Biblical Canon

The Eastern Orthodox Church accepts a biblical canon that includes the deuterocanonical books of the Old Testament (Tobit, Judith, 1–2 Maccabees, Wisdom, Sirach, Baruch, and additions to Esther and Daniel), following the Septuagint rather than the Hebrew (Masoretic) canon adopted by Protestantism. The New Testament canon is the standard 27 books. Some Orthodox churches also include additional books in their expanded Old Testament canon (such as 3 Maccabees, 1 Esdras, and the Prayer of Manasseh), meaning the exact canon varies slightly among Orthodox churches.

The Septuagint (LXX) is the authoritative Old Testament text in Orthodox tradition, as it was the Bible of the Greek-speaking early Church and is quoted extensively in the New Testament. Orthodox biblical hermeneutics emphasizes reading Scripture within the living Tradition of the Church and in the light of patristic commentary. The typological, allegorical, and tropological senses of Scripture are valued alongside the historical-literal sense, following the Alexandrian exegetical tradition.