Deuterocanonical Books

Books received as scripture by some churches and not by others. The name means second canon and was coined in the sixteenth century, when the Reformation churches set these writings apart and the Catholic and Orthodox churches went on reading them as scripture. Eastern Orthodox usage more often calls them the readable books, which says the same thing from another side. Grouping them here is a statement about reception rather than about date, language or subject, and the group is deliberately narrow: it is filed under the name the communities that receive these books actually use, rather than the name used by the communities that do not.