What Is the Deuterocanon or Apocrypha?

216 snips

May 12, 2025

Delve into the intriguing differences between Protestant and Catholic Bibles and the significance of the Deuterocanon. Explore how early Jewish literature shaped faith after the Babylonian exile. Uncover the historical context of these texts and their varying acceptance in Christianity. Discover how they influenced early Christian leaders and the formation of the biblical canon. The fascinating role of these writings within the religious practices of Jewish and early Christian communities is also discussed, shedding light on their enduring relevance.

Ask episode

AI Snips

Chapters

Transcript

Episode notes

INSIGHT

Deuterocanon vs Apocrypha Explained

The Catholic Bible includes additional books called the Deuterocanon, which Protestants refer to as the Apocrypha.
These books stem from Second Temple Jewish literature and have been historically debated regarding their biblical status.

INSIGHT

Bible Variations by Tradition

Different Christian traditions have Bibles with varying books based on history and theological views.
The Orthodox tradition, for example, includes even more texts than Catholic Bibles.

INSIGHT

Protestant Apocrypha History

Early Protestant Bibles included the Apocrypha but printed them separately from the Old Testament.
Removing these books from Protestant Bibles only happened about 400 years ago.

Get the Snipd Podcast app to discover more snips from this episode

Get the app

How the Bible Was Formed E1 — If you’ve ever compared a Protestant Bible to a Catholic Bible, you may notice some additional books in the Catholic Bible, such as Tobit, Judith, 1 and 2 Maccabees, etc. These books, called the Deuterocanon by Catholics and the Apocrypha by Protestants, are Jewish Literature from the period after the Babylonian exile but before the time of Jesus. The Jewish people were back in the land, being ruled by Syria and other empires descended from Alexander the Great. As they read the Hebrew Bible, they created many new literary works, reflecting on stories in Scripture and what was happening in their own day. So how do we understand the status and value of these books when compared to the Hebrew Bible and New Testament? In this episode, Jon and Tim explore the background, history, and content of this Second-Temple Jewish literature.

CHAPTERS

Multiple Bibles on the Shelf (00:00-21:10)
History of the Protestant Apocrypha (21:10-34:35)
How Jesus and the Apostles Engaged With These Books (34:35-43:05)
Why We’re Talking About the Deuterocanon/Apocrypha (43:05-57:36)

OFFICIAL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

View this episode’s official transcript.

REFERENCED RESOURCES

The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha by James H. Charlesworth
Old Testament Pseudepigrapha: More Noncanonical Scriptures, edited by Richard Bauckham, James Davila, Alex Panayotov
You can view annotations for this episode—plus our entire library of videos, podcasts, articles, and classes—in the BibleProject app, available for Android and iOS.
Check out Tim’s extensive collection of recommended books here.

SHOW MUSIC

“Pure Joy ft. John Lee” by Lofi Sunday
“Chillbop ft. Me & The Boys” by Lofi Sunday
“Answered Prayers ft. PAINT WITH SOUND” by Lofi Sunday
BibleProject theme song by TENTS

SHOW CREDITS

Production of today’s episode is by Lindsey Ponder, producer, and Cooper Peltz, managing producer. Tyler Bailey is our supervising engineer, who edited today’s episode and also provided the sound design and mix. JB Witty does our show notes, and Hannah Woo provides the annotations for our app. Our host and creative director is Jon Collins, and our lead scholar is Tim Mackie.

Powered and distributed by Simplecast.