Deuterocanon (means “second canon” in Greek) which are considered canonical by the Catholic Church, The Eastern Orthodox Church, The Oriental Orthodox Church, and The Church of the East. The seven Deuterocanon books are 1 and 2 Maccabees, Sirach (Ecclesiasticus), Wisdom of Solomon (Wisdom), Baruch, Tobit, and Judith. Only modern Rabbinic Judaism and Protestant Christians consider the Deuterocanonical books to be Apocryphon.
“With respect to sacred Scripture, the Apocrypha are those religious books written in the Old and New Testaments eras that claimed a sacred origin but were ultimately judged by the Catholic Church as not inspired by the Holy Spirit. These apocryphal books were thus excluded from the canon of Scripture, and yet in many cases retain some religious value. Our Protestant brothers and sisters mistakenly place the deuterocanonicals (seven Old Testament books) in this category.” – Catholic Answers
“In Jesus’ time, the Samaritans and Sadducees accepted the law but rejected the prophets and writings. The Pharisees accepted all three. Other Jews used a Greek version (the Septuagint) that included the seven disputed books, known as the deuterocanonicals. Still other Jews used a version of the canon that is reflected in the Septuagint and included versions of the seven books in question in their original Hebrew or Aramaic. When the Christians claimed that they had written new scriptures, Jews from a rabbinical school in Javneh met around year 80 [A.D.] and, among other things, discussed the canon. They did not include the New Testament nor the seven Old Testament works and portions of Daniel and Esther. This still did not settle the Pharisee canon, since not all Jews agreed with or even knew about the decision at Javneh. Rabbis continued to debate it into the second and third centuries. Even today, the Ethiopian Jews use the same Old Testament as Catholics [which includes the Deuterocanon].” – Catholic Answers
“‘But the seven deuterocanonical books were added at the Council of Trent (1546) in order to justify Catholic doctrinal inventions.’ This is a myth that always comes up but is simple to answer. At the Council of Rome in 382, the Church decided upon a canon of 46 Old Testament books and 27 in the New Testament. This decision was ratified by the councils at Hippo (393), Carthage (397, 419), II Nicea (787), Florence (1442), and Trent (1546). Further, if Catholics added the deuterocanonical books in 1546, then Martin Luther beat us to the punch: He included them in his first German translation, which he published before the Council of Trent. They can also be found in the first King James Version (1611) and in the first Bible ever printed, the Gutenberg Bible (a century before Trent). In fact, these books were included in almost every Bible until the Edinburgh Committee of the British Foreign Bible Society excised them in 1825. Until then, they had been included at least in an appendix of Protestant Bibles. It is historically demonstrable that Catholics did not add the books, Protestants took them out.” – Catholic Answers
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