Why Protestant Bibles Are Smaller

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RaisedCatholic said:
Which makes me wonder, if the east & the west had the exact same books in their Bible after those early church councils, why do the Eastern Orthodox have “bigger” Bibles than Catholic Bible, and why don’t all Eastern traditions have the exact same books even within the Eastern Orthodox tradition? I wonder if this gets addressed in his book, since he devotes a whole chapter to the Eastern Orthodox Bible.
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The reason is mainly, from what I understand anyways, a number of reasons. The Orthodox don’t have a formality of the Canon like the Catholic Church does. To them the deuterocanonical books are considered the longer canon. They are in their Bibles and considered inspired yet the extra books are less in authority than the books considered by all. And this goes with others as well. Actually the Orthodox have never read from Revelation in their Liturgy.
And the Councils Catholics usually cite such as Hippo and Carthage were regional Councils. There were Councils such as Trullo which the west never accepted which named three books of Maccabees.
The Orthodox actually have much of a pre Reformation Catholic view of the canon where even if a book hadn’t been named by a Council, the book nonetheless could be part of the canon, which was the case with say 1 and 2 Esdras(3 and 4 in Vulgate) and the Prayer of Manasseh which before Trent were just integrated in the Old Testament but following were in an appendix to the Vulgate of Clement Vlll. The Protestants forced the Church to kind of make a formal judgement on this once and for all.
 
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Prodigal1984 said:
The reason is mainly, from what I understand anyways, a number of reasons. The Orthodox don’t have a formality of the Canon like the Catholic Church does. To them the deuterocanonical books are considered the longer canon . They are in their Bibles and considered inspired yet the extra books are less in authority than the books considered by all. And this goes with others as well. Actually the Orthodox have never read from Revelation in their Liturgy.
And the Councils Catholics usually cite such as Hippo and Carthage were regional Councils. There were Councils such as Trullo which the west never accepted which named three books of Maccabees .
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Thanks for the info. I wonder if he addresses this in the book under the chapter on the councils or the chapter on the Eastern Orthodox Bible. I find this all fascinating! I’ve always been curious since my catechism as a youth why different Bibles have different books, beyond different churches saying “well, we have the right one, the others don’t.”
 
Prodigal1984 said:
The Protestants forced the Church to kind of make a formal judgement on this once and for all.
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So, does this mean the Biblical canon (at least the OT) of the Catholic Church wasn’t “finalized” until the Reformation? That’s interesting! 🙂
 
It was formalized but it wasn’t viewed as scandalous to have other writings in the Old Testament that were considered of value to read such as 1 and 2 Esdras and the Prayer of Manasseh.
Florence even named the Canon.
However a reason why these three texts are part of the standard Protestant Apocrypha with the rest of the Catholic deuterocanonical books is because they also appeared in the Vulgate.
 
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Prodigal1984 said:
It was formalized but it wasn’t viewed as scandalous to have other writings in the Old Testament that were considered of value to read such as 1 and 2 Esdras and the Prayer of Manasseh.
Florence even named the Canon.
However a reason why these three texts are part of the standard Protestant Apocrypha with the rest of the Catholic deuterocanonical books is because they also appeared in the Vulgate.
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Got it! So, the Catholic Church viewed these 3 “extra books” (1 & 3 Esdras and the Prayer of Manasseh) as “good for reading & edification,” but not inspired Scripture, much like Protestants view the Deuterocanon?
 
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Also the Clementine Vulgate of 1592 which was the official Vulgate until the late 20th century included them in the appendix. Pope Clement Vlll wrote in the preface:
Oratio Manassa, necnon Libri duo, qui sub libri Tertii & Quarti Esdrae nomine circumferuntur, hoc in loco, extra scilicet seriem canonicorum Librorum, quos sancta Tridentina Synodus suscepit, & pro Canonicis suscipiendos decreuit, sepositi sunt, ne prorsus interirent, quippe qui a nonnullis sanctis Patribus interdum citantur, & in aliquibus Bibliis Latinis tam manuscriptis quam impressis reperiuntur.

The Prayer of Manasseh, as well as two books, which circulate under the name of the Third and Fourth Book of Ezra, are set aside in this place—that is, outside the series of canonical books, which the holy Tridentine Synod accepted, and determined should be taken up for canonical—lest they should perish completely, since they are sometimes cited by some of the holy Fathers, and they are found in some Latin books, both manuscript and printed.

Also the original Douay Rheims had them until the Challoner Revision and along with other supplemental things were removed to be in one volume in 1752. Here is a link to it. Page 1970 is where the books in question begin.

 
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To use Catholic sources against Catholicism is an oxymoron - a huge red flag and a screaming siren that he is twisting, taking things out of context and generally not being truthful. The rest, he simply makes up out of whole cloth. Arguments with such persons are mostly fruitless, as they argue from the ego and not from the intellect.
 
Like I said, I haven’t read the entire book, but I don’t want to just presume he is making things up, just because I might disagree with his conclusions, especially since the free section on Amazon, every Catholic reference he cites checks out with 100% accuracy. At this point from what I have read, I really have no objective reason to believe he won’t be truthful with the rest. Since he has to reference all his sources, how would it benefit him if he made things up, only to be easily proven wrong with his own citations? It woukd discredit him immediately. I guess the only way to be certain would be to get it and read it. BTW, did you go on Amazon and read the free section? I would be curious your thoughts after actually reading it.
 
Thanks for the info. Very interesting. Even though not recognized as canonical, didn’t realize they were included as late as the Douay-Rheims. But 1(3) Esdras was in the those early councils.
 
Honestly, life is too short to read things that are corrosive to my faith. This guy is selling a book. For money. The Catholic faith is the most tested, examined, re-tested, scrutinized and dissected belief system on earth. The Church was founded by Christ, stood and still stands.

If it was false, it would have collapsed almost 2,000 years ago. The prize is the Church which Christ founded. As they say, keep your eyes on the prize.

EDIT: Forget the Catholic Church - it is the world’s target of conveneience. Look at the Orthodox. They have the same books in their bible that we do (a couple more, actually). Always have had. Why is this dude not railing against the Orthodox?

But, if you trust the NT, which the Catholic Church decided, it is not illogical to distrust the OT, which the same Catholic Church also decided?
 
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I respect your view and you are certainly under no obligation to read any book that you feel is corrosive to your faith.

I, personally, like to read from multiple sources if they are well researched and accurate as I like to understand where different faiths are coming from. Obviously millions of Protestants feel justified leaving certain books out of the Bible and I like to know what their justifications are. I also like to read the Catholic and Orthodox justifications for those they include. It creates better understanding of both sides whether you agree with those justifications or not.

But that’s just me.
 
  1. Martin Luther, driven by what became an irrational, visceral hatred of his own Catholic Church, sought out the Hebrew canon of scripture and decided, unilaterally, to adopt it. This was over 1,500 years after all of the current Catholic/Orthodox books had been in use in the Churches.
  2. The Hebrew canon specifically and categorically rejects books which pointed to Christ.
  3. This strikes me as surreal, therefore I pay no attention to those who argue for Luther’s personal opinion. That he was able to convince others is a credit to the man’s charismatic traits and persuasive power, but he had zero authority to do anything that he did.
  4. The Catholic Church need not ‘prove’ anything. The burden of proof is solely upon those making accusations, and IME they fail 100%.
 
If you are replying to my comment, I specified nothing about proof of anything.
I understand your position. I was merely stating my reasons for reading Protestant positions, not that I agree with them.

You may be right that Judaism rejected certain books because they pointed to Christ. Their position is that they weren’t written in Hebrew and were written later. They have never, to my knowledge, done so because Christians see Christ in them. Of course, they may also not want to state that as a reason either, so I have no idea who is correct on that statement. I just like to hear or read everyone’s views, including yours!
Thanks!
 
I wish I could find Catholic Translations in Hotels and Doctors offices. I go to the doctor or a clinic and there is a bible but it is a different translation. I love Dohuay Rheims Bible.
 
I do agree with one point he makes which has always been a stumbling point to me.

One of the common defenses for why Catholic Bibles are “bigger” than Protestant Bibles – particularly the Old Testament – is Jesus and the New Testament writers quoted frequently from the Septuagint. However, Eastern Orthodox Bibles are also based on the Septuagint, yet their Old Testament is “bigger” than Catholic ones.

This has always bothered me because in RCIA they show this video on the Catholic Bible and they throw the Septuagint as a defense through the whole thing. But then you study the Septuagint and it turns out Catholics don’t even accept all of the books from it. So why? And why not? Why cherry pick? I think if you want to use the Septuagint as the cause validly the Church should use all of its books like the Orthodox do. It really is hard to say it is because of the Septuagint when we aren’t even true to it completely.
 
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Because it was a valid collection of books, Christ quoted from it, established His Church, gave it all authority on earth and in heaven, and His Church tested all available writings and decided under the influence of the Holy Spirit.
 
That still doesn’t answer the paradox here.
We use the Septuagint to defend the books we have, which I’m totally fine with. But why be inconsistent? If you’re going to say you use something as a defense we shouldn’t be omitting books that were also from it. Otherwise we should quit the septuagint talk and just say this is how it is.
 
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Church history, and the forming of the canon, is not a tidy issue that fits neatly into a box. The focus for the Christian Church had, up to that point, always been on preaching. The New Testament was hotly debated for decades, centuries even. We have 27 NT books/letters. There was over 100 NT-related writings vying for canonicity.

However, the books of the Deuterocanon had been in consistent use, somewhere in the early Church, since day one (and by religious Jews long before Christ). We must remember that there was geographical separation, scant communication, much doctrinal variation, theological variation and many other various and sundry problems as the Church developed.

A quick read of 5 Myths about 7 Books might help to clarify this matter somewhat. To us moderns, looking back through the distortion of our 21st century glasses, it was a messy, time-consuming process as the Church was not focused on writings, but preaching - just as our Lord had taught.
 
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