how come the catholics have more books in there bible and saints i never heard of?

Answer 1

The fourteen books that are in the Roman Bible are called the "Apocrypha." These were never included in the official canon of Scripture for Roman Church until the Council of Trent in 1545.

The Roman Church adopted the Apocrypha in direct opposition to the Protestant Reformers, which held to the original Hebrew canon of Scripture. Jesus mentioned three sections of the Hebrew Bible: "These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you-that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms had to be fulfilled." (Luke 24:44)

These three sections of the Hebrew Bible contained 22 books that correspond to the 39 books of the English Protestant Old Testament. The difference is in the breakdown. For example, in the Hebrew Scriptures, I and II Samuel are considered one book. As are I and II Kings. Joshua, Judges and Ruth are one book. Isaiah, Jeremiah and Lamentations are also one book. Ezekiel and the minor prophets are one book. Psalms, Proverbs, Job, Song of Solomon, Ecclesiastes, Daniel, Ezra and Nehemiah are one book. I and II Chronicles are one book.

Another ancient witness to this fact is the first century Jewish historian, Flavius Josephus. In his writings, he speaks of the Hebrew Scriptures as having twenty-two books with the same three divisions as well.

As far as "saints" goes, the Roman (and Orthodox and Anglican) Church name certain people as saints. This is a man made doctrine. The term "saint" means "one sanctified." (Or set apart.) The Bible calls all who are called by His name "saints."

You can find examples in the various letters from apostles. For example, "We give thanks to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you, because we have heard about your faith in Christ Jesus and the love that you have for all the saints..." (Colossians 1:3-4) These "saints" are merely people within the church, not anyone special, or more holy than the others.

Answer 2

+ Books in the Bible +

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. The books they dropped are sometimes called the Apocrypha.

+ Saints +

The Catholic Church has been around for almost 2,000 years. That is a long time to compile a long list of saints.

Before the formal canonization process began in the fifteenth century, many saints were proclaimed by popular approval. This was a much faster process but unfortunately many of the saints so named were based on legends, pagan mythology, or even other religions -- for example, the story of the Buddha traveled west to Europe and he was "converted" into a Catholic saint!

In 1969, the Church took a long look at all the saints on its calendar to see if there was historical evidence that that saint existed and lived a life of holiness. In taking that long look, the Church discovered that there was little proof that many "saints", including some very popular ones, ever lived. Christopher was one of the names that was determined to have a basis mostly in legend. Therefore Christopher (and others) were dropped from the universal calendar.

This action did not kick Christopher out of heaven. Remember everyone in heaven are saints whether the Church canonizes them or not. The Church was just trying to clean up its act.

With love in Christ.

Answer 3

The Catholics have more books in the Bible because they used the diaspora or dispersed Jews for their canon of accepted books of the Old Testament. The Protestants in the 15th/16th century used the canon from the Jewish authority back in Jerusalem by then. As I'm sure you're aware the Jewish religion has many branches also with such variety as well. The Dead Sea scrolls are very valuable to try to confirm the Bible books. The saints were the same for Catholics and Protestants until the Protestant Church formed/broke off in the 15th/16th century. Then Catholic saints were approved or canonized by the Catholic Church. I don't think the Protestant churches have a mechanism to approve saints the same way. But anyone/everyone who gets to heaven is a saint, not just the canonized ones so there are far more un-named saints we could all do well to learn about.

Answer 4

The protestant movement, that started with Martin Luther in 1519 (and spawned the Lutheran Church) broke with many of the Catholic traditions because they were just that -- traditions -- that had no Biblical basis for them. Modern Christianity, and almost every version of The Bible we now have, is a result of the protestant movement. The extra "books" in the New Testament that could not be verified as written by the Apostles of Jesus (some were written hundreds of years after His death) were removed from the protestant Bibles. As for the saints, that is one of the "traditions" of the Catholic Church that has no Biblical basis. There's a long list of Catholic practices that have no Biblical basis, like the offices of Pope and Cardinal, the prayer to the Virgin Mary, infant baptism, the requirement for priests not to marry, the confessional and penance imposed by a priest, the list goes on and on. Some people actually believe the Catholic Church is the anti-Christ (may sound a little far-fetched, but those who believe this make a pretty convincing argument...)

Answer 5

Bible: Because we kept the books that Martin Luther and the other reformers took out which disagreed with their teachings.

Saints: 2000+ years of Catholicism....Millions of people born & raised catholic, bound to be a few some never heard of. There are even saints that have not been officially declared as saints. If you die in a state of grace a friend of the Lord, you are a saint.

Answer 6

We Catholics INVENTED the bible. We came out with the origional version. The reason why there are less books in the other bibles is because when other religions broke off from the Catholic church they picked and chose what they wanted to believe from Catholicism and took out what they didn't want. No one successfully broke off from the Catholic church until the 1500's. Catholicism was an established faith for close to 1200 years before that and the bible was around the entire time. That's why our bible has more books. We have the origional version. Look it up in history.

Answer 7

Some of the books found in the Catholic bible that are not found in the Bible are a testament to the reliability with which the Bible was put together.

For books that were accepted as Scripture there were tests for accuracy which some of the books found in the Apocrypha did not pass. For example you'll notice in the gospel that there are parallel accounts- and much of the epistles teachings support each other (peter, john, paul, etc.)

While some of the books in the Aporcypha have value as a historical book (in terms of verifying times, dates, places) they are not considered Scripture...

Hope that helps...

Nickster

Answer 8

We have books in our bible that aren't in the protestant version and we also don't have some of the books that are in the protestant version. Some of the saints we have go way back to early Christianity where anyone who led an exemplary life was called as saint after they died.

I was in York, England a couple of weeks ago and found out about another saint, walked by her Tudor house, she was martyred in the 1500s

Answer 9

Because the Protestant Bible, King James version, is an edited version. :) The Catholic Version stands as what was FIRST assembled as the New Testament.

As for the Saints, the Protestant faiths do not recognize many, MANY Saints. *shrugs* It's just one of the differences in faiths.

This doesn't make one bad or good, as far as I am concerned. They are diffferent. And that's not always a bad thing.

Answer 10

--Question 1--
The books you are probably referring to are known as the "apocrypha," books that most Protestant Bibles do not contain, but Catholic ones do. While Catholics denote these books "Deuterocanonical books," they are the same books referred by Protestants as "the Apocrypha." As decided by the Council of Trent, they are as follows:

Tobit
Judith
Rest of Esther (Vulgate Esther 10:4-16:24)
Wisdom
Ben Sira, also called Sirach or Ecclesiasticus
Baruch, including the Letter of Jeremiah
The Additions to Daniel
Song of the Three Children (Vulgate Daniel 3:24-90)
Story of Susanna (Vulgate Daniel 13)
The Idol Bel and the Dragon (Vulgate Daniel 14)
1 Maccabees
2 Maccabees
1 Esdras (also known as 3 Esdras)
2 Esdras (also known as 4 Esdras)
Prayer of Manasses
^^ from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deuterocanonical_books#Catholicism

While I personally have not read these books, "How the Bible was built," (link to the amazon.com page below) said that they were probably good for spiritual development, but not necessarily God-breathed. Just like books today by C.S. Lewis, the pope, etc. are probably good for spiritual development, they aren't God-breathed and shouldn't be quoted as scripture. I hope this helps!

--Question 2--
And also, while Catholics venerate "holy" people whose lives are great examples for others, they believe that when the Saints are in heaven, they can ask God to help Christians on earth, something that is not backed up by the Bible. Protestant believers usually refer to all Christians as the saints, because Jesus has paid the penalty for our sins (when we were sinners), and makes us holy in the eyes of God come judgment day. Although we still sin, that is because we are human, but we have been redeemed by the mercy of God, making us "saints" so that we can be in the presence of God, who can be in no evil. Hope this explains alot!