Is the Catholic Bible correct?

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Paul1998

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I’ve noticed that the Catholic Bible has 14 more books than the Protestant one. Do you think that those books are worth being in the canon?
 
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I don’t mean to be snarky, but what answe are you expecting on a Catholic website?
 
Well, i except to receive a proper argumentation for the answer 😃
 
Well since it was the Catholic Church that determined the canon of scripture, I would turn it around and ask why the Protestants removed the books.
 
Every time this comes up I reiterate that to really understand Christ’s message and Paul’s words on spiritual warfare in Ephesians 6:13-20, one must necessarily compare that against the Old Covenant spiritual warfare contained in Wisdom:5:16-23.

Tobit contains some very striking lessons. It’s one of my favorite books.

Maccabees contains some great Hanukkah insights. Ya don’t get that in the abbreviated versions. Likewise understanding of Life after death.

Lots more examples.
 
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They have been part since the Canon was determined.

Only later did Protestants remove these books from their Bibles.
 
Our 73 book canon is correct. This canon of Scripture was established in the late fourth century by numerous councils.
 
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Yah that’s because in the Catholic Bible some are just inserted into other books.
  1. Tobit
  2. Judith
  3. Sirach
  4. Wisdom
  5. 1 Maccabees
  6. 2 Maccabees
  7. Baruch
  8. Letter of Jeremiah which is chapter 6 of Baruch.
  9. Prayer of Azariah and song of the Three Jews is inserted in between chapter 3: 23- 24 in Daniel.
  10. Susanna is chapter 13 of Daniel
  11. Bel and the Dragon is chapter 14 of Daniel
  12. Additions to Esther
The traditional apocrypha which was in the Latin Vulgate appendix following the Council of Trent and made it’s way into the Protestant Apocrypha as well are
13) Prayer of Manasseh
14 3 Esdras( most modern Bibles 1 Esdras)
15) 4 Esdras ( most modern Bibles 2 Esdras)
((The reason is in the Vulgate, Ezra and Nehemiah are 1 and 2 Esdras))

With that said, Eastern Orthodox accept all of the books mentioned above and additionally add
  1. 3 Maccabees
  2. Psalm 151
  3. 4 Maccabees ( in an appendix to the Greek Bible)
The reason is the early Church used the Septuagint. Jerome distinguishes the differences. The additions are not found in the Hebrew Bible. Protestant reformers very influenced by Jerome decided not to accept these books as scripture but only as " useful to read" . Entire books have been written on the Canon. A Bible can have anywhere from 66 Books of a standard Protestant Bible to 81 of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, which includes other books such as 1 Enoch and Jubilees.
 
i don’t understand. Some sources i read says that there are 14 more books…
 
Paul1998 said:
Well, i except to receive a proper argumentation for the answer 😃
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I know that you mean “I expect to receive a proper argumentation for the answer.” So, here is my 2 cents.

The Catholic Bible New Testament has the same number of books as the Protestant Bible. So, no argument needed on that. They only differ in the Old Testament.

The Catholic Bible has 46 Old Testament books, while the Protestant Bible has only 39. Why is there a difference? Because the Protestant Old Testament tried to match the Jewish canon, which has only 39 books. The problem is that Catholic Church is not using the Jewish canon because the Jewish canon was not necessarily the complete Bible that the Jews were using even during the time of Christ.

From the 3rd century up to 132 B.C. the Jewish scholars translated all the Old Testament books into Greek. The result is known as the Septuagint. This was the Bible that the Greek-speaking Jews in Alexandria were using, and it was also the Bible that the Apostles used when they preached to the Gentiles. The Septuagint had 46 books – which matches the Catholic Bible.

It is probable that the Bibles that the Jews in Palestine were using during the time of Christ also had more books than the Jewish canon. But some of the Jewish rabbis decided to include in their canon only those books that were originally written in Hebrew. The book of Wisdom and 2 Maccabees were originally written in Greek, so they excluded those. At the same time they could not find the Hebrew originals of the 5 other extra books (Tobit, Judith, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch and 1 Maccabees) in the Catholic Bible; so, they also excluded those from the Jewish canon. However, with the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls the original of some of these books were found, which adds credibility to the Catholic claim that there were already 46 books in the Old Testament (most of which were written in Hebrew and Aramaic, and only 2 in Greek) even before the time of Christ.
 
If you count the number of books in a Catholic Bible, like New American Bible (NAB) you will find 73 books. If you count the number of books in a Protestant Bible, like New International Version (NIV), you will find 66. Simple math gives you 7 books that were removed.

Different Orthodox have more as indicated above.

You might also find a few where Jeramiah and Lamantations were counted as a single book.
 
Thank you, now i really understand why there is this difference between the Bibles. And the Catholic explanation makes sense to me.
 
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I saw a YouTube video of a Protestant pastor and he sad 14 books. That’s why i sad that in the post. I didn’t actually counted them.
 
perhaps we should take each book one by one to answer your question.

Which book should we start with and what would be your objection to its worth.
it might be a good idea to have jewish people in on this discussion though, as it concerns the Old Testament.

🙂
 
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Fauken said:
I think you mean seven. 😛
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You are correct. There were only 7 books added. The other added texts were additional chapters or verses to the already existing books, so they don’t count as a whole new book.

Also, all these additions are in the Old Testament.
 
well i am catholic, so i agree with the canon. I just wanted to know why it has more books.
 
Its more correct to ask why did our separated brethren, the Protestants, the protestors, take 7 books out of the Bible when they separated 🙂
 
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