APOCRYPHA 101: Over at zhubert's blog, Zack asks for some help.

Ok, so I'm working on adding the deuterocanonical works, specifically: Baruch, Tobit, Judith, Sirach, Wisdom, 1&2 Maccabees but I'm not sure what order to put them in (in relation to the canonical works). Should I put them between the OT and NT? Am I missing any? Also, I'm considering reverting the LXX back to original naming, such that Ezra/Nehemiah would be 1/2 Esdras etc. Hopefully I have my history right...1,2,3,4 Esdras is certainly one confusing mess :)

I looked through my library last night for some definitive answers on the LXX, but it just wasn't covered much in the classes I took, so I'm at a bit of a loss. A search on the internet just leads to contradictory answers. Can anyone help clarify this?

Bless you for taking this on! Here's my best shot at an explanation (from home, without access to most of my library, so subject to correction later).

The Catholic Bible mixes the Deuterocanonical books among the other OT books and also includes the additions to Esther and Daniel in the books of Esther and Daniel. The Protestant Bible, when it includes the Apocrypha at all, puts them (including the additions) in a separate section, either before or after the NT. (The Jewish Bible, of course, as well as many Protestant Bibles, leave them out entirely.) For the Catholic order, see any Catholic version, such as the Jerusalem Bible. For the order of the works as a separate section, see, for example, the RSV Study Bible or the NEB with the Apocrypha.

I believe the Greek Orthodox Bible mixes the Deuteroncanonica among the other OT books too, but it also includes 1 Esdras, 3 Maccabees, the Prayer of Manasseh, and Psalm 151. 4 Maccabees isn't in any of the major canons, but I think it comes as an appendix in the Orthodox canon. I have trouble keeping straight the Orthodox canons in non-Greek languages (Syriac, Coptic, Slavonic) and I'm not going to try here.

In modern translations, when the "Apocrypha" is set apart as a separate section of its own, it seems normally to include all or most of the above. Latin 2 Esdras (incorporating 4 Ezra), of course, does not survive in Greek, apart from a few fragments, but usually a translation of it is included as well.

I think ideally you should include all of the above Greek works (i.e., everything except 2 Esdras) as a separate section and tagged so that the Greek of the Protestant canonical books can be searched either separately or else along with the Apocrypha. Those interested only in the Protestant canon can then ignore them, while those who want to can search the Apocrypha and the rest of the OT LXX together.

All this of course, is contingent on how much work you want to put into it. But since you ask, that's my answer.