Why are some books (Apocrypha) of the Catholic bible, not present in Protestant bibles?

Question

1 & 2 Maccabees, Tobias, Judith are not in the KJV of the Bible. Why were these removed?

Answer 1

First and foremost, I think ImACatholic2 already gave the best answer (JimPettis also gave a good answer). Therefore, what follows is merely my comments in response to what others have written.

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SUNESTAUROM said the Deuterocanonicals were "never accepted as authoritative by the Jews." This is mistaken, as different Jewish communities had different canons, and the official Jewish canon was not fixed until well after the dawn of Christianity. Even in Talmudic times you can see Jewish sages treating the book Sirach as scripture. I provide evidence in my blog entry on the subject, which will appear appended at the end of this answer (in the sources section).

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KAIT claimed the Catholic Church decided these books needed to be in the Bible after the Protestant reformation. This is mistaken. The reality is that you can see the Church employing these books throughout Christian history. Furthermore, if the Catholic Church did not consider them scripture until *after* the Protestant reformation, why then are they also accepted by Orthodox Christians (who, by the reformation, had been separate from Rome for centuries), and why did they appear in Wyclif's trasnlation? Why are they in every edition of the Septuagint we have?

KAIT goes on to note that none of the Deuterocanonical books are quoted in the New Testament. But surely that is a poor method for deciding the canon, as books like Esther, Ruth and Obadiah are also never *explicitly* quoted in the New Testament.

KAIT claims there are errors, but shows none. KAIT claims praying for the dead is not Biblical, but he can only claim that after the Biblical texts supporting such have been ripped from the Bible. KAIT claims they don't claim to be divinely inspired. Does Ruth, or Esther, or Luke claim to be divinely inspired?

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MIDNIGHT211 said simply that they were not inspired by the Holy Spirit. What is such a claim based on? It seems to me that we could just as easily say the exact opposite: the Deuterocanonicals ARE part of Scripture, because they WERE inspired by the Holy Spirit. Amen!

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DEWCOONS claimed the Jewish canon was closed in 400BC. The reality is that this is false. The Jewish canon was still fluid well after the dawn of the common era.

DEWCOONS claimed that "every single one of the 39 books of the Hebrew scriptures is quoted". This claim is false. I'd like him to show me the NT quotes from Esther.

DEWCOONS made it seems like only the King James had an "Apocrypha" section (or the Deuterocanonicals in them). That is false. All Protestant translations (including Luther's!) had them.

Answer 2

Here's a few extra ideas at the field: Why the Apocrypha Isn't within the Protestant Bible. a million. Not one of the most apocryphal books is written within the Hebrew language, which was once by myself utilized by the encouraged historians and poets of the Old Testament. All Apocryphal books are in Greek, besides one that is extant best in Latin. two. None of the apocryphal writers laid declare to concept. three. The apocryphal books have been under no circumstances recounted as sacred scriptures via the Jews, custodians of the Hebrew scriptures (the apocrypha was once written previous to the New Testament). In truth, the Jewish men and women rejected and destroyed the apocrypha after the overthow of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. four. The apocryphal books weren't accepted a number of the sacred books for the duration of the primary 4 centuries. five. The Apocrypha includes suitable statements which now not best contradict the "canonical" scriptures however themselves. For instance, within the 2 Books of Maccabees, Antiochus Epiphanes is made to die 3 specific deaths in 3 specific locations. 6. The Apocrypha involves doctrines in variance with the Bible, similar to prayers for the lifeless and sinless perfection.

Answer 3

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 that were removed supported such things as
+ Prayers for the dead (Tobit 12:12; 2 Maccabees 12:39-45)
+ Purgatory (Wisdom 3:1-7)
+ Intercession of saints in heaven (2 Maccabees 15:14)
+ Intercession of angels (Tobit 12:12-15)

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 Old Testament were originally written by the Jews in Hebrew. Around 400 BC, the books that they considered to be scripture were officially closed by the Jewish religion. It contained the same 39 books found in the Protestant Bibles today.

By 200 BC, the Jews were under the rule of the Greek Empire, and Hebrew/Aramaic was being replaced by the Greek language. At this time the Hebrew scriptures were translated in a Greek version known as the Septuagint. It would become "the" Old Testament in many Jewish minds the way that the King James version is "the" Bible in many Christians minds.

The people who made the Greek version were part of a Jewish sect that was rebelling against the Greek. Their leaders were the Maccabees. So in their translation they included some new books which covered the history of their revolt (1 & 2 Maccabees, some new psalms and proverbs, and a couple other books from their time.) These books were written in Greek, not Hebrew, and have never been accepted by the mainstream of Jews as scripture.

If you read the New Testament, you will find that every quote from the Old Testament given by Jesus or the New Testament writers are taken from the Septuagint. Mostly because they were writing in Greek, not Hebrew, so it was not practical to use the Hebrew scriptures. Every single one of the 39 books of the Hebrew scriptures is quoted, or an event with them referred to in the New Testament. However, there is not a single quote or reference to events from those later books added in the Greek versions.

But the 5th century AD, the Koine Greek language in which the New Testament (and Septuagint Old Testament) were written was becoming an obscure language. So the church had one of its Greek scholars, St Jerome, make a translation of the Bible into the common language of that time - Latin. The translation is known as the Vulgate Bible.

Neither Jerome nor his staff were experts in Hebrew, so they decided to make their translation, not from the Hebrew version of the Old Testament, but from the Septuagint Greek version. However, they were unsure what to do with the additional books in the Greek not found in the Hebrew. So it was decided to place them in a separate section in between the two testament called the Apocrypha (which means "hidden wisdom"). They were considered to be important, but less then inspired scripture. They remained there for the next 1000 years. Most of the Bibles produced between 500 and 1500AD did not include the Apocrypha.

Set the "way back machine" for 1517 AD, and the beginning of the Protestant Reformation. A major split was forming in the Catholic church, and one of the main things fueling it was the appearance of dozens of new Bible translation in the common languages of that time. (All Bibles before that were the Latin Vulgate). Add to that the printing press, and the ability to mass produce copies cheaply, and the Catholic church had a major problem. Most of those Bibles included not just the text of the Bible, but lengthy notes condemning the Catholic church and its theology.

To avoid any change of "Catholic" theology slipping into the Protestant translation, the Protestant translators had gone back to the original Greek New Testament and the Hebrew Old Testament (which does not have the books of the Apocrypha). So when the Protestant Bibles were published, they lacked those books. (A version of them would be released for the KJ version several years later)

So at that point the Catholic church suddenly "rediscovered" the books of the Apocrypha. They official recognized those books as being "scripture" for the first time in 1545 AD. They could then claim that all the Protestant produced Bibles were "fake" because they lacked those books, and thus ban the reading of those Bibles (and their condemning notes). The Catholic church released its own English version of the Bible which included the Apocrypha books mixed within the Old Testament for the first time in history.

Today, those books are still found in some (not all) Bibles produced by the Catholic church. However, the Catholic church stills treats them as being of less inspiration then the other 39 books (calling them deutro-canon or "second in importance"), and does not use them in any of their readings or rituals.

Answer 5

Definition of apocrypha:

1. The biblical books included in the Vulgate and accepted in the Roman Catholic and Orthodox canon but considered noncanonical by Protestants because they are not part of the Hebrew Scriptures.
2. Various early Christian writings proposed as additions to the New Testament but rejected by the major canons.
3. Writings or statements of questionable authorship or authenticity.

Answer 6

In general, "apocrypha" refers to books that were rejected from the canon of Scripture. But the term has different meanings depending upon if it is applied to the Old or New Testaments and whether Catholics, Protestants or Orthodox Christians use it.

The Term Apocrypha in the Old Testament

Regarding the Old Testament, originally all Christians had the same canon (list of books) of the Old Testament, the Greek version of the Jewish Scriptures known as the "Septuagint" (LXX). The Septuagint was widely considered by the earliest Christians to be an inspired translation and was the Old Testament of the Church. The Latin translation of the Bible (called the "Vulgate," which originated with St. Jerome around the year 400) also included books found in the Septuagint. Around 100 AD the Jews rejected the Septuagint Greek translation in favor of using Hebrew only, primarily because Christians used the LXX. The rejection included about 10 books and portions of books found in the LXX but that hadn’t been in use by Hebrew speaking Jews in Palestine. The Christians continued to use the complete LXX, since the apostles used it. The Greek LXX (in the East) and the Latin Vulgate (in the West) were the undisputed versions of the Christian Old Testament for about 1,500 years.

But in the 16th century some Protestant reformers, such as Martin Luther, decided that the additional Old Testament books that formed part of the LXX but not used by Jews should not be in the Bible, since the Jews had decided not to include them. Luther first separated and later removed these from his German version of the Bible in 1534 and called them apocrypha, since he determined they should not be part of the canon of Scripture. That term is used to designate books rejected from the canon of Scripture.

The Catholic Church, in response, affirmed the inspiration of these books at the Council of Trent (1545), but called them deutero-canonical, which means they have a secondary status, but are still scriptural. However, for the Orthodox Church, these 10 books of the Old Testament, which Protestants call "apocrypha" and Catholics call "deutero-canonical" have always been and still remain canonical Scripture. The Protestant Old Testament canon contains the fewest books, just 39. Since Protestants publish most English-language Bibles, these books are usually omitted from the Bible entirely or are found in a separate section in the back of the Bible or between the two Testaments. If it is a Catholic Bible, such as the New American Bible or the Jerusalem Bible, most of these books are incorporated without distinction into the Old Testament, but not all of them. Thus, Orthodox Christians have the oldest and most complete canon of the Old Testament, 49 books.

Answer 7

In churches where the authority of God's Word was the pinnacle of power the Apocrypha was always left out.

What most people do not realize is that the Apocrypha was ADDED TO THE BIBLE by the Catholic Organization and it's subsidiaries.

The reason the Bible Believing Christians rejected these books from the cannon (including ancient Catholic writers from the 4th century) was their lack of Holy Spirit Inspiration. How was this determined?

No connection with the first-hand Witnesses of Jesus Christ otherwise known as the Apostles.

Blatant Doctrinal, Historical and Geographical Errors.

These books were all rejected by the Jewish Scholars in the 1st Century as not being scripture on these and other grounds.

God bless you in your search for the Truth, may you find Him.

Answer 8

Martin Luther removed them.

It was by the apostolic Tradition that the Church discerned which writings are to be included in the list of the sacred books. This complete list is called the canon of Scripture. It includes 46 books for the Old Testament (45 if we count Jeremiah and Lamentations as one) and 27 for the New.91

The Old Testament: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings, 1 and 2 Chronicles, Ezra and Nehemiah, Tobit, Judith, Esther, 1 and 2 Maccabees, Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, the Song of Songs, the Wisdom of Solomon, Sirach (Ecclesiasticus), Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Baruch, Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi.

The New Testament: the Gospels according to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, the Acts of the Apostles, the Letters of St. Paul to the Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 and 2 Thessalonians, 1 and 2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon, the Letter to the Hebrews, the Letters of James, 1 and 2 Peter, 1, 2, and 3 John, and Jude, and Revelation (the Apocalypse).

For more information go to this link and look for section 120 and following.
http://www.usccb.org/catechism/text/pt1sect1chpt2.htm#art3

Answer 9

Those are Old Testament books which were never accepted as authoritative by the Jews. They were included (over Jewish objection) in the Septuagint (or LXX), a Greek translation of the Hebrew (and Aramaic) scriptures which was in common use during the New Testament era. The LXX was translated FOR the library at Alexandria rather than for the Jews and its content was dictated by the library. Jews living outside Palestine were known to use it, though Hebrew was the standard, particularly in Judea.

The LXX became the primary basis for the OT in Jerome's Latin Vulgate which became the "official Bible" of the Roman Catholic church.

Answer 10

" 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 Macabese 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 Iranians, Tortellini, 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 Apocrypha, 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 Jamie, which met in A.D. 90, rejected the Apocrypha as Scripture. Combine all this with the fact that there are clear historical errors in the Apocrypha (especially those relating to Obit) 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.