Outside the canon — the books left out

Forty books that stand outside the Protestant canon of sixty-six: the deuterocanon (Tobit, Judith, Sirach, 1-2 Maccabees), the Old Testament pseudepigrapha (1 Enoch, Jubilees, Jasher), and the New Testament apocrypha (Gospel of Thomas, Gospel of Peter). For each: its date, attributed versus actual author, who received it, why it was set apart, and the tensions critics cite - labeled as claims, with the canon's own tensions listed in fairness.

These are the books that stand outside the Protestant canon of sixty-six. Some are Scripture to Catholic and Orthodox Christians; some were never canon anywhere. For each: what it is, when and by whom it was written, who received it, and the reasons it was set apart — including the specific tensions its critics raise. Those tensions are listed as claims, not as a verdict. The canon's own books carry tensions of their own, set down at the foot of this page. The weighing is left to you.

The Deuterocanon

Books carried in Catholic and Orthodox Bibles, often printed between the Testaments as the “Apocrypha.” They were absent from the Hebrew Bible, and the Reformers set them apart as edifying but not Scripture. The Council of Trent (1546) fixed them as canon for Rome.

Tobit

c. 225–175 BC · received by Catholic, Orthodox

Attributed to: Set in the 8th-century-BC Assyrian exile. Actually: Anonymous, written four centuries later.

Why it is outside: Absent from the Hebrew Bible; read as edifying folk-tale rather than history by the Reformers.

Tensions critics point to:

Tobit is shown alive at the division of the kingdom (c. 931 BC) and still living after the Assyrian exile of 722 BC — well over two hundred years.
The angel Raphael travels under a false name, “Azarias son of Ananias.”
Healing by a fish’s heart, liver, and gall, and the demon Asmodeus driven off by the smoke.

Judith

c. 150–100 BC · received by Catholic, Orthodox

Attributed to: Set in the days of “Nebuchadnezzar”. Actually: Anonymous, Hasmonean era.

Why it is outside: Sweeping historical errors led even sympathetic readers to treat it as a moral tale, not record.

Tensions critics point to:

It calls Nebuchadnezzar “king of the Assyrians, who reigned in Nineveh” — he was king of Babylon, and Nineveh had already fallen.
The military geography of Holofernes’ march is widely held to be impossible.

The Wisdom of Solomon

c. 50 BC – AD 40, Alexandria · received by Catholic, Orthodox

Attributed to: Solomon (d. c. 931 BC). Actually: An anonymous Hellenistic Jew.

Why it is outside: Written in Greek centuries after Solomon, under his name; carries Greek philosophical ideas.

Tensions critics point to:

Solomon wrote in Hebrew and died c. 931 BC; this is composed in polished Greek some nine centuries later.
It teaches the pre-existence of souls (8:19–20), a Platonic rather than Hebrew idea.

Sirach (Ecclesiasticus)

c. 180 BC · received by Catholic, Orthodox

Attributed to: Yeshua ben Sira (he names himself). Actually: Ben Sira; Greek prologue by his grandson, c. 132 BC.

Why it is outside: Highly esteemed, even by the rabbis, but kept outside the Hebrew canon; the author writes as a teacher, not a prophet.

Tensions critics point to:

The author signs his own name — unlike the prophetic books.
Its grandson’s prologue speaks of “the Law, the Prophets, and the others,” an early witness that the Hebrew canon was already a settled three-part body without these books.

Baruch

2nd century BC · received by Catholic, Orthodox

Attributed to: Baruch son of Neriah, Jeremiah’s scribe (6th century BC). Actually: Anonymous, later.

Why it is outside: Written long after Baruch, under his name.

Tensions critics point to:

Dated to Baruch’s lifetime in the 6th century but composed centuries afterward.

The Letter of Jeremiah

c. 300–100 BC · received by Catholic, Orthodox

Attributed to: Jeremiah. Actually: Anonymous (often printed as Baruch ch. 6).

Why it is outside: A pseudonymous tract against idols, far later than Jeremiah.

Tensions critics point to:

Attributed to Jeremiah but written generations after him.

1 Maccabees

c. 100 BC · received by Catholic, Orthodox

Attributed to: Anonymous. Actually: A sober Hasmonean historian.

Why it is outside: Valued even by the Reformers as history, but absent from the Hebrew canon and from the age of prophecy.

Tensions critics point to:

The book itself reports that prophecy had ceased in Israel (1 Macc 9:27; cf. 4:46; 14:41) — a witness that its own era no longer produced Scripture.

2 Maccabees

c. 124 BC · received by Catholic, Orthodox

Attributed to: Abridges a lost five-volume work by Jason of Cyrene. Actually: An anonymous epitomist.

Why it is outside: A Greek composition that conflicts with 1 Maccabees and teaches doctrines the Reformers rejected.

Tensions critics point to:

It contradicts 1 Maccabees on the death of Antiochus IV — the two books give different places and manners of his end.
Its prayer and offering for the dead (12:43–45) became the chief proof-text for purgatory, a Reformation flashpoint.
The author apologizes for his own work (15:38), unusual for a prophetic book.

Additions to Esther

c. 100 BC · received by Catholic, Orthodox

Attributed to: Supplement to Esther. Actually: Anonymous Greek expansions.

Why it is outside: Greek insertions absent from the Hebrew Esther.

Tensions critics point to:

The Hebrew Esther never names God; these additions supply prayers and the divine name, changing the book’s character.

Additions to Daniel (Susanna, Bel and the Dragon, the Song of the Three)

2nd–1st century BC · received by Catholic, Orthodox

Attributed to: Daniel. Actually: Anonymous Greek additions.

Why it is outside: Not present in the Hebrew–Aramaic Daniel.

Tensions critics point to:

In Susanna the prophet’s judgment turns on Greek puns (“under which tree” / the trees’ fate) that only work in Greek — Julius Africanus argued this proves a Greek, not a Hebrew, original.

1 Esdras

2nd century BC · received by Orthodox (appendix in Catholic Bibles)

Attributed to: Ezra material. Actually: A Greek reworking of Chronicles–Ezra–Nehemiah.

Why it is outside: A parallel, partly legendary retelling of canonical history.

Tensions critics point to:

It adds the courtiers’ contest — “what is strongest: wine, the king, women, or truth?” — found in no Hebrew book.

The Prayer of Manasseh

2nd–1st century BC · received by Orthodox (appendix in Catholic Bibles)

Attributed to: King Manasseh. Actually: Anonymous.

Why it is outside: A short penitential prayer placed in Manasseh’s mouth.

Tensions critics point to:

2 Chronicles 33:18–19 mentions Manasseh’s prayer but does not record it; this supplies the words centuries later.

Psalm 151

Second Temple period · received by Orthodox

Attributed to: David. Actually: Anonymous; a Hebrew form was found at Qumran (11QPsª).

Why it is outside: An extra psalm marked even in the Greek as “outside the number.”

Tensions critics point to:

Its own superscription admits it is “outside the number” of the 150 psalms.

3 Maccabees

1st century BC · received by Orthodox

Attributed to: —. Actually: Anonymous Greek narrative.

Why it is outside: Not about the Maccabees at all, and late.

Tensions critics point to:

Despite its title it concerns Ptolemy IV of Egypt, a generation before the Maccabean revolt.

2 Esdras (4 Ezra)

late 1st century AD, with later Christian additions · received by Appendix in the Latin Vulgate; Orthodox use varies

Attributed to: Ezra. Actually: A Jewish apocalypse framed with Christian chapters.

Why it is outside: Apocalyptic visions under Ezra’s name, partly Christian, written after the fall of Jerusalem.

Tensions critics point to:

It is pseudonymous, set in Ezra’s day but written some six centuries later, and its Christian opening and closing chapters were added later still.

4 Maccabees

1st century AD · received by Appendix in some Orthodox Bibles

Attributed to: —. Actually: An anonymous philosophical homily.

Why it is outside: A Stoic-flavored sermon on reason and the passions, not a historical or prophetic book.

Tensions critics point to:

Its frame is Greek philosophy — “whether devout reason is sovereign over the passions” — rather than covenant history.

Old Testament pseudepigrapha

Books written under the names of ancient figures — Enoch, Moses, the patriarchs — long after those men lived. Most were never canon in any major church; a few survive as Scripture only in Ethiopia.

1 Enoch

c. 300–100 BC (composite) · received by Ethiopian Orthodox only

Attributed to: Enoch, “the seventh from Adam”. Actually: Several anonymous Jewish authors.

Why it is outside: Pseudonymous and never received outside Ethiopia — though it is the hardest case here, because Jude appears to quote it.

Tensions critics point to:

It is written in the name of Enoch, seventh from Adam, yet composed thousands of years later.
Its core is the myth of the Watchers — angels who fall, take wives, and beget giants — an expansion far beyond Genesis 6.
Jude 14–15 quotes it by name as prophecy, which cuts against any flat claim that the book is worthless — the honest tension runs both ways.

Jubilees (“Little Genesis”)

c. 160–150 BC · received by Ethiopian Orthodox only

Attributed to: Revealed to Moses on Sinai. Actually: An anonymous priestly author.

Why it is outside: A retelling of Genesis–Exodus on a calendar and chronology at odds with the rest of Scripture.

Tensions critics point to:

It imposes a 364-day solar calendar and condemns the lunar reckoning Israel actually kept — a sectarian quarrel of its own day.
It has the angels keeping the Sabbath and being circumcised, and dates every event by “jubilees” of 49 years.

The Book of Jasher

The genuine book is lost; the printed ones are medieval and modern · received by None

Attributed to: An ancient book of Israel. Actually: Two different late books circulate under the name.

Why it is outside: The real Jasher is lost; the books sold under the title today are not it.

Tensions critics point to:

A genuine “Book of Jasher” is referred to in Joshua 10:13 and 2 Samuel 1:18, but it has not survived.
The Hebrew Sefer haYashar in print is a medieval midrash, many centuries after the events.
The English “Book of Jasher” (Pseudo-Jasher, first printed 1751) is a known 18th-century forgery, unrelated to either.

Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs

c. 2nd century BC, with later Christian additions · received by None

Attributed to: The twelve sons of Jacob, on their deathbeds. Actually: Anonymous, later edited by Christian hands.

Why it is outside: Deathbed speeches placed in the patriarchs’ mouths, with Christian passages woven in.

Tensions critics point to:

The patriarchs are made to foretell Christ in detail, betraying a later Christian editor at work in a supposedly pre-Christian book.

The Life of Adam and Eve

c. 1st century AD · received by None

Attributed to: The story of Adam and Eve after Eden. Actually: Anonymous legend.

Why it is outside: Legendary expansion of Genesis with no early standing.

Tensions critics point to:

It adds penances, a second fall, and the devil’s confession — episodes found nowhere in Genesis.

The Assumption (Testament) of Moses

c. early 1st century AD · received by None

Attributed to: Moses’ farewell prophecy. Actually: Anonymous.

Why it is outside: A pseudonymous prophecy surviving only in fragments.

Tensions critics point to:

Jude 9 — Michael disputing with the devil over the body of Moses — is traditionally traced to this lost book, the same kind of honest complication as Enoch.

Psalms of Solomon

mid-1st century BC · received by None (appended in a few Greek manuscripts)

Attributed to: Solomon. Actually: Anonymous, after Pompey’s capture of Jerusalem (63 BC).

Why it is outside: Eighteen psalms written under Solomon’s name long after him.

Tensions critics point to:

They respond to Pompey’s siege of Jerusalem in 63 BC — nine centuries after Solomon’s death.

The Sibylline Oracles

2nd century BC – several centuries AD · received by None

Attributed to: The pagan Sibyl. Actually: Jewish and Christian authors writing in her voice.

Why it is outside: Jewish and Christian teaching disguised as pagan prophecy.

Tensions critics point to:

They put monotheism and, later, the gospel into the mouth of a Greek pagan prophetess — pseudonymity by design.

2 Baruch (Syriac Apocalypse)

c. AD 100 · received by None

Attributed to: Baruch. Actually: Anonymous, after the fall of Jerusalem in AD 70.

Why it is outside: An apocalypse under Baruch’s name, six centuries too late.

Tensions critics point to:

Though set in the days of the first temple’s fall, it wrestles with the second temple’s destruction in AD 70.

3 Enoch

c. 5th–6th century AD · received by None

Attributed to: Enoch / Rabbi Ishmael. Actually: A late Jewish mystical author.

Why it is outside: A late mystical text, centuries into the Christian era.

Tensions critics point to:

It describes Enoch’s transformation into the angel Metatron, a development of much later Jewish mysticism.

New Testament apocrypha

Gospels, acts, letters, and apocalypses from the second century and later, written under apostolic names. The early churches weighed them and set them aside — some quickly, some only after long use. The reasons were date, authorship, and content, not chance.

The Gospel of Thomas

c. AD 140 (a core perhaps earlier) · received by None

Attributed to: “Didymus Judas Thomas”. Actually: Anonymous; Coptic copy from Nag Hammadi.

Why it is outside: A second-century sayings-collection with Gnostic leanings and no apostolic claim that held up.

Tensions critics point to:

It is a list of 114 sayings with no account of the death or resurrection — the heart of the gospel.
Its closing saying (114) has Jesus declare that Mary “must become male” to enter the kingdom, a Gnostic note foreign to the four gospels.

The Gospel of Peter

c. mid-2nd century · received by None

Attributed to: Peter. Actually: Anonymous.

Why it is outside: Rejected early for a docetic tendency — treating Christ’s body as only seeming.

Tensions critics point to:

At the cross it says Jesus “kept silence, as though feeling no pain,” hinting he did not truly suffer.
It describes a talking cross walking out of the tomb.
Bishop Serapion of Antioch (c. AD 190) examined it and forbade its use — a documented rejection.

The Gospel of Judas

c. mid-2nd century · received by None

Attributed to: Judas Iscariot. Actually: A Sethian Gnostic author.

Why it is outside: A Gnostic work that inverts the gospel, named and condemned in the second century.

Tensions critics point to:

It recasts Judas as the one true disciple who hands Jesus over by request.
Irenaeus names and rejects it around AD 180, within a few decades of its writing.

The Protoevangelium of James

c. AD 150 · received by None (yet shaped later tradition)

Attributed to: James. Actually: Anonymous.

Why it is outside: Pious infancy legend with historical errors about temple life.

Tensions critics point to:

It has Mary raised inside the temple sanctuary, which the law did not permit.
Much of the later lore of Mary’s parents and perpetual virginity descends from this single late source.

The Infancy Gospel of Thomas

c. 2nd century · received by None

Attributed to: Thomas. Actually: Anonymous.

Why it is outside: Fanciful tales of Jesus’ boyhood, at odds with the gospels.

Tensions critics point to:

The child Jesus strikes a playmate dead and blinds his accusers — a temper foreign to the gospels.
It has him performing public miracles as a boy, while John 2:11 calls Cana the first of his signs.

The Gospel of Mary

c. 2nd century · received by None

Attributed to: Mary Magdalene. Actually: Anonymous; fragmentary.

Why it is outside: A fragmentary Gnostic dialogue, late and incomplete.

Tensions critics point to:

It survives only in pieces, with key pages missing, and teaches a Gnostic ascent of the soul.

The Gospel of Nicodemus (Acts of Pilate)

c. 4th–5th century · received by None

Attributed to: Nicodemus. Actually: Anonymous, late.

Why it is outside: A late legendary account of the trial and the descent into hell.

Tensions critics point to:

It is dated centuries after the events, and elaborates Christ’s “harrowing of hell” far beyond anything in the New Testament.

The Acts of Paul (and Thecla)

c. AD 160 · received by None

Attributed to: A companion of Paul. Actually: An Asian presbyter.

Why it is outside: A romance about Paul whose author was disciplined for writing it.

Tensions critics point to:

Tertullian records that the presbyter who composed it — “out of love for Paul” — was removed from his office, a documented early judgment.
Thecla baptizes herself, used in its day to argue for women baptizing, which the wider church did not accept from this book.

The Apocalypse of Peter

c. AD 135 · received by None (read in some early churches)

Attributed to: Peter. Actually: Anonymous.

Why it is outside: An early hell-and-heaven tour that some accepted at first, then let go.

Tensions critics point to:

It appears in the Muratorian list with a note that “some of us will not have it read in church,” a canon still being weighed.
Its graphic catalog of punishments goes well beyond the restraint of the New Testament.

The Shepherd of Hermas

c. AD 140, Rome · received by None (yet read widely; included in Codex Sinaiticus)

Attributed to: Hermas. Actually: Hermas of Rome.

Why it is outside: Beloved and orthodox, but too recent and not apostolic — one of the “almost” books.

Tensions critics point to:

The Muratorian Fragment says it may be read privately but not “among the prophets or the apostles,” because it was written “quite recently, in our own times.”
Its standing shows the test was not merely usefulness, but apostolic origin.

The Epistle of Barnabas

c. AD 130 · received by None (included in Codex Sinaiticus)

Attributed to: Barnabas, Paul’s companion. Actually: An anonymous teacher.

Why it is outside: Esteemed early, but not apostolic, and strongly allegorical.

Tensions critics point to:

It reads the Old Testament through heavy allegory — even the number of Abraham’s servants — in ways the church did not adopt as Scripture.

1 Clement

c. AD 96 · received by None (read in churches; in Codex Alexandrinus)

Attributed to: The church of Rome (Clement). Actually: Clement of Rome.

Why it is outside: Genuinely early and orthodox — and still set aside, because it is not from an apostle.

Tensions critics point to:

It was read aloud in some churches for generations, yet excluded for the same reason the Shepherd was: it is sub-apostolic, a letter of a disciple, not an apostle.
Its very strength makes the point — the canon was drawn by apostolic origin, not by quality alone.

The Didache

late 1st – early 2nd century · received by None (highly valued; near-canon in places)

Attributed to: “The teaching of the twelve apostles”. Actually: An anonymous church manual.

Why it is outside: An early and valued handbook of church order, but not itself apostolic Scripture.

Tensions critics point to:

Though titled for the twelve, it is an anonymous manual of practice — baptism, fasting, the Lord’s Supper, traveling prophets — not a work any apostle claimed.

The Epistle to the Laodiceans

c. 3rd–4th century · received by None

Attributed to: Paul. Actually: A forger stitching Pauline phrases together.

Why it is outside: Widely judged a forgery built to fill a gap.

Tensions critics point to:

Colossians 4:16 mentions a letter “from Laodicea,” and this short text was composed afterward to supply it, largely by copying lines from Philippians.
Jerome noted that it was “rejected by everyone.”

And the sixty-six?

Honesty cuts both ways. If apparent contradiction settled the matter, the canon could not be exempt from its own rule. The accepted books carry tensions that readers have long noticed and long answered — they are set down here so the standard is not applied in one direction only. These are not offered as errors, but as the same kind of difficulty raised against the books above.

The death of Judas is told two ways — hanged (Matthew 27:5) and falling headlong so that he burst open (Acts 1:18).
The genealogies of Jesus in Matthew 1 and Luke 3 differ from David onward.
The order and detail of the resurrection morning — who came to the tomb, how many angels, what they said — vary across the four gospels.
Numbers differ between Samuel–Kings and Chronicles (for example, the price David paid for the threshing floor: 2 Samuel 24:24 and 1 Chronicles 21:25).
The inscription over the cross is worded differently in each gospel.

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