‍Entrusted with the very Words of God

‍Who determines which books belong in the Christian Old Testament?

  Gary Hoge  ·  October 12, 2026

‍Catholic Bibles contain seven books in the Old Testament that Protestant Bibles don't have. Catholics call them the deuterocanonical books; Protestants call them the Apocrypha. One reason the Reformers excluded these books from their canon is that the Jews had previously excluded them from theirs. Therefore, the argument goes, so should we. After all, Christians did not create the Old Testament; they inherited it from the Jews. And Paul says that the Jews were “entrusted with the very words of God” (Romans 3:2). So shouldn’t Christians simply accept the Jewish canon as their Old Testament?

‍Which Jewish canon?

‍Unfortunately, that’s not as easy as it sounds. If Christians are supposed to accept the Jewish canon as their Old Testament, we’ll first have to ask: which one? Although most of the books in today's Hebrew Bible were widely accepted as Scripture by the time of Christ, there was no universally recognized Jewish canon. Different Jewish communities recognized different collections of sacred writings, and disputes about the status of certain books continued for centuries afterward. According to evangelical New Testament scholar Gerald F. Hawthorne:

‍Rabbinic debates over whether the scriptures “defile the hands”¹ took place [at Jamnia], and discussions about the canonicity of certain books—Ezekiel, Ecclesiastes, Canticles, Proverbs, Esther—went on from time to time. … Questions, however, about the canonicity of Proverbs, Canticles, Ecclesiastes, Esther, Ezekiel and Jonah continued to be raised by Jewish leaders well into the second century and beyond.²

‍Following the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple in A.D. 70, the Pharisees became the dominant influence in the development of rabbinic Judaism. By the end of the first century, their canon was substantially established, although questions about certain books remained. The canon associated with the Pharisaic tradition eventually became the canon of rabbinic Judaism.³ This was the canon adopted by the Protestant Reformers some fifteen hundred years later, and it remains the Old Testament canon of Protestant Bibles today.

‍Other Jewish scriptural traditions

‍But the Pharisaic tradition was not the only one. The Dead Sea Scrolls, for example, reveal that some Jewish communities preserved and valued religious writings beyond those eventually included in the Hebrew canon, including 1 Enoch and Jubilees. Some of these writings may even have been regarded as Scripture.⁴ And among Greek-speaking Jews, there was the Septuagint (LXX), the ancient Greek translations of the Jewish Scriptures, which became the predominant form of the Old Testament in the Greek-speaking early Church.

‍By the New Testament era, Greek had become the common language throughout much of the eastern Mediterranean, and Greek-speaking Jews used Greek translations of their Scriptures. The Septuagint was not originally a single-volume Bible with a fixed table of contents; it was a collection of Greek translations produced over time.

‍Hawthorne notes that “the completed LXX not only contained the 39 books of the Hebrew canon; it also contained other books as well, books commonly called apocryphal,” including Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Sirach, Baruch, and 1–2 Maccabees.⁵

‍The Septuagint was enormously important to early Christianity. The New Testament was written in Greek, and its authors frequently quoted the Old Testament in its Greek form. Hawthorne concludes, “Recent studies show that for all practical purposes the Bible of the NT writers was the LXX.”⁶ Ryan Reeves, writing for the Protestant group The Gospel Coalition, estimates that when the New Testament quotes the Old Testament word for word, its authors follow the Septuagint rather than the Masoretic (Hebrew) Text approximately 75 percent of the time, and adds, “according to some scholars, that percentage climbs to over 90 percent, depending on how one defines ‘citation.’”⁷

‍Of course, the New Testament authors’ use of the Septuagint does not prove that they accepted all the deuterocanonical books as Scripture. Nor does the circulation of those books in Greek establish that there was a single, universally recognized “Septuagint canon” at the time of Christ. But it does show that the scriptural traditions inherited by the earliest Christians were more varied than a simple appeal to the Hebrew canon might suggest. And that makes our question—“Which canon?”—even more difficult to answer.

‍Should the Jewish canon determine the Christian canon?

‍But suppose, for the sake of argument, that the Jewish canon really was firmly settled by the time of Christ and that it corresponded exactly to the Protestant Old Testament. Would that settle the matter for Christians?

‍There is certainly a case to be made for that conclusion. As we saw at the beginning, Christians inherited the Old Testament from the Jews, and again, we have Paul’s statement that the Jews were “entrusted with the very words of God” (Romans 3:2). If God entrusted his Scriptures to Israel, it is reasonable to ask on what authority Christians could recognize a different Old Testament canon from the one Israel had received.

‍Well, first, in Romans 3 Paul wasn’t discussing who has the authority to discern the canon of Scripture; he was explaining what advantage there is in being a Jew. Second, the fact that the Jews were the first to receive God’s revelation does not necessarily imply that Jewish authorities would possess, for all time, the right to tell Christians what their Scriptures are.

‍But suppose they did. Would Jewish leaders still possess that authority today? If they were to declare that Isaiah was no longer canonical, would Christians be bound to remove it from their Bibles? If not, when did their authority over the Christian Old Testament come to an end—and why?

‍Which Jews are we talking about?

‍While you’re thinking about those questions, here’s another: If the Jews’ canonical judgment is binding upon Christians for all time, which Jews are we talking about: the ones who followed Jesus, or the ones who didn’t?

‍Christianity did not begin as a Gentile religion that later appropriated a Jewish Bible. Jesus was a Jew, the apostles were Jews, and the earliest Christians were Jews. The Christian Church emerged from within Israel itself, and Jewish Christians remained part of the Church even as increasing numbers of Gentiles entered it.

‍Those Gentile converts, moreover, were not regarded as outsiders to Israel's covenantal heritage. Paul describes Gentile believers as wild olive branches “grafted in” among the natural branches of Israel (Romans 11:17). The New Testament thus presents Gentile Christians as having been incorporated into the people of God alongside those who were Jews by birth. Peter likewise applies to the Christian community language originally used of Israel, calling them “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people” (1 Peter 2:9–10).

‍So even if we grant that the Jews had authority to discern the Old Testament canon, we still have to ask who retained that authority once Christianity and rabbinic Judaism diverged. And if we suppose that it remained with rabbinic Judaism rather than the Church, that would mean, ironically, that God intended for the Jews who did not follow Christ to determine the Old Testament canon for the Jews who did.

‍The Church begins to discern the canon

‍But there is another possibility: that the authority entrusted to Israel continued within the Church that emerged from Israel, beginning with the Jews who followed Christ and incorporating the Gentiles who joined them. This appears to be how the early Church understood its role. As Protestant patristics scholar J. N. D. Kelly observes, the Church “instinctively claimed to be the new Israel, and as such the legitimate heir both of the revelation and of the promises made to the old.”⁸

‍And the Church acted on that understanding. Christians discussed the boundaries of both Testaments, sometimes disagreeing among themselves about particular books. In the Old Testament, even Esther—which Catholics and Protestants alike accept today—was absent from some early Christian canonical lists, while the deuterocanonical books were received, as Kelly puts it, “with varying degrees of recognition.” 

‍The New Testament had its disputed books as well, including Hebrews, Revelation, James, 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John, and Jude. Kelly notes that some New Testament books “had to wait a considerable time before achieving universal recognition.”⁹ Whatever conclusions individual Christians reached about particular books, the important point is that they treated the boundaries of both Testaments as questions for the Church to work through.

‍As Christianity and rabbinic Judaism gradually separated into distinct communities, their canonical judgments diverged as well. The rabbinic Jewish tradition eventually settled on a canon that did not include the deuterocanonical books, while the Church eventually acknowledged a canon that did. That did not happen without disagreement, but Kelly describes the prevailing attitude of the early Church this way:

‍[The Old Testament] always included, though with varying degrees of recognition, the so-called Apocrypha or deutero-canonical books. … In the first two centuries at any rate the Church seems to have accepted all, or most of, these additional books as inspired and to have treated them without question as Scripture. Quotations from Wisdom, for example, occur in 1 Clement and Barnabas . . . Polycarp cites Tobit, and the Didache [cites] Ecclesiasticus.¹⁰

‍That general acceptance by the early Christians would eventually coalesce into consensus. Over time, this process of discernment moved from discussion among individual Christians and local churches to formal consideration by councils of bishops. By the late fourth century, Christian councils began issuing canonical lists that identified the books they regarded as Scripture.

‍Putting it in writing

‍The Council of Hippo (in modern-day Algeria) is well known for its role in the history of the New Testament canon. As evangelical biblical scholar David F. Payne explains:

‍It was not until the year A.D. 393 that a church council first listed the 27 New Testament books now universally recognized. There was thus a period of about 350 years during which the New Testament Canon was in process of being formed.¹¹

‍But what matters for our purposes is that Hippo did not address only the New Testament. Its canonical list encompassed both Testaments. Thus, if Payne is correct that Hippo was the first council to issue a complete New Testament canonical list, that very same council also issued a complete Old Testament canonical list. And that list included the deuterocanonical books. Every one of them.

‍Just as significantly, the bishops did not defer to Jewish authorities in determining the Old Testament canon. Hippo directed that “the church across the sea,” probably Rome or the Italian church across the Mediterranean, be consulted for confirmation of its canonical judgment. Carthage in 397 similarly called for consultation with the “transmarine Church,” while Carthage in 419 explicitly directed that the canon be sent to “Boniface, bishop of Rome, and the other bishops of those regions” for confirmation. In other words, when these bishops sought confirmation of their canon—Old Testament and New—they looked to other Christian bishops, not to Jewish authorities.¹²

‍More than a thousand years after Hippo and Carthage, the Council of Florence again set forth a complete list of the books of Scripture. In 1442, the council was working to restore communion between the Catholic Church and separated Eastern Christian communities. As part of a decree setting forth the Catholic faith for the Jacobite Christians of Egypt, the council listed the books the Church received as Scripture. The list was the same as the one affirmed at Hippo and Carthage, including all of the deuterocanonical books.¹³

‍The Reformation

‍About seventy-five years after Florence, Martin Luther posted his Ninety-five Theses in Wittenberg, marking the beginning of the Protestant Reformation. In response to the Reformation, the Council of Trent solemnly reaffirmed the canon that had been listed at Hippo and Carthage in the fourth century and at Florence in the 15th century.¹⁴

‍Hawthorne summarizes the Protestant approach to the Old Testament canon:

‍Protestant leaders ignored traditional acceptance of all the books of the LXX and refused the status of inspiration to those books of the Vulgate not found in the Hebrew canon. Luther denied canonical status to the Apocrypha although he included them all (except 1–2 Esdras) as an appendix to his translation (1534). He called them “useful and good to be read.” Calvin and his followers completely gave up the idea of canonicity for the Apocrypha and excluded them from the Bible because the Jews who had been entrusted with the oracles of God (Rom. 3:2) had earlier rejected them from their canon.¹⁵

‍And that brings us right back to where we started. The Protestant approach described by Hawthorne gives the Jewish canonical judgment priority in determining the boundaries of the Christian Old Testament. It rests on the same argument considered at the beginning of this article: the Jews had been entrusted with the “oracles of God,” and therefore the books they did not recognize as canonical should not be part of the Christian Old Testament.

‍But the history we have examined shows why that conclusion does not automatically follow from the premise.

‍Conclusion

‍Christians inherited the Old Testament from Israel, and Paul was right to say that the Jews had been “entrusted with the very words of God” (Romans 3:2). But the Church itself emerged from Israel, beginning with the Jews who followed Christ and incorporating the Gentiles who joined them. It is therefore reasonable to believe that the responsibility entrusted to Israel continued within the Church.

‍And that is consistent with what we see historically. When Christian councils issued canonical lists, they addressed both Testaments, including the deuterocanonical books among the Scriptures they recognized.

‍A case can be made for the position of the Protestant Reformers, and the fact that “the Jews didn't accept these books” can certainly be part of that case. But it is not enough, by itself, to be the case. The real question is not simply which books Jews accepted as Scripture, but why their judgment should determine which books Christians accept as Scripture.

‍Paul describes the Church as “the pillar and foundation of the truth” (1 Timothy 3:15). It is therefore reasonable to trust the Church’s Spirit-guided discernment of both Testaments. Indeed, as early as the fifth century, St. Augustine affirmed that the Church’s Old Testament canon need not be identical to that of the Jews.¹⁶

‍The canon of the Christian Bible—Old Testament and New—was ultimately a question the Christian Church had the responsibility and authority to discern; it was not obliged simply to adopt the canon that eventually prevailed in rabbinic Judaism.

‍__________

^‍1 “Defile the hands” was a rabbinic expression associated with the sacred status of a writing. Thus, saying that a book “defiled the hands” did not disparage it; rather, it indicated that contact with the sacred text rendered the hands ritually unclean. Debates over whether a book “defiled the hands” were therefore closely related to questions about its status as Scripture.

^‍2 Gerald F. Hawthorne, “Canon and Apocrypha of the Old Testament,” in The New International Bible Commentary, ed. F. F. Bruce (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1986), 29–30.

^‍3 Timothy H. Lim, “How Was the Canon Formed?,” The Expository Times 133, no. 9 (2022): 357–369, especially the section “The Pharisaic Canon at the end of the First Century.” https://doi.org/10.1177/00145246221088365.

^‍4 James C. VanderKam, The Dead Sea Scrolls Today, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 2010), 186–193.

^‍5 Hawthorne, “Canon and Apocrypha,” 34.

^‍6 Hawthorne, “Canon and Apocrypha,” 34.

^‍7 Ryan Reeves, “What Is the Septuagint?,” The Gospel Coalition, August 12, 2018, https://thegospelcoalition.org/article/what-is-the-septuagint/.

^‍8 J. N. D. Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines (London: Adam & Charles Black, 1958), 52.

^‍9 Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines, 59–60.

^‍10 Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines, 53–54.

^‍11 David F. Payne, “The Text and Canon of the New Testament,” in The New International Bible Commentary, ed. F. F. Bruce (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1986), 1005.

^‍12 Council of Hippo (393), Breviarium Hipponense, canon 36, in Edmon L. Gallagher and John D. Meade, The Biblical Canon Lists from Early Christianity: Texts and Analysis (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017); Council of Carthage (397), canon 24; African Council of 419, canon 24, collected in The Seven Ecumenical Councils, ed. Henry R. Percival, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, 2nd ser., vol. 14, ed. Philip Schaff and Henry Wace (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1900). Hippo directed that “the church across the sea” be consulted to confirm the canon; Carthage in 397 similarly directed that “the transmarine Church” be consulted; and the African Council of 419 was more explicit: “Let this be sent to our brother and fellow bishop, Boniface [bishop of Rome], and to the other bishops of those parts, that they may confirm this canon.” See https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3816.htm.

^‍13 Council of Florence, Cantate Domino (Decree for the Jacobites), February 4, 1442, https://www.vatican.va/content/eugenius-iv/la/documents/bulla-cantate-domino-4-febr-1442.html.

^‍14 Council of Trent, Session IV, Decree Concerning the Canonical Scriptures, April 8, 1546, https://www.vatican.va/archive/bible/nova_vulgata/documents/nova-vulgata_appendix_decretum-can-script_lt.html.

^‍15 Hawthorne, “Canon and Apocrypha,” 36.

^‍16 Augustine, The City of God, 18.36, trans. Marcus Dods, in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, 1st ser., vol. 2, ed. Philip Schaff (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1887).