In what ways does the Catholic Bible differ from the Christian Bible?

Question

I honestly am not famliar w/the Catholic Bible and am curious in all the ways it may be different. Someone commented that there was a difference, if so, how?
Thank You :o)

Answer 1

It is remarkable how many people answer and yet none have taken a history course, obviously, nor have they taken college courses in scripture.

Okay, in a nutshell early Christianity didn't realize it needed a canon. Paul tells Timothy to keep all the traditions given to him both written and oral. The Greek word used is paradosis and means what Catholics call Apostolic Tradition or all those things handed on by the apostles. These include services, the scriptures, artwork (Luke painted), stories, beliefs and practices. The earliest Christians, when they speak of scriptures are referring to what is now called the Old Testament and in particular the Septuagint form of the Old Testament. There are a couple of reasons for this.

First, the Septuagint was considered a highly trusted form and was written in Greek, just as most Americans read the bible in English or Spanish, most early Christians read the bible in Greek and if you had asked them which books were in the bible, they would have handed you a Septuagint. Both Jesus and the apostles quote from books in the Septuagint as scripture but not in the current Protestant bible. At the time of Jesus, the Jewish people had not determined the final list of what would be in the bible.

Beginning with Marcion of Sinope you begin seeing a canon develop. He invented his own Christianity without an Old Testament, parts of Pauls letters and an edited version of Luke. This made Catholic leaders of the time start asking which books should be read during the liturgy. In fact the only purpose of creating a bible was to determine which books should and should not be read during the service. Automatically, Christians adopted the Septuagint. Not only was it in universal use, but both the apostles and Jesus quote from it.

Between 70 and 90 AD, rabbis in Jamnia (although this is somewhat uncertain) began the process of creating a list of scripture for Judaism. They excluded certain books from the Septuagint that were written in Greek. They saw what Christians were doing and realized that God would not reveal himself in Greek. If Christianity were true, then it would have its scriptures written in Hebrew, so they excluded all Greek origin works. A handful of books that Protestants would later call the apocrypha, were originally written by exiled Jews in their primary language which was Greek. The exclusion of Greek works was an attack on Christianity.

For about 200 years Christians debated which books should be read during the service. Councils met at Hippo Regius, Carthage and Rome to debate the matter. Pope Damasus in the year 382 issued the final list on his authority that we now call the New Testament and took the Septuagint in as the Old Testament. The standard used to determine the books was use in the liturgy already, apostolic origin, catholicity and agreement with Catholic doctrine. Books that met those criteria became the New Testament. This is why it is illogical to say that Catholic doctrine is contrary to the New Testament since it chose the books on the basis of the fact they already agreed with the Church.

Fast forward around 1100 years to Luther. Luther had a problem and no solution. If he rejected the papacy he also rejected the only authorizing party for the bible. No papacy, no bible. Any other choice is irrational.

So Luther rejected the papacy and started repicking the books himself and editing them as well. He excluded the books Protestants call the Apocrypha as well as James, Jude and Revelations. The Apocrypha had since been dropped by the Jews, though Luther didn't realize it was as an attack upon Christianity. Following the rabbi's logic, none of the New Testament qualifies. As to the parts of the New Testament he excluded, he disagreed with them. Since only his opinion was the standard of authority and he rejected all other authority, his position was perfectly logical. Later Lutherans returned James, Jude and Revelations but it was very doctrinally convenient to exclude the apocrypha.

From a translation perspective, there really are no material differences between Catholic and Protestant translations in the modern period other than books included or excluded. All use the best of the early copies in Greek, Latin, Copt and Syriac that they have available. This was not true of early Protestant bibles. The King James Version, when retranslated in 1890 was found to have 20,000 errors many of them material errors. This was not the fault of the Protestants, Catholics would not allow access to the oldest documents to Protestant translators.

Current estimates put it at 400,000 variant passages exist in the New Testament. In other words, we have more variations in early copies than we have passages. Even if the original New Testament was the sole inspired word of God, we really do not know exactly what the original passages looked like. The two oldest complete or nearly complete documents we have are the Codex Vaticanus and Codex Sainaiticus from around 350. For Protestantism, this is a serious problem as how can one know what is true when you cannot get a 100% reliable source document. For Catholicism, this isn't as much of a problem because Catholics, Orthodox, Copts and other first churches do not use the bible for that purpose.

That is the final difference between Catholics and Protestant bibles. It isn't content, it is usage. Protestants take passages, string them together and create belief systems. Each system is eminently logical, usually complete, and usually exclusionary. Catholics, Orthodox and Copts take the beliefs handed down by the apostles and try to use the scriptures to understand the mysteries left to us by them. The bible is an aid to understanding, not the source of understanding. There are 46,000 Protestant denominations right now. They include snake handlers, pentecostals, people who believe in predestination, people who believe once saved always saved, fundamentalists, evangelicals, people who believe in scripture alone and those that accept some tradition, they include those who refuse to attend church on Sunday in favor of Saturday and those that attend daily to not favor any day.

You can string the passages together into any logical pattern and then you have the Protestant use of the bible.

For Catholics, the problem is reversed. We have beliefs and practices from the first century that may not really make a lot of sense in a way. For example, why did neither Jesus nor the apostles ordain any women? There is no logical reason but they did not. As such, Catholics cannot ordain women because logic isn't a sufficient reason to engage in a practice in the Catholic Church. It must be authorized by either Jesus or the apostles. So we read the bible and try to understand the things they left us, but did not explain. Or, if they did explain, they are still beyond our understanding. For example, why baptism? Why water? Why must we go around baptizing in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit? How did the first Christians understand it? How does God exercise His power in Baptism? What implications does Baptism have in our daily life? The bible is a tool to learn with, it is a tool to pray with, it is part of how God communicates with us, but it isn't used to create beliefs, it is used to understand beliefs.

Answer 2

As the Catholic Bible and the "Christan" (or more accurately Protestant) Bible are translated from the same Hebrew and Greek texts, the verses within them read the same.

Most of the books of the Bible, when originally written, did not have a name or title given to them. So tradition has given names to those books. The tradition Catholics names and Protestant names sometimes vary slightly in their spelling. (The Catholics usually take their spelling from Latin, while the Protestants take it from Hebrew or Greek.) Same is true of the spelling of some names within the text. As the Hebrew and the Greek use different alphabets from English, it is impossible to translate a name "letter for letter". So some of the spelling varies. (Like which is correct "Koran" or "Quran" for the Muslim's book? Same thing, just different spellings)

Also, in the Old Testament there are four books that tell the history of the king of Israel. In the Catholic Bible, these are called First Kings, Second Kings, Third Kings and Fourth Kings. In the Protestant Bible, since the first two books deal with kings who were anointed by the prophet Samuel, the first two books are called 1 Samuel and 2 Samuel. The other two books are then called 1 and 2 Kings (not 3 and 4). But the content of the books are the same.

Finally, there is a section of the Bible called the Apocrypha. It is a collection of 9 books (are additions to books) found in some Catholic Old Testaments that are not found in Protestant Old Testaments. The "official" list of what books make up the Old Testament was settled by the Jews around 400BC. Jesus and the New Testament would not come along for another 400 years. During this time, the books of the Apocrypha were written. They tell the history of the Maccabeen Revolt and other events that happened between the time between the Old and New Testament.

These books were included in an unofficial Greek version of the New Testament that was made around 200BC. As the New Testament was written in Greek, all NT quotes from the OT are taken from this Greek version.

In the late 4th century, the Bible was translated into Latin. As the translators were more familiar with Greek (which was still a common language) then Hebrew, they relayed heavily on the Greek OT to help them with the translation. Because the Greek translation included these additional books, it was decided to place them into a section between the OT and NT for those who wanted to read them. But they were not considered "scripture". The majority of Latin Bibles produced did not include the books. That Latin Bible (the Vulgate) would be "the Bible" for the next 1000 years. The Bible was only available in in Latin during that time.

With the Protestant Reformation (beginning in the early 1500s), there was an explosion of Bible translation into the common languages of the people. Most of these translates included not just the scriptures, but commentaries that were often very anti-Catholic.

The Catholic church needed a way to stop the spread of these anti-catholic commentaries, so they decided to release new versions of the Bible in other languages. But they needed some way to condemn the other Bibles. Since they were the same as the Catholic translation, it was difficult to do it based on the text of the books. So they decided to resurrection the Apocrypha and official add it to the Old Testament. Then they could ban all other Bibles because they were not complete. So in the late 1500s, the Catholic church for the first time recognized these books are part of the Bible. However, the Catholic church continues to print Bibles both with and without the Apocrypha. While Protestants also print Bibles that includes the books in between the two testaments. So you can get both Catholic and Protestant Bibles with and without the Apocrypha.

Beyond those 9 books, and the titles and spelling of names, the text of the two "Bible" is the same. They are both translated from identical Hebrew and Greek text.

Answer 3

Interesting phrasing considering that the Catholic Church, Roman and Orthodox is historically recognised as the oldest Christian Denomination. I would argue that the Catholic bible is the Christian Bible. But that would be quibbling, as there isn't that much difference. Although the Catholic bible does contain books absent from the King James (of England) bible.

One of those is Maccabees in the old testament.

I've heard several explainations but honestly can't say for sure. The most plausible is that in the ancient world there was not a Carnegie Library in every town. In fact in the middle east only Alexandria in Eqypt and Antioch had significant libraries. And that one of these libraries burned (I don't remember which). Destroying original copies of the books missing from the King James version of the Bible.

I've also heard that King James took liberties with the wording in order to produce a more poetic text. But I haven't noticed that the actual meaning was changed.

Bottomline is the differences are not significant.

Answer 4

The Catholic Bible is normally translated from Latin to English for us to read. (The Jerusalem Bible is most commonly read in Catholic settings)

The Bibles predominantly read by Prodestants are translated from the Greek to English for us to read. (King James version being the first done this way in 1611. Several different versions and revisions have been done since this first english version trying to update the english language versions making it clearer for us to understand in our modern world.)

Also the Catholic Bible would have the Apocrypha between the Old and New Testaments. This is a collection of poetical writings and fictional stories that really have nothing to do with the plan of salvation we see layed out through Scripture. The only meaningful bit of the Apocrypha that is worth reading and would help us from a historical point of view is The Books of 1st and 2nd Macabees. The Macabees family held off a Roman revolt around 400 BC and it is because of what they did we have the holiday of Hannukah.

Those are the big differences between the Bibles used in these 2 groups.

Hope that helps some

Jesus Loves You

Answer 5

All Christian bibles, from the first until the 16th century contained the materials which Protestants call "the apocrypha" and which Catholics call the Deuterocanonicals. Most Protestant sects did not initially remove these books - that came much later. The original authorized version (1611 KJV) included them.

The deuterocanonicals consist of:

Baruch, Judith, Sirach, Tobit, Wisdom, and 1 and 2 Maccabees. They also include parts of Daniel and Esther.

These books, to this day, are included in Catholic and Orthodox bibles, three quarters of all living Christians. In addition, Orthodox bibles also include 3 and 4 Maccabees.

More history is in the links.

Answer 6

Prior to the King James Version (considered the root Protestant Bible), most Protestant translations had clear signs of promoting a particular Protestant agenda. The Geneva Bible often contained slanted translations with even more slanted marginal notes. Luther’s translation into German had even gone so far as to insert words that did not occur at all in the original text to promote his own doctrinal agenda.

St Paul says, "... Being therefore justified by Faith ..." (Rom. V, 1), and Luther inserted the word "alone" so that the text reads, "Being therefore justified by faith alone." Should that behavior of the Reformers raise some questions in our mind?
Yes, what did they believe exactly concerning the Bible? Either they did not believe it was the Word of God, and therefore felt free to change it any which way; or if they did believe it was the Word of God, it took a lot of pride and presumption to correct God's word. In either case, they should be called bible "Deformers" rather than Reformers.

Original version Rom 5:1 Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ
Luther's German version inserts word "alone" in Rom 5:1 Therefore, since we have been justified through faith ALONE, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ

The King James version (NOT Lutheran) however is faithful to the original text though some books are missing that are found in the (catholic) Douay Rheim's version. WHY ?

The King James Version was different for several reasons: the Anglican Church had a much higher opinion of Church tradition; the translators included scholars of various Protestant persuasions and so kept each other honest; and most importantly, King James specifically commissioned this text to have a non-sectarian character, without commentary in the margin notes, that would help accomplish his broader goal of uniting the country that had been bitterly divided in the wake of the English Reformation. He wanted one translation that all English speaking people would use, and thus the translation could not be one that promoted the agenda of a particular Protestant sect as is the case with the ever increasing number of different Protestant sect versions available today.
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Answer 7

"The Apocrypha refers to 14 or 15 books of doubtful authenticity and authority that the Roman Catholics decided belonged in the Bible sometime following the Protestant Reformation. The Catholic Council of Trent (1545-1563) canonized these books. This canonization took place largely as a result of the Protestant Reformation. Indeed, Luther had criticized the Catholics for not having scriptural support fur such doctrines as praying for the dead. By canonizing the Apocrypha (which offers support for praying for the dead in 2 Maccabees 23:45-46), the Catholics suddenly had "scriptural" support for this and other distinctively Catholic doctrines.
Roman Catholics argue that the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament) contained the Apocrypha. As well, church fathers like Iraneaus, Tertullian, and Clement of Alexandria used the Apocryphal books in public worship and accepted them as Scripture. Further, it is argued, St. Augustine viewed these books as inspired.
Protestants respond by pointing out that even though some of the Apocryphal books may have been alluded to in the New Testament, no New Testament writer EVER quoted from ANY of these books as holy Scripture or gave them the slightest authority as inspired books. Jesus and the disciples virtually ignored these books, something that wouldn't have been the case if they had considered them to be inspired.
Moreover, even though certain church fathers spoke approvingly of the Apocrypha, there were other early church fathers - notable OrigIn and Jerome - who denied their inspiration. Further, even though the early Augustine acknowledged the Aprocrypha, in his later years he rejected these books as being outside the canon and considered them inferior to the Hebrew Scriptures.
The Jewish Council of Jamnia, which met in A.D. 90, rejected the Aprocrypha as Scripture. Combine all this with the fact that there are clear historical errors in the Aprocrypha (especially those relating to Tobit) and the fact that it contains unbiblical doctrines (like praying for the dead), and it is clear that these books do not belong in the Bible. In addition, unlike many of the biblical books, THERE IS NO CLAIM IN ANY APOCRYPHAL BOOK IN REGARD TO DIVINE INSPIRATION.

Answer 8

Douay-Rheims (Catholic - spell may be wrong) version was translated from the Latin Christians versions are mostly from the Greek. Differences are minor. I would use a Catholic Bible if I had no other. I think the truth is clearly in all of them.
It is probably as close to the original as the NIV is, but not as good as the KJV

Answer 9

Oh it's not much different. I mean it is, but it's not. It still has the gospel and the stories of old in it and you could lead someone to Jesus with it, but it is just a few things here and there....taking important words out that need to be there and verses too....switching hard to read old english out for easy words. Just watered down stuff. The Catholic Bible, if read, even goes against their own doctrine. It is called the Douay (Do-way) version. If you want to "study" the Bible I would stick to the KJV. Most others like NIV etc. won't harm you to much if you are just wanting it to read. Old English is really not that hard to understand though.

Former Catholic.

Answer 10

It carries 5 or 6 apocryphal books that weren't recognized by the Jews or early Christians as authentic,I'll name as many as I can from memory.I & II Macabees(good history),Bel and the Dragon,Tobit,I & II Esdras,and Susanna.There might be more I forget.But remember the Catholics did this after Martin Luther broke with the Church so as to have a different Bible .