What is the Apocrypha?

“Apocrypha” comes from a Greek word meaning “hidden” or “obscure things.” In the context of the Bible, it refers to a group of Jewish religious writings produced mostly during the roughly four-hundred-year period between the last Old Testament prophet, Malachi, and the birth of Christ — a span Christians often call the intertestamental period.

These books were written in Hebrew, Aramaic, or Greek by unnamed or pseudonymous authors, covering history, wisdom, and devotional themes related to Jewish life under foreign rule. They circulated widely among Greek-speaking Jews and were included in the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament widely used in the ancient world.

It is worth noting that this is a different, more specific use of the word than the general term “apocryphal,” which today can simply mean any writing of doubtful authenticity. In biblical studies, “the Apocrypha” almost always refers specifically to this particular Old Testament-era collection, distinct from later New Testament-era writings that scholars usually call the pseudepigrapha.

The Apocrypha typically includes books such as Tobit, Judith, the Wisdom of Solomon, Sirach, also called Ecclesiasticus, Baruch, and 1 and 2 Maccabees, along with additional material appended to Esther and Daniel, such as the stories of Susanna and Bel and the Dragon.

These books vary widely in genre and content — 1 and 2 Maccabees record valuable history of the Jewish revolt against Greek oppression in the second century BC, while Tobit and Judith read more like moral fiction, and the Wisdom of Solomon offers reflective wisdom literature in the style of Proverbs and Ecclesiastes.

Unlike the recognized Old Testament books, none of these writings claim prophetic authorship in the way Isaiah or Jeremiah does, and several openly acknowledge their own lesser status. The book of 1 Maccabees itself notes at several points that prophecy had ceased in Israel during this period, an implicit admission that these books were not written under the same prophetic authority as earlier Scripture.

This matches the broader Jewish understanding of the era, reflected also in Josephus's writings, that authoritative prophetic revelation had ended with Malachi, and that later writings, however valuable, did not carry equal divine authority to the earlier Hebrew Scriptures.

Catholic Bibles include most of these books as “deuterocanonical,” meaning “belonging to a second canon,” a status formally affirmed at the Council of Trent in 1546, partly in response to the Protestant Reformation. Eastern Orthodox Bibles include an even broader set of similar writings, sometimes called anagignoskomena, or “books worth reading.”

Protestant Bibles exclude these books from the Old Testament canon proper, following the Hebrew canon Jesus and the apostles used, and the historical judgment of scholars like Jerome, who translated the Latin Vulgate and distinguished these “ecclesiastical books” as edifying but not canonical Scripture on par with the Hebrew Bible.

Rejecting the Apocrypha as Scripture does not mean these books are worthless. Many Protestant scholars and even early Reformers like Martin Luther valued them for historical background — particularly 1 and 2 Maccabees, which illuminate the Maccabean revolt and the origins of Hanukkah — and for general edification, much as one might value any respected work of ancient religious literature.

Luther himself placed these books in a separate section between the Old and New Testaments in his German translation, describing them as not held equal to the Scriptures but useful and good to read — a position that captures how many Protestants have historically viewed them: valuable, but not authoritative Scripture.

For the ordinary Bible reader, the main value of knowing about the Apocrypha is historical context. These books help explain what happened to the Jewish people during the centuries between Malachi and the birth of Christ — the Greek conquest, the Maccabean revolt, and the religious and political landscape Jesus was born into.

But when it comes to establishing doctrine or settling matters of faith, Scripture itself remains sufficient, consisting of the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings that Jesus affirmed as fulfilled in himself (Luke 24:44) — the same thirty-nine Old Testament books Protestant Bibles have always recognized as God's authoritative word.

If you come across these books in a study Bible or a historical resource, there is no need for alarm. Read them as you would read any other respected ancient Jewish literature — with interest and discernment, grateful for the light they shed on history, but without confusing their historical value with the unique, God-breathed authority that belongs to Scripture alone.