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The short answer: The last book in the Protestant OT is technically the same last book in the Catholic and Orthodox OT’s: Malachi. But Catholic and Orthodox Bibles have additional books in between the OT and NT. But why? Malachi lived around the year 450 BC. That means that there was a gap of 450 years between the OT and NT. Since Malachi was a prophet, that means that he was the last OT prophet, and his book is the last book in the Protestant OT. No other prophet lived until John the Baptist. Protestant theologians since the time of Martin Luther (1500s) have taught that only books that came from prophets should be in the OT.

But Catholics and Orthodox decided long ago to include books written during that 450-year gap period. Some of the books were supposedly written at the same time as the last of the OT books, but most of the “extra” books were written later. Also, Catholics and Orthodox do not believe that those extra books are not on the same spiritual level as the other 39 OT books. To show that, a special name was given to the extra books: Deuterocanonical. This word sounds intimidating, but not once you break it in two: “deutero” means “secondary” and “canonical” (in this word) means “Scripture. So, deuterocanonicals are “secondary Scripture.” Although Catholics and Orthodox include “extra” books in their Bibles in between the OT and NT, they use this word to show that those books are not on the same “spiritual” level as the 39 OT books, but still should be read. To learn more about the Deuterocanonicals and see a listing of them, go here.

On the other hand, Protestant scholars rejected the deuterocanonicals and instead refer to them as “Apocrypha,” meaning that they contain false teachings or heresies. But that is why there are no “extra” books in the Protestant OT: the general feeling is that only those books that are truly from God and on a certain spiritual level (such as all the OT and NT books are) get to be in the Bible. No matter how popular a book was, and some books were very popular, Protestants believed that no book should be in the Bible unless it was from God; Catholics and Orthodox believed differently.

• One part of one of the extra books is called “Bel and the Dragon.” In it, Daniel is told to worship a dragon. This is how the story continues in verse 27: “Then Daniel took pitch, fat, and hair, and boiled them together and made cakes, which he fed to the dragon. The dragon ate them and burst open. Then Daniel said, “See what you have been worshiping!” You can see why this should not be in the Bible.
• The Catholic idea of Purgatory, where Catholics believe most people go after they die and before they go to heaven, comes from one of these books: II Maccabees 12:41-45: “So they all blessed the ways of the Lord, the righteous judge, who reveals the things that are hidden; and they turned to supplication, praying that the sin that had been committed [by those who had died] might be wholly blotted out. The noble Judas exhorted the people to keep themselves free from sin, for they had seen with their own eyes what had happened as the result of the sin of those who had fallen [upon others]. He also took up a collection, man by man, to the amount of two thousand drachmas of silver, and sent it to Jerusalem to provide for a sin-offering. In doing this he acted very well and honorably, taking account of the resurrection. For if he were not expecting that those who had fallen would rise again, it would have been superfluous and foolish to pray for the dead. [The underlined part: This states that Judas believed that the dead who had sinned were in one place, and, if those alive offered a sin offering, that they dead would be forgiven they sinned even though they were dead.]. But if he was looking to the splendid reward that is laid up for those who fall asleep in godliness, it was a holy and pious thought. Therefore, he made atonement for the dead, so that they might be delivered from their sin.” This last sentence states the idea that the sinful dead were in a certainly place, and that, after making the sin offering, they would be released and go to heaven. That “other place” became known as Purgatory.

Note: Protestant, Catholics, and Orthodox all use the same 27 NT books.

© 2020 Mark Nickens