Old Testament canon: lists, categories and reception
What does a book list actually decide?
Old Testament canon disputes involve more than a difference in totals. A list may identify writings treated as a doctrinal rule, recommend others for instruction, or name works rejected as misleading. It may also count several writings under one heading. Before comparing Catholic and Orthodox positions, ask which distinction the author is making, what a title includes, and who receives the resulting judgment. A smaller number need not mean that every book absent as a separate heading has been excluded.
The comparison uses Athanasius’s festal instruction, Trent’s Scripture decree and Question III of the Jerusalem confession associated with Dositheus. The Jerusalem edition also prints an opposing confession in its appendix. A pastoral letter, a conciliar decree and rival confessional answers address the question in different roles. Read their claims alongside later reception and the editor’s comments without assuming that their shared place in this comparison gives them equal authority.
Athanasius: canonical, instructional, and rejected
The historical English edition assigns the Festal Letter 39 extract to 367. Its warnings about misleading books and deceptive names explain the list’s pastoral purpose. The reader preserves explicit gaps and transmission notes: it contains the edition’s full extract, while the ancient letter itself remains incomplete. Source
Sections 3–6 identify books handed down and accredited as divine, then describe their saving and doctrinal purpose. Section 7 introduces a second category: books appointed for those joining the community and seeking instruction, although not included in the canon just listed. Wisdom, Sirach, Esther, Judith and Tobit appear there, together with the Teaching of the Apostles and the Shepherd. These instructional writings are not simply equated with the heretical inventions condemned at the end. Treating every noncanonical book as one rejected category would erase his distinction. Source
His twenty-two Old Testament books are grouped titles. First and Second Kings form one book, Third and Fourth another; the two Chronicles form one, and the twelve prophets are counted together. Jeremiah includes Baruch, Lamentations and the epistle. The edition explains the first and second Ezra as Ezra and Nehemiah, and identifies the epistle with Baruch’s sixth chapter. Those explanations belong to its notes. Comparing twenty-two directly with forty-six without unpacking the groupings would confuse a counting convention with an inventory. Source
The placement of Esther among instructional writings also prevents this list from becoming a simple counterpart of a present-day shorter Old Testament. Conversely, the presence of Baruch inside Jeremiah does not make the whole list identical with a later Catholic inventory. Similarity in some titles and difference in others are both real. An argument about continuity must explain these particular relations; it cannot obtain agreement merely by choosing a modern label for the whole ancient list. Source
The eight notes describe Coptic, Greek and Syriac remains, discuss chronology and explain an editorial conjunction. These are historical editorial judgments, whose claims still need critical examination. The translation notice credits Miss Payne Smith with revising the Oxford Festal Letters translation; the unsigned notes’ individual authors remain uncertain. Those distinctions help explain how the list reaches the English reader. Source
Trent: an explicit received inventory
Trent’s fourth session, dated 8 April 1546 in Waterworth’s historical English translation, places its inventory inside a decree about preserving the Gospel’s purity and receiving Scripture and apostolic traditions. Its immediate purpose is to remove doubt about which books the synod receives. The decree states the list before specifying reception of the books in their entirety, with their parts, as read in the Church and contained in the old Latin Vulgate. Its subject is a defined ecclesial judgment, rather than a census of every ancient writer’s usage. Source
The translated Old Testament inventory names Tobias, Judith, Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus, includes Baruch with Jeremiah, and explicitly gives two books of Maccabees, first and second. It also lists Esther and Daniel; the closing condition concerning all parts matters when assessing their extent. Older names and groupings require interpretation before comparison with a modern table of contents. Four books of Kings and two of Paralipomenon should not be mistaken for newly added writings merely because their titles differ from those familiar in an English Bible. Source
Trent states the books its council receives. That judgment differs substantively from assigning some of them an instructional role in Athanasius. A Catholic defense needs to explain the later judgment’s warrant; a criticism needs to address its account of tradition as well as the earlier difference. Waterworth’s reading supplies this whole English decree and its notes, while the Latin text and the rest of the session require their own editions. Source
Jerusalem: the opposing appendix is not the synod
Robertson’s 1899 introduction presents the Jerusalem synod of 1672 as responding to a confession published under Cyril Lucar’s name. It reports the synod’s denial of his authorship or endorsement. That disputed attribution needs to remain explicit. The edition separates the main confession from the opposing appendix; a running title cannot make the appendix into another synodal declaration. Source
Main Question III adds Wisdom, Judith, Tobit, the histories of the Dragon and Susanna, Maccabees and Sirach to the books described in its disputed comparison. It calls them genuine parts of Scripture and connects their reception with the Church that delivered the Gospels and other books. It also acknowledges that their reckoning has not always been identical among everyone. That qualification belongs inside its affirmative argument. The polemical accusation against the opposing writer is the confession’s judgment, rather than an independently proved account of his motives. Source
The appendix’s Question III argues differently. It distinguishes writings it calls apocryphal from the properly and undoubtedly canonical books because they do not have equal authority from the Holy Spirit. It invokes a twenty-two-book Old Testament and a Laodicean list while describing Scripture as sufficient for instruction. Those are claims made by the opposing confession; the cited council’s complete text and inventory have not been independently authenticated here. Reading this answer as the Jerusalem synod’s own position would reverse the central dispute the edition is preserving. Source
The main answer affirms the disputed additions but does not enumerate its Maccabees. The appendix’s twenty-two-book count also needs to be unpacked. These answers establish positions in a particular confessional dispute; tracing their later use requires asking which churches received the document, which editions they use and how they place further books. Neither answer alone gives a complete inventory for every modern Orthodox Bible. Source
Named Catholic and Orthodox teaching today
The Catholic Catechism, section 120, describes discernment of Scripture through apostolic Tradition and names forty-six Old Testament books, or forty-five when Jeremiah and Lamentations are counted together. Its list includes Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Sirach, Baruch and First and Second Maccabees. Sections 121–123 affirm the Old Testament’s enduring inspiration and value; sections 128–130 explain Christian typology without erasing that value. This is an official Catholic teaching account of reception. Its notes point to earlier documents without independently authenticating every historical witness cited. Source
The OCA’s Canon of Scripture answer receives the disputed additions as Scripture and includes the Prayer of Manasseh among its examples. It leaves its Maccabees unenumerated. The answer is a particular Orthodox catechetical witness. Comparing it with Catholic practice and ancient lists requires examining the books and their groupings, rather than assuming that every edition has the same contents. Source
The OCA’s The Orthodox Faith Bible article likewise treats the additional writings as genuine Old Testament books. It relates biblical inspiration to God’s revelation through human authors and gives a Christ-centered account of interpretation. This catechesis explains their doctrinal setting, while inventories across Orthodox jurisdictions require more particular sources. Source
Who has authority to identify Scripture?
An objection remains even after every list is correctly transcribed: if the writings serve as a doctrinal rule, what warrants the authority that identifies them? The Jerusalem answer appeals to the same Church that delivered the Gospels; Trent places its judgment within received Scripture and tradition. A critic can still dispute the historical continuity or authority of that reception. A defender can ask what alternative criterion explains the received writings and their boundaries. Neither side settles that dispute merely by displaying a total or borrowing a sentence from an opponent.
The lists differ both in their categories and in how they group titles. Athanasius separates canonical, instructional and rejected writings. Trent gives a binding inventory within its own ecclesial setting. Jerusalem defends disputed additions against another confession while acknowledging variable reckoning. The modern Catholic and Orthodox accounts receive disputed books as Scripture, but the historical sequence and variation among communities need further evidence. Read each full passage and its notes before using a total as a conclusion about reception.
Read the different categories in context
Athanasius: the complete instructional-book distinction
7. But for greater exactness I add this also, writing of necessity;
that there are other books besides these not indeed included in the
Canon, but appointed by the Fathers to be read by those who newly join
us, and who wish for instruction in the word of godliness. The Wisdom
of Solomon, and the Wisdom of Sirach, and Esther, and Judith, and
Tobit, and that which is called the Teaching of the Apostles, and the
Shepherd. But the former, my brethren, are included in the Canon, the
latter being [merely] read; nor is there in any place a mention of
apocryphal writings. But they are an invention of heretics, who write
them when they choose, bestowing upon them their approbation, and
assigning to them a date, that so, using them as ancient writings, they
may find occasion to lead astray the simple.
Following the rule of the Catholic Church,
we call Sacred Scripture all those which Cyril
collected from the Synod of Laodicea, and
enumerated, adding thereto those which he
foolishly, and ignorantly, or rather maliciously
called Apocrypha; to wit, ‘The Wisdom of
Solomon,’ ‘Judith,’ ‘Tobit,’ ‘The History of
the Dragon,’ ‘The History of Susanna,’ ‘The
Maccabees,’ and ‘The Wisdom of Sirach.’ For
we judge these also to be with the other
genuine Books of Divine Scripture genuine
parts of Scripture. For ancient custom, or
rather the Catholic Church, which hath delivered
to us as genuine the Sacred Gospels and the
other Books of Scripture, hath undoubtedly
delivered these also as parts of Scripture, and
the denial of these is the rejection of those.
And if, perhaps, it seemeth that not always
have all been by all reckoned with the others,
yet nevertheless these also have been counted
and reckoned with the rest of Scripture, as
well by Synods, as by how many of the most
ancient and eminent Theologians of the Catholic
Church; all of which we also judge to be Canon-
ical Books, and confess them to be Sacred
Scripture.
Athanasius’s From Festal Letter 39 contains seven sections and eight notes in this historical English revision. The reader includes the full edition extract, while the ancient letter survives incompletely.
Trent, Session IV, decree concerning canonical Scriptures, 8 April 1546. Waterworth’s 1848 English edition, printed 17–19; bounded English witness, critical Latin verification not established. Source text
Jerusalem confession, complete Question III, printed 155–156 in Robertson’s 1899 translation; introduction distinguishes the opposed appendix.
The appendix’s Question III belongs to a confession published under Cyril Lucar’s name, with disputed authorship. The reading preserves the opposing answer and its notes on printed pp. 211–212, separately from the Jerusalem confession.
Catholic Catechism, 120–130 and attached notes 90–108. Official English teaching context. Source text
OCA, Canon of Scripture Q&A and Orthodox Faith Bible article. Named institutional catechesis; individual page bylines unestablished. Source text
The reader preserves the complete selected English passages and their notes. Athanasius’s ancient letter remains incomplete, and Robertson’s main confession and opposing appendix retain their separate voices. Critical original-language comparison has not been established here. Modern teaching is linked and briefly paraphrased.
Edition notes
The Athanasius reading omits only a terminal blank line from the extraction. Complete selected passages do not imply complete authorial corpora or all council acts, and historical scans and unsigned notes cannot themselves authenticate a critical text.