Help Explain Catholic/Protestant Bible Differences To 12 yr. old

[masondoggy]

This subject came up with my twelve year old yesterday morning after a friend of his told him that Catholics use a different Bible than Methodists do. So I explained the differences to him, but didn’t have much time because we had to leave for CCD class. When he gets home today I am going to get out my KJV bible and a Catholic bible and let him compare the two, I also would like to maybe have a printout from a good internet site that explains this for kids this age for him to supplement what I already told him.

Anybody have any good links for a site aimed at explaining this subject to kids? I have some bookmarked that are on an adult level, but I’d rather give him something for his age group, that’s maybe not so “boring”…

Thanks

 

[Cluny]

<<When he gets home today I am going to get out my KJV bible and a Catholic bible and let him compare the two, I also would like to maybe have a printout from a good internet site that explains this for kids this age for him to supplement what I already told him.
Are you aware that the FULL KJV has these disputed books?

EVERY major English version did until the New American Standard of the mid 1960’s.

 

[rep140]

Both Protestant and Catholic bibles agree on the books of the New Testament, but not necessarily on the books of the Hebrew Scripture (OT). Just as the Christian Church came to agree on the New Testament books over time so did the Jews on their Hebrew Scripture. Some time during the 1st century the Jews decided that only books written in Hebrew would be included in the Hebrew Scripture. Hence, 7 books were not included.
However, in the 4th century St. Jerome when translating the Bible into Latin for use in the early Church included these books. I don’t know the reason.

When Martin Luther translated the bible he used the Hebrew Scripture so the 7 Greek books were not included in the OT. They were, however, included in the bible, but placed after the New Testament. Given this location, they fell out of use and eventually dropped from many Protestant bibles.

I’m not a 12 year old so I hope this makes sense to your son.

 

[mattwcu]

"Are you aware that the FULL KJV has these disputed books?

EVERY major English version did until the New American Standard of the mid 1960’s."

Erp? Um…where did you get that from? Because its not at all true. In fact, it was the Bible Societies from the United States in the beginning of the 1800s which lobbied for the removal of the books. Everyone else followed suit, out of pressure I assume. But even until then they were labeled as questionable, in the back, as apocryphal.