). So, for Christians (followers of Jesus), the only Canon is the Palestinian Canon Old Testament (Tanak) and the New Testament. Modern-day Rabbinical Jews also adhere to Pharisaic views and maintain that only the Tanakh is authoritative scripture, so they do not use the Apocrypha. As Christianity spread, Jews outside of Palestine adopted Christianity but kept copying and transmitting those books. Some sects of Christians maintain some of those books, as well as other writings from dubious sources (Gnostic Gospels), while others stick with what the disciples of Jesus used and use only the Tanakh and the main New Testament books, with verified first-century authorship.
Additionally, there is no Hebrew or Aramaic version of the entire Apocrypha, which may explain why most modern Rabbinic Jews view them as non-authoritative. Many contemporary Jews believe the Greek Septuagint was corrupted and therefore only use the Masoretic Text (the Hebrew version of the Old Testament), which does not include the Apocrypha, in the Hebrew Bible canon.
Jesus only references the writings of Moses (Torah), the Prophets, and the Psalms. Typically, he cites the Law and the Prophets (Matt. 7:12, 22:34-40, Luke 16:16 & 29). I see no reason to believe the Apocrypha has any sculptural authority. Still, they provide valuable insight into the cultural beliefs of Second Temple Judaism and the theological understanding of Jewish life during the time of Jesus. In other words, they have value, but we don’t need to stake our theology in them.
New Testament References to Extra-Biblical Sources:
There are references to these writings in the New Testament. For example, Paul references Jannes and Jambres in 2 Timothy 3:8-9, the names of the sorcerers who challenged Moses in the Exodus story. However, in Exodus, there is no mention of their names, so Paul is drawing from some extra text that is not considered canonical to the scriptures. Likewise, Stephen in Acts 7:23-30 references Moses living in Midian for 40 years, even though the book of Exodus doesn’t mention how long he stayed there, so this came from Jewish texts outside of the Bible. There is a reference to First Enoch 1:9 by Jude in Jude 1:14-15. Is that an essential theological or spiritual reference, or is it more of a cultural reference? Jude was talking about how living in sin and rebellion against God as a human will cause one to get the same judgment as the heavenly rebels when they sinned against God in Genesis 6. Paul quotes Greek poets like Epimenides, Aratus, and possibly also Cleanthes, in Titus 1:12 and Acts 17:28. In his epistle to Titus, Paul makes a point about Cretan Christians distinguishing themselves from the stereotypical Cretan, because Cretans were known to be untrustworthy liars, according to Epimenides, who himself was a Cretan. Acts 17:28 also quotes Greek poets, such as Aratus, saying, “In him[God] we live and move and have our being,” when addressing the Epicureans and Stoics about the gospel. He wanted to show that all humanity is unified as one blood from Adam created by God, and we are his “offspring,” which appeals to some Greek beliefs about being connected to Zeus (patron god of Crete).
Furthermore, in 2 Peter 2:4, the Greek word Tartarus (ταρταρώσας) is used, whereas English translations often refer to it as hell. In this verse, Peter refers to fallen angels who are bound in hell, awaiting the day of judgment. In Greek myth, Tartarus refers to (from Wiki): “the deep abyss that is used as a dungeon of torment and suffering for the wicked and as the prison for the Titans. Tartarus is the place where, according to Plato’s Gorgias (c. 400 BC), souls are judged after death and where the wicked receive divine punishment.” Peter could have used this word to equate the Titans with the Nephilim. This is the only instance in the New Testament where Tartarus is mentioned; it also appears to be a cultural reference intended to connect with Gentiles.
When Christian missionaries traveled the world and encountered diverse languages, cultures, and religions, they needed to learn the local languages and understand their belief systems to find equivalent concepts and words to share the gospel with them effectively. So, Peter is likely using this Greek mythological term to explain the fact that while Judeo-Christianity is monotheistic, there are other spiritual beings, but none of them are considered gods. These beings are creations and servants of God like us, but when they rebel, they don’t get a second chance. They are waiting for judgment in a harsher prison separate from the place of the rebellious humans who rejected God’s mercy and salvation, awaiting their judgment. Neither Peter nor Paul was interested in syncretism with Greek myth; it seemed more like the cultural reference was simply a way to connect with an audience. Likewise, Paul and Jude were reaching out to the Jews of their time who were familiar with the apocryphal stories that name the sorcerers from Exodus, or like the Book of Enoch, which expounds upon Genesis 6. It’s an evangelism strategy to relate to the audience, not an endorsement of external literature.
Lastly, the Apocrypha contradicts the canonical Bible in several areas. Here are a few examples:
Tobit 4:10 and 12:9 say that giving alms to the poor can pay for sin and delay death.
2 Mac 12:43 features money being offered for the sins of the dead. This contradicts the need for a person to make a sacrifice while they are alive. The wage of sin is death (Rom 6:23), so a person can only be reconciled before they die.
Judith 1:7 and 11 states that Nebuchadnezzar was the king of the Assyrians, but he was actually the king of the Babylonians. Even other books in the Apocrypha, like Baruch and Esther with additions, refer to him as the king of Babylon.
Baruch 6:2-3 says the Jews would be exiled in Babylon for seven generations instead of 70 years, contradicting the canonical Bible in places like Jer 25:11.
Some more resources on the topic:
“According to Gerald A. Larue, Josephus’ listing represents what came to be the Jewish canon, although scholars were still wrestling with problems of the authority of certain writings at the time that he was writing. Significantly, Josephus characterizes the 22 books as canonical because they were divinely inspired; he mentions other historical books that were not divinely inspired and that he, therefore, did not believe belonged in the canon.”
Read More from the Wiki page on the Hebrew Bible Canon
More resources:
Catholic and Protestant Bibles
A video series by Wesley Huff on the Canon of the Bible
Philo of Alexandria On the Contemplative Life and Suppliants
Flavius Josephus (Against Apion, 1.38)
Commentaries on the Zechariah debate
Misconceptions about some Apocryphal books
This video goes over the first three categories of bible books
A Video on The Book of First Enoch
A Video on the Second Book of Enoch
3rd Book of Enoch
AiG Article on why there are 66 books in Christian bibles
Commentaries on Matthew 23:35 provide more info on the Zechariah debate
A video on the subject of the Apocrypha