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Mystery of the Missing Seven
Additions or subtractions?
Mr. PSP
May 01, 2025
Your Scripture Against My Scripture
In a previous memo titled “Verses Versus Verses,” I discussed a few key differences between Catholicism and Protestantism and its implications.
One that I did not touch on is the difference between Protestant and Catholic Bibles.
A surprising proportion of both Catholics and Protestants are completely unaware of the discrepancy between the two versions, as the 73 book Catholic Bible includes seven books that the Protestant version does not: Tobit, Judith, Baruch, 1 and 2 Maccabees, Wisdom of Solomon, and Wisdom of Sirach (also known as Ecclesiasticus).
In addition to these seven books, the Catholic Bible includes versions of Daniel and Esther that are longer and contain passages not found in the Protestants’s.
An obvious question arises: did the Catholics add the books or did Protestants remove them?
According to some Protestants, Catholics added the books to the canon during the post-reformation Council of Trent, as they claim these seven books—referred to as the deuterocanonical books—had never been formally defined as canon in an ecumenical council until Trent.
However, this is simply false; the Council of Florence, taking place two centuries prior in 1441, also includes the seven books as Sacred Scripture.
The context for the Council of Florence was that it convened as a reunion council between the Catholic and Orthodox Church, as Islamic threats to Eastern Christian lands sparked discussions of communion between the two churches.
One of the first steps was to list everything they agreed upon, with one of the first being the canon of scripture.
ahhh…that’s pretty interesting
Rewinding even further than that, the canon affirmed in both the Council of Trent and Florence is identical to the original canon formalized by the Church at the non-ecumenical Council of Rome led by Pope Damasus I in 382.
Additionally, a variety of Church Fathers, both before and during the time of the Council of Rome, have cited the deuterocanonical books in their writings.
The list includes St. Clement of Rome citing the Book of Wisdom, St. Polycarp citing Tobit, St. Irenaus citing the longer version of Daniel, St. Origen citing 1 & 2 Maccabees and Baruch, and St. Augustine famously proclaiming 1 & 2 Maccabees as “canonical not by the Jews, but by the Church, on account of the extreme and wonderful sufferings of certain martyrs.”
The key in this excerpt from St. Augustine is the deuterocanonical books not being included in the Hebrew Bible, therefore not being considered divinely inspired according to Jews.
More specifically, not only did all of these Christian trailblazers cite these books, but they specifically cited them as canonical.
This leads some Protestants, including Charlie Kirk in his mini-debate against Michael Knowles, to say something along the lines of “why would we consider those books are divinely inspired? The Jews don’t even consider them as sacred scripture!”
catholics’ answer
Respectfully, whether members of a different religion label certain books in the Bible as not divinely inspired is completely irrelevant.
While there is obvious overlap between the Christian and Jewish scriptures, Jews do not profess Christ as Lord, so they simply don’t have a say as to which books are divinely inspired by the Triune God.
This leads to the uncomfortable reality that most Protestants unknowingly, elevate the discernment of non-Messianic Jews over the discernment of the early Church and its patriarchs.
Now that we’ve covered the what, let’s dive into the why.
Revisionist History
Martin Luther, the infamous patriarch of the Protestant Reformation Revolution, spent an extensive period of time constructing arguments against Catholic doctrines he disagreed with, as most tended to be topics that were not explicitly explained in great detail in the Bible.
One of the major ones was the purgatory.
Purgatory is referenced in more of an implicit manner several times in scripture, including in 1 Corinthians 3 and Luke 12.
In addition to these chapters, purgatory’s existence can easily be affirmed in 2 Maccabees, as it states the following:
“And making a gathering, he (Judas Maccabeus) sent twelve thousand drachmas of silver to Jerusalem for sacrifice to be offered for the sins of the dead, thinking well and religiously concerning the resurrection
(For if he had not hoped that they that were slain should rise again, it would have seemed superfluous and vain to pray for the dead)
And because he considered that they who had fallen asleep with godliness, had great grace laid up for them. It is therefore a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead, that they may be loosed from sins.”
Before Protestants say that it doesn’t count because it doesn’t spell out word for word that purgatory exists, the existence of some intermediary state between death and eternal paradise can logically be concluded from this excerpt.
Why would anyone pray for the dead if only heaven and hell existed?
Those in heaven simply wouldn’t need our prayers given they would be receiving the beatific vision and in perfect communion with God. Similarly, those in hell could make no use of the prayers since damnation is eternal.
This conclusion is so obvious that Luther immediately became a proponent for the de-canonization of the book.
However, an obvious problem arises: he couldn’t just remove one book—that would be too suspect.
Moreover, there needed to be some type of rationale behind it other than denying a Catholic teaching he swore to be false.
Therefore, he appealed to the Jewish tradition and its Hebrew Bible given that it didn’t include 2 Maccabees as well as a handful of other books.
Luther often references St. Jerome, who famously translated the Bible into Latin (the Vulgate) after learning Hebrew from Jewish rabbis while living in Bethlehem.
St. Jerome privately doubted the deuterocanonical books as divinely inspired because he translated the Hebrew Bible and not the Septuagint version of the Old Testament, which is the Greek version that includes the deuterocanonical books. He labeled these books as “ecclesiastical books,” meaning they are valuable for edification but inferior to canonical Scripture.
Interestingly enough, roughly two-thirds of the Old Testament references used by New Testament writers are derived from the Septuagint version.
The most relevant detail about St. Jerome and his view on scripture is that his view was ultimately rejected by the Church, and most importantly, he submitted to her authority.
But the fact that Jerome deferred to the Church was not meaningful to Luther.
To give credit to Luther, while he believed these seven books were “not held equal to the Sacred Scriptures,” he at least had the decency to keep the books in the Bible, placing them in a separate “Apocrypha” (Greek word apokryphos = hidden) section.
Because of this, Protestant Bibles, including the famous original 1611 King James Version, contained all 73 books of the Bible.
It wasn’t until the early 19th century that Protestant Bibles began removing the deuterocanonical books, as the British and Foreign Bible Society decided to halt printing the “Apocrypha” section, with the American Bible societies following suit.
catholic bible vs protestant bible
Another supporting piece of evidence for the deuterocanonical books is that it is referenced in the New Testament in St. Paul’s letter to the Hebrews:
What more shall I say? I have not time to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets,
Who by faith conquered kingdoms, did what was righteous, obtained the promises; they closed the mouths of lions,
Put out raging fires, escaped the edge of the sword; won strength out of weakness, became mighty in battle, turned back foreign invaders.
Women received back their dead through resurrection. Some were tortured and would not accept deliverance, in order to obtain a better resurrection.
This excerpt is widely acknowledged by both Protestant and Catholic scholars as the martyrdoms in 2 Maccabees 7, when the Seleucid King Antiochus IV Epiphanes tortured a woman and her seven sons for refusing to eat pork.
In this scene, the martyrs, are specifically tortured, refused to accept release or deliverance, and hoped for a “better resurrection,” with one of the sons proclaiming:
“You accursed fiend, you are depriving us of this present life, but the King of the universe will raise us up to live again forever, because we are dying for his laws.”
On another note, Luther was unsurprisingly not a fan of the book of James, due to verses like “for as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead” (James 2:26), and “you see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone” (James 2:24).
While never explicitly calling for the removal of the book, in his Preface to the Epistles of St. James and St. Jude, he states:
“To state my own opinion about it, though without prejudice to anyone, I do not regard it as the writing of an apostle…it is flatly against St. Paul and the rest of scripture in ascribing justification to works.”
What Luther doesn’t understand is, frankly speaking, his opinions do not matter.
The only thing that does matter is the opinion of the Church, which is the truth, has always been the truth, and will always be the truth because, according to 1 Timothy 3:15, “the church of the living God [is] the pillar and foundation of truth.”
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Thanks for reading and until next time.
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