There are only 66 books in the Bible?

Question

How can you say that the Catholic Church added books to the Bible when those books were in the Septuigent version of the Bible 200 years before Christ was born: 200 years before Christ established His Church?

Answer 1

Here we go... Making up stuff again. Don't you people get tired of it.

Answer 2

There are not only 66 books in the Bible.

The Septuagint (IPA: /ˈsɛptuədʒɪnt/), or simply "LXX", is the name commonly given in the West to the Koine Greek version of the Old Testament, translated in stages between the 3rd and 1st centuries BCE in Alexandria.[1]

It is the oldest of several ancient translations of the Hebrew Bible into Greek.
Of significance for all Christians and for bible scholars, the LXX is quoted by the Christian New Testament and by the Apostolic Fathers. While Jews have not used the LXX in worship or religious study since the second century AD, recent scholarship has brought renewed interest in it in Judaic Studies. Some of the Dead Sea scrolls attest to Hebrew texts other than those on which the Masoretic Text was based; in many cases, these newly found texts accord with the LXX version. The oldest surviving codices of LXX date to the fourth century AD.[3]

Answer 3

Why does the Catholic Bible have seven more books in its Old Testament than the Protestant Bible? The answer lies in the fact that before the coming of Christ, the Israelites, God's Chosen People, possessed two Canons of Scripture: the Old Jewish Canon (written in Hebrew) and the Septuagint (written in Greek), which received its name from the Hebrew scholars who translated the Old Testament from the Hebrew language into the Greek language (centuries before the coming of Christ). The Septuagint was diligently used in Jewish synagogues and by Jewish writers (Philo and Josephus), and remained an unchallenged translation of Sacred Scripture until the beginning of the second century. The difference between the Septuagint and the Old Jewish Canon was not only in the language in which they were written, but also that the Septuagint contained seven extra books, namely, Tobias, Judith, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch, First and Second Machabees and parts of Esther and Daniel.

1. The Apostles and New Testament writers quoted principally the Septuagint. In fact, of the three hundred and fifty Old Testament quotations found in the New Testament, about three hundred are taken directly from the Septuagint.

2. The Jews, who had universally accepted the Greek Septuagint for centuries, became alienated from it after the Christian Church in her apologetical controversy with Jewish writers pointed out the Messianic passages, which were more clearly and forcibly presented in the Greek Septuagint than in the Hebrew version.

3. Some of the New Testament writers made use of the additional books contained in the Septuagint, particularly the Book of Wisdom, which seems to be a familiar theme in St. Paul’s Epistles. The Epistle of St. James — to take another example — shows an acquaintance with the Book of Ecclesiasticus. Thus, the Apostles and New Testament writers made reference to these additional books in their preaching and writing, and thereby gave them their approval.

4. The Greek Septuagint was the only Bible text of the Old Testament that was universally read in the primitive Church both in the East and in the West. The additional books were accepted in the early Christian Church from the very beginning. The Epistle of Pope Clement, written before the end of the first century, makes use of Ecclesiasticus and Wisdom, gives an analysis of the book of Judith, and quotes from the additional sections of the book of Esther. The same is true of other early Christian writers.

5. The oldest Christian Bibles in existence today (Codex Vaticanus, dating from the first half of the fourth century; Codex Sinaiticus, dating from the fourth century, Codex Alexandrinus, belonging to the fifth century, and the Codex Ephraemi, also belonging to the fifth century) contain all the books of the Old and New Testaments, just as we find them in our Catholic Bibles today.

And if we want to know the reason why our Catholic Bibles have the very same books as the oldest biblical manuscripts in existence, we must simply look at the history of the Church founded by Christ and understand that these books of the Old Testament and the New Testament were in the possession of the Church from the very beginning. Pope Damasus in the year 382 A.D. confirmed the authentic books of Sacred Scripture, and the Council of Carthage in 397 A.D. reiterated this Canon of Sacred Scripture.

Answer 4

First for the protestants who want to use the KJV- the original versions had the duteroconical texts in them and you can see pasages from then in the book of common prayer. The Jewish Bible lacks the new testement so even in he worst possible senerio we use these books becuse they help explain the new testement.

Answer 5

The Catholic church did not add books. Martin Luther removed some books ( Judith, Tobit, Sirach, Wisdom, Baruch, First Maccabees, Second Maccabees, and portions of the books of Esther and Daniel.) The reason was that these were written in Greek, not in Hebrew, by Jews in the diaspora (the exile that occured after the fall of Jerusalem described in the 2nd book of Kings). As you say, these books were in the bible already, and even had been translated into english in the original King James version! They are not an "addition" by any means.

Luther also wanted to delete the books of James and Revelations, but his advisors convinced him that this would never go over.

As far as "adding" to the Bible, it was Luther who changed the verse "justified by faith" to "justified by faith ONLY" in the letter to the Romans. The first several editions of Luther's German Bible contained this extra word.

(sorry: wrong choice of tense above. Obviously the King James version came after Luther, not before. However, the church councils that finalized the canon certainly occurred long before Luther.)

Answer 6

I'm Protestant, but I think the Apocrypha should be in every Bible. I also think there are a lot of good Apostolic Era books that ought to be read and studied, even though they're not quite Biblical quality. Like the Shepherd of Hermas, etc.

Answer 7

Only 66 books in the Bible.

Answer 8

There are only 66 books in the Lord's Holy Bible. What the catholic crusader is not telling you is that the catholics are following a book written by a religious cult in Philo.

Answer 9

The Septuagint is only the first 5 books of the OT.

Correction, originally it was only those 5, translated in 285–246 BCE. The other books were added over the next couple hundred years.

Answer 10

You are correct. The Septuigent is the version that the apostles used.

Hey "Chris": Why are you a rat snitch?

Answer 11

My bible(NAB) has 73. I do have a couple that only have 66 books, but I prefer and use my NAB