why the popes were allowed to substract and add scriptures from the Bible?

Question

why we let them?

Answer 1

Because they'd burn you if you disagreed.

Answer 2

No Pope ever added or substracted anything from the Bible.

Both Catholics and Protestants have the same New Testament. They are the 27 books declared as canon by the Councils of Hippo and Carthage around the year 400. (Yes, Catholic Councils decided the Protestant bible too.) Before those councils the churchs also read from the Shepard of Hermes, the Didache, the Revelations of Peter, and a host of other books that were tossed out.

Regarding the Old Testament the Catholics use the books from the Greek Septuigent, while the Protestant use the books from the Hebrew Masonric text. The Catholics use the Greek text with 7 extra books, because that is what Jesus and the Apostles would quote from. The Protestants use the Hebrew text because that is what the Jews use today. The Catholics are not alone, the Orthodox, the Coptic, the Ethiopean Bibles all use the same. It's only the Protestants that dropped these books out in the 16th century.

So, the Catholics have a better history supporting them and the Protestants are the johnny-come-lately bible modifiers.

Answer 3

No writings were added or subtracted from the Bible since the bible was formally assembled (except by the Protestants).

The New Testament canon of the Catholic Bible and the Protestant Bible are the same with 27 Books.

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 of 46 books, 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. 46 + 27 = 73 Books total.

1500 years later, Protestants decided to keep the Catholic New Testament but 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 4

The short answer is that the Popes were not able to subtract and add scriptures from the Bible at will. This is, at best a misconception, and at worst, a deliberately misleading statement, though I suspect that, for most non-Catholics, it's just a misconception.

The origins of such a misconception are complicated and go back to the selection of the books to be included in the "official" Bible (this occured within the framework of the early Catholic Church, prior to the schism and existence of Protestant faiths, so it wasn't a Catholicism vs. the rest of Christianity sort of thing), at that time there were a lot of concerns, some legitimate, some political (there's always politics when human beings are involved), but it's important to note that the decisions were made by councils NOT any single Pope (more on this further down). Largely, the books chosen then make up the Bible as we know it now, and with the exception of the Apocrypha (see next paragraph) it's the same Bible, same scriptures, that both Catholics (inclduding the Orthodox catholic faiths) and Protestants use today.

Differences were codified around the time of another council, the 19th Ecumenical council, or the Council of Trent, which was in the post-Protestant era. At the Council of Trent the Church clarified the books which would be considered "as sacred and canonical". They are the seventy-two books found in Catholic editions, forty-five in the Old Testament and twenty-seven in the New. What this Council did, though was continue (not add) inclusion of the seven books (Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Sirach, Baruch, and First and Second Maccabees) and parts of books (viz: Esther 10:4-16:24, and Daniel 3:24-90; 13:1-14:42) which are not found in the Jewish editions of the Old Testament and, for this reason, were not recognized by many Protestants, and eventually most Protestant deonominations. These "apocryphal" texts make up the difference between what you now hear of as a "Catholic" Bible vs. traditional Protestant translations such as the King James Bible.

The selection of scriptures, either originally, or after the schism and at the Council of Trent was never as simple as the desires of the Pope. In fact, there were spirited, sometimes violent, arguments on behalf of what should and should not be included and for what spiritual, historical, and liturgical reasons why or why not by supporters and detractors (who literally had hundreds of biblical-era writings, historical writings, and later-era reflections to choose from...it was not a matter of including or not including just 7 books). The final list was approved by the sitting Pope, but to say he added and subtracted scriptures would be WAY off.

(Today, for example, a Pope could not pick one of the writing discovered as part of the Dead Sea Scrolls and "add" it to the official scripture. IF he ever was interested in such a thing, he would have to convene another council and the process would have to go forward again to consider the newly discovered, translated, etc. writings. It's not his choice based on his whims.)

***It should be worth noting, that many protestants, including my Southern Baptist and Methodist ex-girlfriends, read and study the Apocrypha as part of their lifelong Bible study. While not recognizing it as "official" scripture, they find it to be illuminating as "additional" Biblical material for study and appreciation of God's word and plan for this world.

It should also be said that this "difference" in scripture is most significant to Christians who believe the Bible is the literal and factually perfect reflection of God's work and intentions. Catholics do not view the Bible through the literalist perspective, but for those who do, you can see that others having "additional" books recognized (that they do not believe to be true) can serve as affront to their understanding and interpretation of the Biblical text. This is not to say either (or any other) approach to Biblical study and interpretation is right or wrong...merely to explain why the subject may be more passionate for some than others.

More (and far more academic) information can be found at:

Apocrypha (including larger exploration beyond the 7 books into other non-Canonical texts): http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01601a.htm:

The "Catholic" Bible: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02543a.htm

Council of Trent: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15030c.htm

The links can take you deeper into the subject matter as you choose.

Answer 5

It amazes me how little Protestants know about the history of their own church.

You are misinformed. It is the Protestants who have subtracted from the Bible.

The Bible never existed as a collected entity until the Council of Rome in the 4th century. Until that time, there were a collection of holy works. At the Council of Rome, the Catholics decided which books were the holy word of God and which ones weren't. In doing so, they set -- for the first time -- the books of the Bible. The Catholic Bible has remained unchanged since then. You have to remember that at the time all Christians were Catholic.

However, in the 1500s, Martin Luther decided -- on his own -- that certain books of the Bible were not inspired by God. He edited them out. Most protestant sects use his expurgated Bible. After he did this, the Catholics held another council -- at Trent -- to reaffirm that the canon had not changed.

So -- it is the Protestants, not the Catholics, who have changed the Bible.

People keep talking about the line in Revelation that says not to add from nor take away from the work. You have to remember that Revelation was a letter written to the seven churches of Asia. John was not telling us that we cannot add nor take away from the Bible (after all, there was no Bible at the time). He was telling the seven Bishops of those churches not to add to his message to them nor to leave anything out.

Answer 6

The main reason is, commandments of the Bible are too restricted for life and yet no religious people dare to fight for the
safe keeping of the original contents of the Bible. If the majority of the believers pull themselves away from the restrictions of God, and yet no laws to enforce in religion practice sooner or later people will start to make alterations to the Bible with the intention of asking the Bible to obey the followers, this is to answered you the reason why God had descended the final Holy Quran and the last messenger.

Answer 7

Because at the time the laity, [ regular ] people were forbidden to read the Bible, and those in power of the churches killed, fought hard to keep regular people ignorant at the time, did you know that Catholics have just recently been allowed to read the Bible?

Answer 8

To begin, none of us were there to stop them. lol. Secondly, they had the most power so they were able to make the changes as they saw fit. Literacy wasn't high and the church was powerful. People in power always bend the truth towards their own benefit. Remember that whenever you hear ANYTHING, wether it be religion or politics.

Answer 9

The Pope can do what he wants to do as the Catholics think that God speaks the words that come out of the popes mouth.

Answer 10

Catholicism is a religion of convenience. They change things as they please when it is socially appropriate. They have been doing it for more than 1000 years. The bible is nothing more than a compilation of things written 30-120 years after Jesus died so since most of it was made up why can't they change it as they see fit.

Answer 11

They weren't.

Every decision regarding the content of the Bible was made by a Convocation of Bishops, which at the time of those decisions, means that the entire Church was represented in the decision.

It was not the act or decision of one man, one Pope.