Catholic and Protestant Bibles: What is the Difference?

Catholic Exchange.com ^ | 02-06-07 | Mary Harwell Sayler

[Salvation]

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Catholic and Protestant Bibles: What is the Difference?

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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.

 

© Copyright 2007 Catholic Exchange

[Quix]

i DON'T know.

Were there 'tongues and interpretations' at such meetings?

Or was Holy Spirit's evident presence in His still small voice role.

I don't see Him standing over many church council meetings with a ball bat.

Politics can often shove Him aside quite effectively.

Witness the Anglican/Episcopal homosexual travesty.

[Mad Dawg]

I guess I need a positive articulation of the thesis of why all differences among humans must be a result of sin. I can see a sort of gnostic schema which would support that. But I don[t see it as necessary in the Judeao-Xtian schema. Adam and Eve and all their children would have the same color eyes? the same talents and gifts? It wouldn't be that this one was better at music and that one at design.

And in heaven the redeemed will all be entirely alike in capacity and gift? The heavenly chorus, or the human branch of it, is monophonic, not polyphonic?

Here we have a God who is so unlike anything else that He's not even ONE the way other things are One! I don't think that He is of such a kind that every perfect image of Him would be identical to every other perfect image. I think that thought lessens the concept of Him.

[Quix]

No, the way we are is not the way God made us. Otherwise, Christ would have come for no reason whatsoever. We are a poor apporximation at best what God made us. A fallen, tarnished figure of a once glorious creation.

It is NOT the case that satan's sin infections can obliterate our personalities [except maybe in hell]

PARTICULARLY when redeemed, washed in CHRIST'S BLOOD;

MATURED AND FURTHER REFINED AND PERFECTED BY HOLY SPIRIT.

You must have a pretty puny God to think that the personalities HE SO CAREFULLY DESIGNED AND CONSTRUCTED; REDEEMED AND MATURED

can be so easily obliterated even by satan or us or the world.

God is not at all schlocky at what He does. NO WAY hozay!

[Quix]

Evidently you need a 1,000% better translator.

[annalex]

what kosta has written at #597 is right on the money

I concur with both 597 and 603. "Orthopraxis" is probably similar to the Catholic "disciplines".

One significant difference -- not a contradiction, but a difference -- between Orthodoxy and Catholicism is that on one hand, as Kolokotronis described, we Catholics tend to be very analytical in the scholastic tradition as regards theology, and that is foreign to the Orthodoxy, as scholasticism developed in the West following the separation of 1054. On the other hand, again, as Kolokotronis described, we are looser on the disciplinary side of things. On that latter point I want to elaborate:

• In Catholicism we have separate "rites"; while most are only familiar with the Latin Rite, we have seven of them in the Roman Church alone, plus 25 in the Eastern Catholic Churches (CATHOLIC RITES AND CHURCHES, I have seen different taxonomies and different counts as well). While there are many geographical autocephalous Orthodox Churches, I don't think they vary in praxis as widely as the Catholic Churches, as the sequel might show.
• Disciplines and liturgies vary with the particular churches, e.g. married men can become priests in the East, but Latin priests are celibate; the Catholic liturgy in the East is virtually identical to the Orthodox, including the use of the Orthodox form of the Creed.
• Fasting (or lesser form of it, abstinence from certain foods) is much more permissive in the West;
• The mass rubrics vary from diocese to diocese in some detail, and even from priest to priest. The variations include liturgical posture (when to stand and when to kneel), method of Communion (one or two species, reception on the tongue or also in the hand), and the language used (vernacular only, a mixture of Latin and vernacular, Aramaic, Greek, Church Slavonic, Armenian, etc).
• Days of obligation are sometimes commuted to the next Sunday, depending on the diocese.

All Catholic Churches are in full communion with Rome, which means full doctrinal agreement.

On the other hand, the Orthodox have a singificant variance as regards the calendar -- old style or new style. I also heard that some Orthodox churches have pews, hard as it is to believe such a thing.

[Quix]

Not sure my convictions or opinions should carry so much weight on that score . . .

But the creeds work for me. I realize some have quibbled over this or that part of one or the other of them.

Certainly Christ came in the flesh; born of a Virgin; crucified for our sins; rose again; Intercedes at the right hand of The Father; Is coming again to take us to rule and reign with Him.

would do it for me. But I suspect any number of basic foundational summaries would do for me.

Certainly I would affirm the 'Ordinances, Sacraments' of baptism and The Lord's Supper as well as I Cor 12-14 in terms of gifts of Holy Spirit and basic operation of such in basic church life. I wouldn't see it essential as quibbling over what each meant.

[Quix]

Welllllll

BBBBBTTTTTTT

A basket of slobbery raspberries to you, loveable bro.

[Quix]

I can see a sort of gnostic schema which would support that.

!!!!FINALLY!!!!

You help me put my finger on the thing that's been niggling at me about this in the foggy resources of my deeper mind somewhere.

It seems to me . . .

That the idea of an amorphous, unitary, homoginized, 1,000% transparent, 1,000% totally merged EXISTENCE in eternity is a satanic EASTERN RELIGION; EASTERN MYSTICISM NOTION from the pit of hell.

It is an EASTERN RELIGION NOTION THAT:

1. ALL IS ONE.
2. THERE ARE NO DISTINCTIONS.
3. THERE ARE NOT EVEN DISTINCTIONS BETWEEN GOOD AND EVIL.
4. DISTINCTIONS ARE ILLUSION.
5. ALL IS ILLUSION.
6. OOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!

NOT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

THE GOD OF THE BIBLE AND HIS CREATION AND CREATURES ARE ENTIRELY ANTETHETICAL TO; OPPOSITE TO THAT.

Thanks, much Dawg. I knew there was something significant niggling at me in that direction.

[jacknhoo]

Do you even believe in Christ at all?

[Quix]

THIS:

I'm not seeing the part where the RC bible says that Mary can: Hear prayers, provide special intercession as the Mother of the Son of God, that she is the Mother of God, that she is the mother of the church, that she is the Queen of Heaven, that she was immaculately conceived, that she was ever virgin, or that she is our co-redeemer, that she appears to people with messages, that she makes statues bleed, that she performs miracles from heaven,

leading to this kind of response:

Do you even believe in Christ at all?

Is the sort of comment that many of us read as proof positive of idolatrous, blaphemous, Maryolatry.

It is hard to explain such a response, otherwise.

[Dr. Eckleburg]

The EO cannot escape their Platonic roots. Pity. Christianity is founded on the THREE IN ONE, rather than simply the ONE.

Here's a good link explaining how the EO put the mechanics of the worship service (appearance) ahead of correct doctrine (reality), and tending to ignore Christ's atonement and justification...

Evangelical Issues for the Eastern Orthodox

"...despite the wealth of Biblical evidence for man's salvation set primarily in terms of substitution and satisfaction; hence the imputed righteousness of Christ being the basis for man's approach to God in relationship or worship, the (EO) foundation moves to a process which is set in more neo-Platonic categories than Hebraic, and is built on scanty textual support. In fact, a careful examination of 2 Peter 1:4 (one of the two principle passages upon which theosis is built in explicit terms, along with John 10:34,35) demonstrates the need for "hermeneutical gymnastics" to yield the interpretation that Orthodox theology requires to substantiate the concept of "divination."

I hold to the Reformed view of salvation because it is Biblical. It permeates every page of Scripture, and beautifully ties the covenants together in a tapestry of fulfillment which Jesus claimed He would accomplish through His substitutionary death on the cross (Matthew 5:17), which Paul reminds us, the gospel is the message of (1 Corinthians 1:18). In having "come home;" have you traded in the very Word of the Cross? Consider well the words of the Apostle Paul:

'More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish in order that I may gain Christ, and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith' (Philippians 3:8,9 (emphasis mine)

This issue is not an academic discussion, but a matter of eternal life or death. The Scripture is clear on that matter upon which all other points are meaningful. If we do not know how to come into a relationship with God, all other considerations are terribly moot. I write this because I love and care for my Orthodox friends. This is not motivated by hatred or a desire to engage in needless disputations. There is much to appreciate and admire about Eastern Orthodoxy. However, on this essential point, the official teaching of the church is about as unorthodox as it gets, when measured by the standard of the Word of God, and not the varied opinions of men, whether they be Greek or Latin, ancient or contemporary..."

[kawaii]

the " Anglican/Episcopal homosexual travesty" is because having separated themselves from the Body of Christ (The Church) they have alienated the Holy Spirit instead subjecting themselves to human emotions and reasoning.

[Alamo-Girl]

Wow! This whole business of personalities and heaven has caused quite a firestorm.

Thank you oh so very much, Mad Dawg, for your wonderful sense of humor! It is much needed here and always, everywhere on the Religion Forum.

Quix, I am absolutely astonished that after all of our discussion of the different gemstones, the differences among the apostles, and on other threads – the differences among the churches – that you would demand that God must deal with each and every one of us exactly the same.

The ruby laser metaphor that hosepipe mentioned on another thread is such a wonderful example. The Light wavelength which is flashed into the ruby rod causes the electrons to build up energy (outer orbits) until it peaks – and then the return of those electrons to their inner orbits causes an offsetting emission of intense wavelength, the laser ray. The overload of Light to the ruby causes the laser!

I cannot think of a better metaphor for a Christian like Billy Graham. Can you?

But are all of us rubies? No way.

So what’s the big deal if kosta50 and I have a vision of being a jasper or clear diamond to His Light – in this world and the next?

And truly we do not have the same visions of heaven when God blesses us with them! hosepipe has experienced them, so has betty boop and so have I. Roland Buck testifies to them as does the Apostle John, Paul and Enoch. But only Jesus Christ speaks with authority.

I call them “night travels” by the way. And every time I’ve entered one it was while in deep worship laying aside every concern in this life.

There were never any words spoken in mine, though I got the distinct impression I could ask questions – I had none. But there was always melody, beautiful and impossible to describe with words.

Several times I saw my sister and she joined me in traveling around God’s magnificient creation. I knew it was her, but her form was more like an etching in crystal. Space, time, distance had no meaning. At once we’d be holding Saturn in our arms and at once we’d be in the middle of an iris looking out.

And there were calls to worship – not in language or sound, but we knew it was “time” to gather and we did. And there was Light, beautiful pure amazing living.

That vision is why I can say that I would be content to be a pillar there, in His Light - rather than flitting about His Creation, taking it all in - or working puzzles or playing games with my beloved sister.

In all of my “night travels” I only once saw something troubling. We flew over a valley which was rather dark and the people there were jumping like they wanted to fly too, but couldn’t. Actually I suspect it was that they believed they couldn’t. For all I know, that could have been a vision of "purgatory."

So are my “night travels” false? Or is God comforting me with what I need to see to correspond with the worship? I think it is the latter.

Enoch’s vision – like John’s – was one of glory and judgment. His mission was not to judge angels but to act like an advocate for the fallen angels. But the angels received no mercy, their end is written.

Paul’s vision was of paradise – where Adam and Eve were to live but failed.

And frankly, what I take away from Roland Buck’s vision is the blood of Christ, how precious it is and the meaning of the feasts. That he spoke with angels is the least important part, but the one which gets so much attention.

Same is true for Enoch, kosta50. Enoch was quoted in some 100 places altogether and yet never included in the canon. Why? Because the Church fathers were offended by the extensive discussion of angels. And truly, for some unknown reason people have a tendency to worship angels. How sad!

Quix, I’m very sure you’ll retain your personality in heaven. And I’m very sure that kosta50 will not.

No doubt that Paul’s personality is there in heaven, no doubt that John’s is not, he surrendered it while still in the flesh.

The angels are not alike. Jeepers, some of them were so willful they were rebellious. Others, like Michael (Jude) show restraint, "The Lord rebuke thee." And we will be like the angels in heaven.

And Jesus answering said unto them, Do ye not therefore err, because ye know not the scriptures, neither the power of God?

For when they shall rise from the dead, they neither marry, nor are given in marriage; but are as the angels which are in heaven.

And as touching the dead, that they rise: have ye not read in the book of Moses, how in the bush God spake unto him, saying, I [am] the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob?

He is not the God of the dead, but the God of the living: ye therefore do greatly err. - Mark 12:24-27

Some, like the four living creatures and twenty four elders surrounding the the Throne in Revelation 4 are stationary, single minded, having no will but to glorify the Father and the Son.

The bottom line is that God does not make His creatures with a cookie cutter.

The only times God speaks to equity in Scripture is when He explains that He did not make us to be equal. That is His will for us.

So please stop insisting that I be like you, dear beloved brother in Christ. I am what God wants me to be.

[annalex]

One major difference deserves its own post: iconography. The canon of Holy Images developed in the East, and the theology of it was strengthened by the struggle with the iconoclast heresy, also in the East. Bysantine iconography informed the medieval art in the West. The Orthodox have most developed iconographic theology, foundational elements of it are (please, correct or augment):

• The Holy Images are holy objects of veneration;
• The Holy Images inform us of the life of the spirit;
• The Holy Images accurately and authoritatively reflect the Holy Tradition in ways peculair to graphic arts.
• The Holy Images are subject to a strict canon.

It is clear from the above that the Orthodox maintain the separation of iconography from other forms of art, to the point of not considering iconography art at all. The Catholic Church, however, does not insist on such separation and does not have an iconographical canon. The consequences of that were profound for the West:

• Art expressive of the individuality of the artist, as well as art oriented to academic realism flourished in the West in late Middle Ages, Renaiisance and following. When similar art developed in the East, it followed the Western tradition. Religious paintings done by Orthodox artists and imbued with religious consciousness, such as the works of Kramskoy or Ivanov are not considered icons in the East.
• Art whose only value is in expressing the individual quirks of artistic consciousness (or semi-consciousness) also flourished in the 20c. West (which for these purposes also included 20c Russia and the Balkans).
• Truly religious Christian art in the Western tradition allowed for authentic expression of individual devotional life of the artist, with which the spectator can identify is his own individual piety, but without a sacramental aspect that would inhere in an icon. I am referring to artists such as Murillo, el Greco, Durer and Michelangelo.
• Christian kitsch, -- despiritualized biblical illustrations of 20c illustrated Bibles, or oversentimentalized or fantastical mass produced devotional imagery also flourished in the West.
• For some reason -- I invite the reader to venture a guess, as I don't have any -- the Catholic statuary retained the orientation to holiness all but lost in the Catholic graphical arts.

The cardinal error of the West: the concept of relationship with God that centers on, and is driven by, the individual can probably be traced to the abandonment of canonical iconography in 14c and its gradual replacement with religious in subject but individualized in execution art of the Renaissance, or at least, both developments point to a common error of the post-medieval western man.

What is the way out? A mechanical adoption of the orthodox devotional norm cannot work in general, and it cannot work to achieve the much overdue rescue of the Western art. Rather, the oversized ego that has lead us into the modernist mess now has to discover a way of Christian expression that departs from the individual but leads to the authentic ecclesial expression of Christian faith. It is a hopeful thing to see emergence of Catholic iconography in the Byzantine canonical tradition as one aspect of such renewal. Perhaps, the undoubtedly sincere search of a modern artistic language of Catholicism in the work of Dali and Rouault point to another aspect.

[DungeonMaster]

Do you even believe in Christ at all?

I admit, I'm pretty confused by the response.

[annalex]

a careful examination of 2 Peter 1:4 (one of the two principle passages upon which theosis is built in explicit terms, along with John 10:34,35) demonstrates the need for "hermeneutical gymnastics" to yield the interpretation that Orthodox theology requires to substantiate the concept of "divination."

Yeah, right. Here it is, the whole passage, examine away:

2 Grace to you and peace be accomplished in the knowledge of God and of Christ Jesus our Lord: 3 As all things of his divine power which appertain to life and godliness, are given us, through the knowledge of him who hath called us by his own proper glory and virtue. 4 By whom he hath given us most great and precious promises: that by these you may be made partakers of the divine nature: flying the corruption of that concupiscence which is in the world. 5 And you, employing all care, minister in your faith, virtue; and in virtue, knowledge; 6 And in knowledge, abstinence; and in abstinence, patience; and in patience, godliness; 7 And in godliness, love of brotherhood; and in love of brotherhood, charity. 8 For if these things be with you and abound, they will make you to be neither empty nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 For he that hath not these things with him, is blind, and groping, having forgotten that he was purged from his old sins. 10 Wherefore, brethren, labour the more, that by good works you may make sure your calling and election. For doing these things, you shall not sin at any time. 11 For so an entrance shall be ministered to you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

(2 Peter 1)

[kosta50]

The only thing I would add is our Orthopraxis, which is the dogma and doctrine in action

Correct. In other words, dogma, doctrine, lirugical services and life of the Church is what was believed everywhere and always (Holy Tradition), minor disciplines nothwithstanding (as you mentioned with fasting and visavis Jews); integrated, interrelated, inseparable. One living, breathing Organism (not organization), the Body of Christ.

[Dr. Eckleburg]

Your point?

[kosta50]

I have come to believe that it is likely that the martyrs standing eternally before The Father can somehow have access to the consciousness of any individual or creature in all creation as though they were that person

So, in your view, the things we would be focuing on in the presence of God are people? How sad. Yet we could spend eternity discoverieng eternal and endless God's beauty instead.

[annalex]

Mr. Carrino needs to educate himself on both the Orthodoxy and the Christian Gospel, and cut the protestant pap.