Were books removed from the Bible? What happened to the Apocrypha
The 1611 King James Bible had 80 books. Which 14 were later removed from Protestant Bibles, when and why, who kept them, and what Nicaea had to do with it.
The short answer
Whether books were removed depends on which Bible you start from. Catholic and Orthodox Bibles have kept their extra Old Testament books all along. The Reformers kept them too, but set them apart as the Apocrypha. The King James Bible of 1611 had 80 books, 14 of them in that section between the testaments. Printers began binding King James Bibles without it in 1666, and after 1826 most editions left it out. The Council of Nicaea, often blamed, left no record of discussing the canon.
In this guide
- Were books removed from the Bible?
- How many books were removed from the Bible?
- When did the Apocrypha disappear from Protestant Bibles?
- Who removed books from the Bible? Four claims checked
- Which Bibles still have these books?
- Enoch, Thomas and the “lost books” that were never in
- Reading the books for yourself
- Questions people ask
- Sources
Ask how many books were removed from the Bible and the answer often comes with a story attached: a council that voted books out, a king who cut them, a church that hid them. The recorded history is slower and plainer: a section that sixteenth-century Protestant Bibles carried gradually dropped out of most editions, while Catholic and Orthodox Bibles kept most of the same books in their Old Testaments. Here is what that section held, when it went, and which of the popular explanations hold up.
- 66books in most Protestant Bibles today
- 76in a Bible with the Apocrypha, as the app counts it
- +171chapters the Apocrypha adds
- 9½ hoursto read them at an average pace
Were books removed from the Bible?
Whether books were removed from the Bible depends on which Bible you measure against. Set beside a Catholic Bible, a Protestant Bible has seven fewer books and shorter forms of two more, Esther and Daniel. Set beside the Hebrew Bible, whose contents the Protestant Old Testament follows, nothing is missing, because those books were never part of it.
What happened in between is well documented. The Reformers kept these books but moved them into a section of their own, the Apocrypha, between the Old and New Testaments. From the seventeenth century on, Protestant printers left that section out more and more often, until in the nineteenth century most Protestant Bibles no longer had it. No New Testament book was taken out along the way: Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox Bibles share the same 27.
The traditions even name the books differently. Catholics call them deuterocanonical, a word the theologian Sixtus of Siena coined in 1566 for books whose place in the canon was recognized later than the rest. Protestants have usually called them the Apocrypha, from a Greek word for “hidden”. The Orthodox call them anagignoskomena, “worthy to be read”. Each name carries its tradition’s view of the same books, which is why this page uses all of them.
How many books were removed from the Bible?
Fourteen, counted against the King James Bible of 1611. It had 80 books: 39 in the Old Testament, 14 in the Apocrypha and 27 in the New Testament, and those 14 are what most Protestant Bibles later stopped printing. In the order and under the names the King James Version gives them:
| In the 1611 King James Bible | In a Catholic Bible |
|---|---|
| 1 Esdras | Not in the canon |
| 2 Esdras | Not in the canon |
| Tobit | Yes |
| Judith | Yes |
| Rest of Esther | Yes, within Esther |
| Wisdom | Yes |
| Ecclesiasticus | Yes, as Sirach |
| Baruch and the Epistle of Jeremy | Yes, as Baruch, chapters 1 to 6 |
| Song of the Three Children | Yes, within Daniel 3 |
| Story of Susanna | Yes, as Daniel 13 |
| The Idol Bel and the Dragon | Yes, as Daniel 14 |
| Prayer of Manasses | Not in the canon |
| 1 Maccabees | Yes |
| 2 Maccabees | Yes |
Eleven of the fourteen are in every Catholic Bible: seven as books of their own and four as parts of Esther and Daniel. The other three, 1 and 2 Esdras and the Prayer of Manasseh, are not in the Catholic canon, so the King James Apocrypha is wider than the Catholic list. Our Catholic vs Protestant Bible guide goes through the seven in detail.
These were not an afterthought in 1611. King James’s translators worked in six committees, one of them for the Apocrypha, and that committee finished first. The books were needed because readings from them were part of the daily Old Testament lectionary in the Church of England’s Book of Common Prayer.
How much reading the Apocrypha adds
Counted the way BibleRing counts a Bible, the same contents come to 76 books rather than 80, because the four additions go back inside Esther and Daniel. Against a 66-book Bible, that adds:
| Book | In the Bible with the Apocrypha | Chapters added |
|---|---|---|
| 1 Esdras | A whole book. The return from exile, told a second way. | 9 |
| 2 Esdras | A whole book. Seven visions, and a question God does not dodge. | 16 |
| Tobit | A whole book. A journey with an angel in disguise. | 14 |
| Judith | A whole book. A widow walks into an enemy camp. | 16 |
| Esther | 6 more chapters: the Greek additions | 6 |
| 1 Maccabees | A whole book. The revolt and the rededicated temple. | 16 |
| 2 Maccabees | A whole book. The same revolt, told for the heart. | 15 |
| Wisdom | A whole book. Greek thought meets Hebrew faith. | 19 |
| Sirach | A whole book. A grandfather's practical advice. | 51 |
| Prayer of Manasseh | A whole book. The worst king in Judah, asking for mercy. | 1 |
| Baruch | A whole book. Jeremiah's secretary, writing from exile. | 6 |
| Daniel | 2 more chapters: the Greek additions | 2 |
| From 1,189 chapters to 1,360 | +171 | |
That is 171 chapters and, by our count of the World English Bible, about 137,000 words. At the average adult silent reading pace of 238 words a minute, it comes to about nine and a half hours.
When did the Apocrypha disappear from Protestant Bibles?
The Apocrypha left most Protestant Bibles gradually, between the 1630s and the 1820s, through a series of steps rather than one decision. Here is each dated step in the histories we checked, set beside what Catholic and Orthodox churches decided over the same years:
| Year | What happened |
|---|---|
| 1534 | Luther’s complete German Bible, the first major edition with a separate Apocrypha section, places the books between the testaments and leaves out 1 and 2 Esdras |
| 1546 | The Council of Trent lists the Catholic canon on 8 April, including Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch and two books of Maccabees |
| 1560 | The Geneva Bible prints the Apocrypha, most of it in a section between the testaments |
| 1571 | The Church of England’s Article VI: the books are read “for example of life and instruction of manners”, but not to establish doctrine |
| 1592 | The Clementine Vulgate, the official Catholic Latin Bible, moves the Prayer of Manasseh and 3 and 4 Esdras (the King James 1 and 2 Esdras) into an appendix |
| 1611 | The King James Bible appears with 80 books, 14 of them in the Apocrypha |
| 1630 | Some Geneva Bibles are bound without the pages of the Apocrypha |
| 1644 | The Long Parliament forbids reading the Apocrypha in churches |
| 1647 | The Westminster Confession calls them “no part of the Canon of the Scripture” |
| 1666 | The first King James Bibles are bound without the Apocrypha |
| 1672 | The Orthodox Synod of Jerusalem receives the books of the Septuagint as its canon |
| 1769 | Oxford’s standard King James text still includes the Apocrypha |
| 1826 | The British and Foreign Bible Society stops funding the printing of the Apocryphal books |
| 1894 | The Revised Version, the revision of the King James Bible begun by the Church of England’s Convocation of Canterbury, completes its Apocrypha |
| 1964 | The American Bible Society lifts its restrictions on Bibles with the Apocrypha, and the British and Foreign Bible Society follows in 1966 |
Other years circulate online, 1684 among them, but none matches a decision recorded in these histories.
Two kinds of reason sit behind the steps. The first was conviction. Puritans applied the principle of Scripture alone to the question of which books belonged in the canon, and the Westminster Confession says the Apocrypha, “not being of divine inspiration, are no part of the Canon of the Scripture”, and are not to be approved or used any otherwise “than other human writings”.
The second was cost. After Oxford standardized the King James text in 1769, stereotype printing made huge, cheap print runs possible, and an edition without the Apocrypha cost less and appealed more to Protestants who were not Anglicans. The Bible societies then made it policy. In 1826 the British and Foreign Bible Society resolved that its funds go to “the Canonical Books of Scripture, to the exclusion of those Books and parts of Books usually termed Apocryphal”, and the American Bible Society adopted a similar rule. Both reversed it in the 1960s, amid twentieth-century ecumenical work on translations.
Who removed books from the Bible? Four claims checked
Most versions of the story name someone who did the removing. Here are the four names that come up most, set against what the record shows.
Did King James remove books from the Bible?
No. The Bible King James sponsored printed all 14 books of the Apocrypha, and every King James Bible published before 1666 included them. Oxford’s 1769 edition, the standard text most King James Bibles follow today, still had them. The editions without the Apocrypha came later: from printers binding without it from 1666, and from the Bible societies in the nineteenth century.
Did Martin Luther remove books from the Bible?
Mostly not, though he did move them. Luther’s complete German Bible of 1534 kept the deuterocanonical books but gathered them between the testaments under the heading Apocrypha, books that “are not held equal to the Scriptures, but are useful and good to read”. He did leave out 1 and 2 Esdras entirely. In his New Testament of 1522 he also moved Hebrews, James, Jude and Revelation to the end, because he doubted them, but he kept all four, and German Luther Bibles still print them last. Lutheran churches still include the Apocrypha in the Bible as a section between the testaments.
Were books removed at the Council of Nicaea?
No. There is no record that the Council of Nicaea, which met in 325, discussed the biblical canon at all. It settled a dispute about the nature of Christ, drafted the first part of the Nicene Creed, fixed how the date of Easter was set and issued rules of church discipline. The idea that the canon was settled there seems to come mainly from Voltaire, who popularized a story of the competing books being laid on an altar and the ones that did not fall off being kept. The anecdote itself comes from the Synodicon Vetus, a pseudo-historical account of church councils written in 887.
Lists of the books came from other times and places. The earliest known list of exactly the 27 books of the New Testament is in the Easter letter Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria, wrote in 367. A council probably held at Rome in 382, and councils at Hippo in 393 and Carthage in 397, accepted Old Testaments that included books the Hebrew Bible does not have.
Did the Catholic Church remove books from the Bible?
No. The Catholic canon is the list the Council of Trent gave on 8 April 1546, which repeats the one set out at the Council of Florence in 1442 and, for these books, matches the lists of Western councils of the late fourth century. Trent received its books “as sacred and canonical”, “entire with all their parts”. The nearest thing to a removal came in 1592, when the Clementine Vulgate moved three books Trent had not listed out of the Old Testament and into an appendix, “lest they utterly perish”: the Prayer of Manasseh and 3 and 4 Esdras, which the King James Bible calls 1 and 2 Esdras. Every tradition drew its line somewhere.
Which Bibles still have these books?
Catholic and Orthodox Bibles carry most of these books in the Old Testament itself, the Ethiopian Bible holds most of them and more besides, and Anglican and Lutheran Bibles often print them as a section between the testaments. Here are the ten whole books of the 1611 Apocrypha, with each one’s chapters in the five canons BibleRing counts:
| 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 |
| 1 Maccabees | — | 16 | 16 | 16 | — |
| 2 Maccabees | — | 15 | 15 | 15 | — |
| Wisdom | — | 19 | 19 | 19 | 19 |
| Sirach | — | 51 | 51 | 51 | 51 |
| Prayer of Manasseh | — | — | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Baruch | — | 6 | 6 | 6 | 6 |
Orthodox Old Testaments go further than the King James Apocrypha, with books such as 3 Maccabees and Psalm 151, and Orthodox churches do not all draw the line in the same place. The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church holds Enoch and Jubilees as Scripture. Its Old Testament also has three books of Meqabyan, entirely different from the Maccabees despite the name, and in the app’s Ethiopian count they stand where 1 and 2 Maccabees stand in other Bibles. Our guides to the Orthodox Bible and the Ethiopian Bible go through each in turn.
Enoch, Thomas and the “lost books” that were never in
Some of the books people believe were removed were never in the Bibles they are said to have been removed from.
- The Book of Enoch is in neither the Hebrew Bible nor the Septuagint, the Greek Old Testament the deuterocanonical books come from, so it was never part of the Apocrypha. The Letter of Jude quotes a passage from it as what “Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied”, and today it is Scripture in the Ethiopian and Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Churches. Our guide to whether the Book of Enoch is in the Bible has the full story.
- The Gospel of Thomas is a collection of 114 sayings attributed to Jesus. Its only complete text, in Coptic, was found near Nag Hammadi in Egypt in December 1945, and most scholars date its writing to the second century. It is a non-canonical gospel, and none of the five canons counted here includes it.
- “The Lost Books of the Bible” is the title of a 1926 collection, not a record of anything taken out. Its first half reprints a book of 1820, itself drawn from English translations of 1693 and 1736: early Christian writings such as the letters of Ignatius and the Shepherd of Hermas, and later legends that embroider the New Testament.
Reading the books for yourself
The simplest way to read them is in a Bible that prints them: any Catholic Bible has eleven of the fourteen, and a King James Bible printed “with Apocrypha” has all of them. Cambridge’s New Cambridge Paragraph Bible with Apocrypha, published in 2005, is a King James text.
Most of them make a single sitting. At an average silent pace Tobit takes about half an hour, Judith and Wisdom about 45 minutes each, and the Prayer of Manasseh two minutes. Sirach, at 51 chapters, is close to two hours and reads well a chapter at a time, like Proverbs. 2 Esdras, a book of seven visions, takes about an hour and a half. Our guide to the deuterocanonical books and the Apocrypha introduces each one.
Whatever your tradition makes of them, the books were never lost. Catholic and Orthodox Bibles have printed them all along, and the King James Bible can still be had with its Apocrypha.
Questions people ask
How many books were in the original 1611 King James Bible?
Eighty. The 1611 King James Bible had 39 books in the Old Testament, 14 in the Apocrypha and 27 in the New Testament, with the Apocrypha printed as its own section between the testaments. Oxford's standard edition of 1769, the text most King James Bibles reproduce today, still included it. Most editions dropped the section during the nineteenth century.
Why were the Apocrypha books removed from Protestant Bibles?
For reasons of conviction and of cost. The Puritans held that the books were not inspired, and the Westminster Confession of 1647 calls them "no part of the Canon of the Scripture". After 1769, stereotype printing made cheap Bibles possible, and leaving the section out cut the cost and appealed to Protestants outside the Church of England. In 1826 the British and Foreign Bible Society stopped spending its funds on the Apocryphal books.
Were any books removed from the New Testament?
No. Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox Bibles all have the same 27 New Testament books, the list Athanasius of Alexandria gave in his Easter letter of 367. Martin Luther doubted Hebrews, James, Jude and Revelation and moved them to the end of his 1522 New Testament, but he kept them, and German Luther Bibles still print those four last.
Is the Book of Enoch one of the books removed from the Bible?
No. Enoch is in neither the Hebrew Bible nor the Greek Septuagint, so it is not among the books Protestant Bibles stopped printing, and Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Bibles do not include it either. It is Scripture in the Ethiopian and Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Churches, and the Letter of Jude quotes a passage from it as what "Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied".
Are the Apocrypha and the deuterocanonical books the same thing?
They overlap. The deuterocanonical books are the seven books Catholic Bibles hold and Protestant Bibles leave out, with the Greek parts of Esther and Daniel. The 1611 King James Apocrypha had all of those, plus 1 and 2 Esdras and the Prayer of Manasseh, which are not in the Catholic canon. "Deuterocanonical" is the Catholic name, coined in 1566; "Apocrypha" is the usual Protestant one.
Can you still get a King James Bible with the Apocrypha?
Yes. The American Bible Society lifted its restrictions on Bibles with the Apocrypha in 1964 and the British and Foreign Bible Society in 1966, and English Bibles with the Apocrypha are becoming more popular again. Cambridge University Press published its New Cambridge Paragraph Bible with Apocrypha, a King James text edited by David Norton, in 2005.
Sources
- King James Version, Wikipedia
- List of books of the King James Version, Wikipedia
- Biblical apocrypha, Wikipedia
- Luther's canon, Wikipedia
- Deuterocanonical books, Wikipedia
- Development of the Old Testament canon, Wikipedia
- Development of the New Testament canon, Wikipedia
- First Council of Nicaea, Wikipedia
- Sixto-Clementine Vulgate, Wikipedia
- Additions to Daniel, Wikipedia
- Book of Enoch, Wikipedia
- Book of Jubilees, Wikipedia
- Meqabyan, Wikipedia
- Gospel of Thomas, Wikipedia
- Nag Hammadi library, Wikipedia
- The Lost Books of the Bible and the Forgotten Books of Eden, Wikipedia
- Council of Trent, Fourth Session (8 April 1546), Decree concerning the Canonical Scriptures, Papal Encyclicals Online
- Westminster Confession of Faith, chapter 1, in Schaff, The Creeds of Christendom, Christian Classics Ethereal Library
- Articles of Religion (Article VI), Book of Common Prayer, Church of England
- 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
