Why Catholic Bibles are bigger

Ok, I'm going to try and simplify this as much as I can while maintaining all the key facts. In no way does what I write here givean exhaustive report of what I'm going to talk about, but it willgive something solid for you to investigate further if you are interested. In another post I did earlier I had mentioned a time when I was in class and one of my professors (not professor Lane) statedthat Catholics added 7 books to the bible not found in Protestant(non-Catholic Christian) Bibles after the Reformation in the 1500's.I knew this wasn't historically accurate but I never got to share mypoint in that class as I was quickly silenced. But here I will share and try to condense it down as much as possible.

Since the very beginning of Christianity the Christians used two Canons, the Greek and Hebrew Canons. The Greek Canon known as the Septuagint contained 46 books. The seven books in the Old Testamentare referred to by Catholics as "Deuterocanonicals". Protestants refer to them as the "Apocrypha." The seven books in Catholic bibles that Protestants don't have are "Wisdom, Sirach, 1 & 2Maccabees, Baruch, Judith, Tobit. Catholics still use the same Old Testament canon that has always been used in Christianity. We know factually that the apostles; the early church fathers and all early Christians used the Septuagint until the 1500s. There are roughly 350 quotationsof the Old Testament to be found in the New Testament, and of these 300 are quoted directly from the Greek Septuagint, including Old Testament citations attributed to Jesus. This brings us back to what professor lane explained in our class a couple weeks back. Remember that famous prophecy about Jesus and the virgin birth in Isaiah 7:14 quoted in Matthew 1:23. The Hebrew Bible does not say "virgin"but "young woman" while the Septuagint does say "virgin" Here is an example of the Septuagint clearly being quoted in the New Testament Greek.

And so begins the story of why Catholics have 7 more books in the Old Testament than Protestants. The Hebrew Canon which contains 39 books was believed to have been drafted by Jewish rabbi's in or around 100 a.d (long after Jesus died) possibly in reaction to the ChristianChurch. One of the main reasons for the Jews omitting the "Apocrypha"books were that they could not find any original translations in Hebrew of the disputed books. Hence, the possibility that this was in reaction to the Christian church because of the fact that the NewTestament was being written in Greek. In 4th century councils the Church affirmed the 46-book canon as the inspired Word of God, Not the 39 Hebrew Canon. Christians accepted and used the Greek Septuagint Canon. They did not accept the 39 book Hebrew canon thatthe Non-Christian Jews that didn't even believe in Jesus created muchlater.

Protestant bibles which only have 39 books in their Old Testament came about in the 1500's when Martin Luther, the leader of the Protestant reformation took out the 7 books of the bible. Basicallyhis own reasoning and judgment were enough for doing so, take for example the following statement regarding Luther's feelings on the issue

"I hate Esther and 2 Maccabees so much that I wish they did not exist; they contain too much Judaism and no little heathen vice" -Martin Luther

It is noteworthy to see here that Martin Luther who also wanted to throw out more books of the bible Esther and even New Testament books such as James and Revelation passes his own personal judgment on a undisputed canonical book along with "2 Maccabees"

Aside from that, they appealed to the same reasoning of the Jews that there were no original Hebrew counterparts for the writings. The interesting fact is that for hundreds of years the Christians had already believed and used the 46 book canon. The writings of the early church fathers and other early Christian writings refer to the46 book canon. And on top of that supporting information anyone familiar with the findings of the Dead sea scrolls found at Qumran are aware of the fatal blow to the argument against the Disputed books because guess what was found?

Yes, that's right. They found Hebrew copies of some of the disputed books!

So ultimately the 39 book Canon that Protestants use (King james, NIV etc..etc.) is the result of a decision made by

1. Non-Christian Jewsthat did not believe in Jesus, who persecuted the early Christians and who threw out the books long after his death. Logically what authority do Jews that don't believe in Christianity have over Christians to change the Canon of the Old testament by taking outbooks Used by Christian writers, Jesus, the apostles and early church fathers?

2. A Man in the 1500's, Martin Luther who even wanted to throw out more books of the bible (who also added the word "Alone"to his German translation which is not found in the original Greek,in an attempt to give more credibility to his new doctrine, Salvation by Faith alone "Sola Fide" unheard of in Christianity for 1500 yearsbut that's a different issue worth noting though as this is another foundation of Protestantism which began from this man just like thecanon of the bible missing books)

Lets take a look at what history says happened regarding the Canon ofthe bible in the Church prior to Martin Luther's time of the 1500's.The Canon of the Bible had already been affirmed in "Rome in A.D.382, the Council of Hippo in A.D. 393, the Third Council of Carthage in A.D. 397, by Pope Innocent I in 405 A.D., by the Sixth Council of Carthage in A.D. 419, the Seventh Ecumenical Council in Nicaea (A.D.787), " You can also add Florence 1442, and Trent 1546 (though Trentpost dates Martin Luther's reformation).

That information plus the Dead Sea scrolls paints us a solid picture of why the Catholic and Non-Catholic bibles differ. We see that the grounds that there were no Hebrew writings for the disputed books ultimately proved this reasoning unsupportable. And it takes no faith, or no Conspiracy theory to prove this point. The finding of the Dead Sea scrolls were basically history reaching its hand farinto the present time and slapping the face of unreasonable and untrue claims that there were no Hebrew writtings of those books. It was in fact the Catholic church, its Catholic Councils, its Catholic bishops, Popes and early church fathers that canonized the Bible that all Christians, Catholics or not would believe in as the Inspired word of God for all the ages to come.

So in the future if you ever hear your professors or anyone say that "Catholics added 7 books to the bible" ask them to show you how? When? where? Who did it and why?

And as a Catholic if you are ever in a position where anon-Catholic Christian is quoting bible verses against you and the Catholic church left and right Proclaiming proudly that they don't need the Church and "The bible is their only foundation!".

Say to them "That is fine but at least understand this. Your Foundation which you claim is that bible, came from the Catholic church… and no, That is not my personal subjective belief that is not my faith. That is just History my friend.

That is just factual History…"

As i said earlier it takes no faith or no conspiracy theory to prove that point. The straight hard facts and evidence already do it. But don't just take my word for it. I will end here with the founding Father of Protestantism to prove the point further. Lets see what the Father of "The bible alone" and "Faith alone" have to say on the subject of Catholics and the bible

"We are obliged to yield many things to the Papists [Catholics]-that they possess the Word of God which we received from them, otherwise we should have known nothing at all about it" -Martin Luther.

To which Catholics respond…

"Amen…"