Canonization

The Bible as we read it today is a collection of ancient books divided into Old and New Testaments. The Old Testament is the collection of books that the Jewish people at the time of Jesus used as their scripture (known as the Tanakh). In the Orthodox Church, we rely on the Septuagint translation of these books which was copied within 100 years before Christ was born. When compared to Bibles used by Catholic and Protestant churches, the Septuagint version of the Old Testament contains about 10 other books and parts of books known as the deuterocanonical books. The New Testament consists of the books written by the apostles from the time of Christ directly speak about His life and teachings. By the fourth century, the Church officially recognised, or “canonised,” the 27 books of the New Testament and the Septuagint Old Testament that make up the Bible we read today in the Orthodox Church¹.