Catholic and Protestant Bibles: What is the Difference?

Other Articles by Mary Harwell Sayler
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March 6, 2007

Question: What's the difference between a Catholic Bible and a Protestant one? Is our Old Testament the same as a Jewish Bible? If not, why?

Answer: The most noticeable differences occur in the number of books included and the order in which they have been arranged. Both the Jewish Bible and the Hebrew canon in a Protestant Bible (aka Old Testament) contain 39 books, whereas a Catholic Bible contains 46 books in the Old Testament. In addition, the Greek Orthodox, or Eastern Orthodox, Church accepts a few more books as canonized scripture.

To give you a quick overview of a complicated subject, here's what happened: Several hundred years before the birth of Christ, Babylonian conquerors forced the Jews to leave Jerusalem. Away from their Temple and, often, from their priests, the exiled people forgot how to read, write, and speak Hebrew. After a while, Jewish scholars wanted to make the Bible accessible again, so they translated Hebrew scriptures into the Greek language commonly spoken. Books of wisdom and histories about the period were added, too, eventually becoming so well known that Jesus and the earliest Christian writers were familiar with them. Like the original Hebrew scriptures, the Greek texts, which were known as the Septuagint, were not in a codex or book form as we're accustomed to now but were handwritten on leather or parchment scrolls and rolled up for ease in storage.

Eventually, the Jewish exiles were allowed to return to Jerusalem where they renovated the Temple. Then, in A.D. 70, warring peoples almost completely destroyed the sacred structure, which has never been rebuilt. Without this central place of worship, the Jews began looking to the Bible as their focal point of faith, but to assure the purity of that faith, only Hebrew scriptures were allowed into the Jewish canon. By then, however, the earliest Christians spoke and read Greek, so they continued to use the Septuagint or Greek version of the Bible for many centuries. After the Reformation though, some Christians decided to accept translations into Latin then English only from the Hebrew texts that the Jewish Bible contained, so the seven additional books in the Greek translation became known as the Apocrypha, meaning "hidden." Since the books themselves were no secret, the word seemed ironic or, perhaps, prophetic because, in 1947, an Arab boy searching for a lost goat found, instead, the Dead Sea scrolls, hidden in a hillside cave.

Interestingly, the leather scrolls had been carefully wrapped in linen cloth, coated in pitch, and placed in airtight pottery jars about ten inches across and two feet high where, well-preserved, they remained for many centuries. Later, other caves in the same area yielded similar finds with hundreds of manuscripts no longer hidden. Indeed, the oldest copies of the Bible now known to exist are the Dead Sea scrolls of the Septuagint.

Because of this authentic find from antiquity, many publishers in the twentieth century added back the books of Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch, First and Second Maccabees, as well as additions to Esther and Daniel. So now, when an edition of the Bible says "with Apocrypha" on the cover, the extra books from the Septuagint will usually be placed between the Old and New Testaments or at the end of the Bible. Catholic Bibles already contained those books, however, so you'll find them interwoven with other Old Testament books of history and wisdom writings.

For the New Testament, it's a different story — and short. All of the books were written in Greek or Aramaic from the start. Although some debate occurred about which Gospels or Epistles should be included, all Christians eventually accepted all of the same 27 books in the same order. So, as long as you choose an edition that does not add explanatory notes opposed to a Catholic perspective, any reputable translation of the New Testament is fine.

Your judgments are dramatic and bombastic and that's just about it.

Thanks for the compliment. That's probably as far as can be managed toward admitting thorough going FACT BASED (sometimes scientific research fact based) refutation line by line. But, hey, we all prefer to sleep at nights and rationalization is a great defense.

A "normal" baby will react predictably. How many times has it happened that by mistake a mother was handed a wrong baby, even walked out of the hospital with it, without being able to tell it's her baby?

Nice to see that the kennel of hollow straw dogs is still in pathetic shape. The above assertion has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO with the least shred of evidence that personality is not greatly set at conception. The most that it says is that some mothers have a very hard time tuning in sufficiently or having had enough time with their baby to KNOW their own baby in a fool proof way. Very sad, that but has nothing to offer to the issue of personality. Lots of mothers are utterly clueless these days.

And in your vast experience, can you tell if a baby is going to be an antisocial personality,

Very rarely can I make a good guess on that score with a few months old infant. At least, I don't recall such with any great frequency. I have had a very few cases (I'd guess 2-4) where such seemed above average in likelihood and given all the givens, came to be true--at least well within the ball park of the term. With 2 year olds, it's not been that difficult.

a criminal,

Ditto above. Though with 2 year olds, it's been much easier to be amazingly accurate--particularly about the glaring examples--those say in the 3rd standard deviation of critical behavioral, attitudinal evidence. Now, I confess, I don't know how much of such assessments is experience, training, super intense observation--and how much of it is spiritual assisted insight and discernment via Holy Spirit.

a doctor, a psychologist;

Too many variable, evidently. Those are beyond my skills to assess in babies. I might be able to detect psychologist sorts of leanings and probabilities in a 2 year old. Much easier in 8 year olds. An MD--easy to see in SOME 8 year olds.

if he or she will be selfish,

That's probably detectable on average the first 6-18 months. Certainly by the 2nd year. But that's a pretty generic human trait bound up in the heart of man short of rare exceptions and Godly discipine. Most children will be inherently selfish--especially initially.

religious?

That's also bound up in human nature. All humans have to worship something. For some it's TV, cars, sex, whatever. Can I tell if an infant's religiosity will be toward God and whether it will be intrinsic or extrinsic? No. Unless Holy Spirit tells me. A 10-12 year old is far easier.

I don't think so.

I think I'm aware of a lot of things that you think quite differently on than I do. A surprising many quite shockingly so. I am confident, however, that you would also characterize the sun as rising in the East. I think. LOL.

By the way, there is a such disagreement among psychologists when it comnes to personality issues as there are Protestant sects.

I would REALLY STRONGLY ENCOURAGE YOU before pontificating on the subject of psychology to get FAR, FAR, FAR, FAR, FAR BETTER TEXTS AND/OR ADVISORS to consult with. I'd think it could save you a LOT of embarrassment.

Your statement is GROSSLY MISLEADING TO WHOLESALE UNTRUE, yet again. The disagreements between psychologists about personality HAVE ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO WITH WHETHER THE BASIC PERSONALITY STRUCTURE IS SET AT CONCEPTION ON THE DIMENSIONS I POSTED ON EARLIER. THAT ISSUE IS WELL SETTLED BY EXTENSIVE AMOUNTS OF SOLID RESEARCH. Any psychologist worthy the label has accepted the facts on that score. No biggy any more.

The issues about personality that are still haggled over are whether personality is best described along 16 dimensions as in the 16PF or some other schema. But most psychologists recognize that any such schema has it's strengths and weaknesses. They realize that some have preferences for one over another for logical personal taste or similar reasons and that's it. NO big deal. I'd have thought a college education would have made that abundantly clear.

The fact is that if you take a child, put him in the back yard, feed him and give him water and never interact with him, he will be an animal lacking in language and social graces.

Another hollow straw dog from the evidently huge straw dog kennel. That being true HAS NOTHING TO CONTRIBUTE, NOTHING TO SAY ABOUT PERSONALITY BEING LARGELY SET AT CONCEPTION. IT MERELY says something about the environmental components that make up 50-60% of personality. Certainly such horrid conditioning can wholesale OBSCURE the genetic components. But the substrate is still there. If some things are not corrected early--especially before puberty--such as language deficits--they can never be corrected. But the substrate was very much there at birth and along the way. Obscuring is not the same as removing all trace of.

I'd be blessed to help improve dramatically the understanding in this department but I haven't a clue as to how to go about that sizeable task.

Everything we are, which makes us human, is learned.

Sometimes, it seems like untruths are deliberately and brazenly posted. That's wholsale inaccurate, untrue, wrong, unfactual as I've demonstrated. I certainly cannot force acceptance of facts but I can counter utter falsehood with a presentation of facts. The following case studies are from the David G Meyers text EXPLORING PSYCHOLOGY 6th Ed. pp 76-77.

On a chilly Ohio Saturday morning in February 1979, sometime after divorcing his first wife, Linda, Jim Lewis awoke in his modest, middle-class home next to his second wife, Betty. Jim--a romantic, affectionate type--was determined thatt this marriage would work and made a habit of leaving love notes to Betty around the house. As Jim lay in bed he thought about others he had loved, including his son, James Alan, and his faithful dog, Toy.
Having outfitted a workshop in a corner of his basement, Jim looked forward to spending some of the day's free time on his woodworking hobby. He had derived many hours of satisfaction from building furniture, picture frames, and an assortment of other items, including a circular white bench around a tree in his front yard. Jim also liked to spend free time driving his Chevy, watching stock-car racing, and drinking Miller Lite beer.
Jim was basically healthy. Having undergone a vasectomy, he was done having children. His blood pressure was a little high, perhaps related to his chain-smoking habit. He chewed his fingernails to the nub. And he suffered occasional half-day migraine headaches--"like somebody's hitting you with a two-by-four in the back of the neck." He had become overweight a while back but had shed some of the pounds.
What was extraordinary about Jim Lewis, however, was that at that same moment (I am not making this up) there existed another man--also named Jim--for whom all these things (right down to the dog's name) were also true (except that Jim Lewis named his son James Alan and Jim Sp[ringer named his James Allan). This other Jim--Jim Springer--just happened, 38 years earlier, to have been his womb mate. Thirty-seven days after their birth, these two genetically identical twins were separated, adopted by blue-collar families, and reared with no contact or knowledge of the other's whereabouts until one February dxy when Jim Lewis' phone rang. The caller was his genetic clone (who, having been told he had a twin, set out to find him).
One month after that fateful encounter, the brothers became the first twin pair tested by University of Minnesota psychologist Thomas Bouchard and his colleagues, thus beginning a study of separated twins that extends to the present (Holden, 1980a,b;Wright, 1998). When given tests measuring their intelligence, PERSONALITY heart rate, and brain waves, the Jim twins--despite 38 years of separation--were virtually as alike as the same person tested twice. Their voice intonations and inflections were so similar that, hearing a playback of an earlier interview, Jim Springer guessed "That's me." Wrong--it was his brother.

##################################### ibid: #####################################

Identical twins Oskar Stohr and Jack Yufe presented equally striking similarities. One was raised by his grandmother in Germany as a Catholic and a Nazi, while the other was raised by his father in the Caribbean as a Jew. Nevertheless, they share traits and habits galore. They like spicy foods and sweet liqueurs, have a habit of falling asleep in front of the television, flush the toilet before using it, store rubber bands on their wrists, and dip buttered toast in their coffee. Stohr is domineering toward women and yells at his wife, as did Yufe before he and his wife separated.

It really IS POSSIBLE TO SAY . . . "hmmmm . . . I was wrong." And, it comes easier with practice.

Brain damage due to various factors (infections, alcohol, drugs) can pretty much erase those spurious 50% of personality traits you claim at conception and make them as good as if they never were there.

1. Brain damage erases a lot of things. Jumping from discussing normal people and their personalities can be a cute sort of yet another straw dog from the huge straw dog kennel but it's kind of a a pathetically ineffective transparent ploy offering nothing useful to the discussion.

2. The personality traits set at conception are NOT SPURIOUS. It's better when Christians are honest and accurate about such things. Those facts are solidly established facts. They are no longer contested.

3. Yes, erasing someone's brain causes a LOT of human traits to disappear including some of the inherent genetic ones--or at least their expression. This offers nothing to the discussion about normal people. It merely says that brain damaged people have a lot of damage to their humanness! DOH!

The only thing we know is that human life begins at human conception by the union of two living cells carrying certain amount of genetic material (usually haploid) that fuse. What that human will be like is anyone's guess and cannot be determined by any science or superstitious belief with any certainty.

More untrue statements. The genetically determined personality traits tell us a lot. Even a DNA sample can now describe such traits with increasing accuracy. I encourage you to read up on more current literature before making brash wholesale false statements about the science of psychology and human nature. It MIGHT help you look A LOT less uninformed.

The Hebrew Letters

NUN
The Messiah: Heir to the Throne

In Aramaic, nun means "fish." The mem, the waters of the sea, is the natural medium of the nun, fish. The nun "swims" in the mem, covered by the waters of the "hidden world." Creatures of the "hidden world" lack self-consciousness. Unlike fish, land animals, revealed on the face of the earth, possess self-consciousness.

The souls of Israel divide into two general categories, symbolized by fish and land animals. The two prototypes of these categories are the leviathan and the behemot. In the present, these two categories of souls correspond to the two innate tendencies and attractions of the soul, to either the concealed and secret or revealed and legal dimensions of Torah. In the future, the two prototypes, leviathan and behemot, will unite in battle, each "killing" the "ego" of the other, thereafter to blend together in true union. Their "meat" will then be served as the feast for the tzadikim in the World to Come. The souls of the tzadikim will actually consume the very root of consciousness of our present level of soul, in order to integrate ("digest") it into a totally new and higher level of consciousness.

"Leviathan" equals in gematria malchut, ("kingdom," 496). In Kabbalah, malchut, in the world of Divine Emanation, is represented by the sea, whose tides are controlled by the power of the moon, the symbol of King David (upon seeing the new moon we say, "David the king of Israel is alive forever"). When malchut descends to enliven the lower worlds it is symbolized by the earth. Thus, the leviathan is the symbol of the Divine Source of "kingdom." In Hebrew, nun means "kingdom," and in particular, the "heir to the throne."

The "nun" is the fourteenth letter of the alef-beit, which equals "David," the progenitor of the eternal Kingdom of Israel. The heir to David is Mashiach ben David, of whom is said: "As long as the duration of the sun his name shall rule." Our Sages teach us that one of the names of Mashiach is Yinon ("shall rule"), cognate to nun. Mashiach is also referred to as "the miscarriage," or, literally, the "fallen one." As we will learn in the secret of the letter samech, the nun does not appear in Psalm 145, but is supported by God's transcendent mercy, as expressed by the following letter, samech. In general, nun corresponds in Torah to the image of falling. The soul of Mashiach experiences itself as continuously falling and dying; if not for the ever-present Hand of God "catching" it, it would crash to the ground and shatter to death. The consciousness of fall is the reflection of the egoless state of the fish, in its natural medium of water, when forced to reveal itself on dry land. This is like the experience of a hidden tzadik when forced from Above to reveal himself for the good of Israel and the world. We find this exemplified in the life and teachings of the Ba'al Shem Tov, and so will be epitomized in the life of Mashiach. Ultimately, the "destiny" of Mashiach and his generation is to assume the level of sea on earth, to experience, paradoxically, selfless-self-consciousness, as said in the verse of Isaiah with which Maimonides concludes his Code of Jewish Law (whose final section, "The Laws of Kings," culminates with the description of the coming of Mashiach): "for the earth will be filled with the knowledge of God, like waters cover the sea."

In the present, these two categories of souls correspond to the two innate tendencies and attractions of the soul, to either the concealed and secret or revealed and legal dimensions of Torah.

http://www.inner.org/hebleter/nun.htm

Also: PaRDeS

• Peshat = Literal meaning; the contextual, philological level
• Remez = Allegorical meaning; cross-reference to other texts; rational or philosophical level
• Derash = Moral or homiletic meaning; aggadic level; midrashic [= interpretation via derash] level
• Sod = Mystical or anagogic meaning

The initial letters of these four words form the acronym 'PaRDeS' = garden or walled garden or through the wonders of transliterative translation, Paradise. The wall around the garden is what kabbalists have referred to as the 'malbush' or 'garments' of the text, almost always in reference to the Torah.

http://www.kheper.net/topics/hermeneutics/PaRDeS-1.htm

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The four gospels are written with this code, Mark – Peshat, Luke – Remez, Matthew – Derash and John – Sod. Ah! The sod level!

Have fun!

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