Talk:Deuterocanonical books

Deuterocanonical means SecondCanonical - The opposite of what catholics mean. Rename Article?

The word deuterocanonical is from Greek deuteros meaning second. It means second canon. Catholics claim that the christian canon included the deuterocanonical books even before the Protestant Reformation. That they are in the original canon, and that Martin Luther just removed them in the Reformation.

Are they sure they want to use this word when it's a tricky way of saying the canon Catholics tacked on later?

The title deuterocanon was probably either coin by Protestants or ignorant Catholics.

Perhaps when people type in deuterocanonical it should just be a redirection to this article. The article should be renamed Catholic Canon not Included in Protestant Canon? 74.78.201.42 (talk) 20:29, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

No, that rename is not acceptable and is blatantly POV. It also ignores the fact that most of these books predate the Catholic Church, and the fact that they have always used by various Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox Churches. 'Deuterocanonical books', while it does indeed mean 'second canon', is the most common name that is actually used for them per our naming conventions. Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 20:43, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

What about making the current title redirect to this content and call it Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Oriental Orthodox Canon not Included in Protestant Canon. I know it's long but it's less false. And we can accept canon that came before Christ if we want to. ThePepel-Eterni (talk) 20:51, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

No, I think that proposal also fails our naming conventions for going with the most widely used term. Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 21:41, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

Don't confuse the etymology of the term with its meaning. When the term was coined by Sixtus of Sienna it meant the books of the Old Testament considered canonical by the council of Trent but not considered canonical by Jews, which is the exact same thing it means today. You can criticize Sixtus' coinage all you want, but you can't say that the term hasn't been widely adopted.

I would caution against using the term anachronistically in an encyclopedia article, however common it may be on polemical websites. It is a post-Tridentine term that refers to a post-Tridentine concept. Rwflammang (talk) 23:02, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

Oppose to rename. The general reader of Wikipedia arrives to this Article because he had known about "deuterocanical" but he doesn't know what exactly it means. For this reason we shall leave this title. There are many other articles about the canon. This article to explain what is the term "deuterocanonical" used for, its history, and briefly the different POVs about the inclusion of such books.A ntv (talk) 12:28, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

Article mis-states Eastern Orthodox position

I am led to believe that the following statement:

When Orthodox theologians use the term "deuterocanonical," it is important to note that the meaning is not identical to the Roman Catholic usage. In Orthodox Christianity, deuterocanonical means that a book is part of the corpus of the Old Testament (i.e. is read during the services) but has secondary authority. In other words, deutero (second) applies to authority or witnessing power, whereas in Roman Catholicism, deutero applies to chronology (the fact that these books were confirmed later), not to authority.

Is not one which many Eastern Orthodox would agree with. See Joel Kalvesmaki, "All Scripture Is Inspired by God: Thoughts on the Old Testament Canon", see also S. T. Kimbrough, Orthodox and Wesleyan Scriptural Understanding and Practice (2005), p. 23 (which we already cite.) I am left with the impression that Fr. Laurent's views are ones that many Eastern Orthodox would disagree with. I'm hesitant about relying on this very brief "Q&A"-style page for anything unless it can be confirmed by a more serious source. ZackMartin (talk) 19:57, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

Yes, this notion was also inserted in the lede paragraph of Eastern Orthodox Church in my memory, and I remember thinking that it was suspect at the time, but it was added with a reference I could not check: 'Pomazansky, Michael, Orthodox Dogmatic Theology, pp. 33-34', so I permitted the edit to stand. The Kimbrough reference given directly afterwards refutes this idea neatly, though. Elizium23 (talk) 19:39, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

Lutheranism, Luther Bible

Should there not be some discussion in the article of the Lutheran position on these writings? Luther's German translation of the Bible was the first to separate them from the books that are undisputedly canonical and assign them a special position in the book. He strongly recommended that they be read by Christians and therefore made sure that they were printed in the Bibles produced under his supervision. The current article says absolutely nothing about this pivotal Protestant reformer and the churchly tradition that grew out of his attempts to reform the Western church. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:7:8000:AC:42E:3EFD:8D43:D093 (talk) 17:15, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

Luther merely used the same OT books that the Jews had canonized in the first or second century. He was not aware that a measurable amount of the New Testament is derived from these now-jettisoned books. We now have the Dead Sea Scrolls which confirm usage at that time. Luther was merely trying to "make a statement" that would exclude Rome. In retrospect, it was the wrong choice. This is why those books are included as "Apocrypha" in most Protestant Bibles - because they are really canonical from a Christian pov. Jesus and his apostles and later disciples used these books. From a Christian pov, they were wrongly excluded.

In particular, Maccabees was thrown out by the Jews because it clearly envisions an afterlife, which the Pharisees had agreed to, but after the subsequent contention with the Christian Church, wished to disavow. Student7 (talk) 21:04, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

Your first paragraph takes no account of the fact that in Luther's day, the canon he proposed was quite acceptable to many Roman Catholics, including at least one cardinal. Before the Council of Trent, many canon lists in standard Catholic texts excluded the deuterocanonical books. In the documents formalizing Luther's break with Rome, neither he nor any Catholic prelate mentioned his canon as an issue, because it wasn't one before Trent.

Your second paragraph is pure speculation. In fact, there are many apocrypha that were not included in the Jewish "canon", despite saying nothing about the afterlife disagreeable to Pharisees. The most likely reason for the exclusion of the deuterocanonical books from the Tanakh is that they were never widely considered critical outside of Hellenistic circles.

As for mentioning Martin Luther in the article, I have no objection in principle, but it is hard to see his relevance here since he died before the Tridentine canons were promulgated.

Rwflammang (talk) 02:56, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

It was always Seputuagint#Christian_use, right? Until the Reformation. Student7 (talk) 19:43, 26 October 2014 (UTC)

Well, it's rather more complicated than that. It is certainly true that all Christian bibles before the reformation (and for quite a while after the reformation) included the books that would later be called (or were already called) "deuterocanonical". But although they were in the bibles, they were not always called "canonical". After all, a bible is not a canon, and a canon is not a bible. What they were almost universally called, whether considered canonical or not, is apocrypha. Rwflammang (talk) 22:26, 26 October 2014 (UTC)

Lede is buried

There has been a lot of cruft inserted into this article over the years, and it seems to have obscured the heart of this article, which is the list of the deuterocanonical books. Is there some reason why this cannot be restored to near the top of the article, where the information will be easier to find?

Since the concept of deuterocanonical is a Roman Catholic one, is there some reason why the Roman Catholic position is spelled out after the Jewish position section, after the history section, and after the Septuagint section? Doesn't this obscure the relevant matter about these books, rather than help explicate it?

I propose that the basic facts of the matter come up near the beginning, and the historical background and reaction from other religions follow. Rwflammang (talk) 05:19, 18 June 2016 (UTC)

Propose rewrite of Lede

'Deuterocanonical books' is a 16th century Roman Catholic coinage, arising in connection with the Council of Trent. It stands specifically for those Old Testament books and passages that were accepted as canonical by that Council, but were not in the Hebrew Bible. The term was subsequently taken up by a number of other churches to denote their own particular lists of canonical O.T. Books outside the Hebrew canon; none of which correspond to that adopted at Trent; just as the 1546 Trent list does not correspond to the list of 'Ecclesiastical books' recognised by Rufinus and Augustine, or to any corresponding list formulated by authoritative councils and synods of the Latin church. As I read it, the lede as phrased now implies that the 1546 'dueterocanon' represented a fixed list of books recognised as canonical from antiquity. Which may well be what some of the Fathers at Trent believed, but more recent scholarship does not support them. I propose rewriting the lede para to make this point clear; with the counterpart usages of Eastern, Ethiopic and sundry Protestant churces clarified in a second par. Is this acceptable to other editors? TomHennell (talk) 18:12, 18 February 2018 (UTC)

You say: "Which may well be what some of the Fathers at Trent believed, but more recent scholarship does not support them." Who are they?, do recent Protestants and Jews have more authority than councils theologians? Jews and Protestants have no authority over the biblical canon. For Jews all New Testament books are not canonical.Rafaelosornio (talk) 00:09, 21 February 2018 (UTC)

I am chiefly relying on Pierre-Maurice Bogaert, both his article in Revue Benedictine (2005) 'Le livre de Baruch dans les manuscrits de la Bible latine. Disparition et réintégration' and his chapter in Volume II of the New Cambridge History of the Bible 'The Latin Bible, c. 600 to c. 900'. Plus Edmon Gallagher and John Meade; 'The Biblical Canon Lists from Early Christianity' OUP 2017. Bogaert is beyond question the most notable current scholar in this particular field. http://www.unige.ch/colloqueBiblesAtl/conferenciers/bogaert/ As he is a Benedictine monk and Professor emeritus at a leading Catholic university, I doubt whether Bogaert is either a Protestant or a Jew. Bogaert's particular point is that the category of 'deuterocanonical' books is anachronistic when applied to the 5th/6th century; it is essentially a 16th century term used by the Fathers at Trent to designate a sub-set of the books and passages found in various versions of the Christian Old Testament but not in the canonical Hebrew Bible; and which would have been termed 'ecclesiastical' in the earlier period. But the exact list of deuterocanonical books adopted at Trent does not correspond with any actual list from antiquity. This article (perhaps because it has become infested with citations from controversial contributions in a Protestant/Catholic debate), has tended to obscure this basic observations. It is anachronistic to refer to any list from antiquity as 'the dueterocanonical books' as the contents of such a list varied greatly one synod or authority to another; and even when titles on the list was the same, it was by no means certain that the same texts were being understood as being denoted by those titles. For instance, in Athanasius's canon list the 'two books of Esdras' are noted - corresponding to Greek Esdras and canonical Ezra-Nehemiah; but at Trent the phrase 'two books of Ezra is understood as denoting Ezra and Nehemiah as separate books. TomHennell (talk) 10:10, 21 February 2018 (UTC)

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Philip Schaff; propose remove references.

Arrticle at present quotes Philip Schaff extensively; but I propose to remove these. Schaff's scholarship is now 150 years old; and as a Victorian High Calvinist, not really in tune with what is essentially a 16th century Catholic discourse. I suggest that Lee Mcdonald's recent publications - especially 'The Canon Debate' (2002); and 'The Formation of the Bible' (2012) are better representations of current notable scholarship. TomHennell (talk) 11:31, 26 February 2018 (UTC)

Vulgate bible

Some issues over discussion of the lede para. Key point is that printed editions of the Vulgate circulating at the time of the Council of Trent did not have a standardised content; in particular commonly including a number of texts that had not been in the canon list proposed at the Council of Florence ; and incorporated into the associated Papal Bull. Trent decided to adopt the Florence list (with only a few clarifications). Partly this represented a new view of what 'canonical' implied; as Bogaert has consistently observed, medieval churchmen were entirely happy with the principle that the standard content of the Bible should not be confined to those books that were considered 'canonical'. Printing Bibles was big business, and printers were strongly motivated to include every text that the market wanted - which in practice meant every text that had been cited as scripture in standard Patristic works. But the new pressure from Reformers implied tighter rules for what was 'in' and 'out' TomHennell (talk) 09:20, 8 May 2018 (UTC)

Bull of Union with the Coptic Church of Egypt 1442

This Bull includes a canon list; which with slight clarifications (limiting the count of Psalms to 151) would become the basis for the canon in the formal decree on sacred scripture of the Council of Trent of 1546. The Fathers at Trent explicitly took the canon list from the Bull of Union as the basis for their list (which is why first(third) Esdras, standard in Vulgate editions of the day, was nevertheless excluded at Trent). But the status of the Bull was always problematic; with the Greek delegates gone, the 'ecumenical' part of the Council had in principle finished. What the Bull provided was a proposal for a bilateral union between the Church of Rome and the Coptic church of Alexandria; it would not be applied across to the other bilateral discussions of union that were taking place under the auspices of the Council of Florence. Moreover the Bull itself was a dead letter; the Coptic Church neither received it nor ratified it, and subsequently refused to recognise it as any more than an internal document of the Roman curia. So the formal promulgation of the Catholic canon of the Old Testament only happened at Trent; no one in the interim would consider the Western Church to be in any way bound by the abortive Bull of Union with the Copts; and it is anachonistic to read the category of 'deuterocanonical' books back into these earlier debates. TomHennell (talk) 14:44, 6 July 2018 (UTC)

You are providing false information: You say: "The Council of Trent in 1546 restated the list of books included in the canon as it had been set out in the papal bull Cantate Domino of 1542, which had formulated the terms for a proposed union of the Coptic Church of Egypt with the Roman church, as agreed in sessions of the Council of Florence."

It was not in 1542, it was in 1442.Rafaelosornio (talk) 13:58, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

quite right - my typo. The point remains though that the bull Cantate Domino (although formally a full conciliar degree) was not 'ecumenical'; it did not propose a definitive canon for the whole church. only for the Coptic Church of Egypt (and possibly Ethiopia too). Specifically those churches whose delegates had already signed up to their own Bulls of Union (the Greeks and the Armenians) were in no way bound by it. This was explicitly acknowledged in the discussions on the canon of the Council of Trent. On which see F.J. Creehan at page 201 of Vol III of the Cambridge History of the Bible (CUP 1963). As Creehan makes clear, the category of 'deuterocanonical books' is entirely a 16th century development arising from Trent and Sixtus of Siena - albeit one that drew on previous formulations of the difference between the list of Old Testament scriptures recognised by the Church, and those of the Hebrew Bible. The article needs to state this explicitly - likely cited to Creehan. TomHennell (talk) 10:19, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

Edmon Gallagher and John Meade "The Biblical Canon Lists from Early Christianity"; OUP 2017

I have reverted the following from the lede.

"..that had been a part of the original biblical canon as decided by the early church in the council of Rome 382 but would later come into question during the Protestant reformation and would be ratified again in the council of Trent. The term would come to distinguish these texts both from those that were termed protocanonical books"

The proposition that the list of deuterocanonical books adopted by the Council of Trent corresponded exactly with those put forward in Latin Councils of the late 4th century is clearly wrong in detail (though maintaining a broad equivalence). The councils and synods of the African Church were indeed the first to accept as canonical the six 'ecclesiastical' books specifed by Rufinus; Wisdom of Solomon, Sirach, Tobit, Judith, two books of Maccabees. All previous authoritative canon lists (notably those of Cyril and Athanasius) had excluded these books - as had the enigmatic list attached to canon 59 of the Synod of Laodicea. This, of course, is implicit in the term 'deuterocanonical'; these were books and passages that were not considered 'canonical' when that term first began to be used by Jews and Christians after the 2nd century CE; but came to be considered canonical at a later stage. But the deuterocanonical list of Trent includes some books and passages that are not mentioned in the African 4th century lists (e.g. Baruch, Letter of Jeremiah). Moreover it included only one of the two books of Ezra specified in those canon lists; hence excluding Esdras A ( = 1 Esdras/3 Esdras), and splitting Esdras B into two books that Trent (following the medieaval Paris bibles) renamed 'Ezra' and 'Nehemiah'. All this is explained in detail in Gallagher and Meade, drawing mainly from the scholarship of Pierre-Maurice Bogaert; which I think is agreed to represent the current scholarly consensus. TomHennell (talk) 00:58, 9 July 2018 (UTC)

Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church - Deuterocanonical books and Apocrypha

I have reverted from the lede, for the moment, the proposed citation of the Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church stub article on 'Deuterocanonical books'; in which the phrase is defined as an alternative (Catholic) name for the books more generally categorised as Biblical Apocrypha; which were which found in the Septuagint but not in the Hebrew Bible. The stub article then links to main ODCH article 'Apocrypha'. While this makes sense for the likely users of the Oxford Dictionary - who only have to read one article, not two - the stub clearly was not intended to stand as a formal encyclopedic definition. There are books in the KJV Apocrypha that were not in the Septuagint (and vice versa), and several books in the Septuagint that are neither listed by Trent as deuterocanonical, nor found in the Hebrew Bible. Unravelling all this should be, in my view, of the main functions of this article. Please discuss further on this page. TomHennell (talk) 09:06, 11 July 2018 (UTC)

Ethiopian Orthodox

The article refers to the Amharic Bible used by the Ethiopian church. Shouldn't this be the Ge'ez Bible? My understanding is that the Bible used by this church is in Ge'ez and that any Amharic translation would be a derivative.Bill (talk) 00:54, 23 July 2019 (UTC)

well spotted; I have edited as suggested. The version is commonly referred to as "Ethiopic"; although strictly that is the script in which it is written. TomHennell (talk) 10:52, 23 July 2019 (UTC)

canonical, ecclesiastical, apocryphal

the relevant section from Bogaert is as below

"The preferred terms in our period were ‘canonical’ and ‘ecclesiastical’; ‘apocryphal’ was derogatory. ‘Canonical’ simply indicated books or parts of books accepted in a particular received list or ‘canon’ of scripture; the contents of the canon varied (see below, passim), though for the Old Testament it commonly meant at least the books of the masoretic Hebrew Bible. Books and parts of books that were not in that Bible and not in our New Testament are sometimes called libri ecclesiastici – ‘ecclesiastical books’ – to signify books that were accepted for reading in church. They may be divided into three groups. In the first group were those books or parts of a book translated from the Greek Septuagint and commonly found in the Latin Bibles: Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus (Ben Sirach), Tobit and Judith, 1–2 Maccabees, Baruch (1–5) and the Letter of Jeremiah (Baruch 6), and supplements to Daniel and to Esther. Today they may be called ‘apocryphal’ (along with 3 Esdras and the Oratio Manasse of the following group) or ‘deuterocanonical’. Of the Greek texts, Jerome translated only Tobit, Judith and the supplements to Daniel and Esther. The second group contains those books or parts of books translated from the Greek and occasionally found in Latin Bibles during our period: 3 Esdras (Esdras A in the Septuagint), 4 Esdras, the Confessio Esdrae, the Passio Maccabaeorum (4 Maccabees in the Septuagint), the Oratio Manasse and Psalm 151. Third, attached to the New Testament during our period were sometimes the Epistle to the Laodiceans and, rarely, the Shepherd of Hermas and the Third Epistle to the Corinthians."

So the books that are the subject of this article are commonly referred to as "ecclesiastical" in the ancient sources. This should be stated in the article. TomHennell (talk) 10:08, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

are SOMETIMES called libri ecclesiastici – ‘ecclesiastical books’ (but by whom?) Rufinus is the only person, who relates: "But it should be known that there are also other books which our fathers call not Canonical but Ecclesiastical... all of which they would have read in the Churches, but not appealed to for the confirmation of doctrine. The other writings they have named Apocrypha. These they would not have read in the Churches. [1]Rafaelosornio (talk) 13:11, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

Apparently are called ecclesiastical by "our fathers". This is not just Rufinus's usage; but his summary of the common usage of his day. Or so Bogaert understands it - and Bogaert's opinion is the one that counts here. The 'ecclesiastical' books are also 'canonical' (for some fathers); but they are still recognised as a distinct category from those that are in the Hebrew bible. This distinction (as it perceived in authoritative scholarship) should also be set out in the article. TomHennell (talk) 14:06, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

How many Deuterocanonical Books are there?

Hi, I'm a newb on the subject, so I ask this as a genuine question:

The second paragraph explicitly references 'the seven deuterocanonical books', which creates the impression that there is an undisputed list of seven such books. But then the article lists considerably more than seven and indicates some disagreement between various groups about which books are in and which out.  ???

(I suspect the opening paragraphs should be re-written in a more wholesale manner to talk about how the Protestant tradition takes the books included in the Masoretic text as canon, excluding all others, rather than the current approach of trying to start by defining the deuterocanon explicitly - it doesn't seem to lend itself to that.)

Thanks! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Heduanna (talk • contribs) 17:23, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

It depends on the Western & East Churches. Canonical by the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church:

1. Tobit
2. Judith
3. Baruch including the Letter of Jeremiah as the 6th chapter or standalone book
4. Sirach
5. 1 Maccabees
6. 2 Maccabees
7. Wisdom of Solomon

These are additions to the canonical books:

1. Additions to Esther
2. Additions to Daniel: The Prayer of Azariah and Song of the Three Holy Children (Septuagint Daniel 3:24–90) Susanna and the Elders (Septuagint prologue, Vulgate Daniel 13) Bel and the Dragon (Septuagint epilogue, Vulgate Daniel 14)

Canonical only by the Orthodox Church:

1. Prayer of Manasseh
2. 1 Esdras
3. 3 Maccabees
4. Psalm 151

Rafaelosornio (talk) 21:47, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

Y The page on Biblical canon has a great table showing all the variations. I am adding better links to it. I have also move text naming the Catholic deuterocanonicals (which are also accepted by Eastern and Oriental Orthodox and Ethopian/Eritreans) to the lead, as it was buried earlier. Rick Jelliffe (talk) 02:07, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

MOS and factual errors

Today's edits have introduced Manual of Style errors and a factual error. Elizium23 (talk) 20:27, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

@WillWestHark: I agree with @Elizium23: and reverted your edits. Veverve (talk) 20:48, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

You entered false information. The Books you put under the Orthodox Church should be divided like I had them because only the Russian (or Slavonic Bible) Orthodox Church has 2 Esdras in its canon. (Source: New Oxford Annotated Bible NRSV 2018 Fifth Edition) WillWestHark (talk) 23:37, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

@WillWestHark: I used the source you have given here, and I added information from it. Veverve (talk) 08:03, 9 February 2021 (UTC)

@WillWestHark: could you stop adding unsourced content? Veverve (talk) 18:45, 9 February 2021 (UTC)

Non-Neutral POV, strikingly pro-Catholic.

This entire article is laden with statements and rebuttals (both cited and uncited) that present a decisively pro-Catholic POV towards the justifiability of "Deuterocanonical books" inclusion in Christian canon (even the title of the article uses the Catholic term for these texts).

As an atheist I have no dog in this fight, but anyone reading this can clearly see the article is pushing the narrative that Deuterocanonical texts should be canonical to Christianity at large, and belong as within the faith.

The counter-narratives/arguments to inclusion of "Deuterocanonical" texts in canon receive cursory mentions at best. Yet the statements that endorse the texts as canonical recieve an abundance of elaboration - these supporting claims come in the form of citing dates/times, quotes, and other credence-lending information that support credulity of the canonical-nature of "Deuterocanonical" texts. The counter arguments, which there are many, are glossed over or simply not included. I am not a regular Wikipedia editor, nor a non-Catholic Christian, so I hardly feel up to the task of remedying this with much editing and additions. I am hopeful some reads this and does the work to create a Neutral POV.

I would be surprised if Orthodox or Protestant Christians reading this were not offended by the presentation of their religion's reasons for excluding these texts from their religions canon.

As an amateur scholar on christeo-judaic faiths, I known that andundance of evidence that is not being mentioned that casts a large shadow over the credulity of including these texts as canonical. The few that are cited, are immediately followed by several statements that are clearly included to counteract to invalidate the points presented - something not done in any of the statements supporting the texts as belonging in Christian canon. Further, it is very apparent that this hyper-criticality of the anti-canonical claims is not being done in the intention of balance/impartiality, as the arguments/positions of Christian religions opposing the canonicism of these texts recieve little to no elaboration.

And as mentioned before, the use of cited-statements after a claim, to rebuff that claim, cannot be interpreted as something being done in the aim of a neutral POV. Normally that could be possible, but here this rebuttal of claims is not being done a balanced/neutral manner. A cursory glance will reveal that the restatements, tments, one which immediately proceed the statement they are critiquing, are being entirely reserved for refuting statements that criticize the inclusion of these texts in Christian cannon.

I will add examples of these shortly, but first wanted to layout the problems with article having a blatantly pro-Catholic POV in regards to so called "Deuterocanonical books". 99.75.147.243 (talk) 18:40, 10 June 2023 (UTC)

On terminology: there is a difference between Apocryphal and Deuterocanonical. There are many old books that are Apocryphal that are Deuterocanonical to no-one. (And some might say that some Deuterocanonical books are not apocryphal.) So this article is specifically about books that were put into the canon in a second tranche, or were regarded as of secondary inspiration or whatever; there is another article on apocryphal books in general (see links in article.) In any case, "deuterocanonical" has been used for at least 1500 years for this kind of secondary book (such as by the Ethopians, in their language), seems like the horse has bolted: however, the article does not make clear the older usage (i.e. the one before Trent that concentrates on the secondary nature rather than the canonicity IYKWIM): I will try to fix this.

As to being "offended", why not let the Protestants or Orthodox speak for themselves? (I recall another case in Wikipedia where a (kind or trouble-making, I cannot say) non-Catholic preposterously insisted that Catholics were offended by any use of "Roman Catholic.")

As to "anyone reading this can clearly see the article is pushing the narrative that Deuterocanonical texts *should* be canonical" I just don't see it in the current article, I am afraid. It would be helpful if you could identify specific sentences of phrases. Which books are accepted by which churches that differ from the minimal canon is a matter of objective fact not speculation; I have added links to the Biblical Canons page which gives a great table.

So I think your statement that there is "an abundance of evidence that is not being mentioned that casts a large shadow over the credulity of including these texts as canonical" shows the mismatch in your expectation: there could indeed be a section on the credibility or historicity of each book, which ones are clear fakes, which ones are pseudoepigraphs, which ones may have some historical basis despite their later names, which ones are ludicrous, or whatever. Some editor may one day summarise research on these (though, of course, bible research in these topics tend itself to be speculative rather than factual, and often reflects some bias of the researcher.)

But the issue of which are regarded as canonical to some church is ultimately objective: that some church (or Church Father) has included it in their list. It must not veer into the sectarian territory of which particular books are "self-evidently" part of some mystical canon that exists separately to historical institutions, though it can mention that this may be the belief of some. What you are asking about is not whether a book is canonical, but whether its canonical status is credible or problematic: though some might say that the inclusion into the deuterocanon is a red flag that there is some issue! To use an analogy, if we had an article that about the Western Popes, we would certainly expect there to be a list of them; we might also enjoy some gossip or biography about the most notable or notorious ones; we might also expect some treatment of the Avignon period of three simultaneous Popes; however we would not think the article was biased or faulty if it failed to state why each Pope was selected or gave a summary judging their performance: in fact we might think such material risked veering into opinion and speculation.

I think what you are also suggesting is that there too little treatment of the criteria by different churches for books to be in or out of their canons. If that is true, I kinda agree with you, if it were actually known: I added some sentences on this to the Biblical_canon e.g. the section on Purpose of Canon (a scholar's claim that the criteria at the end of the day was, ultimately, nothing more than common or frequent usage, which may be another way of saying "sacred Tradition" in which the canon emerges organically so that the traditional canon was an acknowledgement of what was obvious at the time and place rather than a creation of something new) and the first para of Biblical_canon#Luther's_canon_and_apocrypha (his claim that books that did not relate to Christ--or, cynically, that did not match Luther's theology--, should be ditched.) It may be that this article needs that kind of material copied over too. Rick Jelliffe (talk) 01:45, 28 April 2024 (UTC)