What about Deuterocanonical Books?

First of all, what are the deuterocanonical books?
They are seven books that appear in Catholic Bibles in the Old Testament but not in Protestant Bibles.  Muslims like to point out that Catholics have 72 books and the Protestants 66.

They sometimes make an issue of this.

How do we respond?

First of all, it is not true that protestant Bibles do not contain the deuterocanonical books.  They appear in these Bibles that are not Catholic:
World English Bible (which is often quoted in this blog),
NRSV
RV of 1894
KJV of 1611

What is the value of these books?

First, let me remind you that Paul states he received the Gospel directly from Jesus:

But I make known to you, brothers, concerning the Good News which was preached by me, that it is not according to man.  For neither did I receive it from man, nor was I taught it, but it came to me through revelation of Jesus Christ.
--Gal 1:11-12

The New Testament, with Paul's letters contains everything we need for salvation, while the Old Testament contains the background for the New Testament.  The deuterocanonical books have always had a secondary status compared to the the Old Testament.  So the real discussion is about the claims of the New Testament.


Muslims claim to believe in "all the prophets".  How do they know who the prophets are?
For example, one of the Deuterocanonical books is named after Sirach.  Is he a prophet or not?  Muslims do not really know.
So Muslims have the same problem as us.  They exclude the Deuterocanonical books; that is their solution.  But they can't actually offer justification for this.