The Books Removed From the Bible
The Apocrypha
Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Sirach, Baruch, the Maccabees, and the full text of Esther and Daniel. These books were printed in the 1611 King James Bible and stood inside every Christian Bible until 1827. Most English Bibles today leave them out.
Every one of them is here, free, in up to five public-domain translations: the KJV, two English Septuagints, the World English Bible, and our own transcription of the 1560 Geneva Bible.
What is the Apocrypha?
“Apocrypha” is the name Protestant printers gave to a set of books they placed between the Old and New Testaments. Nearly all of them belong to the Septuagint, the Greek Old Testament that Jesus and the apostles read. The early Church read them for centuries as part of the Old Testament.
The 1560 Geneva Bible printed them. The 1611 King James Bible printed them. In 1827 the British and Foreign Bible Society stopped paying for Bibles that contained them, and the rest of the English Bible trade followed.
The New Testament knows these books
Hebrews 11 lists the faithful of the Old Testament. Among them are those who were tortured and refused release to obtain a better resurrection. That is the account of the seven brothers in 2 Maccabees 7.
“Women received their dead raised to life again: and others were tortured, not accepting deliverance; that they might obtain a better resurrection:”
“And when he was at the last gasp, he said, Thou like a fury takest us out of this present life, but the King of the world shall raise us up, who have died for his laws, unto everlasting life.”
The Wisdom of Solomon describes the ungodly mocking the righteous man who calls himself the son of God, daring God to deliver him. Read it beside Matthew 27:43.
“For if the just man be the son of God, he will help him, and deliver him from the hand of his enemies.”
Jesus walked in the temple at the Feast of Dedication (John 10:22). The founding of that feast is recorded in 1 Maccabees 4.
Read every book of the Apocrypha
| Book | Read in |
|---|---|
| 1 Esdras9 chapters | |
| 2 Esdras16 chapters | |
| Tobit14 chapters | |
| Judith16 chapters | |
| Esther 10 to 16 (the passages the Masoretes cut)7 chapters | |
| Wisdom of Solomon19 chapters | |
| Sirach51 chapters | |
| Baruch6 chapters | |
| Epistle of Jeremiah1 chapter | |
| Prayer of Azariah1 chapter | |
| Susanna1 chapter | |
| Bel and the Dragon1 chapter | |
| Prayer of Manasseh1 chapter | |
| 1 Maccabees16 chapters | |
| 2 Maccabees15 chapters | |
| 3 Maccabees7 chapters | |
| 4 Maccabees18 chapters |
The Geneva 1560 text is a page-by-page transcription by Sovereign Logos, the only free digital copy of the 1560 Apocrypha we know of. About the Geneva Bible.
Cut from inside the books
Esther and Daniel were not removed whole. The Masoretes cut 107 verses from Esther, including every prayer and every mention of God, and cut Susanna, Bel and the Dragon and the prayer in the furnace from Daniel. The full books are restored here.
Questions
- What books are in the Apocrypha?
- The Apocrypha of the 1611 King James Bible contains 1 and 2 Esdras, Tobit, Judith, the rest of Esther, the Wisdom of Solomon, Sirach (Ecclesiasticus), Baruch with the Epistle of Jeremiah, the Song of the Three Children, Susanna, Bel and the Dragon, the Prayer of Manasseh, and 1 and 2 Maccabees. The Septuagint also carries 3 and 4 Maccabees.
- Was the Apocrypha in the original King James Bible?
- Yes. The 1611 King James Bible printed the Apocrypha between the Old and New Testaments, as the Geneva Bible of 1560 had before it. The books are in the KJV text on this site exactly as the King James translators rendered them.
- Why was the Apocrypha removed from the Bible?
- In 1827 the British and Foreign Bible Society stopped funding Bibles that included these books. Publishers followed, and within a generation most English Bibles were printed without them. They had been inside every Christian Bible until then.
- Is the Apocrypha the same as the Septuagint?
- Mostly. Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Sirach, Baruch, the Maccabees and the full Esther and Daniel are all part of the Septuagint, the Greek Old Testament the apostles read. 2 Esdras survives in Latin rather than in the Septuagint, so it is read here in the KJV and World English Bible.
- Does the New Testament refer to the Apocrypha?
- Yes. Hebrews 11:35 speaks of martyrs who refused deliverance to obtain a better resurrection, the account told in 2 Maccabees 7. Jesus kept the Feast of Dedication (John 10:22), the feast whose founding is recorded in 1 Maccabees 4.
- Is the Book of Enoch part of the Apocrypha?
- No. 1 Enoch was never printed in the KJV Apocrypha. Jude 1:14-15 quotes it, and it is readable here in the R.H. Charles translation under Beyond the Canon.