How Was the Bible Canon Decided?

The churches do not share one account of who closed the Old Testament list. Josephus says the Jews have “only twenty-two books.” (1) Athanasius in 367 counts twenty-two and sets other books aside to be read. (7) Carthage and Trent receive a longer list. Westminster says the books commonly called Apocrypha are no part of the canon. (15) This page quotes those decisions. The Bible printed at /bible is the 66-book King James Version.

Key Points

• Josephus, Against Apion 1.8, counts five books of Moses, thirteen of the prophets, and four of hymns and precepts, and he says there has not been “an exact succession of prophets” since Artaxerxes. (1)
• Athanasius’s 39th Festal Letter lists the twenty-seven New Testament books and a “to be read” class: Wisdom, Sirach, Esther, Judith, Tobit, the Didache, and the Shepherd, “not indeed included in the Canon.” (7)
• Jerome says Wisdom, Sirach, Judith, Tobias, and the Shepherd “are not in the canon.” (10)
• Canon 24 of the 419 Carthage collection, repeating Hippo and the earlier Carthage council, lists Tobit, Judith, two books of Maccabees, and five books of Solomon. (13) It does not name 1 Enoch.
• Trent, 8 April 1546, receives the longer Old Testament and anathematizes a knowing refusal. (14) Westminster 1.3 refuses the Apocrypha as inspired. (15)
• The twenty canons of Nicaea contain no list of biblical books. (17)

The Jewish Lists

Josephus writes that the Jews have “only twenty-two books, which contain the records of all the past times; which are justly believed to be divine.” History written after Artaxerxes “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.” (1)

The Jewish Encyclopedia summarizes a canon of twenty-four books: five of the Law, eight of the Prophets, and eleven Writings. Its summary of Bava Batra 14b names Law, then Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Isaiah, and the Minor Prophets, then Ruth, Psalms, Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Canticles, Lamentations, Daniel, Esther, Ezra, and Chronicles. (2) That summary does not include Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Sirach, or Maccabees. The English of the Talmud passage is under a CC BY-NC license, so this page does not reprint it. (4)

The Tosefta, in the Sefaria Community Translation, says the scrolls of Ben Sira and scrolls written after them do not defile the hands. (3) The Jewish Encyclopedia cites the same ruling as excluding Ben Sira and later books. (2)

The prologue to Sirach speaks of the law, the prophets, and the other books of the ancestors. (22) 1 Maccabees 9:27Close

So was there a great affliction in Israel, the like whereof was not since the time that a prophet was not seen among them.1 Maccabees 9:27 · King James Version (Apocrypha)Open source speaks of a time when a prophet was not seen among them.

Early Church Lists

Melito of Sardis, quoted by Eusebius, gives the Old Testament books he learned in the East. The list does not name Tobit, Judith, Sirach, or Maccabees. (5) Origen, also in Eusebius, counts twenty-two books “as the Hebrews have handed them down,” counts Jeremiah with Lamentations and the epistle, and adds, “And besides these there are the Maccabees.” (6)

Athanasius, Festal Letter 39, counts twenty-two Old Testament books, with Baruch, Lamentations, and the epistle inside Jeremiah, and Esther outside that canon. He then names books “not indeed included in the Canon, but appointed by the Fathers to be read”: Wisdom of Solomon, Wisdom of Sirach, Esther, Judith, Tobit, the Didache, and the Shepherd. (7) Cyril of Jerusalem tells catechumens to read the twenty-two books and have nothing to do with the apocryphal writings. (8)

Rufinus distinguishes canonical books from ecclesiastical ones, including Wisdom, Sirach, Tobit, Judith, and Maccabees: read in the churches, and not appealed to for the confirmation of doctrine. (9) Jerome’s prologue to Kings says Wisdom, “the book of Jesus, the Son of Sirach,” Judith, Tobias, and the Shepherd “are not in the canon.” (10) His preface to Solomon says the Church reads Judith, Tobit, and the books of Maccabees for the edification of the people, not to confirm the authority of ecclesiastical dogmas. (11)

Augustine’s test is reception by all the Catholic churches. His Old Testament count in On Christian Doctrine 2.8 includes Tobit, Judith, the two books of Maccabees, Wisdom, and Ecclesiasticus, forty-four books in his reckoning. (12) Canon 24 of the Council of Carthage in the 419 collection lists those books to be read in church. The fetched canon does not name 1 Enoch. (13)

Later Church Decisions

The Catholic Encyclopedia records medieval Latin hesitation about these books, including in Aquinas. (18) The Council of Florence’s Bull of Union with the Copts, 4 February 1442, names Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch, and two books of Maccabees. (19)

The Council of Trent, Session IV, 8 April 1546, in Waterworth’s English:

But if any one receive not, as sacred and canonical, the said books entire with all their parts, as they have been used to be read in the Catholic Church, and as they are contained in the old Latin vulgate edition; and knowingly and deliberately contemn the traditions aforesaid; let him be anathema.

(14) The decree’s books include Tobias, Judith, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch, and two books of Maccabees.

Westminster 1.3 (15) says, “The books commonly called Apocrypha, not being of divine inspiration, are no part of the canon of the Scripture.” Article VI (16) says the other books, “as Hierome saith,” the Church reads “for example of life and instruction of manners,” and “it doth not apply them to establish any doctrine.” Hierome is Jerome.

The Orthodox Church in America describes a longer canon that includes Tobit, Judith, the longer Esther and Daniel, Maccabees, Wisdom, Sirach, and Baruch, and it notes that lists differ by jurisdiction. (20) This page does not assign one number of books to every Orthodox church. The Catholic Encyclopedia notes that some 18th-century Russian theologians moved away from the deuterocanonical books. (18)

Mikre-Sellassie describes the Ethiopian Orthodox count of 81 books, the Fetha Negest’s list of 73, and a narrower canon that includes Enoch and Jubilees. (21) That shelf is Non-Canonical. The fourteen King James books are on the Apocrypha. How Was the Bible Canon Decided, and What Is the Apocrypha? quotes the Catechism, Trent, and Westminster at length.

What Nicaea and Jamnia Do Not Show

The twenty canons of the Council of Nicaea contain no list of biblical books. (17) The lists on this page come from Josephus, from bishops’ letters, and from later synods and confessions.

Josephus’s count, the Jewish Encyclopedia’s summary of Bava Batra, and the church lists fetched here do not record a council at Jamnia that closed the canon. This page did not fetch a decree from such a council.

Frequently Asked Questions

Did a Council at Nicaea Vote the Bible Into Shape?

The canons of Nicaea that were fetched contain no catalog of books. (17) Athanasius’s list is his Festal Letter of 367. Carthage’s list is a North African canon. Trent’s definition is 1546.

Did Protestants Remove Seven Books That the Early Church Had Closed?

Jerome and Athanasius already rank Wisdom, Sirach, Judith, and Tobit below the Hebrew books. (7) (10) Article VI cites Jerome. Trent’s anathema is 1546. The Catholic Encyclopedia itself records medieval hesitation before that decree. (18)

Where Are 1 Enoch and the Apocrypha on This Site?

1 Enoch is Charles’s 1917 translation, with the history of why the major churches did not receive it. Secrets of Enoch (2 Enoch) is the 1896 chapter list, and 3 Enoch is an explainer with no full text. The King James Apocrypha is at /apocrypha. The 66-book text is at /bible.