The word "apocrypha" (from the Greek word ἀπόκρυφος, apókruphos, meaning "hidden") is today often used to refer to the collection of ancient books printed in some editions of the Bible in a separate section between the Old and New Testaments. Although the term had been in use since the 5th century, it was in Luther's Bible of 1534 that the Apocrypha was first published as a separate inter-Testamental section.Luther was making a polemical point about the canonicity of these books. As an authority for this division, he cited St. Jerome, who in the early 5th century distinguished the Hebrew and Greek Old Testaments, stating that books not found in the Hebrew were not received as canonical. Although his statement was controversial in his day, Jerome was later titled a Doctor of the Church and his authority was also cited in the Anglican statement in 1571 of the Thirty-Nine Articles.

There was agreement among the Reformers that the Apocrypha contained "books proceeding from godly men" and therefore recommended reading. The Geneva Bible said this in 1560: