Case for the Deuterocanon

by Gary G. Michuta

Another topic that needs to be addressed is the burden of proof. What is the status quo for Christian Bibles? Christian Bibles in antiquity included the Deuterocanon. The earliest extant complete copies of Scripture, the Great Codices, included the Deuterocanon intermixed among the other books of the Old Testament without distinction or qualification.[4] Moreover, the early Christian fathers, with a few notable exceptions, likewise held the Deuterocanon to be inspired Scripture distinct from works that were truly apocryphal. The first father to insist that the Deuterocanon was apocrypha was St. Jerome at the end of the fourth century. The saint's opinion was met with immediate opposition by way of a series of North African councils that re-affirmed the Deuterocanon as Scripture. Nevertheless, Jerome's opinion continued to circulate in the West through various prefaces included in the Vulgate (Jerome's new Latin translation of the Bible). By the Middle Ages, the Vulgate had become the Bible translation in the Latin West and Jerome's prefaces (together with his other works) were part of every Bible scholar's education. It is no surprise, therefore, that several prominent medieval Catholic scholars echoed their master's words in their own works.