When were the Duterocanonical Books removed from the King James Bible?

[IgnatiusOfAntioch]

I saw a 1611 King James Bible printed in the 1830's that had all of the 7 Old Testament Deutero-canonical books.

Does anyone have good historical information about when were the Deutero-canonical books removed from the King James Bible? Links to primary source information would be great. Thank you.

 

[DISRAELI]

I own a battered family Bible of 1749 which does not have them.
I would imagine that leaving them out was the norm from a much earlier date, and what you've seen is a particular edition where it was decided to re-insert them.

P.S. I've just checked, and I'm also in possession of two Victorian family Bibles, from 1853 and 1874. They don't have those books either.
It looks as though putting them back in was a conscious decision for that particular 1830's edition. Was it, by any chance the "British and Foreign Bible Society"? They might have seen a need for it.

 

[mark46]

I saw a 1611 King James Bible printed in the 1830's that had all of the 7 Old Testament Deutero-canonical books.

Does anyone have good historical information about when were the Deutero-canonical books removed from the King James Bible? Links to primary source information would be great. Thank you.

This has always been a publisher's option. Many KJV bible have the additional books. In the Anglican tradition (from where the KJV came), these books are part of the bible, but at a lesser level, a level not to be counted on for dogma, or doctrines that must be believed.

List of books of the King James Version - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[wondrousgnat]

The original King James did have them (King James himself may have been secretly Catholic). I don't remember when the 7 books were eliminated but when someone says he uses the "original" King James he is probably incorrect.

 

[football5680]

To my knowledge there was never a set date for the exclusion and certain Protestant groups still used them even when they were falling out of favor with other groups. The first instance of their complete removal was in the mid 1600's. Protestants did not view them as authoritative so eventually it made financial sense to exclude them.

 

[IgnatiusOfAntioch]

The original King James did have them (King James himself may have been secretly Catholic). I don't remember when the 7 books were eliminated but when someone says he uses the "original" King James he is probably incorrect.

Wasn't the Deuterocanon included in the 1611 King James Bible?

 

[DISRAELI]

I've seen detached copies of the Apocrypha in the same translation style as the AV, which probably means they were translated at the same time as the others.
Their official status in the Anglican "Articles of religion" is;
"The other books the church doth read for example of life and instruction of manners; but yet it doth not apply them to establish any doctrine".
If the church "doth read them", then that would have been a reason for including them in the volume.
In fact I've just thought of re-checking the church lectionary of the old Prayer Books, and I see that it includes (at the end of the year) readings from Wisdom, Ecclesiaticus, and Baruch. "Example of life and instruction of manners".

 

[JimR-OCDS]

King James used the Hebrew Translation of the Old Testament, which doesn't have them.

Those books were in the Septuagint which was the Greek version of the OT, and which was used by the early Church all the way through to the reformation.

Because 80 % of the quotes and citations in the New Testament of the Old Testament were in the Septuagint, some King James translations include parts of those books.

Jim

 

[MoreCoffee]

Wikipedia says this about the Anglican view of the deuterocanonical books and some apocryphal books (it ought to be noted that Catholic usage described some books as apocryphal but that these books are not the ones included in the list shown below (after the quote))

Anglicanism
There is a great deal of overlap between the Apocrypha section of the original 1611 King James Bible and the Catholic deuterocanon, but the two are distinct. The Apocrypha section of the original 1611 King James Bible includes, in addition to the deuterocanonical books, the following three books, which were not included in the list of the canonical books by the Council of Trent:

1 Esdras (Vulgate 3 Esdras)
2 Esdras (Vulgate 4 Esdras)
Prayer of Manasseh
These books make up the Apocrypha section of the Clementine Vulgate: 3 Esdras (1 Esdras); 4 Esdras (2 Esdras); and The Prayer of Manasseh, where they are specifically described as "outside of the series of the canon". The 1609 Douai Bible includes them in an appendix, but they have been dropped from recent Catholic translations into English. They are found, along with the deuterocanonical books, in the Apocrypha section of Protestant bibles.

Using the word apocrypha (Greek: hidden away) to describe texts, although not necessarily pejorative, implies to some people that the writings in question should not be included in the canon of the Bible. This classification commingles them with certain non-canonical gospels and New Testament Apocrypha. The Style Manual for the Society of Biblical Literature recommends the use of the term deuterocanonical literature instead of Apocrypha in academic writing.

The Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion of the Church of England lists the deuterocanonical books as suitable to be read for "example of life and instruction of manners, but yet doth not apply them to establish any doctrine." The early lectionaries of the Anglican Church (as included in the Book of Common Prayer of 1662) included the deuterocanonical books amongst the cycle of readings, and passages from them were used in the services (such as the Benedicite)

Readings from the deuterocanonical books are now included in most, if not all, of the modern lectionaries in the Anglican Communion, based on the Revised Common Lectionary (in turn based on the post-conciliar Roman Catholic lectionary).

The Catholic Deuterocanon consists of these books:

• Tobit
• Judith
• Additions to Esther (Vulgate Esther 10:4–16:24)
• Wisdom (or Wisdom of Solomon)
• Wisdom of Jesus ben Sira (or Sirach or Ecclesiasticus)
• Baruch, including the Letter of Jeremiah (Additions to Jeremiah in the Septuagint)
• Additions to Daniel:
  • Prayer of Azariah and Song of the Three Holy Children (Vulgate Daniel 3:24–90)
  • Susanna (Vulgate Daniel 13, Septuagint prologue)
  • Bel and the Dragon (Vulgate Daniel 14, Septuagint epilogue)
• 1 Maccabees
• 2 Maccabees

And these books are regarded as apocryphal (with no negative connotation intended):

• 3 Maccabees
• 1 Esdras
• 4 Maccabees
• 2 Esdras
• Psalm 151
• the Prayer of Manasseh
• I Enoch
• Jubilees
• 1 Meqabyan
• 2 Meqabyan
• 3 Meqabyan

There are also new testament apocryphal books but I shall not attempt to list them here.

 

[MoreCoffee]

The apocrypha was originally included in the KJV but as time passed began to be removed. Wikipedia offers this explanation:

King James Version
The English-language King James Version (KJV) of 1611 followed the lead of the Luther Bible in using an inter-testamental section labelled "Books called Apocrypha", or just "Apocrypha" at the running page header. The KJV followed the Geneva Bible of 1560 almost exactly (variations are marked below). The section contains the following:

1 Esdras (Vulgate 3 Esdras)
2 Esdras (Vulgate 4 Esdras)
Tobit
Judith ("Judeth" in Geneva)
Rest of Esther (Vulgate Esther 10:4-16:24)
Wisdom
Ecclesiasticus (also known as Sirach)
Baruch and the Epistle of Jeremy ("Jeremiah" in Geneva) (all part of Vulgate Baruch)
Song of the Three Children (Vulgate Daniel 3:24-90)
Story of Susanna (Vulgate Daniel 13)
The Idol Bel and the Dragon (Vulgate Daniel 14)
Prayer of Manasses (follows 2 Chronicles in Geneva)
1 Maccabees
2 Maccabees​

Included in this list are those books of the Clementine Vulgate that were not in Luther's canon. These are the books most frequently referred to by the casual appellation "the Apocrypha". These same books are also listed in Article VI of the Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England. Despite being placed in the Apocrypha, in the table of lessons at the front of some printings of the King James Bible, these books are included under the Old Testament.

The Bible and the Puritan revolution
The British Puritan revolution of the 1600s brought a change in the way many British publishers handled the apocryphal material associated with the Bible. The Puritans used the standard of Sola Scriptura (Scripture Alone) to determine which books would be included in the canon. The Westminster Confession of Faith, composed during the British Civil Wars (1642–1651), excluded the Apocrypha from the canon. The Confession provided the rationale for the exclusion:

'The books commonly called Apocrypha, not being of divine inspiration, are no part of the canon of the Scripture, and therefore are of no authority in the church of God, nor to be any otherwise approved, or made use of, than other human writings' (1.3).​

Thus, Bibles printed by English Protestants who separated from the Church of England began to exclude these books.

 

[RDKirk]

This has always been a publisher's option. Many KJV bible have the additional books. In the Anglican tradition (from where the KJV came), these books are part of the bible, but at a lesser level, a level not to be counted on for dogma, or doctrines that must be believed.

List of books of the King James Version - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is true. There was never any ecclesiastical decision among major Protestant groups to exclude them.