Recently, Trent Horn of Catholic Answers has produced a short video in defence of the books of the Apocrypha (“Deuterocanon” in Catholic nomenclature):
If the name of Trent Horn sounds familiar to readers of this blog, it should be; I wrote a lengthy review of a book he wrote against The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 20 Answers: Mormonism (San Diego, Calif.: Catholic Answers, 2015). One can read my review at:
I also wrote a follow-up article on his criticisms of "swords" in the Book of Mormon:
In this video, Horn made a number of blunders about the topic of the Apocryphal books. For instance, he appeals to the LXX to support the canon as defined infallibly in 1546 during the Council of Trent. However, while LXX manuscripts do contain some of the Deuterocanonical works, many versions of the LXX also contain works that both Catholics and non-Catholics reject as uninspired. It is nothing short of special pleading to appeal to the LXX when it is a double-edged sword for Roman claims. The same applies for the allusions to Deuterocanonical works in the New Testament. For instance, Jude 6, 9, 14 alludes to, and quotes from, 1 Enoch and the Assumption of Moses, but Roman Catholicism does not accept the canonicity/inspiration of these texts.
Furthermore, the recension of books accepted in the earlier councils and synods differ from that of Trent, most notably on the issue of 1 Esdras. As William Webster noted:
The canon of the North African Councils differed from that decreed by the Council of Trent in the sixteenth century on one important. Hippo and Carthage stated that 1 Esdras and 2 Esdras were canonical, referring to the Septuagint version of 1 and 2 Esdras, the Bible their Latin version was based upon. In that version, 1 Esdras was the apocryphal additions to Ezra and Nehemiah which they combined into one book. This was 2 Esdras in the Septuagint version. It was Jerome (in his Latin Vulgate) who separated Ezra and Nehemiah into two books, calling them 1 Esdras and 2 Esdras respectively. This became standard for the Vulgate and the basis upon which Trent declared the Septuagint 1 Esdras to be noncanonical. 1 Esdras in the in the Septuagint then became 3 Esdras in the Vulgate... Augustine quoted from the book of III Esdras (I Esdras in the Septuagint) in his work The City of God. Thus, when the Council of Carthage gave its list of canonical books for the Old Testament it followed the Septuagint translation. In referring to Esdras as comprising two books they were referring to I and II Esdras of the Septuagint. And when Carthage sent these decrees to Rome for confirmation, it was these books which were confirmed as canonical. Innocent I affirmed this in his letter to Exuperius and they were later included in the decrees of Popes Gelasius and Hormisdas...This contradicts the decree passed by Trent which followed Jerome in assigning I and II Esdras to the canonical Hebrew books of Ezra and Nehemiah respectively. Therefore, Trent declared uncanonical what the Council of Carthage and the bishops of Rome, in the fourth, fifth, and sixth centuries, declared to be canonical. (William Webster, The Old Testament Canon And The Apocrypha [Battle Ground, Mich.: Christian Resources, 2001], 48-50)
Gary Michuta, in his 2007 book, Why Catholic Bibles are Bigger: The Untold Story of the Lost Books of the Protestant Bible (Port Huron, Mich.: The Grotto Press, 2007), simply argues that the council Fathers of Trent “passed over” the issue of LXX 1 Esdras, as he did in his 2004 debate on the Apocrypha with James R. White (the vote was 42 to 3 at Trent on this issue). So, in the eyes of Michuta and other Catholics, there could indeed be one book that is inspired by God but is not part of Trent’s infallible, binding, unchanging decree from 1546(!)
One was rather amazed that Athanasius was cited by Horn to defend the canonicity of the Apocrypha. Yes, Athanasius and many other early patristic-era authors cited the Apocrypha, but Athanasius explicitly rejected the canonicity thereof. In his 39th festal letter from A.D. 367, Athanasius lists the books of the Old Testament:
There are, then, of the Old Testament, twenty-two books in number; for, as I have heard, it is handed down that this is the number of the letters among the Hebrews; their respective order and names being as follows. The first is Genesis, then Exodus, next Leviticus, after that Numbers, and then Deuteronomy. Following these there is Joshua, the son of Nun, then Judges, then Ruth. And again, after these four books of Kings, the first and second being reckoned as one book, and so likewise the third and fourth as one book. And again, the first and second of the Chronicles are reckoned as one book. Again Ezra, the first and second are similarly one book. After these there is the book of Psalms, then the Proverbs, next Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Songs. Job follows, then the Prophets, the twelve being reckoned as one book. Then Isaiah, one book, then Jeremiah with Baruch, Lamentations, and the epistle, one book; afterwards, Ezekiel and Daniel, each one book. Thus far constitutes the Old Testament.
After listing the books of the New Testament, he stated that these books, without reference to any of the works of the Apocrypha, are "[the] fountains of salvation, that they who thirst may be satisfied with the living words they contain. In these alone is proclaimed the doctrine of godliness."
Other examples of patristic-era authors, predating Jerome, who rejected the canonicity of the Apocrypha include Melito of Sardis. Others who express doubt about the canonical status of the deuterocanonicals include Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory Nazianzen, Epiphanius, Gregory the Great, John Damascene, Hugh of St. Victor, Nicholas of Lyra, and Cardinal Cajetan, the prelate who interviewed Martin Luther. This is even admitted by Roman Catholic apologists such as Robert Sungenis:
John Damascene (676-754 to 787) who, in his An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, had assigned 22 books to the Hebrew Old Testament as he found them in the work of Epiphanius (314-403) De pondeibus et mensuris, a work completed before the Councils which formulated the Christian canon (Catholic Encyclopedia, eds., Charles G. Herbermann, et al. (New York: Robert Appleton Co. 1910), Vol. VIII, p. 461); and Hugh of St. Victor (b. 1096) in De Sacramentis Christianoe Fidei (c. 1134) which questions the canonicity of Tobit, Judith, Maccabees, Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus; and Nicholas of Lyra (d. 1270-1340) who deferred to the Hebrew canon in his commentaries. Thomas Aquinas was perplexed as to the exact standing of the Deutero-canonicals, as was Cardinal Cajetan during the Protestant Reformation. Other medieval theologians did not accept their canonicity without at least some doubts. (Robert A. Sungenis, “Point/Counterpoint: Protestant Objections and Catholic Answers," in Not by Scripture Alone: A Catholic Critique of the Protestant Doctrine of Sola Scriptura, ed. Robert A. Sungenis [2d ed.: Catholic Apologetics International Publishing, 2013], 193-294, here, pp. 231-32, n. 61)
The Jewish evidence against the canonical status of the Apocrypha is just as devastating. For instance, in Against Apion 1:38-43 (probably written in the early second century), Josephus wrote the following:
For we have not an innumerable multitude of books among us, disagreeing from, and contradicting one another, [as the Greeks have], but only twenty-two books, which contain the records of all the past times; which are justly believed to be divine; and of them five belong to Moses, which contain his laws and the traditions of the origin of mankind till his death. This interval of time was little short of three thousand years; but as to the time from the death of Moses till the reign of Artaxerxes, king of Persia, who reigned after Xerxes, the prophets, who were after Moses, wrote down what was done in their times in thirteen books. The remaining four books contain hymns to God, and precepts for the conduct of human life. It is true, our history has been written since Artaxerxes very particularly, but has not been esteemed of the like authority with the former by our forefathers, because there has not been an exact succession of prophets since that time; and how firmly we have given credit to these books of our own nation, is evident by what we do; for, during so many ages as have already passed, no one has been so bold as either to add anything to them, to take any thing from them, or to make any change in them; but it is becomes natural to all Jews, immediately and from their very birth, to esteem these books to contain divine doctrines, and to persist in them, and, if occasion be, willingly to die for them.
This passage is of great importance, as it shows that, for Josephus and the Jews of his era, the authoritative set of books (“canon” to use an anachronistic term) did not include the Apocrypha (Deutero-canon in Catholic circles), such as 1-2 Maccabees; instead, they held to the non-Catholic/Eastern Orthodox canon.
In Antiquities of the Jews, an earlier work, Josephus mentions that these books alone were laid up in the temple:
But they were astonished at this wonderful effect, and, as it were, quenched their thirst by the very sight of it. So they drank this pleasant, this sweet water; and such it seemed to be, as might well be expected where God was the donor. They were also in admiration how Moses was honoured by God; and they made grateful returns of sacrifices to God for his providence toward them. Now that Scripture, which is laid up in the temple, informs us, how God foretold to Moses, that water should in this manner be derived out of the rock. (Antiquities 3:38)
Some may wonder why the Old Testament that Latter-day Saints, Protestants, and others hold to are composed of 39 books, but Josephus mentions 22. The answer is that, for Jews, the Five Books of Moses were one “book” (scroll); 1-2 Samuel; 1-2 Kings; 1-2 Chronicles; Ruth-Judges; Ezra-Nehemiah; Jeremiah-Lamentations; and the Twelve Minor Prophets were each one book/scroll. Overall, the “magic number” would be either 22 or 24. Notwithstanding, there is clearly no room for the stand-alone books that the Council of Trent would, in the Catholic perspective, infallibly define as canonical in April 1546.
A very good article on Josephus' Old Testament canon would be that of:
Duane L. Christensen, Josephus and the Twenty-Two Book Canon of Sacred Scripture, JETS 29/1 (March 1986): 37-46 (pdf)
Christensen concludes his article as follows:
In short, the canon of Josephus is essentially that of the Masoretic tradition with one important modification. The festal scrolls, or at least an earlier form of them that did not include Esther, constituted a single canonical category within a collection of twenty-two books. By choosing the number of letters of the Hebrew alphabet as a structuring principle, those early scribes also effectively closed their canon. The only way for later works to make it into the collection was for them to be incorporated within existing canonical categories or to transform the very structure of the canon itself. This transformation apparently was accomplished first with the inclusion of Esther to form the Talmudic canon of twenty-four books, and again within the Christian community by the addition of the NT.
The early Jewish rejection of the inspired nature of the Apocrypha, as evidenced by Josephus among other witnesses (including a number of early Christian authors even up until the Council of Trent itself [not just Jerome]) supports the Latter-day Saint rejection of the Apocrypha/Deutero-canonical books, based on D&C 91, a revelation given to the Prophet Joseph Smith in 1833.
As with his criticisms of "Mormonism," Horn's defences of the Apocrypha are without any true merit.
