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

[kosta50]

That still strikes me as a serious affront to Father who CREATED A TAILOR MADE PERSONALITY FOR EACH INDIVIDUAL and typically goes to ENORMOUSLY great lengths to protect and shape it

Does that include the antisocial personality as well?

Personality is the foundational substrate of existence as humans

...on earth, you forgot to say "on earth."

Do you think aggressiveness will play a role in heaven? Timidity? Are you going to have "social types?" Will people go to work? Will they watch TV? Will they be tempted? Will there be a fashion and shopping centers or ice cream to satisfy our sublimated passions? Will there be jealousy and envy? Will there be any needs? Will there be a need for Moses and Elijah and Peter and Paul? Will there be the generous and the frugal? Will there be marriage, and children and "heavenly idols?"

What do you believe this eternity spent with God will be like and why would yours or mine or anyone's personality, preference, desire, taste, etc. have any significance or effect? Competition?

Reality check.

[JockoManning]

Amen and thanks, Quix.

= = = MARKER On Religion ^ 03/17/2007 3:58:07 AM MDT = = =

[marbren]

Well put Quix.
The item that we share with Abba Daddy that gives us the fellowship is the blood of Christ.

[fortheDeclaration]

IOW, the only way to determine the correctness of their words, or proposed doctrines, is against God's word.

For what saith the scripture? (Rom.4:3)

[Quix]

I suppose incongruencies are also in the eye of the beholder . . .

but is it just me . . . or are a LOT . . . an uncommon abundance . . . of the incongruencies on the part of SOME RC's & Orthy's

outrageously extremely overtly glaring???

Some . . . embarrassingly so . . . for them! Part of me wants to run find a cloak to cover them over . . . but that would not help bring much needed light to shine in such dark recesses. Sigh.

[ScubieNuc]

Nevertheless, Protesties should be hauled up short on 286 of Paul's words just because RC's think it's convenient and fun to do.

I ran across another one of Paul's words that contradict RC teaching for sure....

2Cor. 11:3 But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.

There is definately no simplicity in the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church. When you point out the main doctrine of Belief in Christ for salvation, you eventually get the subtle disagreements based on traditions and works.

Sincerely

[Quix]

When there are differences like this, where each side can scarcely believe that the other side means what it is saying, there is usually some fundamental misunderstanding. The folks who can throttle back on the abuse and personal comments and interrogation techniques are usually the ones who are mot likely to get to the bottom of the misunderstanding.
= = =

Excellent points. Sigh.

I don't think the motivating dynamics have much of anything to do with theology. I think they are 99.8% psychologically rooted.

Sometimes I'm not sure it's misunderstanding. Seems more like perversity.

But there is plenty of understanding problems, clearly. A post I have yet to reply to is mystifyingly obtuse in it's internal wording. Muddleheaded seems to be putting it mildly.

I don't have a lot of home for a variety of people.

But my challenge is to avoid striving with someone who claims to be and shows any significant evidence of being a believer. And how to balance the gentleness Scripture calls for in that with forcefully declaring the truth in a way that MIGHT have a chance to pierce the denseness.

But mostly, I write for the lurkers.

It is a conundrum as to how much gentleness fits vis a vis how much bold, brash, fierceness. I've seen both be absolutely useless by turns and each for long periods.

I think it often boils down to RELATIONSHIP. Folks with very poor attachment experiences the first 8 years of life attach to -isms. Philosophies, things, pride, control, and a myriad of other idols take the place of the deep holes in one's life from lack of the love buckets and affection needs being filled those first 8 years of life.

Such folks can become TRUE BELIEVERS in the worst classic sense of that ?Hoffer? term. And the blinders get thicker and thicker.

Usually such folks have a great weakness to incapacity to see themselves remotely accurately and particularly to admit having been or being wrong on any significant and most petty issues.

I sometimes try to jangle such folks awake by asking how their close relatives are in being comfortable with them or enjoying being around them or avoiding verbal conflict with them. Usually, they brashly insist that all is well. I'm never convinced. It's just not that easy to be fiercely harsh, incongruent, blind, angry, authoritarian, rigid, narrow, brittle etc. in one forum and NOT that way at home. Life's just not that easy to compartmentalize on those scores.

And my heart goes out to them in spite of their spikey prickliness. But there's usually little reaching them until they crash and burn MANY TIMES usually in big ways.

And, I've not been above trying to hasten such crashing and burning in the hope of helping get them through such painful yuck sooner, faster.

Hereon . . . I mostly use such as foils for declaring truth for the lurkers. I hope THE FOILS learn something too but their hides and constructions on reality are usually thick enough that expecting that any time soon in any significant degree would be exceedingly foolhardy.

I HAVE HAD an amazing percentage of success, by God's grace, with even such rigid, very slow to learn such types being unable to wipe fiercely provocative things from their memories and HOLY SPIRIT THEN USING SUCH TO haunt them over years until they finally gain some insight.

Calm sweet things are usually forgotten and erased from their memories fairly instantly. Interestingly.

Decades of eventually, much delayed but productive experience with such is a HUGE PART of what continues to motivate me to be so . . . Quixish.

I don't really enjoy being seen as the ornery one. I'd much, much, MUCH rather folks saw me as a Mad Dawg derivative teddy bear. Or Jesus meek and mild. Sigh.

Thanks for your thought provoking post.

LUB,

[Quix]

INDEED. AND PRAISE GOD FOR SUCH WONDERFUL HOLY SPIRIT IMPACT IN SUCH REGIONS . . . China as well.

[Quix]

This is mostly a mystifying post I'm brash enough to reply to.

I really can't quite make out what you're going on about or what your point is.

However, it appears that you have not registered conscioiusly what I've written before.

THERE IS NOTHING NEGATIVE, EVIL, LESS THAN GOD'S HIGHEST WHICH WILL SURVIVE AS PART OF OUR PERSONALITIES IN HEAVEN.

I don't know how to state that any more plainly. I've defined the terms repeatedly. I've given examples. All the words are pretty simple. I don't know where the disconnect is or how to fix it. I'm happy to try if I can understand where the communications problem is. But I have no clue at the moment.

[Quix]

Of course it is The Blood of The Christ, our Precious Lord and Savior that restores fellowship with DADDY.

Yea for that to the max!

[Quix]

There is definately no simplicity in the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church. When you point out the main doctrine of Belief in Christ for salvation, you eventually get the subtle disagreements based on traditions and works.
= = =

Indeed. It's traditions, political plays and conquests; magicstericals; customs; rituals; piled on top of each other in layers miles deep with a tangled string sort of convoluted connections

vs

The simple Scriptural Gospel of Christ's truth in love.

Thanks.

[Quix]

CORRECTION

I don't have a lot of home realistic HOPE for a variety of people.

Yet, hope in Jesus springs eternal.

[Quix]

I think IF Christ were not lovingly standing by us in the life review, none of us could survive the bludgeoning of the truth about ourselves.

[Quix]

I'm just greedy for every morsel of Angel-Gal input, brain food, exhortation, input I can beg, borrow or steal.

Thx.

[Quix]

Given the metaphor of sexual merging Scripture gives for Christ's love for the church . . .

there is a profoundly intense, deep, broad etc. sense of merging in the best of such physical sharing between Spirit-filled hubby and wife.

An aside--the Methodist MD and his wife insisted that sex was best when praying in tongues.

Anyway--given that as metaphor for a high level degree of an intense merging . . .

the individuals are still individuals. The FOCUS--FOR A TIME--is on THE MERGED 'ENTITY' but only for a time and only SEEMINGLY to the laying aside of individuality. Nothing is obliterated of the personalities, identities, individuality of the participants.

IN FACT, GOOD SEX ENHANCES THEIR PERSONS, THEIR IDENTITIES, THEIR PERSONALITIES.

Worship has been likened to making Love to God. I think the same is similarly true in the best of worship. A high degree of a sense of merging can be experienced. But we can't camp there. We leave enhanced in our persons, our identities, our personalities and hopefully with an intensified, qualitatively improved sense of GOD TABERNACLING WITHIN US.

imho.

[Quix]

I'll have to add that one to my Word file. is that yours?
Need insure your credit.

[Quix]

Er, when Paul is speaking of the "mind of Christ" in I Cor 2 - he is speaking, not of our mortal minds, but the indwelling Holy Spirit.

Thus, the Scriptures in the Tanakh which presage what happened at Pentecost use the Hebrew phrase ruach Elohim - particularly those passages which speak of the Spirit of God coming upon one of His servants.
= = =

INDEED.

[Quix]

EXCELLENT POINTS.

[Quix]

It does NOT help me respect a person's construction on reality

more

when they, like Jimmuh Peanut Head Carter construes his construction on spiritual reality as greatly better, more accurate than Apostle Paul's.

Actually, it tends to red flag virtually everything Jimmuh says as worthless or near so.

[Quix]

Our personalities will not be expressed, because there will be no reason to express them.

I find those ideas utterly and profoundly, screamingly 100%

WITHOUT

1. Scriptural foundation
2. Logical, rational support
. . .
3. Congruency with life as we have known it and can remotely imagine it in Heaven
4. Comprehension of the most basic components of RELATIONSHIP AND DIALOGUE
. . .
5. Respect for DADDY'S PRIORITY FOR FELLOWSHIP WITH A DIVERSITY OF PERSONALITIES HE TOOK SUCH CAREFULLNSS TO CREATE SO UNIQUELY
6. Understanding of DADDY'S absolutely pervasive AWASHNESS in EXTREME CREATIVE UNIQUE DIVERSITY AND COMPLEXITY
. . .
. 7. Demonstrated willingness to interact personality to personality with THE UNIQUELY PERSONAL GODHEAD

I'm more than a bit curious. How at home and comfortable can one be with their own personality and hold to such a perspective.