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Catholic and Protestant Bibles: What is the Difference?
Catholic Exchange.com ^ | 02-06-07 | Mary Harwell Sayler

Posted on 03/07/2007 9:10:18 AM PST by Salvation

Mary Harwell Sayler  
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Catholic and Protestant Bibles: What is the Difference?

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.



TOPICS: Catholic; Evangelical Christian; Judaism; Mainline Protestant
KEYWORDS: 327; bible; catholiclist; kjv
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To: kawaii

Watch it. Sounds like Protestant bashing.

You will find that the conservative Protestant churches do not have female elders of any sort.


61 posted on 03/07/2007 1:43:40 PM PST by irishtenor (Save the whales. Collect the whole set.)
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To: irishtenor

Yet I've heard the most conservative of protestants call 289 words which St paul spoke on headcovering 'fashionable at the time but no longer applicable' which represents anything but a conservative attitude towards scripture.


62 posted on 03/07/2007 1:53:52 PM PST by kawaii (Orthodox Christianity -- Proclaiming the Truth Since 33 A.D.)
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To: ScubieNuc
Why on earth would a Roman Catholic church have NIV Bibles.
I must say that I am delighted, as it is a very useful translation but you guys are really something!
63 posted on 03/07/2007 2:11:23 PM PST by Bainbridge
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To: kawaii
You are forever mentioning the female head covering stuff.
Now, do the Roman Catholics you know abide by this early admonition? I for one have not seen it in reality for about 35 years.
64 posted on 03/07/2007 2:17:53 PM PST by Bainbridge
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To: ArrogantBustard
The problem was named "mohammed".

To be honest, that problem probably goes back to even the Gnostic days - Gospel of Thomas, for example...

Regards

65 posted on 03/07/2007 2:26:15 PM PST by jo kus (Humility is present when one debases oneself without being obliged to do so- St.Chrysostom; Phil 2:8)
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To: Salvation
Scripture Alone Disproves "Scripture Alone"

Yea, and the Catholics are the ones with "traditions of men"?

What is amazing is the continued argument that some Protestants make - that THEY are the "true" keepers of the faith and "proper" Scripture interpretation. Anything that doesn't suit their fancy is a "tradition of men". So saith the "Spirit" who speaks DIRECTLY TO THEM!

Unfortunately for such wishful thinking, I have yet to find such a passage in the Bible that tells how the Holy Spirit comes to a PERSON and recites or reveals the Canon of Scriptures... But that is the common response - "the Spirit told me"...

Regards

66 posted on 03/07/2007 2:32:22 PM PST by jo kus (Humility is present when one debases oneself without being obliged to do so- St.Chrysostom; Phil 2:8)
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To: markomalley; Salvation
Sort of like some folk today, Marcion threw out all of the NT epistles, with the exception of the Pauline epistles. He also threw out all the Gospels except for Luke.

Almost certainly, Marcion used the same argument that some Protestants continue to use today - "The Spirit told me what is Scriptures".

Fortunately, the Church doesn't listen to such foolishness. We'd have a different canon every month!

Regards

67 posted on 03/07/2007 2:34:22 PM PST by jo kus (Humility is present when one debases oneself without being obliged to do so- St.Chrysostom; Phil 2:8)
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To: Bainbridge
Why on earth would a Roman Catholic church have NIV Bibles.

I never said I was Catholic.
68 posted on 03/07/2007 2:44:02 PM PST by ScubieNuc
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To: Salvation

A priest from my church explained that Luther removed some of those books because they mention either Purgatory or indulgences. Just now, I forget which. But it was one of the excesses that Luther was fighting so he banned the books.


69 posted on 03/07/2007 2:49:35 PM PST by afraidfortherepublic
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To: ScubieNuc

You are comparing 2 Protestant versions of the Bible. How about including some quotes from the Douay? Or the New Jerusalem for Catholics?


70 posted on 03/07/2007 2:53:18 PM PST by afraidfortherepublic
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To: ScubieNuc

My error.
I was wrong in thinking I had remembered you as such.
So sorry!


71 posted on 03/07/2007 2:55:52 PM PST by Bainbridge
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To: jo kus

Mahomet was basically an Arian heretic ... on crack, PCP, and methaphetamine.


72 posted on 03/07/2007 3:04:12 PM PST by ArrogantBustard (Western Civilisation is aborting, buggering, and contracepting itself out of existence.)
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To: afraidfortherepublic
How about including some quotes from the Douay?

I'm not a Bible expert, and my post wasn't an attempt to slam Protestants or Catholics. It was only to inform people on information about the NIV. Here's something I found on Douay Rheims.

Truthfully, I had a hard time finding much on Douay Rheims. I found some history, but trying to find how it compares to accepted Greek texts is long and confusing. I'll have to look for the New Jerusalem info.

Sincerely
73 posted on 03/07/2007 3:32:21 PM PST by ScubieNuc
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To: Bainbridge

No problem.


74 posted on 03/07/2007 3:33:12 PM PST by ScubieNuc
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Comment #75 Removed by Moderator

To: Bainbridge
Now, do the Roman Catholics you know abide by this early admonition? I for one have not seen it in reality for about 35 years.

I see it every Sunday at the church I attend.

76 posted on 03/07/2007 5:51:45 PM PST by Pyro7480 ("Jesu, Jesu, Jesu, esto mihi Jesus" -St. Ralph Sherwin's last words at Tyburn)
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To: Salvation

When I was a boy my fav OT book was BEL AND THE DRAGON.


77 posted on 03/07/2007 5:52:57 PM PST by Macoraba
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To: Salvation

Martin Luther, being a relatively lazy type, deleted a good chunk of the Bible?

A British king, attempting to justify his own heresy and immorality, heavily edited a version to suit his own twisted lifestyle?


78 posted on 03/07/2007 6:14:08 PM PST by AlaninSA ("Beware the fury of a patient man." - John Dryden)
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To: Alex Murphy
Ours get read?

Your Bible gets read in snippets during your "services." Ours gets read completely during our liturgical cycle.

But I would not expect a protestant to understand that...the sects of protestantism are too into attacking the Catholic Church instead of actually learning about it.

79 posted on 03/07/2007 6:17:50 PM PST by AlaninSA ("Beware the fury of a patient man." - John Dryden)
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To: pax_et_bonum
Catholic and Protestant Bibles: What is the Difference?

Protestants don't pray to imaginary friends ping.

Hardly anything cries tears of blood in our houses, either.

Our tortillas don't have images on them and our grilled cheese sandwiches don't have faces.

If they did, we'd be scared and toss 'em out, yo.

80 posted on 03/07/2007 6:21:51 PM PST by humblegunner (If you're gonna die, die with your boots on.)
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