I go to a Christian school, and noticed how the bible I use (KJV) has 66 books in it, and that some other versions had more and was curious to why that is. I’ve heard something about the printing companies removing them, and I’ve heard that Catholics “added” them. Also, did the earlier bibles have more than 66 books, or did they generally start out with more, and they were removed for other reasons?
Thanks for the answers ahead of time!
Danny, Welcome to the CAF. The original KJV was translated and printed in 1611 and included or was an identical to the Catholic Bible that it was translated from “The Vulgate”
The Vulgate had used the “Septuagint” or LXX OT written in Greek
After the reformation Calvin and Co. decided to review the KJV and as for the source for the Old Testament decided to use the Masoretic version of the OT written in Hebrew instead, which is a LATER version to the LXX. (The Jews distrusted the LXX because it was used by those pesky Christians)
They in fact removed some books that gave credibility and weight to some of the teachings of the Catholic Church.
Since there were no surviving original manuscripts in Hebrew or Aramaic for the removed books of the Masoretic OT they also removed those books as “not inspired” and threw them out of the New KJV in 1885.
Now of Course God likes to play jokes on all of us and of course he played a major one on Calvin and Co.
When they discovered the scrolls in the Dead Sea in the 1940’s lo and behold there were fragments of some of the “removed” books in Aramaic.
Uh Oh and now?
Well there you have it, The Catholic Church accepted the LXX as authoritative because The Apostles and Jesus used it! It was the version that all the Jews of His time used except the Sanhedrin which of course only would use the one in Hebrew.
It is like what happened after Vatican II, the Church up to that point was using Latin for Mass and guess what, not many people could understand what was being said.
So the Church translated the Missal into all the languages where mass is celebrated. (Mass in Vernacular)
Same thing happened in Israel, they had been conquered by the Greeks first and the Romans second, Greek was the language the people used everyday, but when they went to the Sinagogue the Shabath and the Rabbi read the Torah no one understood any thing.
About 200 years before our Lord was born 70 odd scholars (Rabbis) decided to translate the Torah into Greek hence the name Septuagint or LXX for the number of “translators” that worked on the project.
