The society after Martin Luther

[JoeyWarren]

WHY DO CATHOLICS AND PROTESTANTS HAVE DIFFERENT BIBLES?

Before we answer this question we need to make sure that we understand that the Old Testament existed long before the coming of Christ, and prior to their being a New Testament, the Old Testament was the Bible (that is why what we call the Old Testament the Jews call the Hebrew Bible, because according to them, there is no New Testament).

So the list of books that are contained in the Old Testament (or Hebrew Bible) had to be put together in the same way that the Church had to put together the list of authoritative books that make up the New Testament.

Now, there exists 2 different canons of the Old Testament: the Palestinian Canon (the Protestant Old Testament) and the Alexandrian Canon (the Catholic Old Testament). The Hebrew Bible (the Old Testament) was written in Hebrew (imagine that) but as the Greek language became the more dominant language a translation of the Hebrew Bible into Greek was created by 70 Jewish scholars between 250-125 B.C. (which is where we get the name Septuagint, Latin for 70).
By the time that Christ was born, Greek was the common language of the Mediterranean world and so the Septuagint was very popular. Jesus would have been familiar with the Septuagint, along with the New Testament writers. In fact, the Septuagint was the Old Testament that the New Testament writers used as a reference when they wrote their individual books (any time they quoted the Old Testament it was the Septuagint that they were quoting from).

The Septuagint (the Alexandrian Canon) contains 46 books, but the Palestinian Canon only contains 39 books. The Palestinian Canon wasn’t put together until 100 A.D. Jewish rabbis rejected 7 of the books that were contained within the Alexandrian Canon (the Septuagint) because they could not find any Hebrew versions of these 7 books which were supposedly translated from Hebrew into Greek. The 7 books are: Tobit, Judith, 1st and 2nd Maccabees, Sirach, Wisdom, and Baruch (also parts of Daniel and Esther). And so, by the beginning of the 2nd century, there were 2 different canons of the Old Testament.

The Early Church used the Septuagint as their Old Testament. In fact, when the canon of the entire Bible (the Old and New Testaments) was established at the Councils of Hippo and Carthage 393-397 A.D. it was the 46 books of the Septuagint (the Alexandrian Canon) that was accepted as the authoritative list of Old Testament books, not the 39 books of the Palestinian Canon.

This canon of the Old Testament was accepted as the canon for 1500 years, until the Protestant Reformation. In 1529, Martin Luther (the leader of the Protestant Reformation) decided to use the Palestinian Canon (39 books) as his Old Testament canon on the same grounds as the Jewish rabbis in 100 A.D. (that they could find no Hebrew versions of the 7 books in question).

People will often accuse the Catholic Church of adding books to the Bible, but as you can see, it was a group of Jewish rabbis who removed books from the Bible in 100 A.D. and Martin Luther who accepted this removal of books and who in fact wanted to remove even more books from the Bible (the New Testament books of James and Revelation). And so, if your Bible contains the 46 books of the Septuagint as the Old Testament, then you are using the same Old Testament canon that Jesus, the Apostles, the New Testament writers and the Catholic Church has used for the past 2000 years.

-Joe Cady

 

[JoeyWarren]

Q: Why are there books in my Bible that aren’t in my friend’s Bible? Did we ‘add’ them or make them up?

Once upon a time, there was a beautiful book that everyone loved and wanted to know more about. Then there came a time when some people came along and said, “That part of the book doesn’t go with what I’m trying to teach people, so I’m taking it out.” Then some others came and did the same… in fact they took seven parts of the book out. Well, some of the people who still loved of the whole book said, “Let’s try to keep all the rest of the book together.”

Okay, so that’s a little more the fairy tale version of the story, but it’s not far from the truth. You see, in the early days of the Church the Bible was still pretty much the way you see it in a Catholic version of the Bible today. However, in the Reformation some of their leaders took books and passages out of the Bible that didn’t go along with the teachings they were trying to put across. By the end of it there were seven books taken out in total. If you can get your hands on a copy of the St. Joseph’s edition of the New American Bible in the front is a copy of the “Dogmatic Constitution on Revelation” and there you will see the Church’s wisdom in selecting what we have in the Bible.

Fr. J.

 

[Contarini]

JoeyWarren:

Protestants will say that Catholics added books to the Bible,

I don’t say any such thing. I say that Catholics went with the longer option, while Protestants went with the shorter option. I myself think that the best approach is that of Jerome, Cajetan, and the 39 Articles–let’s include all the books but distinguish between different levels of authority.

There were two canons for the Old Testament: the Hebrew Canon and the Alexandrian Canon.

In my earlier post I asked for evidence of this Alexandrian Canon. We can find the “Hebrew Canon” in Josephus. Where can we find a Jewish source listing the Alexandrian Canon? I am not aware of any such source. Until you can produce such a thing, you have no business speaking of an “Alexandrian Canon.”

The Alexandrian Canon references the list of books found in the Septuagint. The Septuagint is the Greek translation of the Old Testament, which was translated in 250-125BC. The Alexandrian does contain the 7 books in question.

It’s not that simple. There are many manuscripts of the LXX (Septuagint). I don’t believe any of them existing today are of Jewish provenance. They’re all Christian. So they’re at best indirect evidence for Jewish use of the deuterocanonical books. Different LXX manuscripts contain different books (3 Maccabees, for instance, is found in Alexandrinus and Venetus, while Sinaiticus and Vaticanus omit it; for information of this sort see the prefaces to the various books in the Harper-Collins Study Bible, or any other good scholarly study Bible), so you can’t speak straightforwardly of one LXX canon.

Protestants, desiring to stay true to Christianity’s common heritage with Judaism, will uphold the Hebrew canon.

That’s one important motivation, but the witness of various Christian scholars throughout the centuries is also a factor. Furthermore, the more traditional Protestants (Anglicans, and to some extent Lutherans I believe) don’t simply uphold the Hebrew Canon; rather, we continue to use the Apocrypha but regard it as being on a lower level, as many in the early Church did.

During the time of Jesus Christ, Greek was the common language. Therefore the Bible that Jesus was using was the Greek translation of the Old Testament, the Septuagint.

Well, I don’t know about Jesus Himself. He probably knew some Greek but spoke Aramaic on a daily basis, and I’m pretty sure he would have read the Bible in Hebrew in the synagogue. (After all, Catholic apologists like to appeal to the Aramaic supposedly underlying Matt. 16 to argue that there’s no real difference between “petros” and “petra.”) The NT writers are a different matter. They definitely did use Greek primarily (in some cases exclusively).

More to the point, we have no complete copies of the LXX before the 4th century A.D. And furthermore, few people would have been carrying around complete copies of the Bible. More likely they had individual scrolls or (in the case of NT books) codices in which they had individual books or smaller groups of books. The whole idea of a unified Bible between two nice leather covers is anachronistic. It was a lot more fluid than that.

Catholics uphold this Alexandrian canon found in the Septuagint.

But you have yet to provide a single shred of evidence for the existence of an “Alexandrian canon.” It’s pure speculation.

Edwin

 

[Contarini]

JoeyWarren:

So the list of books that are contained in the Old Testament (or Hebrew Bible) had to be put together in the same way that the Church had to put together the list of authoritative books that make up the New Testament.

I’m not quite sure what that “way” supposedly is.

a translation of the Hebrew Bible into Greek was created by 70 Jewish scholars between 250-125 B.C. (which is where we get the name Septuagint, Latin for 70).

Most scholars do not accept that the LXX was really produced by a unified group of 70 translators, as told in the Letter of Aristeas. In fact I don’t know of any who do. Perhaps some very conservative Orthodox folks might take this literally.

The Early Church used the Septuagint as their Old Testament.

Yes, but there were different manuscripts and different lists of authoritative books.

In fact, when the canon of the entire Bible (the Old and New Testaments) was established at the Councils of Hippo and Carthage 393-397 A.D. it was the 46 books of the Septuagint (the Alexandrian Canon) that was accepted as the authoritative list of Old Testament books, not the 39 books of the Palestinian Canon.

That’s true. Not all of the books are mentioned by name, but I suppose Baruch is probably included in Jeremiah. I’m not sure about Ecclesiasticus–it may be listed as one of the “Five Books of Solomon” (even though it isn’t attributed to Solomon), or the fifth book (besides the obvious four: Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Wisdom and Canticles) may be the Psalms of Solomon. That’s the opinion of this site, but I’m not sure how far I trust them.

Furthermore, this is not the first canonical list by any means. Melito of Sardis (c. 170), as recorded by Eusebius (early 4th cent.), gives the “Hebrew canon” minus Esther (which was a frequently disputed book). Origen (again according to Eusebius) gives the Hebrew canon (although he elsewhere defended the LXX additions to Daniel and Esther, and in this list includes the Epistle of Jeremiah, and probably–by implication–Baruch as well), with the Maccabees added in a manner that implies that they were under some question. Cyril of Jerusalem again lists the Hebrew canon plus Baruch and the letter of Jeremiah. Hilary of Poitiers does the same (like Origen, not mentioning Baruch explicitly) and acknowledges that some also recognize Tobit and Judith. You can find more of these lists on the www.bible-researcher.com website. I don’t know how far to trust these guys, since they are obviously conservative Calvinists with an agenda, but I trust them at least as much as I would Catholic Answers–frankly they seem fairer and more professional, and they cite reputable sources for their information (and I’m familiar with most of the lists they cite–as far as I can tell they aren’t monkeying with anything).

Speaking of Catholic Answers, their treatment of the history of the canon omits all the lists I gave above. Note that they make a great deal of early citations of the deuterocanonicals, but don’t mention early lists that omit them. Can you explain this? Doesn’t this look suspiciously like the sort of behavior of which you have accused Protestants?

The bible-research folks do omit the “Damasine list” which Catholic Answers ascribes to the late 4th century. But this is a controversial text–it’s part of the Gelasian canon from 100 years later, and some scholars claim that it is spurious and actually dates from the sixth century. So they do have some excuse for omitting this, although it would have been fairer to include it and mention the scholarly controversy surrounding it.

This canon of the Old Testament was accepted as the canon for 1500 years,

Not true. John of Damascus, for instance, gives the books of the Hebrew canon, lists the two deuterocanonical wisdom books as “virtuous and noble” but not fully canonical, and doesn’t mention any of the others. The bible-research site gives a number of other examples, but they don’t include the texts, so I’ll rest on John of Damascus (which they are citing from an easily accessible and verifiable source). But it’s well known that many even in the West continued to have some question about the status of the deuterocanonicals right up to the Reformation. The Council of Basle endorsed them, but it was of dubious authority.

Your third post is, to use the author’s candid words, a “fairy tale,” so I won’t bother responding to it.

Edwin

 

[Paris_Blues]

Huguenot:

I don’t know what American Protestants think about their denomination, but here in France we don’t think “our denomination” is the truth, we think Jesus-Christ is the truth !!

Even if you didn’t say “Protestants are evil”, some of your messages are very tough …or maybe it’s the normal American way of debating, I don’t know …

You say Jesus is the Truth, which He is (John 14:6) but how do you know if you’re getting the Fullness of Truth of Him?

Before I converted to Catholicism, I THOUGHT I was getting the whole Truth of Christ but still deep down, I still felt empty. I knew there was something that I wanted more of but didn’t how or where to find it - well, just turn to the Bible!

When I got into the CC, wow…that’s where I found the Fullness of Truth!!!

I’m sorry if my messages can sound harsh…don’t mean to or anything.

 

[IanS]

Contarini:

If you don’t trust that the Catholic Church used the proper OT canon, why do you put so much faith in the NT canon?? Many books were hotly contested for 40 years before the Second Council of Carthage in 419AD. Even Martin Luther reluctantly admitted, “We are obligated to yield many things to the Papists, they posses the Word of God which we have received from them, otherwise we should have known nothing about it”.

 

[JoeyWarren]

There is only one truth. No one is arguing that.

But what is being argued, who in this physical world is teaching the truth?

No priest within the Catholic Church can stand behind pulpit and preach something that is not taught by the Catholic Church. All priests in unison teach the same truth.

On the otherhand, each pastor, preacher, minister teaches what he will based on his personal interpretation of the Bible.

The bible has only one truth. Who should I listen to? The Catholic Church that has been teaching the same truth since approximately 33 AD or a Protestant preacher who at will can change his truth on a whim his interpretation of the Holy writ?

 

[Paris_Blues]

I heard that you need both Tradition and Magisterium to read/interpret the Bible.

 

[Contarini]

IanS:

Contarini:

If you don’t trust that the Catholic Church used the proper OT canon, why do you put so much faith in the NT canon??

Well, I’d dispute both clauses. I don’t see the disputed books of the OT as a very big deal. I think those Protestants who reject them entirely are making a big mistake and going against the consensus of Christian tradition. But clearly there has been a debate about them throughout Christian history, so I don’t think they should be used as the foundation for dogma.

There was a lot less dispute about the NT canon, and it pretty much ceased after the 4th century, with the exception of a flurry in the Renaissance (that’s the context for Luther’s doubts about James and Revelation). However, I would put less stress on the General Epistles and Revelation than on the Gospels and the Pauline Epistles, which were clearly the first NT books to be accepted without question as inspired (Acts, 1 Peter, and 1 John would be close I think).

So in short, I don’t think the early Church (in context that appears to be what you mean by the Catholic Church, not for instance the Council of Trent, in which I obviously have far less confidence) messed up in any major way. I think they were right to include the disputed books as being in some sense canonical, even though clearly questions continued about exactly what that sense was. And similarly I trust them on the NT canon. But my faith is not in the canon. It’s in Christ. And different books of Scripture witness to Christ in different ways and to different degrees.

Edwin

 

[IanS]

Actually, in many churches, there was much confusion and debate about which books were inspired. Some were under the opinion that certain books later judged to be canonical (Hebrews, Jude, Revelation, 2 Peter) were NOT inspired. Others held that certain books later judged to be non-canonical (Shepard of Hermas, the Gospels of Peter, and Thomas, the letters of Barnabas and Clement) were inspired.

Around the end of the fourth century, The Church settled the confusion and established the canon of the OT and NT with a series of councils and decrees.

*382AD - Pope Damasus, wrote a decree listing the present OT and NT canon of 73 books.
393AD - Council of Hippo approved the 73 book OT and NT canon.
397AD - Council of Carthage also approved the 73 book OT and NT canon.
405AD - Pope St. Innocent wrote a letter confirming the 73 book OT and NT canon approved at Hippo and Carthage.
419AD - Second Council of Carthage also approved the 73 book OT and NT canon.
1441AD - the ecumenical council of Florence formally defined the same 73 book list of Scripture.
1546AD - the ecumenical council of Trent formally defined the same 73 books as the canon of the Bible. *

How is this messing up big time?

The Catholic Church used her teaching authority to verify which books belonged to the Bible and gave assurance that everything was inspired. Without the witness of the Catholic Church, we would be blind to both of these truths.

St. Augustine put it best, “I would put no faith in the Gospels unless the authority of the Catholic Church directed me to do so.” He fully realized that the only way to be sure about what is in the Bible is to accept the authority of the Catholic Church.

The Bible is a Catholic book. The NT was written, copied , collected and preserved by Catholics. The Catholic church officially confirmed the canon of the Bible, thus it is from the Catholic Church that all other “Christians” have the Bible at all.

The Catholic Church with the authority to determine the infallible Word of God must have infallible guidance by the Holy Spirit. Apart from what is declared by the Catholic church we have no guarantee that what is in the Bible is the Word of God. To trust the Bible is to trust the Catholic church.

It is a sad irony that protestants love the Bible soooo much yet spit in the face of those who gave it to them in the first place.

 

[viktor_aleksndr]

GKC:

Edwin,

“Please don’t bring up Henry VIII–that was an exceptional case and was an annulment anyway. Besides, Luther didn’t support Henry’s “divorce.”).”

Nope. Henry was playing by the commmon rules of impediments/dispensations/decrees of nullity. It was how things were done then, not an exceptional case at all. One of Hank’s sisters got 2 decrees of nullity about that time, for some knee-slapping reasons, for example. What was exceptional was factoring in the aunt of the Holy Roman Emperor.

GKC

Though Luther didnt support Henry’s divorce but we must remember that it is because of luther’s reformation that Henry had the idea that they can now live free from law of the Holy Catholic Church. So immorality started.

 

[Huguenot]

Paris Blues:

You say Jesus is the Truth, which He is (John 14:6) but how do you know if you’re getting the Fullness of Truth of Him?

Before I converted to Catholicism, I THOUGHT I was getting the whole Truth of Christ but still deep down, I still felt empty. I knew there was something that I wanted more of but didn’t how or where to find it - well, just turn to the Bible!

When I got into the CC, wow…that’s where I found the Fullness of Truth!!!

I’m sorry if my messages can sound harsh…don’t mean to or anything.

Your messages sound very harsh …by European standards anyway …we usually discuss more “calmly” …

I feel all right just as I am …

It is difficult to compare different people’s situations since we’ve all been brought up in different ways, if I have understood you well you’ve been brought up in Protestantism, I’ve been brought up in atheism …

 

[Huguenot]

IanS:

Actually, in many churches, there was much confusion and debate about which books were inspired. Some were under the opinion that certain books later judged to be canonical (Hebrews, Jude, Revelation, 2 Peter) were NOT inspired. Others held that certain books later judged to be non-canonical (Shepard of Hermas, the Gospels of Peter, and Thomas, the letters of Barnabas and Clement) were inspired.

Around the end of the fourth century, The Church settled the confusion and established the canon of the OT and NT with a series of councils and decrees.

382AD - Pope Damasus, wrote a decree listing the present OT and NT canon of 73 books.
393AD - Council of Hippo approved the 73 book OT and NT canon.
397AD - Council of Carthage also approved the 73 book OT and NT canon.
405AD - Pope St. Innocent wrote a letter confirming the 73 book OT and NT canon approved at Hippo and Carthage.
419AD - Second Council of Carthage also approved the 73 book OT and NT canon.
1441AD - the ecumenical council of Florence formally defined the same 73 book list of Scripture.
1546AD - the ecumenical council of Trent formally defined the same 73 books as the canon of the Bible.

How is this messing up big time?

The Catholic Church used her teaching authority to verify which books belonged to the Bible and gave assurance that everything was inspired. Without the witness of the Catholic Church, we would be blind to both of these truths.

St. Augustine put it best, “I would put no faith in the Gospels unless the authority of the Catholic Church directed me to do so.” He fully realized that the only way to be sure about what is in the Bible is to accept the authority of the Catholic Church.

The Bible is a Catholic book. The NT was written, copied , collected and preserved by Catholics. The Catholic church officially confirmed the canon of the Bible, thus it is from the Catholic Church that all other “Christians” have the Bible at all.

The Catholic Church with the authority to determine the infallible Word of God must have infallible guidance by the Holy Spirit. Apart from what is declared by the Catholic church we have no guarantee that what is in the Bible is the Word of God. To trust the Bible is to trust the Catholic church.

It is a sad irony that protestants love the Bible soooo much yet spit in the face of those who gave it to them in the first place.

But I don’t spit on your faces, nor do I reject everything the Catholic Church teaches, I just don’t agree with some of the things it teaches …

 

[JoeyWarren]

Dear Joey,

Thank you for your email of December 22, expressing your concerns about our Montgomery LifeWay Christian Store not carrying Catholic Bibles while our web site does as well as our associate saying that Catholics were not
Christians.

I am pleased to try to respond.

As you may know, LifeWay Christian Stores is a division of LifeWay Christian Resources which is part of the Southern Baptist Convention. Our
name was Baptist Book Stores until 1998 when our parent organization hanged its name. To the extent feasible, we try to serve all Christians with the products we carry. Southern Baptists have cooperated with Roman Catholics on various initiatives in the recent past. The pastor of the
Baptist Church that I am a member of prayed for Catholics after of the death of Pope John Paul II. LifeWay Christian Stores promoted and carried
“The Passion of the Christ” DVD. But there are some theological differences on which there is no common ground. Among them are the
apocryphal books contained in Catholic Bibles which are not part of Scripture accepted by most Protestant denominations. Since the Bible is
God’s written revelation of Himself to mankind and the source of our Christian faith, carrying Bibles with books that we do not believe were
divinely inspired would be inconsistent with our theology. Another major issue is the doctrine of salvation. The official position of the Roman
Catholic Church on salvation is a works-based doctrine found in the Tridentine Creed.

The above is not meant to say that we believe that Catholics are not Christians. This issue has to do with how one defines “Christian.” If the definition includes all who have faith in Christ, then virtually all
Catholics and Protestants are Christians. If it only includes those who hold a biblical view of salvation (Ephesians 2:8-9) and have received Christ as Lord and Savior, then not all Catholics or Protestants (including Baptists) are Christians. I am sending a copy of this email to the manager
of our Montgomery store so he can discuss this with the associate that answered your question about whether Catholics are Christians.

On a personal note, my best friend growing up, one of my college roommates, and my next door neighbor for 23 years were all devout Roman Catholics. In fact, the neighbor had been a priest and missionary. One member of the
young adult Sunday School class that I teach if a former Catholic, and he often helps the class understand Catholic beliefs. During a Christmas
lesson, he clarified the Catholic teaching on Mary, mother of Jesus. I respect these friends and have a good relationship with them and have freely discussed theology with my college roommate and neighbor. All Christians owe a huge debt of gratitude to the Catholic Church for preserving the Bible and spreading the Christian faith throughout the world for centuries.

You were correct in stating that our web site listed NAB and Rheims Bibles. There were four NAB Bibles that should not have been made available there, and we are in the process of removing them. There is another listing for a Parallel New Testament with eight translations including the NAB and Rheims, and this product listing was intentional.

The decisions we make about the products we carry and do not carry are not easy. There will always be diverse opinions about these decisions, and we know that we will not be able to please everyone. Many of our customers tell us that trust is one of the main reasons they shop at our stores. We take that trust seriously and try very hard to do the right thing by providing Bibles and biblically-based products that help people know Jesus
Christ and seek His Kingdom.

Thank you for shopping at the Montgomery LifeWay Christian Store and for caring enough to write and tell us about your concerns on these vitally
important issues. I sincerely hope this information on the rationale for our decision not to carry Catholic Bibles and the comments on who is a
Christian are helpful to you.

Blessings,

Jim Shull
LifeWay Christian Stores
615-251-5885

 

[JoeyWarren]

and here is my original email to him:

I went into your store the other day in Montgomery Alabama. I was the searching for the New Amercian Bible(NAB). It’s the Catholic version. I
asked the clerk where it was. He said this is not a Catholic Store. I said the name of your store is LifeWay CHRISTIAN Store. He said yes in a
matter of fact what’s your point tone. I asked him he was saying Catholics were not christians and he replied vehemetly with a YES.

That contradicts what your website offer. It offers both NAB and Rheims both which are Catholic Bibles.

Can you reconcile this information

thank you and god bless!

 

[IanS]

Huguenot:

But I don’t spit on your faces, nor do I reject everything the Catholic Church teaches, I just don’t agree with some of the things it teaches …

You need to come over to this side of the lake. Things are getting pretty bad.

 

[JoeyWarren]

Huguenot:

But I don’t spit on your faces, nor do I reject everything the Catholic Church teaches, I just don’t agree with some of the things it teaches …

What is it you don’t agree with?

 

[Huguenot]

IanS:

You need to come over to this side of the lake. Things are getting pretty bad.

What lake are you talking about ??? The Atlantic Ocean ???

 

[Huguenot]

JoeyWarren:

What is it you don’t agree with?

Since you have read some of my messages, you already know it, my dear …

But let’s try to make a list, although usually I define myself by what I believe, not in opposition to the Catholic Church …

-the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist
-infant baptism
-the existence of other mediators apart from Christ himself
-the role of “good works” in salvation ( but I’m not sure what the exact Catholic teaching is, since I’ve heard different things )
-praying other persons apart from God ( Mary or other saints )
-all the doctrines about Mary which have been added to New Testament teaching : immaculate conception, assumption, I don’t believe in her apparitions either, but someone told me ( on a French Catholic forum ) that you can be a good Catholic without believing in the
-the use of “holy water” ( “blessed water” ? I’m not sure how you call it in English )
-the fact of crossing oneself
-the use of statues and images ( it depends on HOW they are used … )
-the use of crucifixes ( it also depends on HOW they are used ; if they are used as reminders of what Jesus has done for us it’s OK, even if I prefer not having one–I don’t have an “empty cross” either, I think it comes from my atheist background, not from the fact that I am Protestant )
-the fact of using other documents apart from the Bible as sources of spiritual authority ( I’m the “sola scriptura” “sola fide” “sola gratia” type … )

…and a few others …

 

[JoeyWarren]

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

I think I understand the real problem now.

You went from one extreme(atheism) to another (fundamentalism)

Do you believe in the rapture as well?

To answer all the items you have a problem or disagree with would take a week a whole day to write.

other than that I would suggest, if you have a spare 20 dollars + shipping I suggest you go to Amazon.com and do a search on ‘Patrick Madrid’ or use this link:
amazon.com/gp/search/ref=br_ss_hs/103-9823907-8119819?search-alias=aps&keywords=Patrick%20Madrid

and consider purchasing the first two books listed:
Answer me this $9.56
Where is that in the Bible $8.96

Patrick writes in a manner and has knowledge that is easier to understand and read.

I personally don’t recommend the catechism to a protestant for reading, since it is geared for those already catholic.

Protestants are the reason that I plan to take over the RCIA classes at my parish, because at any given class, we have 10% protestants sitting in, and I believe when you have any protestants sitting in, you need to cover RCIA from a biblical basis first than refer to the catechism. As the Bible will shed the Light of Jesus on the Catechism and then eventually the protestant normally will see that the Catechism sheds light on the Bible…