What is The Bible?

The Deutero-canonical books (Apocrypha)

The Old Testament in a Catholic Bible is larger than in those used by other (i.e. Protestant) Christians. It contains 6 extra complete books (making 45 in all), and some of the other books have additions. These Jewish books were written between 400 BC and 100 AD. Although Jews did not include these in their own collection of holy books (canon of scripture) Christians have been using them from the earliest times.

The word "apocrypha" means hidden (not "untrue"). The Christian scholar Jerome (died 420 AD) thought these books should be "hidden" from people and not have the same authority as the rest of the Bible - though at the time few Christians agreed with him.

Martin Luther, the founder of the Protestant (i.e. not Catholic or Orthodox) churches removed these deutero-canonical books from his German translation of the Bible, and put them in a separate section. He said "These are books which are not held equal to the Sacred Scriptures and yet are useful and good for reading".