What "books" belong in the Bible? The New Testament "canon" was finally settled in the 4th century. The final number of books in the New Testament has been 27 for the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Roman Catholic Church, and the Protestant Church. However, the Old Testament "canon" differs among the Eastern Orthodox, the Roman Catholic, and The Protestants. For the early church the Old Testament was the "Greek Old Testament", also known as the "Septuagint". The Septuagint or Greek Old Testament has remained the Old Testament of the Orthodox Church from the beginning. It is important to note that the Greek Old Testament includes a number of books not found in modern translations of the Bible mostly published by Protestants. During the Reformation period the Reformers called these particular books the "apocrypha" and cut them out of the Old Testament of Protestant Bibles. The Roman Catholic Church responded by keeping most of these books in their Bibles and they are known as Deuterocanonical. The Orthodox Church has called these books the "Readables" since the 4th century when St Athanasius named them as such while he was working on establishing the Christian canon of Scripture.THE READABLES:
Prayer of ManassehPsalm 151
1 Ezra
Tobit
Judith
1, 2, 3 Maccabees
Wisdom of Solomon
Wisdom of Sirach
Baruch
The Epistle of Jeremiah
Susanna
Bel and the Dragon
The Song of the Three Holy Youths
BOOK TO READ:
The Rest of THE BIBLE - A Guide to the Old Testament of the Early Church
by Theron Mathis www.conciliarpress.com
