Despite what many Christians believe, there is not one single version of the Bible. Biblical canon has changed repeatedly over the centuries with books being added or removed from the official scriptures and that process still continues today. The Bibles read by Catholics, Orthodox Christians and members of different denominations of Protestantism may contain very different books. There are more academically inclined Bibles that contain references and extra resources and “more complete” Bibles that contain books that were previously removed from the canon. Which “extra” books are included in these Bibles varies wildly. 

The development of the “official” biblical canon was a lengthy process that began shortly before the Council of Nicaea in 325 A.D. Emperor Constantine commissioned 50 copies of the Bible for the Church at Constantinople, but this was not considered to be an official canon for Christianity. It was not until 367 A.D., that the first version of the Christian canon was officially developed. It was Athanasius, the Bishop of Alexandria, who listed the books of the New Testament and instructed them to be kanonizomena or canonized. The canon of the New Testament, however, was not ratified until the 5th century. 

Biblical canon was again questioned following the Protestant Reformation. The Church of England and English Calvinism both adopted slightly altered canons in the late 16th and early 17th centuries, and the Synod of Jerusalem make minor tweaks to the list of Old Testament books accepted by Orthodox Christians. With this turbulent history filled with additions and removals of books, there has been a rise in Christians who prefer Bibles that contain these “extra” books which are collectively known as the Apocrypha or Apocryphal Books. Here are five books that are not included in the Bible that every Christian should read.