R.C. Sproul on Canon of the Old Testament
66 books — Apocrypha useful but not Scripture
all of the evidence from Palestine indicates that the Jewish Palestinian [canon] did not include the Apocrypha whereas there was some evidence that in Alexandria … did include the [Apocrypha] although I might add more recent scholarship suggest that even that Alexandrian [canon] recognized the Apocrypha only at a secondary level and not at the full level of biblical Authority
THE POSITION
Describes the Bible he holds up as "a collection of sixty-six individual books" (1:53) and says he believes "with every conviction I have" that every book that should be in the Bible is in it (20:23). Frames the Reformation dispute over the Apocrypha as a historical question — which Jewish canon Jesus and first-century Israel received — and answers it: the Palestinian evidence excludes the Apocrypha, and on more recent scholarship even the Alexandrian collection held it below full biblical authority. The Protestant canon is "a fallible collection of infallible books"; Rome's is "an infallible collection of infallible books." He does not address in this lecture whether the Apocrypha is profitable reading, so that half of the stance is untested. Source is an auto-captioned third-party reupload of a Renewing Your Mind broadcast of Foundations, lesson 7.
13 OTHERS HOLD THIS
ABOUT THIS FIGURE
Founder of Ligonier Ministries and teaching elder in the PCA. Chaired the drafting committee for the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy; best known for The Holiness of God and for popularizing Reformed theology — the five solas and TULIP — for a lay audience.
Cite this page
"R.C. Sproul on Canon of the Old Testament", Examined Doctrine, July 2026 edition, https://examineddoctrine.com/position/sproul/ot-canon (archived at https://examineddoctrine.com/editions/2026-07/position/sproul/ot-canon).