Collection of sacred writings, written and collected between 1500 and 400 BC, accepted by Jews and Christians as God's written self-revelation. Thirty-nine books appear in the Jewish and Protestant Old Testament; seven additional books appear in the Roman Catholic Old Testament, and ten in the Eastern Orthodox Old Testament. The additional writings are known as "apocryphal" or "deuterocanonical." See also apocrypha; Bible; canon; deuterocanonical; New Testament.