Catholic and Orthodox Bibles contain books — Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Sirach, 1–2 Maccabees and others — that Protestant Bibles either omit or set apart as 'the Apocrypha.' The difference is old and honest: these books were part of the Greek Septuagint the early church used, but not of the later Hebrew canon. Protestants followed the Hebrew list; the Catholic Church, at the Council of Trent in 1546, formally affirmed the wider set. It is less a story of tampering than of which ancient tradition each church chose to follow.
- The deuterocanonical books (Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Sirach, 1–2 Maccabees, etc.) are in the Septuagint but not the Hebrew canon.
- The Council of Trent (1546) affirmed them for Catholics; Protestants followed the Hebrew canon.
What the evidence showsThe differences between Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant Bibles trace to a documented, centuries-old divide over the Septuagint versus the Hebrew canon.
Where it stopsThere was no single fixed Jewish canon in Jesus's day, so no side can simply claim the one obvious original list; the divide is a real and unresolved matter of tradition.
Sources & further reading