Different Christian traditions give different answers to “how many books were removed from the Bible,” because they start with different canons and use “removed” in different ways. Most mainstream historians prefer to say “not included in the canon” rather than “removed,” since many of these writings were never universally accepted Scripture in the first place.

Core numbers people talk about

  • Protestant vs. Catholic:
    • Protestant Bibles have 66 books.
    • Roman Catholic Bibles have 73 books.
    • From a Catholic perspective, Protestants effectively “removed” 7 Old Testament books (plus some additions to Esther and Daniel) that Catholics call the Deuterocanonical books: Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Sirach, Baruch, 1 Maccabees, 2 Maccabees.
  • King James 1611 vs. modern Protestant Bibles:
    • The original 1611 King James Version had 80 books, because it included a separate section called the Apocrypha (14 books or book-sections between Old and New Testaments).
* Most modern Protestant editions omit this Apocrypha section, so people often say “14 books were removed from the Bible.”

So depending on who is speaking:

  • A Catholic might say Protestants “removed” 7 books.
  • Someone focused on the 1611 KJV might say 14 books were “removed” when publishers stopped printing the Apocrypha.
  • Scholars usually say those books were repositioned (as “Apocrypha”) and later omitted from many editions, not that they were once universally canonical and then erased.

The famous “14 books removed” claim

People online often repeat that “14 books were removed from the Bible in the late 1600s or 1800s.” The list usually includes:

  • 1 Esdras (3 Esdras in some traditions)
  • 2 Esdras (4 Esdras)
  • Tobit
  • Judith
  • Additions to Esther
  • Wisdom of Solomon
  • Sirach (Ecclesiasticus)
  • Baruch (with the Letter of Jeremiah)
  • Song of the Three Holy Children (addition to Daniel)
  • Susanna (addition to Daniel)
  • Bel and the Dragon (addition to Daniel)
  • Prayer of Manasseh
  • 1 Maccabees
  • 2 Maccabees

These were printed in many early Protestant Bibles (including KJV 1611) as “Apocrypha,” considered useful to read but not on the same level of authority as the rest of Scripture.

What about “75 books” or “600 books” removed?

On forums, YouTube, and blogs there are viral claims like “75 books removed from the Bible” or even “over 600 books removed.” These usually mix together:

  • Jewish and Christian Apocrypha
  • Pseudepigrapha (later religious works attributed to biblical figures)
  • Gnostic gospels and other early Christian writings
  • Various ancient religious texts that no major historic Christian group ever treated as part of the standard Bible canon.

In other words, those large numbers are counting every known ancient religious writing not in your Bible as “removed” books, which is not how historians or churches normally use the term. Most of those texts were never broadly accepted into the canon and so were not “taken out” but simply “left out.”

How scholars usually explain it

Most church historians describe the process like this:

  • Many writings circulated among Jews and early Christians.
  • Over several centuries, communities recognized some books as uniquely authoritative for worship and doctrine.
  • Other books remained popular but were classified as “useful but not Scripture” (Apocrypha / Deuterocanonicals) or stayed entirely outside the canon.
  • Later debates (especially at the Reformation) led different Christian traditions to draw their canon lines in slightly different places, which is why modern Bibles differ in total count.

So instead of imagining a single moment when a powerful council slashed “hundreds of books,” it is more accurate to see a gradual process where some books rose to canonical status and others did not.

Simple takeaway

  • There is no single universally agreed number of “books removed from the Bible.”
  • Common concrete counts you will see are:
    • 7 Old Testament books Protestants do not include but Catholics do.
    • 14 Apocrypha books/sections that appeared in early Protestant Bibles (like KJV 1611) but are missing from most modern Protestant editions.
  • Big claims like “75” or “600” removed are usually counting all kinds of extra-biblical writings that were never part of a widely accepted canon in the first place.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.