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Were there extra books in the Old Testament that have been hidden, and are only in some bibles but not others?  Why aren’t all bibles the same?

If you look in a New American or Jerusalem edition of the Bible, you will find 12 extra books in the Old Testament part of the Bible, commonly referred to as the “Apocrypha” which means “hidden”.  They consist of the books of Wisdom, Sirach, 1 and 2 Maccabees, Tobit, Judith, Additions to Esther, Suzanna, Bel and the Dragon, Baruch, Epistle of Jeremiah, and Song of the Three Children.  (There are also other books not included in any bible that are considered part of the Apocrypha , such as 1 and 2 Esdras, 3 and 4 Maccabees, Psalm 151 and a few others.)  The question here is, should these additional books be considered as part of canonical scripture, and if not, why not?

• First, remember that the Old Testament was the scripture of the Jews.  Nowhere do the Jews ever accept the Apocrypha as canonical.  The reason anyone thought they might belong in the bible is because they were apparently added to the Greek Septuagint translation several centuries after it was made in the third century B.C.E.  The first century Jewish historian Josephus rejected them completely, even though he was very familiar with the Septuagint translation.   The 39 books in the “protestant” bible correspond with the 22 (or 24, depending on how they count certain books) books of the Hebrew Old Testament.  Josephus states in Apionem: “We have not tens of thousands of books…but only twenty-two containing the record of all time, which have been justly believed to be divine.” [1]
• Philo of Alexandria (20 B.C.E. to 50 A.D.),  a Jewish teacher from the same place where the Septuagint originated, did not include the apocryphal books as scripture,  and never quotes from them, even though he quotes the canonical books frequently, which also is evidence they were added to the Septuagint later on.  Also Aquila’s Greek version of the New Testament from the second century Alexandrian Jews also did not contain the Apocrypha, more evidence for later addition of these books.
• Second, neither Jesus nor His apostles ever quoted from the Apocrypha, even though they quoted the canonical books of the Old Testament hundreds of times.    Jesus makes reference to the scope of the Old Testament canon in Matthew 23:34-36 and Luke 11:49-51, where he talks about the martyrs in the Old Testament, referring to them as such: “from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah”, who was killed between the altar and the house of God.”  Zechariah’s martyrdom was recorded in 2 Chronicles 24:20-22.  In the Hebrew bible, the books are arranged so that the book of 2 Chronicles is the last book in the canon, even though not the last chronologically.  So Jesus was in effect covering the whole scope of the Hebrew canon in this reference, as if it is closed and no more belongs in it.
• Some may object that the New Testament authors didn’t quote every single book in the Old Testament, and so this doesn’t prove anything.  But very few, if any, of the books of the canonical Old Testament groupings (The Law, Prophets, and Writings), were left out (in fact only 4 books in all), but all of the apocryphal group was left out completely.  Surely we would find at least one quote from these voluminous books if they were really considered canonical!
• Third, many prominent Church fathers and theologians rejected the Apocrypha as scripture during the succeeding centuries of church history.   Origen, Cyril of Jerusalem, Athanasius, Hilary of Potiers, Ephiphanius,  Basil the Great, Rufinus, and most significantly, Jerome, the translator of the Latin Vulgate, all specifically excluded these books from canonical status.  Jerome was an expert in Hebrew and Greek, and he made a clear distinction between the canonical books and the apocrypha, although he considered the latter as somewhat useful, but definitely not for defining doctrine.  There were some other church fathers that favored inclusion of the apocrypha, such as Augustine, but even he seemed inconsistent on his support of them {2} Other major theologians, following Jerome, also distinguished between the canonical books and the lesser secondary books of the apocrypha [3].  No church council official canonized some of the apocryphal books until the Council of Trent in 1546.
• Fifth, the Apocrypha contains no proven prophecy.  There are no “thus saith the Lord” verses, no prophecy of Jesus or other people and events, as in many canonical Old Testament books, and no citations as such in the New Testament.  Not only do they not claim to be written by a prophet, the Jews believed that prophecy had ceased before the Apocrypha was even written.  Josephus states:’From Artaxerxes until our time everything has been recorded, but has not been deemed worthy of like credit with what preceeded, because the exact succession of prophets ceased.” (Flavius Josephus, Against Apion,  1:8).  Within the First Book of Maccabees, there is denial of any prophetic qualities: “Thus there was great distress in Israel, such as had not been since the time that prophets ceased to appear among them. ” (1 Maccabees 9:27, RSV) “And the Jews and their priests decided that Simon should be their leader and high priest for ever, until a trustworthy prophet should arise.  ” (1 Maccabees 14:41, RSV).
• Finally, the apocryphal books depart from canonical books in doctrine and they contain historical errors.  For example, unlike the rest of the Bible, they teach prayers for the dead (2 Maccabees 12:44-45), that almsgiving atones for sin (Tobit 12:9), the use of magic (Tobit 6:5-7), blames a woman for sin and death:” From a woman sin had its beginning and because of her we all die.” (Sirach 25:24), and seems to devalue daughters: “It is a disgrace to be the father of an undisciplined son, and the birth of a daughter is a loss” (Sirach 22:3).  Feminists take note!  The canonical books don’t teach these things.
• The book of Judith contains several historical errors.  It calls Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar “king of the Assyrians” who reigned over Nineveh (Judith 1:5,  2:1),  represents the Jewish people as being under a high priest and a form of Sanhedrin, which could not have been the case until after the Babylonian exile (Judith 15:8).  The book of Baruch teaches that the Israelites were in Babylon for seven generations (6:2) rather than 70 years.  There are other historical and doctrinal errors in the Apocrypha as well.

So beware of basing any doctrine or belief on those “extra books!”

[1] Gleason Archer, A Survey of Old Testament Introduction, Moody Press, Chicago, IL, 1994, p.79.

[2] Ibid., p.83.

[3] The Canon-William Webster-article