"Extra" Books in the Catholic Bible

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I was discussing this with a friend of mine who is sadly an ex-Catholic. He calls the Catholic Bible a “storybook” due to those books. He gave several examples as to why he feels this is not Cannon, stating there is no refrences to these in any other part of scripture. Any help would be greatly apprcieated. I’m a Catholic, born and raised. But, I really don’t know much about these books.
 
The only reason we have the Bible is because Christ gave us His Church to teach with His authority and She gave us the Bible by exercising Her authority from Him to declare which writings are the Word of God.

The authority from Christ of His Catholic Church is shown as coming through His Supreme Vicar St Peter.
“You are Peter and on this rock I will build My Church.” (Mt 16:18)
“The gates of hell will not prevail against it.”(Mt 16:18)
I will give you the keys of the Kingdom of heaven.” ( Mt 16:19)
“Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven.” (Mt 16:19) [Later also to theTwelve]

Sole authority:
“Strengthen your brethren.” (Lk 22:32)
“Feed My sheep.”(Jn 21:17).

The Apostles used the Old Testament, but the Apostles taught what Jesus had taught them – the new covenant which they and Paul laboriously wrote down over the 35 years or so after the death of Jesus. They ordained priests and installed bishops, baptized, confirmed, forgave sins, witnessed marriages, identified heretics as the Acts of the Apostles records.

The books that actually are the inspired Word of God was decided by Pope Damasus at a Council of Rome in 382, confirmed at the Councils of Hippo, 393, Carthage III 397, Carthage !V in 419 and canonised at the Council of Trent (1545-1563), and from the earliest days of the Catholic Church, popes and councils, saints and scholars have encouraged Bible reading.

All of this is some 1200 years before Luther chose to leave out seven books, which is why Protestants don’t know of the cleansing in Purgatory stressed in the book of Maccabees.
 
The Sadducees’ question about the seven husbands in the afterlife in Matthew 7 is from the story of the 7 husbands in the Book of Tobit.

The scales which fell from Paul’s eyes in Acts of the Apostles 9:18 is a reference to the scales which fell from Tobit’s eyes in Tobit 11:7-15

The reference to the desolating sacrilege in Matthew 24 is in both the Book of Daniel and 1 Maccabees 1:54.

The Mother of Jesus under the cross in John 19 was foreshadowed by the mother who watched her seven sons die in 2 Maccabees 7.

There are others.

-Tim-
 
If being mentioned in the new testament is the standard for what books belong in the old testament then many books your friend does not question must be thrown out. Such as the book of Ruth.

There are books referenced in the new test that are not in the bible at all. The book of Jude quotes the book of Enoch and the Book of Moses. Paul refers to a 3rd letter to the Corinthians (which would have been the first), as well as a letter to the Laudecians

And as has been pointed out Tobit, Maccabees, and wisdom are referenced in the New testament.
 
Extra Books in the Catholic Bible: It should be understood that the Catholic Church came before the Bible. At the time of Jesus Himself did not write anything. At Pentecost when The Catholic Church came into being, there was no Bible as such. There was no official canon of Scripture of the Old Testament writings. The Sanhedrin and the Sadducees believed only the 5 books of the Law of Moses to be Scripture. The Scribes and the Pharisees believed besides the Law of Moses, but also the Prophets, the writings and the Psalms. The Essenes had their own beliefs of what was Scripture. None were in agreement with the other as to what was to be considered Sacred Scripture. The early Catholic Church used the Alexandrian or Septuagint version instead of the Palestinian version. The Septuagint version included 1&2 Maccabees, Tobit, Sirach, Judith, Wisdom, and Baruch and some additional parts of Daniel and Esther.
When the Apostles first began to preach the Good News and to teach there was not a New Testament. The Apostles preached and taught orally just as Jesus did. Only a few of the Apostles wrote anything. It was then to the Catholic Church to decide what writings would be thought under the guidance of the Holy Spirit to be inspired and therefore Sacred. So it is to the Catholic Church to have the authority to collect preserve and protect what she deemed Sacred and the Catholic Church alone has the right to say what Scripture is and what is not Scripture and to say what it means. So, in the end there is no extra books to be found in the Catholic Bible.
 
Steveabrous said:
If being mentioned in the new testament is the standard for what books belong in the old testament then many books your friend does not question must be thrown out. Such as the book of Ruth.

There are books referenced in the new test that are not in the bible at all. The book of Jude quotes the book of Enoch and the Book of Moses. Paul refers to a 3rd letter to the Corinthians (which would have been the first), as well as a letter to the Laudecians

And as has been pointed out Tobit, Maccabees, and wisdom are referenced in the New testament.
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Paul mentions Jannes and Jambres, who opposed Moses in the desert. Won’t find them in the Old Testament! The oral tradition preserved their names and actions. As well, the prophecy that the Messiah would called “a Nazorean” is nowhere in scripture.

The OP’s friend is the victim of the usual inaccuracies and anti-Catholic bigotry that is the last acceptable prejudice.
 
TCinKC said:
I was discussing this with a friend of mine who is sadly an ex-Catholic. He calls the Catholic Bible a “storybook” due to those books. He gave several examples as to why he feels this is not Cannon, stating there is no refrences to these in any other part of scripture. Any help would be greatly apprcieated. I’m a Catholic, born and raised. But, I really don’t know much about these books.
Click to expand...
At one point, what is referred to as “the catholic bible” was the only bible. There are no extra books…that is, no books were “added” to the original bible. What we really have is a Protestant bible with fewer books than THE bible that the Catholic Church uses, because Protestant reformers stripped books away that did not support their theology.

So while for the first 15 centuries of Christianity all books in the bible were considered “inspired by God”, all of a sudden Protestants felt that inspiration by man was better than inspiration by God…kind of like the very sin perpetrated by Adam and Eve!
 
The Council of Jamnia (90-100AD), a Jewish council, declared the following books of the OT to be banned for rather spurious reasons as they did not seemingly conform to the Pentateuch:

a. They had to be written in Hebrew, which eliminated Judith (Aramaic), Wisdom (Greek), Tobit (Aramaic), 2 Maccabees (Greek), and parts of Daniel and Esther that were written in Aramaic.

b. They had to have been written in Palestine, which threw out Baruch and Tobit.

c. They had to have been written prior to 400BC, which eliminated Sirach and 1 and 2Maccabees.

These are from notes I made some time ago. My dim memory wants to say that they did not believe in certain aspects presented in these books.

Hope this is of some help.
 
TCinKC said:
I was discussing this with a friend of mine who is sadly an ex-Catholic. He calls the Catholic Bible a “storybook” due to those books. He gave several examples as to why he feels this is not Cannon, stating there is no refrences to these in any other part of scripture. Any help would be greatly apprcieated. I’m a Catholic, born and raised. But, I really don’t know much about these books.
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I actually have a group on this site that deals with Deuterocanon, assuming
that is what you mean about “Extra Books.” It’s not highly active at the mo-
ment, needs a few more members to begin a group forum,but already there
are plenty of good pieces of information on the so-called “Apocrypha.”

In my group, we talk bring up challenges posed towards the Deuterocanon,
show how these books are used in other parts of Scripture such as in the
New Testament, debunk myths, share what we like about the books, it’s
kinda cool.

Tell me if your interested, by PM or here.
 
RJB said:
The Council of Jamnia (90-100AD), a Jewish council, declared the following books of the OT to be banned for rather spurious reasons as they did not seemingly conform to the Pentateuch:

a. They had to be written in Hebrew, which eliminated Judith (Aramaic), Wisdom (Greek), Tobit (Aramaic), 2 Maccabees (Greek), and parts of Daniel and Esther that were written in Aramaic.

b. They had to have been written in Palestine, which threw out Baruch and Tobit.

c. They had to have been written prior to 400BC, which eliminated Sirach and 1 and 2Maccabees.

These are from notes I made some time ago. My dim memory wants to say that they did not believe in certain aspects presented in these books.

Hope this is of some help.
Click to expand...
According to this CA apologist the council of Jamnia never happened and the decision to get rid of said books happened much later.

catholic.com/video/why-do-catholic-bibles-have-seven-more-books-than-protestant-bibles
 
TCinKC said:
I was discussing this with a friend of mine who is sadly an ex-Catholic. He calls the Catholic Bible a “storybook” due to those books. He gave several examples as to why he feels this is not Cannon, stating there is no refrences to these in any other part of scripture. Any help would be greatly apprcieated. I’m a Catholic, born and raised. But, I really don’t know much about these books.
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TCinKC, I hope you’re finding answers to your question, the responses on this thread have been very informative. Just to add something else to my previous answer, there are some great tracts regarding this topic on this website, here’s a quote from one of them:

the label “unscriptural” was first applied by the Protestant Reformers of the 16th century. The truth is, portions of these books contradict elements of Protestant doctrine (as in the case of 2 Maccabees 12, which clearly supports prayers for the dead and a belief in purgatory), and the “reformers” therefore needed some excuse to eliminate them from the canon. However, these books are “unscriptural” only if misinterpreted. It should also be noted that the first-century Christians–including Jesus and the apostles–effectively considered these seven books canonical. They quoted from the Septuagint, a Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures that contained these seven books. More importantly, the deuterocanonicals are clearly alluded to in the New Testament.

catholic.com/quickquestions/didnt-the-catholic-church-add-to-the-bible
 
Steveabrous #13
According to this CA apologist the council of Jamnia never happened and the decision to get rid of said books happened much later.
Click to expand...
Fr John A Hardon, S.J., in The Catholic Catechism points out that the rabbinical school at Jamnia circa A.D. 100 redefined the canon of the Old testament for the Jews, leaving out the seven books from their Palestinian canon because not conforming to the Pentateuch, or written after the time of Esdra (circa 400 B.C.) or not in Hebrew in Palestine, and “made a fence around it.”
 
Why would one depend on a group of decidely anti-Christians who don’t believe in Jesus or the Trinity and use their output as your source of your Holy Book and claims the Catholic version is bogus? By what authority did this group of innovative Christians claim to have the power to decide what goes into their 66 books Bible? What were they using prior to that? The septuagint has been around for a couple of centuries before Christ and used extensively by the Jews themselves.
 
TCinKC said:
I was discussing this with a friend of mine who is sadly an ex-Catholic. He calls the Catholic Bible a “storybook” due to those books. He gave several examples as to why he feels this is not Cannon, stating there is no refrences to these in any other part of scripture. Any help would be greatly apprcieated. I’m a Catholic, born and raised. But, I really don’t know much about these books.
Click to expand...
There is a new book out on the Greek Septuagint and it formation (written by a non-Catholic) called, ‘When God spoke Greek’ by Timothy Michael Law. It lays out how the Gospel writers used the Greek Septuagint as their Bible in the first century, and how that Bible included all those extra books that the later Protestants removed.
 
Judas_Thaddeus said:
I actually have a group on this site that deals with Deuterocanon, assuming
that is what you mean about “Extra Books.” It’s not highly active at the mo-
ment, needs a few more members to begin a group forum,but already there
are plenty of good pieces of information on the so-called “Apocrypha.”

In my group, we talk bring up challenges posed towards the Deuterocanon,
show how these books are used in other parts of Scripture such as in the
New Testament, debunk myths, share what we like about the books, it’s
kinda cool.

Tell me if your interested, by PM or here.
Click to expand...
Hi Judas Thaddeus: I for one would be very much interested in your group. Please let me know what forum or thread you are on so that I can join it it that is ok with you.
 
TCinKC said:
I was discussing this with a friend of mine who is sadly an ex-Catholic. He calls the Catholic Bible a “storybook” due to those books. He gave several examples as to why he feels this is not Cannon, stating there is no refrences to these in any other part of scripture. Any help would be greatly apprcieated. I’m a Catholic, born and raised. But, I really don’t know much about these books.
Click to expand...
Give friend a lesson in clear thinking.

Here’s his objection: Neither Jesus nor the New Testament writers ever quoted from the deuterocanonical books as Scripture or demonstrably use their content.
Though Jesus and the Apostles cite the OT nearly 300 times in the pages of the NT, they never quote or use information from any of these books accepted by the Roman Catholic Church. Therefore, the deuterocanonical books should not be included in the OT canon.

Here’s what you need to ask him: What exactly is your argument?
It goes like this:
(1) Only OT books quoted or used in the NT should be in the OT canon.
(2) The deuterocanonicals are not quoted or used in the NT.
(3) So, the deuterocanonicals are not in the OT canon.

Analysis: He’s got problems here:
(a) Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Solomon are not quoted in the NT. Some authors include Judges and Ruth in that group. Yet they are accepted in the Protestant canon.
(b) Jude 14-15 quotes 1 Enoch 1:9. So should Jude be eliminated from the NT or should Enoch be included in the OT?
(c) Even if Ezra, etc. were quoted, how does your friend arrive at (1) above? Is it in the NT? or whole Bible? No. So, why should anyone accept it?
 
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