The Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion
The doctrinal statement of the Church of England, agreed by its bishops and clergy in 1563 and ratified in 1571. Article VI lists the books of the Old Testament received as canonical and names the others that are read but not used to establish doctrine.
The Articles were agreed by the Convocation of the English clergy in the reign of Elizabeth I and given their final form in 1571. Their title dates the Convocation to 1562, by the old reckoning in which the year began in March; by the modern calendar it sat in the first months of 1563. They set out where the Church of England stood among the churches of the Reformation and against Rome.
Article VI, “Of the Sufficiency of the Holy Scriptures for Salvation”, is cited in this wiki as a Protestant statement on the canon. It lists the books of the Hebrew Bible as canonical. Of the others, among them Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Sirach and the two books of Maccabees, it says that the church reads them “for example of life and instruction of manners” but does not apply them to establish any doctrine. Protestant Bibles that include these books print them apart from the Old Testament, as the Apocrypha, and other Protestant confessions, such as the Westminster Confession of 1647, exclude them from the canon altogether.
Cited in
- 332 BC, firm date
- 167 BC, estimated date
- 167 BC to 164 BC, estimated date
- 142 BC, firm date
- AD 30 or 33, estimated date
- May AD 325, firm date
- AD 367, firm date
- AD 393 to AD 397, firm date
- November 1215, firm date
- 1545 to 1563, firm date
- 1559, firm date