why does the catholic bible have more books ?

Answer 1

The New Testament canon of the Catholic Bible and the Protestant Bible are the same.

The difference in the Old Testaments actually goes back to the time before and during Christ’s life. At this time, there was no official Jewish canon of scripture.

The Jews in Egypt translated their choices of the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek in the second century before Christ. This translation, called the Septuagint, had wide use in the Roman world because most Jews lived far from Palestine in Greek cities. Many of these Jews spoke only Greek.

The early Christian Church was born into this world. The Church, with its bilingual Jews and more and more Greek-speaking Gentiles, used the books of the Septuagint as its Bible. Remember the early Christians were just writing the documents what would become the New Testament.

After the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, with increasing persecution from the Romans and competition from the fledgling Christian Church, the Jewish leaders came together and declared its official canon of Scripture, eliminating seven books from the Septuagint.

The Christian Church did not follow suit but kept all the books in the Septuagint.

1500 years later, Protestants decided to change its Old Testament from the Catholic canon to the Jewish canon.

With love in Christ.

Answer 2

Someone mentioned above that the books are called the “Apocrypha.” Yes it is.

They are not only use by Catholic, but to the Jews and Evangelic Christian too.

The different is, Catholic choose to put them in the Bible, and the other 2 don't.

To the Christian, on top and above of the 39 Old T, and 27 New T, the theological student also read history books, like books writen by Josephus, and other books from ANE (ancent near east) nations.

As for the Apocrypha, some are actually very good in providing the inter-Testament story. When we understand the struggle between the 2 testaments, and the political struggle Israelite had to went thru', we will understand why it is so difficult for the Jews to accept Jesus.

Anyway, in conclusion, the Catholic do not actually have extra books. They still take the 66 books as official canonised book, and the rest are but Apocrypha. Just good writing, but not the actual inspired word of God.

Answer 3

hey very good question
These extra books appear in the Old Testament of the Catholic Bible and are called the “Apocrypha.” They were not generally accepted as part of the Bible’s “canon” (list of included books) until the Council of Trent (a Catholic council held between December 13, 1545, and December 4, 1563). At that time, the council pronounced the Vulgate translated by St. Jerome to be the “official” Catholic Bible. (Jerome’s Vulgate was a Latin version of the Bible that included these extra books.) Since the Council of Trent, all Catholic editions of the Bible have included the Apocrypha.

However, we know from the writings of Josephus (A.D. 37-c.100) that no book was added to the Hebrew scriptures after the time of Artaxerxes who reigned after Xerxes.[1] Therefore, we know the Old Testament was completed by 424 B.C.[2] and has not changed since that time. The Apocrypha were written centuries later. For that reason and others, most Protestants did not accept adding the Apocrypha to the Bible canon during the Council of Trent. They did not necessarily believe that these extra books were “bad,” they just knew that they did not belong in the Bible. The Old Testament of most Bibles printed today follow the original Hebrew canon, matching the Jewish Tanakh (the scriptures used by the Jewish religion).

Answer 4

The answer is a short history lesson.

Prior to the Reformation there was only the Catholic Church. The Orthodox are not really a separate Church it is the same denomination but there is schism between the groups that is finally healing.

The bible, or more properly the canon of scripture, was finalized in the year 405 by Pope Innocent. It may have been also been finalized by Damasus in 397, however his list no longer survives but is believed to be the same as Innocent's list.

Innocent was confirming the list made by the synod at Carthage which following up on the work by the synod at Hippo Regius. Damasus was confirming the list made by the synod at Rome. Because the Pope is the lead bishop of all Christendom, a fact confirmed in passing as early as 110 and inferred from early writings as well, the Pope as successor to Peter must, given the powers of the keys given to Peter by Christ, confirm doctrine for it to be universal.

The books listed were for use in the services not really for doctrine in the way they are used by Protestants. That is a rather novel idea that Luther invented.

Luther rejected papal authority. In rejecting papal authority he rejected the only authorizing party for the bible, which put him in a conundrum. How do you use scripture alone if you reject the party that decided which books were in and which were out?

Luther's solution was to relook at the canon. There are two sets of books, the protocanonicals such as Genesis and Luke, and the Deuterocanonicals such as Tobit, 1&2 Maccabbees, 2 John, Revelations, Jude or James. He automatically picked up the protocanonicals because all of early Christianity accepted them. He then went through the deuterocanonicals and picked the ones he agreed with and rejected the ones he disagreed with.

He removed James, Jude, Revelations and the books Protestants now call the Apocrypha. He actually had ugly words for the three New Testament books he removed.

Lutherans later returned James, Jude and Revlations in the 17th century, I believe following the Catholic Ecumenical Council at Trent. They left out the books Protestants call the apocrypha.

The reason is that the Jewish community left them out.

This is where it gets complicated. The Jewish community, didn't determine the old testament until after the period of the apostles. Both Jesus and the apostles quote from these books. They removed them because one of the standards they used to determine canonicity was that God only can speak Hebrew. Any book written by Jews in exile or by Hellenic Jews of the Diaspora were excluded. This was intended as an attack on the Christian New Testament which is written in Greek. Since God wouldn't speak Greek the Christian scriptures must be false.

Luther, unknowingly, accepted this list not realizing the list was created as an attack on Christianity.

The Catholic Church accepts the longer list because it always had and it is clear early Christians did. Protestants reject it because in rejecting papal and episcopal authority Luther no longer had a mechanism to determine what the apostles meant. The bishops as successors to the apostles (See Acts 1:46) were charged with this function since Matthias was ordained in place of Judas. It is a sad accident of history.

Answer 5

They have the apocrypha added. They are just old books that the Protestants thought that were unnecessary. They are great books to read. I am not Catholic but I appreciate the fact that they kept a lot of the old books.

Answer 6

Well, that's complicated. I think it's something like those books were found, but they weren't sure they were part of the Bible, and the catholics decided to put it in. I could be wrong.

Answer 7

I could not answer this but there are only 66 books in the Bible.

Anything else after can only be used as some background, IF that, and NOT Biblical.

Answer 8

They litterally don't count that as part of the books of the bible .. but they believe it's as inspiring, educative and informative as the other 66 and 27 books of the bible ..

Answer 9

I'm pretty sure the Catholic religion has more books because it was one of the first religions to begin a wide spread universal language.

Answer 10

because the prortestants took them out later on

catholics are OK but ive had my fair share of fundies be it catholic protestant JW mormon or whatever. Used to be catholic, glad i was never confirmed or it whould be held above my head like a piece of meat is held above a dog.
here have a roasary. they kinda remind me of Buddhist prayer beads anyways.