Why Do Some Bibles Include the Apocrypha and Others Don't?

Some Bibles include the Apocrypha because Christians do not all receive the same Old Testament canon.

What “Apocrypha” means

The term usually refers to Jewish books written before Christ, such as:

• Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Sirach, Baruch
• 1–2 Maccabees
• Additions to Esther and Daniel

Roman Catholic Bibles call most of these books deuterocanonical—“second canon”—and receive them as Scripture. Orthodox churches also receive these books, though their lists vary somewhat.

Most Protestant Bibles print only the 39 books of the Hebrew Old Testament, sometimes placing the Apocrypha in a separate section, and sometimes leaving it out entirely.

Why the difference arose

The early Church commonly used the Greek Septuagint, a translation of the Old Testament that included these books. Many early Christian writers read and quoted them in worship and teaching.

Yet Christians also recognized a distinction between books universally received as Scripture and books whose status was debated. Jerome, who translated the Latin Vulgate in the fourth and fifth centuries, favored the Hebrew canon for the Old Testament, while Augustine defended receiving the broader church list.

The Protestant Reformers generally followed the Hebrew canon, judging the Apocrypha valuable for reading but not for establishing doctrine. The Catholic Church definitively reaffirmed its broader canon at the Council of Trent in 1546.

What Luke 24 does—and does not—settle

After his resurrection, Jesus speaks of “the Law of Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms” in Luke 24:44. That threefold description reflects the shape of the Hebrew Scriptures, but it does not itself provide a complete table of contents or directly rule on every disputed book.

The New Testament treats the Old Testament as God’s authoritative word: “All Scripture is God-breathed” in 2 Timothy 3:16. The disagreement is over which Old Testament books belong within that category.

So the difference is not mainly about missing pages by accident. It is a longstanding Christian disagreement about the canon—the recognized boundary of Scripture.