What is the difference in books between the catholic bible and the christian bible?

Question

I'm still in search of a good Teen Catholic Study Bible. I want to make sure I'm reading the proper text and teachings of the catholic church.
In my last post, someone told me that the catholic bible contains the "Book of Wisdom" and others say it has additional books as well that weren't added in the christian bible by the 'founding fathers' for whatever reason.
I mean no disrespect to those who think less of me for asking such questions. I just want to be sure I'm reading the proper text so I would really be grateful if those who answer don't leave rude comments.
If possible, can you recommend some good Catholic Teen Study Bibles.
Thank you and God Bless!!!

Answer 1

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.

The following Bible translations are approved by the Catholic Chruch for personal use:
+ Douai-Rheims
+ Confraternity Edition
+ Revised Standard Version (RSV) - Catholic Edition
+ New American Bible (NAB )
+ Jerusalem Bible
+ New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)- Catholic Edition
+ New Jerusalem Bible
+ Today's' English Version - Catholic

Only the New American Bible (NAB) is approved for liturgical use in the U.S. and many other English speaking countries. Here is the NAB website: http://www.nccbuscc.org/nab/bible/

With love in Christ.

Answer 2

For a good Catholic Teen Study Bible try the "New Catholic Answer Bible". Its my favorite.

The Catholic Bible and the Protestant Bibles use the same New Testament. This is the list that the Catholic Church formally canonized around the year 400 at two Councils (Cathage and Hippo). The Catholic Bible has seven extra books in their Old Testament.

Why?... At the time of Jesus they didn't have a list of canonized books of the Bible. There were two major scripts, one in Greek and one in Hebrew. The Greek version was called the Septuagint, and the other was the Hebrew Masoraic Scriptures. When Jesus and the writers of the New Testament quoted the old testament they used both versions, but they used the Greek Septuagint about 75% of the time the Hebrew about 25%.. We can tell by the word usage.. For instance the prophecy about Jesus being born of a virgin is from the Greek, because the Hebrew text doesn't use the word "virgin", it uses the word meaning "young maiden".

Anyway, the Catholics adopted the entire Septuagint because they figured it was what Jesus and the apostles used. In around the year 90 the Jews had a council in Jamnia and offically canonized the Hebrew text. Then for the next 1500 years the Christians used the Septuagint old testament, until the Protestants came along and instead adopted the Hebrew old testament.

So it was the Protestants that cut out what Christians had been using for over 1000 years.... However the story doesn't end there. There are other Christians groups that adopted their own canon of scripture. The Ethiopean Christians have another Bible with even more books than the Catholics. The Eastern Orthodox use the Catholic list of books but also highly regard several extra books (such as the Revelations according to Peter). And there is the Coptic Bible, and the Syrian Bible...

Answer 3

The Catholic Bible contains extra books known as Apocrypha: 1 & 2 Esdras, Tobit, Judith, Addition to Esther, Wisdon of Solomon, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch with the Letter of Jeremiah, The Song of the Three Children, Susanna, Bel and the Dragon, 1 & 2 Maccabees...and I do believe I may be missing a couple others.

Point is these books are added into the Catholic Bible. The 1611 KJV once had these included but were removed. They are not viewed as an The Inspired Word of God for several reasons. One I know of is that Jesus nor any of His disciple never qouted from any of these books.

Answer 4

The Catholic Old Testament has 7 additional books. The Protestant reformers initially included those 7 books, but eventually rejected them calling them Apocryphya, the original meaning of the word meant doubtful, not false.
The reason for the rejection is there are no Hebrew manuscrips available on those 7 books.
In Jesus' times, the Bible was written in Hebrew and in Greek as there were Hebrew and Greek speaking Jews. Jewish authorities rejected the 7 book as part of their canon because of the lack of Hebrew manuscripts.
Now, the Gospel of St. Matthew has more references to Old Testatement prophecies than the other 3 Gospels. I understand that Bible scholars state that all the Old Testament prophecies quoted in Matthew come from the Greek texts not the Hebrew texts.
Now as a convert of 47 years who was reading the King James Version when I was converted, I will say sincerely that the inclusion or exclusion of those 7 books will not make a person convert from Protestantism to Catholicism or from Catholicism to Protestantism. There is a reference about praying for the souls of the dead in Maccabees. However, I believe that most knowledgable Protestants know the Jews say Kadish for their dead.

Answer 5

The New American Bible is a great one, and there is a study version available. I'm not sure about a teen version, but check this link:
http://gloriadeo.com/

There are 7 more books in the Catholic Bible- Old Testament - that were there for hundreds of years before Luther removed them because he didn't like what they taught.

Browse a Catholic booksore and ask the staff there.

Good luck!

Answer 6

When the leaders of the Catholic and Protestant and Jewish faiths were trying to decide which books should be in the Old Testament, the Protestant and Jewish theologians accepted one version and the Catholics another. There are 7 books in the Catholic Bible which are not in the Protestant and Jewish, or Hebrew Bibles.These are called the "Wisdom Books."
If you want to be certain that your Bible is the one used by Catholics, look in the front of the Bible for the words: Nihil Obstat and Imprimatur. These words include the names of the Bishops or Cardinals who have put their stamp of approval to the Bible as being accepted by the Catholic Church.

Answer 7

You can go to any Catholic book store and ask for a teen Catholic Bible.

Don't pay attention to those who accuse the Church of adding books to the bible. If they knew their bible history, they wouldn't be saying that.

Also, please stop saying Catholic and Christian. This distinction makes it sound like Catholics are somehow separate and different from Christianity, which isn't correct. The correct distinction is Catholic and Protestant.

God bless.

Answer 8

What you perhaps mean is the difference between the Catholic Bible and the Protestant Bible.

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A Brief History
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The NT was written between 30AD - 100AD. By 150AD lists of inspired NT books began to appear. By 397AD, Council of Carthage, the canonical list was finalised and ratified by the Pope Damascus I. The council decided the 46 OT and 27 NT books, it was accepted by the entire Christian Church. this list wasn't changed until the 16th century protestant reformation.

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The Difference
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The 46 OT books and 27 NT books are accepted as inspired by the Catholic, Orthodox and some Protestant churches (eg. Anglican). Luther questioned the inspiration of 7 OT books (Book of Wisdom being one of them) and 4 NT books (Hebrews, James, Jude and Revelations). However he did not remove these books from the Bible. It was in 1825AD that the Council of Edinburgh removed the 7 OT books from the Bible and restored the 4 NT books to it's place in the Bible.

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Bible Study
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You may pick any bible from your Parish book store or St Paul's book shop. Good translations of the bible are NASB, NRSV, Jerusalem Bible, Community Bible, Ignatius Bible.

For a good Catholic Study guide try 'A Catholic Guide to the Bible' by Fr Oscar Lukefahr - http://www.amm.org/chss.htm

For more information email me at [e-mail]

Answer 9

the Catholic Bible aparently has books that don't appear in other Bibles (what those books are, I don't know, I'm not Catholic). the Christian Bible has books (new testament) that were written by those who walked with Jesus, or those who were in close relations with Jesus' disciples. Some teachings were excluded because of inaccuracy (determined by the Holy Spirit) of principles, or they were written far too long after the other manuscripts to be of any valid value. the gospel according to St. Mark is the oldest NT manuscript.

Answer 10

The information I have read so far, from the responses posted, indicate such and such a text is best as it is "good" text based on content ect; why limit yourself to this Catholic text?

Go beyond what an institution wishes you to beleave and seek more information from other sources, other text, other people, other ideas.

Eventually, if you seek truth it will find you...eventually

:)