The deuterocanonical books and the Apocrypha, book by book
What the deuterocanonical books and the Apocrypha are, how many books each Bible counts (7, 14 or more), and the chapters and reading time of each.
The short answer
The deuterocanonical books are seven Old Testament books in Catholic Bibles that most Protestant Bibles leave out: Tobit, Judith, 1 and 2 Maccabees, Wisdom, Sirach and Baruch, plus longer Greek forms of Esther and Daniel. Protestants call them the Apocrypha. The 1611 King James Bible had 14 under that name: the seven, the four additions as books, 1 and 2 Esdras and the Prayer of Manasseh. Orthodox Bibles add more, such as 3 Maccabees. The Catholic set is 145 chapters, a little over seven hours of reading.
In this guide
- What are the deuterocanonical books?
- The deuterocanonical books, one by one
- Deuterocanonical vs Apocrypha: what each word means
- How many books are in the Apocrypha?
- What Orthodox and Ethiopian Bibles add
- Why aren’t they in Protestant Bibles?
- How long are the deuterocanonical books, and how to read them
- Questions people ask
- Sources
Turn a few pages past Nehemiah in a Catholic Bible and you reach Tobit and Judith, two books many Protestant readers have never opened. A Bible printed “with the Apocrypha” has them too, along with a few more. The deuterocanonical books and the Apocrypha are largely the same writings, named from two sides: one word comes from a church that reads them as scripture, the other from churches that set them apart. Every tradition’s list is a little different, so each count here names whose list it is, and every chapter count and reading time comes from our own book table.
- 7deuterocanonical books in Catholic Bibles
- 14books in the 1611 King James Apocrypha
- 145chapters in the Catholic set, additions included
- 7¼ hoursto read them silently at an average pace
What are the deuterocanonical books?
The deuterocanonical books are seven books of the Old Testament that the Catholic Church reads as scripture and the Hebrew Bible does not contain: Tobit, Judith, 1 and 2 Maccabees, Wisdom, Sirach and Baruch. Catholic Bibles also read Esther and Daniel in their longer Greek forms, so the additions to those two books belong to the deuterocanon as well. Together they come to 145 chapters, a little over a tenth of the 73-book Catholic Bible.
The word means “of the second canon”. The theologian Sixtus of Siena coined it in 1566, and in Catholic usage the “second” is about timing, not rank: these books’ place in the canon was recognized later than the rest. All of them are in the Septuagint, the earliest surviving Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, and in a Catholic Bible they sit among the other Old Testament books rather than in a section of their own.
| Book | Chapters | Words | Reading time |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tobit | 14 | 6,746 | 28 minutes |
| Judith | 16 | 10,936 | 46 minutes |
| 1 Maccabees | 16 | 22,144 | 1 hour 33 min |
| 2 Maccabees | 15 | 16,604 | 1 hour 10 min |
| Wisdom | 19 | 10,271 | 43 minutes |
| Sirach | 51 | 26,297 | 1 hour 50 min |
| Baruch | 6 | 4,999 | 21 minutes |
Words are our own count of the World English Bible, a public-domain modern translation, with the longer Greek Esther and Daniel where this canon reads them. Reading time is silent reading at 238 words a minute, the adult average.
The deuterocanonical books, one by one
They are more varied than their reputation: two stories, two histories, two books of wisdom and one in the voice of a prophet’s scribe, plus the passages added to Esther and Daniel.
- Tobit (14 chapters). Tobit, an Israelite exile in Nineveh who buries the dead, is blinded by sparrows’ droppings. His son Tobias sets out to collect money left in trust in Media, with a companion who turns out to be the angel Raphael, and Tobit’s sight is restored.
- Judith (16 chapters). Holofernes, the general of Nebuchadnezzar’s army, lays siege to the town of Bethulia. Judith, a widow, walks into his camp and cuts off his head.
- 1 Maccabees (16 chapters). The revolt against the Seleucid king Antiochus Epiphanes, begun by the priest Mattathias and led by his sons: Judas, called Maccabaeus, then Jonathan, then Simon. Its fourth chapter tells of the temple’s rededication, kept “for eight days, from the twenty-fifth day of the month Chislev” (4:59). It is the story behind Hanukkah, the “Feast of the Dedication” at which John’s Gospel finds Jesus in the temple (John 10:22).
- 2 Maccabees (15 chapters). The same revolt told again, abridged, its author says, from five books by Jason of Cyrene. Chapter 7 tells of seven brothers and their mother who die rather than eat pork.
- Wisdom (19 chapters), also called the Wisdom of Solomon. It speaks in Solomon’s voice (“You chose me to be king of your people”) and praises wisdom as “the architect of all things”.
- Sirach (51 chapters), also called Ecclesiasticus. The teaching of “Jesus, the son of Sirach Eleazar, of Jerusalem”: friendship, speech, lending, children, in the manner of Proverbs and nearly twice its length.
- Baruch (6 chapters). Words attributed to Baruch, the scribe who wrote down Jeremiah’s prophecies (Jeremiah 36:4). Its sixth chapter is the Letter of Jeremiah, which some Bibles print as a book of its own.
- The additions to Esther. The Hebrew Esther never names God (in the World English Bible we did not find the word once). The Greek version adds Mordecai’s dream and its meaning, two royal letters, the prayers of Mordecai and Esther, and a fuller telling of Esther going in to the king: six chapters in the numbering our tables use.
- The additions to Daniel. The Prayer of Azariah and the Song of the Three Young Men, sung in the furnace (chapter 3, verses 24 to 90 in the World English Bible); Susanna (chapter 13); and Bel and the Dragon (chapter 14), in which Daniel shows that an idol’s priests have been eating its food.
Deuterocanonical vs Apocrypha: what each word means
The two words mostly name the same books, and what differs is the verdict each carries. “Deuterocanonical” is the Catholic word for books it reads as scripture. “Apocrypha”, from the Greek apokryphos, “hidden”, is the Reformation churches’ word for the same books set apart from the canon: for Anglicans and Lutherans worth reading, but not a source of doctrine. The Orthodox have a word of their own.
| Word | Who uses it | What it says about the books |
|---|---|---|
| Deuterocanonical | The Catholic Church, and academic writing | Part of the Old Testament, recognized later than the rest |
| Anagignoskomena, “worthy to be read” | Greek Orthodox | Part of the Old Testament and read in church; Orthodox writers who say “deuterocanonical” mean secondary authority |
| Apocrypha | Anglican, Lutheran and other Protestant churches | Outside the canon; for Anglicans and Lutherans, useful for instruction but not for doctrine |
| apocrypha, in the wider sense | General and scholarly use | Any ancient religious writing outside the canon, including gospels no church reads |
“Apocrypha” says the books sit outside the canon, which is why Catholic writers prefer “deuterocanonical”, and the Society of Biblical Literature recommends “deuterocanonical books” in academic writing. This guide uses each word for the tradition that uses it.
Apocrypha, pseudepigrapha and the “lost books”
The Apocrypha on a Bible’s contents page is a definite list of books, printed in the Bible itself. The wider apocrypha is not. The pseudepigrapha, strictly books ascribed to someone who did not write them, is the usual name for ancient writings found in no printed Bible, such as the Apocalypse of Abraham. The New Testament apocrypha are early Christian writings, many of them gospels, that no church reads as scripture, such as the Gospel of Thomas or the Gospel of Judas. Enoch, Jubilees and 4 Baruch are often listed with the pseudepigrapha, though Ethiopian Bibles carry them.
The books of the Apocrypha proper were never lost: every Catholic and Orthodox Bible prints them. What happened to them in Protestant printings is the subject of were books removed from the Bible?.
One book, several names
Sirach is Ecclesiasticus, or “Jesus the Son of Sirach”. Tobit is Tobias in older lists. 1 and 2 Esdras are 3 and 4 Esdras in the Latin Vulgate, and in the Church of England’s list too, where the first and second books of Esdras are Ezra and Nehemiah. The Prayer of Manasseh is the Prayer of Manasses.
How many books are in the Apocrypha?
It depends on whose list you count: seven in the Catholic deuterocanon, fourteen in the Apocrypha of the 1611 King James Bible, and more in Orthodox and Ethiopian Bibles. Numbers that disagree usually come from mixing these lists, or from counting the wider apocrypha, which has no fixed number.
| List | How many | What it counts |
|---|---|---|
| Catholic deuterocanon | 7, plus the additions | Tobit, Judith, 1 and 2 Maccabees, Wisdom, Sirach and Baruch (with the Letter of Jeremiah as chapter 6), and the additions to Esther and Daniel |
| 1611 King James Bible; the Church of England’s Article VI | 14 | The same seven, the four additions counted as books (the Rest of Esther, the Song of the Three Children, Susanna, Bel and the Dragon), and 1 and 2 Esdras and the Prayer of Manasseh |
| Eastern Orthodox | Varies by edition | The Catholic set, plus 1 Esdras, 3 Maccabees, the Prayer of Manasseh and Psalm 151, with 4 Maccabees or 2 Esdras in an appendix |
| Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo | The most | Most of the above, without 1 and 2 Maccabees, and with Enoch, Jubilees, 4 Baruch and the three books of Meqabyan |
Here is every book these lists disagree on, apart from the six only Ethiopian Bibles carry (they come further down), with its chapters in each of the five canons we count. A dash means that canon does not carry the book.
| Book | Protestant | Catholic | With Apocrypha | Orthodox | Ethiopian |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 Esdras | — | — | 9 | 9 | 9 |
| 2 Esdras | — | — | 16 | 16 | 16 |
| Tobit | — | 14 | 14 | 14 | 14 |
| Judith | — | 16 | 16 | 16 | 16 |
| Esther | 10 | 16 | 16 | 16 | 16 |
| 1 Maccabees | — | 16 | 16 | 16 | — |
| 2 Maccabees | — | 15 | 15 | 15 | — |
| 3 Maccabees | — | — | — | 7 | — |
| 4 Maccabees | — | — | — | 18 | — |
| Psalms | 150 | 150 | 150 | 151 | 151 |
| Wisdom | — | 19 | 19 | 19 | 19 |
| Sirach | — | 51 | 51 | 51 | 51 |
| Prayer of Manasseh | — | — | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Baruch | — | 6 | 6 | 6 | 6 |
| Daniel | 12 | 14 | 14 | 14 | 14 |
Our With Apocrypha canon is the Anglican list with the four additions read inside Esther and Daniel, so 14 becomes 10 and the Bible has 76 books. Our Orthodox canon is the fullest Orthodox list, 78 books, with both 2 Esdras and 4 Maccabees. The whole-Bible totals are in how many books are in the Bible.
The Apocrypha in the 1611 King James Bible
The original King James Version of 1611 had 80 books: 39 in the Old Testament, 14 in the Apocrypha and 27 in the New Testament. The Apocrypha stood in a section of its own between the testaments, a placement first used in Luther’s Bible of 1534. Its fourteen, in order, were 1 Esdras, 2 Esdras, Tobit, Judith, the Rest of Esther, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch, the Song of the Three Holy Children, the History of Susanna, Bel and the Dragon, the Prayer of Manasses, and 1 and 2 Maccabees.
The Church of England’s Article VI lists the same fourteen as books the church reads, “but yet doth it not apply them to establish any doctrine.” Printing them became less common in England in the early 1800s, and in 1826 the British and Foreign Bible Society stopped paying to print them. A King James Bible bought today usually has 66 books.
The three books Catholic Bibles do not carry
1 Esdras, 2 Esdras and the Prayer of Manasseh are in the Anglican Apocrypha and in many Orthodox Bibles, but the Council of Trent did not list them, and modern Catholic Bibles leave them out.
- 1 Esdras (9 chapters). The return from exile told a second way, from Josiah’s Passover (as in 2 Chronicles 35) through Cyrus’s decree to Ezra reading the law to the people (as in Nehemiah 8). Its own addition is a contest between three young men of the king’s bodyguard over what is strongest, which ends with all the people shouting that truth is great, and strong above all things.
- 2 Esdras (16 chapters). Visions given to Ezra in Babylon, “in the thirtieth year after the ruin of the city”, in which he asks why Babylon, no better than Zion, was given power over it, and the angel Uriel answers him.
- Prayer of Manasseh (1 chapter, 15 verses). A prayer of repentance in the voice of King Manasseh, whom 2 Chronicles 33 describes praying in captivity and whose prayer, it says, was written in the records of the kings.
What Orthodox and Ethiopian Bibles add
Orthodox Bibles carry the whole Catholic set and add 1 Esdras, 3 Maccabees, Psalm 151 and the Prayer of Manasseh, with 4 Maccabees or 2 Esdras in an appendix, depending on the edition. Greek Orthodox call the books outside the Hebrew Bible the anagignoskomena, and in 1672 the Synod of Jerusalem received the books of the Septuagint as its canon. The Orthodox Bible guide has why the Orthodox lists vary.
- 3 Maccabees (7 chapters). Despite the name, not about the Maccabees. Set in Egypt under King Ptolemy Philopator, it tells how the Jews there were rounded up to be trampled by five hundred drugged elephants, and how the elephants turned back on the soldiers.
- 4 Maccabees (18 chapters). A philosophical address that sets out to prove “that religious reasoning is absolute master of the emotions”, taking Eleazar and the seven brothers and their mother from 2 Maccabees as its proof.
- Psalm 151. A short psalm of David on his fight with Goliath, in most copies of the Septuagint, with a Hebrew form in the Great Psalms Scroll from the Dead Sea Scrolls. The Eastern and Oriental Orthodox churches hold it as canonical; Protestants, most of Judaism and the Catholic Church do not, though it appears in some editions of the Vulgate.
The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church’s Old Testament carries the Catholic set except 1 and 2 Maccabees, along with 1 and 2 Esdras (the second named Ezra Sutuel) and the Prayer of Manasseh (read within 2 Chronicles). It also has six books found in no canon outside the Orthodox Tewahedo churches:
| Book | Chapters | What it’s known for |
|---|---|---|
| Jubilees | 50 | Genesis retold, and the calendar behind it |
| 1 Meqabyan | 36 | Three brothers who would not bow |
| 2 Meqabyan | 21 | A king's downfall, told for Ethiopia |
| 3 Meqabyan | 10 | Ten chapters on judgment and mercy |
| 4 Baruch | 9 | Sixty-six years asleep, and a changed city |
| Enoch | 108 | Watchers, giants, and a tour of heaven |
The three books of Meqabyan share a name with Maccabees but are entirely different books. Enoch, at 108 chapters, is the longest. We have no public-domain English text of these six to count, so they have no reading times here; the Ethiopian Bible guide goes through the whole canon.
Why aren’t they in Protestant Bibles?
Most Protestant Bibles leave them out because the Reformation churches took the books of the Hebrew Bible as their Old Testament, and the deuterocanonical books are in the Greek Septuagint but not in the Hebrew Bible. Each tradition gave its own answer in writing:
| Tradition | What it holds | In its own words |
|---|---|---|
| Catholic | Scripture, part of the Old Testament | Council of Trent, 8 April 1546: the books “entire with all their parts”, as in the old Latin Vulgate |
| Eastern Orthodox | Part of the Old Testament, read in church | Synod of Jerusalem, 1672: “genuine parts of Scripture” |
| Lutheran | Not scripture, but worth reading | Luther: “not held equal to the Scriptures, but are useful and good to read” |
| Anglican | Read for instruction, not doctrine | Article VI: “for example of life and instruction of manners” |
| Presbyterian | No part of the canon | Westminster Confession, 1647: “no part of the Canon of the Scripture” |
In the Catholic account, these books were already listed as scripture by councils at Rome (382), Hippo (393) and Carthage (397), long before Trent restated the list. Luther moved them into a section between the testaments rather than out of his Bible, and Anglican and Lutheran lectionaries include readings from them. The Westminster Confession went furthest, allowing them no more use than “other human writings”. Our guide to the Catholic and Protestant Bibles follows how these lists took shape.
How long are the deuterocanonical books, and how to read them
The Catholic set is 145 chapters and, by our count of the World English Bible, about 103,000 words: a little over seven hours of silent reading at the average adult pace of 238 words a minute. The Apocrypha as Anglican Bibles print it is 171 chapters and about nine and a half hours.
| What you are reading | Chapters | Words | Silent reading time |
|---|---|---|---|
| The seven deuterocanonical books | 137 | about 98,000 | about 6 hours 50 minutes |
| The Catholic set, with the additions to Esther and Daniel | 145 | about 103,400 | about 7¼ hours |
| The Apocrypha as Anglican Bibles print it | 171 | about 137,100 | about 9½ hours |
| Everything the fullest Orthodox list adds to the Protestant Bible | 197 | about 154,000 | about 10¾ hours |
The additions are counted as the difference between the Greek Esther and Daniel and the Hebrew ones. At five chapters a day, about a quarter of an hour, the Catholic set takes 29 days and the Anglican Apocrypha 35; at one chapter a day the Catholic set takes a little under five months. For the whole 73-book Bible at any pace, see the Catholic Bible reading plan.
Reading them for the first time, an order that follows their kinds works well:
- Start with the stories. Tobit takes about half an hour and Judith about 45 minutes, and each fits in one sitting.
- Read 1 Maccabees for the history, then 2 Maccabees. The first takes about an hour and a half, the second about 70 minutes.
- Put Wisdom and Sirach beside Proverbs. Wisdom is about 45 minutes. Sirach, at 51 chapters and nearly two hours, reads well a chapter a day, like Proverbs.
- Read Baruch after Jeremiah and Lamentations, where Catholic Bibles place it. It takes about 20 minutes.
- Read the additions with their books. A Catholic Bible has them in place; where the Apocrypha is its own section, read the Rest of Esther after Esther, and Susanna and Bel after Daniel.
- Pair the Anglican three with their stories: 1 Esdras beside Ezra and Nehemiah, the Prayer of Manasseh after 2 Chronicles 33, and 2 Esdras, about an hour and a half, last.
However your Bible counts them, most of them are short books, and the first chapter of Tobit is a fine place to start.
Questions people ask
Are the Apocrypha and the deuterocanonical books the same thing?
Mostly, though the lists differ. Deuterocanonical is the Catholic word for seven books and the additions to Esther and Daniel, read as scripture. Apocrypha is the Protestant and Anglican word for the same books set apart, and the Anglican list adds 1 and 2 Esdras and the Prayer of Manasseh. In wider use, apocrypha also covers writings no church reads as scripture, such as the Gospel of Thomas.
Is the Book of Enoch part of the Apocrypha?
Not in the usual sense. Enoch is in no Catholic, Protestant or Eastern Orthodox Bible, and it was not in the Apocrypha of the 1611 King James Bible. It is often listed with the pseudepigrapha. It is scripture for the Ethiopian and Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Churches and for Beta Israel, and a short passage from it is quoted in the Letter of Jude, verses 14 and 15.
Which Bibles include the Apocrypha?
Every Catholic and Orthodox Bible includes these books within its Old Testament. Protestant Bibles carry them only in editions printed with the Apocrypha, usually as a section between the testaments, as Luther's Bible of 1534 and the 1611 King James Bible did. Luther Bibles still include them that way. The table of contents shows which kind you have.
Were the deuterocanonical books in the Septuagint and the Dead Sea Scrolls?
All of them are in the Septuagint, the earliest surviving Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible. Some turned up among the Dead Sea Scrolls too. Sirach was found in Hebrew in two scrolls, Tobit in five Aramaic fragments and one Hebrew, and the Letter of Jeremiah, Baruch's sixth chapter, in Greek in Cave 7. Of the Orthodox additions, a Hebrew form of Psalm 151 was in the Great Psalms Scroll.
Should Protestants read the Apocrypha?
Protestant traditions answer differently. Luther called these books useful and good to read, and Anglican and Lutheran lectionaries include readings from them. The Church of England reads them for example of life and instruction of manners, but not to establish doctrine. The Westminster Confession, held by Presbyterians, gives them no more standing than other human writings.
What does deuterocanonical mean?
It means of the second canon. The theologian Sixtus of Siena coined it in 1566 for books whose place in the canon was recognized later than the rest. In Catholic usage the second refers to that timing, not to lesser authority. Eastern Orthodox writers who use the word mean the books have secondary authority, and Greek Orthodox call them anagignoskomena, worthy to be read.
Sources
- Deuterocanonical books, Wikipedia
- Biblical apocrypha, Wikipedia
- List of books of the King James Version, Wikipedia
- Articles of Religion (Article VI), Book of Common Prayer, Church of England
- The Westminster Confession of Faith, chapter I, in Philip Schaff, The Creeds of Christendom, CCEL
- Council of Trent, Fourth Session (8 April 1546), Papal Encyclicals Online
- Orthodox Tewahedo biblical canon, Wikipedia
- Book of Enoch, Wikipedia
- Psalm 151, Wikipedia
- Hanukkah, Wikipedia
- Brysbaert, M. (2019). How many words do we read per minute? A review and meta-analysis of reading rate. Journal of Memory and Language, 109, 104047.
- World English Bible, verse-per-line edition (public domain), eBible.org
- King James Version, verse-per-line edition (public domain), eBible.org
