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The Catholic and Protestant Bibles are held by both denominations as the true and inspired Word of God. However, the reason why these versions have a different number of official books in their present incarnations can be confusing until one looks at the history of each. When the Christian Bible was first being formed, there existed a Greek translation of the Jewish scriptures, known as the Septuagint. To the modern church, this is now known as the Old Testament. Around 100 A.D., these Scriptures were revised by Jewish scholars to exclude seven books that were written between 170 B.C. and 70 A.D. Christians did not regard this revision as accurate and continued to include those books in their official canon. The books that have been debated over for centuries include: Tobias, Judith, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch, First and Second Machabees, and portions of Esther and Daniel. During the 16th-century Protestant Reformation, the Protestants revised their beliefs about the Septuagint and decided to follow the Jewish tradition of excluding the seven books. This was mostly for theological reasons, as the books they cut out of the canon taught beliefs such as sacrifices for the dead, purgatory and salvation according to good works alone. The books that were removed were labeled the Apocrypha and considered not legitimately inspired by God. While the Protestants removed the Apocrypha, the Catholics continued to consider these books as inspired and kept them within their canon. The Catholic Church supports its stance by stating evidence such as the Church's historical acceptance of the excluded books, and the earliest Christian lists of Biblical books as well as the oldest Christian Bibles containing the Apocrypha. While the Old Testaments of the Protestant and Catholic religions are different, the New Testament is identical in both Bibles. Christian Bible Reference: The Difference Between Protestant and Catholic Bibles Catholic Truth: Catholic and Protestant BiblesThe Septuagint
"Canon" is defined as a list or set of books considered legitimate according to a religious community.The Books
Protestant Bible
Catholic Bible
New Testament
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by vew573 on February 17th, 2010
What are the Apocryphal books? These are the writings that some have included in certain Bibles but that have been rejected by others because they do not bear evidence of having been inspired by God.
The Greek word a‧po′kry‧phos refers to things “carefully concealed.” (Mark 4:22; Luke 8:17; Col. 2:3) The term is applied to books of doubtful authorship or authority or those which, while considered to be of some value for personal reading, lacked evidence of divine inspiration. Such books were kept apart and not read publicly, hence the thought of “concealed.”
At the Council of Carthage, in 397 C.E., it was proposed that seven of the Apocryphal books be added to the Hebrew Scriptures, along with additions to the canonical books of Esther and Daniel. However, it was not until as late as 1546, at the Council of Trent, that the Roman Catholic Church definitely confirmed the acceptance of these additions into its catalog of Bible books. These additions were Tobit, Judith, additions to Esther, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch, three additions to Daniel, First Maccabees, and Second Maccabees.
The book of First Maccabees, while not in any way to be reckoned as an inspired book, contains information that is of historical interest. It gives an account of the struggle of the Jews for independence during the second century B.C.E. under the leadership of the priestly family of the Maccabees.
The rest of the Apocryphal books are full of myths and superstitions and abound with errors. They were never referred to or quoted by Jesus or the writers of the Christian Greek Scriptures.
The Jewish historian Flavius Josephus, of the first century C.E., in his work Against Apion (I, 38-41 [8]), refers to all the books that were recognized by the Hebrews as sacred. He wrote: “We do not possess myriads of inconsistent books, conflicting with each other. Our books, those which are justly accredited, are but two and twenty [the equivalent of our 39 today, as is shown in my previous post, and contain the record of all time.
Of these, five are the books of Moses, comprising the laws and the traditional history from the birth of man down to the death of the lawgiver. . . . From the death of Moses until Artaxerxes, who succeeded Xerxes as king of Persia, the prophets subsequent to Moses wrote the history of the events of their own times in thirteen books. The remaining four books contain hymns to God and precepts for the conduct of human life.” Thus Josephus shows that the canon of the Hebrew Scriptures had been fixed long before the first century C.E.
Biblical scholar Jerome, who completed the Latin Vulgate translation of the Bible about 405 C.E., was quite definite in his position on the Apocryphal books. After listing the inspired books, using the same counting as Josephus, numbering the 39 inspired books of the Hebrew Scriptures as 22, he writes in his prologue to the books of Samuel and Kings in the Vulgate: “Thus there are twenty-two books . . . This prologue of the Scriptures can serve as a fortified approach to all the books which we translate from the Hebrew into Latin; so that we may know that whatever is beyond these must be put in the apocrypha.”
I hope these two posts answers your question..
by vew573 on February 17th, 2010
Establishing the Hebrew Canon. Jewish tradition credits Ezra with beginning the compiling and cataloging of the canon of the Hebrew Scriptures, and it says that this was completed by Nehemiah. Ezra was certainly well equipped for such a work, being one of the inspired Bible writers himself as well as a priest, scholar, and official copyist of sacred writings. (Ezra 7:1-11) There is no reason to doubt the traditional view that the canon of the Hebrew Scriptures was fixed by the end of the fifth centuryB.C.E.
We today list 39 books of the Hebrew Scriptures; the traditional Jewish canon, while including these same books, counts them as24. Some authorities, by putting Ruth with Judges and Lamentations with Jeremiah, counted the number of books as 22, though still holding to exactly the same canonical writings. This made the number of inspired books equal the number of letters in the Hebrew alphabet. The following is the list of the 24 books according to the traditional Jewish canon:
The Law (The Pentateuch)
1. Genesis
2. Exodus
3. Leviticus
4. Numbers
5. Deuteronomy
The Prophets
6. Joshua
7. Judges
8. Samuel (First and Second together as one book)
9. Kings (First and Second together as one book)
10. Isaiah
11. Jeremiah
12. Ezekiel
13. The Twelve Prophets (Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi, as one book)
The Writings (Hagiographa)
14. Psalms
15. Proverbs
16. Job
17. The Song of Solomon
18. Ruth
19. Lamentations
20. Ecclesiastes
21. Esther
22. Daniel
23. Ezra (Nehemiah was included with Ezra)
24. Chronicles (First and Second together as one book)
This was the catalog, or canon, that was accepted as inspired Scripture by Christ Jesus and the early Christian congregation. It was only from these writings that the inspired writers of the Christian Greek Scriptures quoted, and by introducing such quotations with expressions like “as it is written,” they confirmed these as being the Word of God. (Rom. 15:9)
Jesus, in speaking of the complete inspired Scriptures written up till the time of his ministry, referred to the things recorded in “the law of Moses and in the Prophets and Psalms.” (Luke 24:44) Here “Psalms,” as the first book of the Hagiographa, is used to refer to this whole section.
The last historical book to be included in the Hebrew canon was that of Nehemiah. That this was under the direction of God’s spirit is seen in that this book alone provides the starting point for reckoning Daniel’s outstanding prophecy that “from the going forth of the word to restore and to rebuild Jerusalem” until the coming of the Messiah there would be a period of 69 prophetic weeks. (Dan. 9:25; Neh. 2:1-8; 6:15)
The book of Nehemiah also provides the historical background for the last of the prophetic books, Malachi. That Malachi belongs in the canon of the inspired Scriptures cannot be doubted, since even Jesus, the Son of God, quoted it a number of times. (Matt. 11:10,14)
While similar quotations are made from the majority of the books of the Hebrew canon, all of which were written prior to Nehemiah and Malachi, the writers of the Christian Greek Scriptures make no quotations from any so-called inspired writings written after the time of Nehemiah and Malachi down to the time of Christ. This confirms the traditional view of the Jews, and also the belief of the Christian congregation of the first centuryC.E., that the Hebrew Scripture canon ended with the writings of Nehemiah and Malachi.
by Opinion-man on January 11th, 2012
That would be seven FEWER books. ( "Fewer" is for individual items; "Less" for one item: Fewer cookies, less cake.) Just doing my bit for English grammar literacy.
I think it's because Catholics are better readers...
by Moongrim on February 18th, 2010
And whine about Mormons adding books? Hypocrisy.
The original King James bible came with the Apocrypha.
More importantly, why do the Christians have so very many other books of the bible left out?
http://www.thelostbooks.com/
by Temporary Name on February 18th, 2010
I guess they protested against those 7 other books.. Would make them protestant right?
by Scumop on January 11th, 2012
The Catholics held bingos to raise money so could afford more books than the Protestants.
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Comments
The 1611 Version of the King James Bible actually had the Apocrypha included. The cannon was formulated (complete) in
367. There were other books that did not make it into the cannon
for various reasons. The book of Jude states some passages that
refer to noncannocal works. Having said this I believe the original
Hebrew and Greek versions are inspired by God.
by Doc on February 17th, 2010
The Septuagint:
It encompassed the Greek translations of the Hebrew books of the OT and the Greek Apocrypha, it is not now (or then) called "The Old Testament". The Old Testament is the Hebrew Tanakh, which does not include the exclusively Greek books added in the LXX. Jewish scholars did not "revise the scriptures ... to exclude these 7 books": first of all, there were 12 books, not 7, and those books had never been written in Hebrew, weren't written by a prophet (1Macabees itself states that there were no more prophets at the time of its writing, and hence it can't be prophetic), were thus not considered authoritative/inspired, and had never formed a part of Rabbinic Judaism. The Septuagint was for Greek-speaking Jews of the Western Diaspora – and also Western Gentiles – who knew no Hebrew. It was no more authoritative than “the New Living Translation” today.
The Books:
You neglect to point out that there are actually 12 books (plus additions to the Psalms, Esther & Daniel) in the Septuagint that were not in the Hebrew canon. The five remaining books are 3&4 Maccabees, 1&2 Esdras (3&4 Esdras in the Clementine Vulgate), and Prayer of Manasseh. These and the 19 additional Psalms were passed over by Trent though 1&2 (3&4) Esdras and Manasseh were included in the Clementine Vulgate in an appendix where they are specifically described as "outside of the series of the canon" (i.e., non-authoritative/not inspired). The Eastern Orthodox Church considers Psalm 151 to be canonical. The Prayer of Manasseh is accepted as Deutero-Canonical by many Orthodox churches, and is chanted in the service of Great Compline. The Ethiopic Church includes Manasseh in 2Chronicles and regards it as canonical; they also include 1&2 Esdras, not to mention their own unique books entitled 1-3 Maccabees and the pseudepigraphal books of Enoch and Jubilees.
The Protestant Bible
The Jewish Apocrypha was not "removed" by the Protestants. It wasn't officially added by the RCC until the Council of Trent, and that in response to claims by the Protestants. Prior to Trent, there had never been an officially promulgated authoritative list of canonical books issued by any Christian sect, council, patriarch, pope, or Byzantine Emperor. The Greek additions to the Septuagint were generally (but not universally) accepted for their shear antiquity as proper devotional reading for pious Christians, and the Reformers never disputed that. The issue is one of divine authority, that is, which books were considered inspired by God and therefore infallible, and therefore a legitimate source of proof-texts for theological positions. The Apocrypha had always been held in high regard by large swaths of Christianity, but it was never held to be authoritative. In Eastern Orthodoxy, for example, the collection of books is called simply, “the Readable” or “the Worthy of Reading.” These books were not regarded as a legitimate source for proof-texting for theological arguments, though they were considered good devotional reading. It should be noted that the Rabbinic council of Jamnia circa AD 85 gave the authoritative pronouncement on what OT books were inspired, and that is where the Protestant OT canon comes from.
by Stormarm on March 4th, 2010
The Catholic Bible
Again Protestants did not “remove the Apocrypha”. Both Luther’s translation and the KJV in fact included the books – including 1&2 Esdras and the Prayer of Manasseh. They treated it just as the Orthodox Church and the pre-Tridentine Catholic Church had: as cherished devotional reading. It’s from the King James Bible that this collection of books got the name “The Apocrypha”. (Properly, the “The Apocrypha” includes all 1&2 Esdras and Manasseh as well, and excludes 3&4 Macabees and the additions to the Psalms. The RCC calls their authorized 7 and the additions to Esther and Daniel, “The Deutero-Canon”).
In Luther's debates with Rome over the Catholic penitential system, he demanded that they produce authoritative scriptural support for Purgatory, prayers and masses for the dead, and the like, and the RCC essentially said, "Here it is!" pointing to passages in their soon to be declared Deutero-Canon. That was the first time Apocryphal passages were used as the primary support for a theological position, and the primary reason for the establishment of the Catholic Canon at Trent, which included the 7 (out of 12) of the extra books in the Septuagint that supported the penitential system.
Indeed, prior to Trent, there was no authoritative canon list of Biblical books issued by any Christian sect or institution - so one can hardly claim that one group removed several books from a canon that didn't exist. Prior to Trent, though the NT books had been generally agreed on since the 4th century, there was no official NT canon. As for the OT, the only official canon list ever issued prior to Trent was that of the Rabbis at Jamnia.
by Stormarm on March 4th, 2010
Professionaly researched? HOGWASH from start to finish.
by CactusWren on May 28th, 2010