Old TestamentThe Hebrew Bible (Masoretic Text) contains 24 books. The Protestant OT has the same books, but splits a few books into two: Samuel, Kings, Chronicles, and Ezra and Nehemia, and makes the 12 minor prophecies into separate books, totaling 39 books. The Catholic and Eastern Orthodox OT have more books and add more content to some existing books, totaling 46 and 49 books, respectively. The following are the Protestant listing of 39 books. New TestamentThe New Testament canon has 27 books in all Christian denominations. The Roman Catholic and Protestant traditions have the same book order; the Eastern Orthodox, Armenian and Ethiopian traditions different. (The inserted captions in the texts for both OT and NT are from the New International Version.) The OT Book List Differences Based on Wikipedia ListingsThe Hebrew Bible (Masoretic Text) contains 24 books. The Protestant OT has the same books, but splits these books into two each: Samuel, Kings, Chronicles, and Ezra and Nehemia, and makes the 12 minor prophecies into separate books. The Catholic and Eastern Orthodox OT have 7/10 more books, and add more content to some existing books:
Jan Bathys DeBeer on the Books of Enoch and Jubilees(Reformatting by adding lists and emphasis, and italicing book titles.) Ancient books are divided into three groups to indicate their authority for Christian and Jewish faith and life. The books in the Bible are called “Canonical”, while the other books are divided into two groups: “Apocryphal” and “Pseudepigraphical”. The Apocryphal books were part of the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, called the Septuagint or LXX. These books were also included in the Catholic Bible, called the Vulgate, as well as in some protestant Bibles, like the King James Version (KJV). The Old Testament Apocrypha are (the names in the Vulgate are given in brackets):
The general definition of the Pseudepigrapha is books that were written in a Biblical style and given a name that is not believed to be the authentic author of the book. This is a very technical definition, since some of the Biblical books, like Hebrews, could also be classified this way. In reality, there was uncertainty about the authenticity of the books that falls within this category. For this reason, the list of Pseudepigrapha is not fixed and is determined by different factors, like the authenticity of the writer, the type of book, and available knowledge of a given book. Books that were traditionally assigned to the Pseudepigrapha, are:
Would Enoch or Jubilees have qualified as Apocryphal books for the rabbinical Judaism and included in the LXX? Contrary to common belief, the non-canonical books in the LXX that later became known as the Apocrypha, were not decided upon by the church, but by Pharisaic rabbinical scholars. Jubilees and Enoch were not included in the LXX because of the rabbinical Judaism’s rejection of prophecy after Nehemia. In rabbinical Jewish circles, the books of Enoch, and to a lesser degree the book of Jubilees, were treated sceptically not because of the Canonization of the Bible (Tanach), but because of the Canonization of prophetic/apocalyptic works. Prophetic and apocalyptic are very similar, since both have an element of future prophecy. Apocalyptic prophecy is more visionary of nature and makes use of visual symbolism or descriptions to prophesy of future events. The rabbinical theology during the first centuries BCE and BE established that prophecy and apocalypse ended in the time of Nehemia (ca. 400BCE). This means that no prophet, prophetic book or apocalyptic book could be incorporated into the Jewish collection of authoritative books after the time of Nehemia. For this reason, books like Daniel, Esther and Chronicles were incorporated as part of the Writings (Ketubim) section of the Tanach, but Enoch and Jubilees were not considered because of its apocalyptic nature. It is important to note that Enoch and Jubilees were not excluded because of its non-canonical nature, but because of its apocalyptic nature that disqualified it for rabbinical Pharisaic Judaism. There are, however, two exceptions to the approach of the rabbinical Judaism, the Ethiopian Jews and the Qumran Yachad community. The Ethiopian Jews retained the books of Enoch and Jubilees as part of their Canon, until today. The Qumran Yachad community did not only view these books as authoritative, they even regarded Jubilees on a higher level as the Masoretic text of the Torah. |