i am a christian catholic do i have to read a catholic bible?

Answer 1

No, but if you don't you will be missing some wonderful books.

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 books removed were Tobit, Judith, 1 Maccabees, 2 Maccabees, Wisdom (of Solomon), Sirach, and Baruch. Parts of existing books were also removed including Psalm 151 (from Psalms), parts of the Book of Esther, Susanna (from Daniel as chapter 13), and Bel and the Dragon (from Daniel as chapter 14).

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.

Here is a Catholic Bible website: http://www.nccbuscc.org/nab/bible/

With love in Christ.

Answer 2

Why would you not want to read from a Catholic Bible? The thing that makes a Bible "Catholic" is that is has all the Inspired texts in it; 46 from the Old Testament, 27 New Testament.

There are a number of good Catholic Bibles to choose from. If one translation doesn't strike your fancy, maybe another one will. There is the New American Bible, a translation I don't particularly care for, even though it is very popular with others. I personally prefer the Revised Standard Version - Catholic Edition. This is an English translation of the Greek text. And then there is the Douey Rheims, an English translation of the Latin Vulgate. This is an excellent Bible as well. You will do well to check these three out.

Answer 3

I suppose you don't have to but why not? The Catholic bible is the St. Joseph edition which is translated from the original languages. The primary difference between the Catholic bible & that used by Protestants is that the Protestants have removed passages & some books of the bible.

We should follow the teaching authority of the Church. What is so very interesting about "The New American Bible" St Joseph edition is that before each book (Exodus, Samuel, etc) there is an explanation of the Church's view of the book. The bible is comprised of parables, allegories, short stories, historical novels, problem stories, etc. The book of Samuel, for example, is an historical book. The Church explains what that is and why Samuel was thought of in that matter. The explanations can be lengthy. Explains original language of the book. Books in the old testament are based upon the Hebrew language.

I know this is probably too lengthy of an answer but the bible is very facinating to me & made more so by knowing the background of each book of the bible & why theologians (non-Catholic theologians included) came to interpret the bible as they did. Note though when there were differences the bible reflects the thinking of Catholic theologians.

Answer 4

I will try not to answer your question as foolishly as Candy2025.
However, the only thing missing from most Protestant versions of the Bible are the apocryphal texts which are extra books in addition to the Old Testament.

Other than that, the different translations are basically saying the same thing but are translated in the English dialect of the period that they were translated in.

As far as the Apocryphal books missing from the Protestant Bible goes, there were many Catholics such as St. Jerome who thought that they shouldn't be included in the Bible in the first place. In fact they weren't even included in the Jewish Pentateuch. The Apocrypha is where we Catholics get the notion of praying for the dead and purgatory. The Protestants thought this was hogwash and so they took out the Apocryphal texts from their canon.

There is no harm in reading a Protestant Bible, just as long as you know your faith as a Catholic, and just as long as you aren't reading the qu'ran.

Answer 5

The New American Bible is a good Catholic bible, but yes you should read a Catholic Bible if you are Catholic. It makes sense. Now if you have no other bible but kj version and you cant afford a bible then it may be ok but the footnotes, which are important, may not all be the same as the Catholic version. You canalways view a Catholic bible online at http://usccb.org/nab/bible/ or a catechism at http://scborromeo.org/ccc.htm or ever further an online bible study at http://salvationhistory.com/ - good luck and God Bless!

Answer 6

The only difference between a Catholic Bible and the protestant Bible is that Martin Luther removed 7 books. You can read a Protestant Bible if you wish, but you will be missing some important information.

God bless,
Stanbo

Answer 7

You can read whatever you like.

Not all Catholic Bibles are the same.

Ask around and see what other Catholics find useful, and why.

Also, try to avoid biased translations like the New World Edition, which attempt to make Jesus a different person.

Answer 8

The King James is the same bible for Christinas and Catholics, what makes it Catholic is the coments inserted by the Catholic Priests, but if you don't read the coments, you are reading a Christian bible.

Answer 9

the catholic bible has some added books. Some of the writings contradict other standard books of the bible.

You might try the NIV. It was translated by a group of scholars from many different denominations as to avoid it's being tainted by sectarian views. It is also translated at an 8th grade reading level so pretty much everyone can grasp it.

Answer 10

It would make sense to read a bible approved by the church. Which isnt really hard to find. The Catholic Church has found a lot of errors in the King James Version.