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This essay relies heavily on a single, questionable source. A number factual errors—“the Samaritan alphabet,” there is no such thing. The pre-exilic, Phoenician alphabet was a shared script among the residents of Syria-Palestine. Article is skewed and inaccurate in many places. The author cites the Anchor Bible Dictionary (a multi-volume source) without naming author or article. 2600:8802:5501:47E0:6D72:59F8:286B:194 (talk) 17:45, 15 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The chart of the Old Testament contains a large number of errors. This is especially true in the Eastern Orthodox Churches and Oriental Orthodox Churches.

1. "Prayer of Manasseh". The prayer of Manasseh is not included in the Greek^[1] Bible in any form. The Book of Odes is not part of the canon of the Bible of any of the Eastern Orthodox Churches. In the Russian^[2][3] and Georgian^[4] Orthodox Bibles, the "Prayer of Manasseh" is placed in the book of 2 Chronicles at the end of chapter 36. The Prayer of Manasseh is not part of the canon of the Armenian^[5] Bible, the Coptic^[6] Bible, and the Syriac^[7] Jacobite Bible.

2. "1 Esdras (3 Ezra)" is included in the Armenian^[5] Bible like all other Deuterocanonical books without designation "extra-canonical".

3. "2 Esdras 3–14 (4 Ezra or Apocalypsis of Esdras) is not a part of the Bible of the Armenian^[5] Apostolic Church.

4. "Additions to Esther" are not included in the Georgian^[8] Orthodox Bible.

5. "3 Maccabees" is included in the Armenian^[5] Bible like all other Deuterocanonical books without designation "extra-canonical".

6. "4 Maccabees" has never been included in the Church Slavonic^[9] and Russian^[10] Bibles. The Slavic and Russian Bibles do not have an "Appendix" section as such. In the Georgian^[11] Bible, this book is signed as "non-canonical" along with the other 11 Deuterocanonical books (1 Esdras, Tobit, Judith, 1 Maccabees, 2 Maccabees, 3 Maccabees, 4 Maccabees, Wisdom of Solomon, Sirach, Letter of Jeremiah, Baruch, 2 Esdras). On Serbian Orthodox websites^[12][13], "4 Maccabees" is sometimes listed as a Deuterocanonical book. In some printed editions^[14] of the Serbian Orthodox Bible, this book is also placed in the Old Testament along with other books (not in the appendix, as in the Greek Bible).

7. "Job". The Greek^[15], Church Slavonic^[16], Armenian^[17], and Ethiopian^[18] Bibles include "Additions to Job" (additional text at the end of 42 chapters; longer than 151 psalms). There is no information about this in the chart.

8. "Psalm 151" is not included in the Bible of the non-Chalcedonian Syrian^[7] Churches (Jacobite Syrian and Malankara).

9. "Letter of Jeremiah" is not part of the Armenian^[5] Apostolic Church's Bible.

10. "Letter of Baruch". The modern Syriac^[7] Bibles include only the passage "Letter of Baruch" from the Syriac Apocalypse of Baruch (chapters 78-86) and it is called "1 Baruch". At the same time, the Book of Baruch calls it "2 Baruch." Olympius78 (talk) 13:31, 23 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

why are there only sources from one last year used? How do you know they are not heretics/schismatics? Doesn't seem very sound to me 86.90.112.188 (talk) 03:42, 23 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Current lead: "A biblical canon is a set of texts (also called "books") which a particular Jewish or Christian religious community regards as part of the Bible."

Samaritanism is also mentioned in the article, and at least according to WP, it's a separate religion, though small atm. Should it be mentioned in the lead, or does it fail WP:PROPORTION there? Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 04:29, 9 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I tried to add it a few days ago, but it was taken away. A Coptic Priest explaining his churches canon in a youtube video and a church diocese-made Coptic Bible app both include it, notably as the only difference (along with Psalm 151) that's different to the Catholic Canon - besides these two works which the Copts have the exact same canon as the Catholic Church. The current link to a source for the Coptic Canon [97] doesn't include Prayer of Manasseh but I assume due to the evidence above that it simply wasn't mentioned as it's a small extra chapter that they might have thought was just a part of 2 Chronicles when they made that list. ScottNally (talk) 23:42, 9 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You need a WP:RS for this, not a Youtube video. Veverve (talk) 08:14, 10 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Why would a actual Copic Priest, in a video where he's specifically explaining the differences between his Church's Canon and other canon's, not be a reliable source? Also under version 2.29 of the Coptic Reader App of the Coptic Orthodox Chuurch of the Southern United States [a official Captic Orthodox Dioscese] says "NEW CONTENT: Added Prayer of Manasseh to the Holy Bible." https://wiki.suscopts.org/Coptic_Reader. In the app itself the only difference with the Catholic Canon is the addition of Psalm 151 and the Prayer of Manasseh, as I've described, but idk how to express that in a website link lol as it's a mobile app enit. ScottNally (talk) 10:26, 10 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

https://wiki.suscopts.org/Main_Page is a wiki, see WP:USERG, that doesn't help your case. Is this [1] the video in question? It's published by something called "Apocrypha Apocalypse", which says it's website is http://www.handsonapologetics.com/. This appears to obviously fail WP:SPS, see also WP:RSPYT.

This doesn't at all mean your source is wrong, but it's the kind of YT-video that are mostly not good enough for WP-sourcing. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 13:52, 10 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Fwiw, afaict Coptic reader is provided by Coptic Orthodox Diocese of the Southern United States, but what that means in WP:RS-terms, I can't say. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 14:04, 10 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The Prayer of Manasseh IS part of the Coptic Orthodox Canon, it is included at the end of 2 Chronicles and considered Psalm 152. https://st-takla.org/lyrics/ar/liturgy/holy-pascha/483.html

I don't know who changed this as the wikipedia article originally had it included, but the change must be reverted immediately ~2025-37392-37 (talk) 17:14, 1 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

A longstanding section of this page (2nd paragraph in this edit and earlier) had stated that the first use of the word 'canon' in relation to scriptural texts was by David Ruhnken in 1768, citing MacDonald & Sanders 2001 The Canon Debate. User @Veverve and I have determined this to be an error in the source. The details are not super relevant for the article itself, so we preserve them here:

The claim in question from The Canon Debate is that "the current use of the term 'canon' to refer to a collection of scripture books was introduced by David Ruhnken in 1768..." This is however a misinterpretation. Other reliable sources show that Ruhnken's innovation wasn't applying "canon" to scripture, but to secular and literary classical authors. The term was already being used for scripture long before his time.

These sources include: 1) The Oxford English Dictionary shows the term being used for scripture centuries earlier, with examples from as far back as 1382 (with further examples from 1561 and 1641). 2) Classical scholars Pat Easterling (Oxford Classical Dictionary, under 'canon') and Rudolph Pfeiffer (History of Classical Scholarship (163n2): 'On Ruhnken as inventor of the term "canon" for selective lists of Greek authors in his Historia critica oratorum Graecorum (1768) see History [I] 207. E. Hulshoff, Studia Ruhnkeniana ...') are very specific that Ruhnken's contribution was applying the word to selective lists of Greek authors.

Finally, the Ruhnken essay cited by MacDonald & Sanders, Historia critica oratorum graecorum is available in Latin: see pp. 368-370. He's clearly talking about the canon of orators and tragic poets, not scripture (e.g.: Itaque ex magna Oratorum copia tanquam in canonem decem duntaxat retulerunt..., "And so, from the great supply of Orators, they admitted only ten into the canon ...").

To sum up, all the evidence points to Ruhnken's work innovating by referring to a literary canon, but not a scriptural one. The claim in the MacDonald & Sanders source seems to be a simple mistake. --Quadalpha (talk) 17:27, 3 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]