Roman Catholic Answer from … Deuterocanonical books is a term used since the 16th century in the Catholic Church to describe certain books and passages of the Christian Old Testament that are not part of the Hebrew Bible. Clearly, if these books were part of Scripture, the Lord would have cited them. Likewise, in other writings he underscores this rejection of James from the New Testament, calling it "an epistle full of straw . In the 16th century, when the Reformation came along, the first Protestants, finally able to read their Bibles without ecclesial propaganda from Rome, noticed that the Jewish and Catholic Old Testaments differed, recognized this medieval addition for what it was and scraped it off the Word of God like so many barnacles off a diamond. By deceiving Holofernes as to her intentions and by asking the Lord to bless this tactic, she was not doing something alien to Jewish Scripture or Old Testament morality. They are known as the Deuterocanon, they include the bolded books below (in the Old Testament list) and parts of Esther (10:4-16, 14) and Daniel (3:24-90, 13, 14). The process of defining that canon was not yet complete, and there were a few different collections of Scripture in circulation among the Jews.The two most widely accepted collections of Old Testament writings at that time were: 1. First, from a certain perspective, there are "errors" in the deuterocanonical books. Sirach 5. Elsewhere St. Paul makes it clear that certain teachings he's passing along are "not I, but the Lord" speaking (1 Cor. This is a vastly more direct "disclaimer of inspiration" than the oblique deuterocanonical passages cited above, yet nobody argues that St. Paul's writings should be excluded from Scripture, as some say the whole of the deuterocanon should be excluded from the Old Testament, simply on the strength of these modest passages from Sirach and 2 Maccabees. These and other examples which could be given are not "errors" because they're not truth claims about astronomy or historical events. It just means that Michael Jordan misses layups once in awhile. This myth might be raised when it becomes clear that the allegation that the deuterocanonical books were "added" by the Catholic Church is fallacious. The Protestant, Catholic and Orthodox New Testaments are identical, all containing 27 books. I'll explain below. This verse has formed the basis for countless complaints against the Catholic Church for supposedly "adding" to Scripture man-made traditions, such as the "merely human works" of the deuterocanononical books. These Jews seem to have held to a canon resembling the modern Jewish canon, one far larger than that of the Sadducees but not as large as other Jewish collections of Scripture. Encyclopedia Judaica, vol. Some Protestants believe that the Bible is self explanatory, a doctrine that is not found in the Bible. Find answers now! Not so. In about 367 AD, St. Athanasius came up with a list of 73 books for the Bible that he believed to be divinely inspired. The deuterocanon (ie. A standard listing of the books of the bible, according to the directives of Pope Pius XII, shows a number of variants in the titles of the books, their division and sequence, as follows: The question reads "Which seven books are not in the Catholic Bible" but the answer answers "Which seven books are not in the Protestant Bible." This is a fine theory. 1 Questions & Answers Place. Why is that? Why not? He makes Tobit the uncle of Ahiqar, a figure in ancient Semitic folklore like "Jack the Giant Killer" or "Aladdin." The book of Judith, for example, gets several points of history and geography wrong. But few realize that in Mark 7:6-8 the Lord was quoting the version of Isaiah that is found only in the Septuagint version of the Old Testament. This doesn't make them heretics. They lied and were justified in lying because Pharaoh did not have a right to the truth — if they told the truth, he would have killed Moses. If not, why? for it has nothing of the nature of the gospel about it" (Preface to the New Testament). At least the first one actually answered which 7 Books of the Catholic Bible that the Protestants indeed threw out. "Moreover, since the same sacred council has thought that it would be very useful for the Church of God if it were know which one of all the Latin editions that are in circulation is the authentic edition, it determines and decrees that the ancient Vulgate, which has been approved in the church by the use of many centuries, should be4 considered the authentic edition in public readings, disputations, preaching, and explanations; and that no one should presume or date to reject it under any pretext whatever" (Denzinger 1501-6). Hebrews 11:35 refers unmistakably to 2 Maccabees 7. This myth is built on another attempt to distinguish between the deuterocanonical books and "true Scripture." Moreover, if anyone does not accept these books as sacred and canonical in their entirety, with all their parts, according to the text usually read in the Catholic Church and as they are in the ancient Latin Vulgate, but knowingly and willfully contemns the traditions previously mentioned: let him be anathema. The Roman Catholic Bible contains seven books that do not appear in most Protestant Bibles. Some people will tell you that there must have been since, they say, Jesus held people accountable to obey the Scriptures. The material on this site can not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with prior written permission of Multiply. The Catholic Bible has the Apocrypha and the Christian Bible does not. Some Protestants believe that the Catholic Church added 7 books to the Bible at the Council of Trent in response to Luther’s Reformation, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. In his later years St. Jerome did indeed accept the Deuter-ocanonical books of the Bible. Consider the Sadducees. : An Evangelical Discovers Catholic Tradition, Mary Mother of the Son Vol I, Mary Mother of the Son Vol II, The Work of Mercy, Making Senses Out of Scripture: Reading the Bible as the First Christians Did, The Work of Mercy: Being the Hands and Heart of Christ, and The Heart of Catholic Prayer. Rather, they simply accepted and formally ratified the ancient practice of the Apostles and early Christians by dogmatically defining a collection of Old Testament Scripture (including the deuterocanon) that had been there since before the time of Christ, used by our Lord and his apostles, inherited and assumed by the Fathers, formulated and reiterated by various councils and popes for centuries and read in the liturgy and prayer for 1500 years. The fact is that after the birth of the Church on the day of Pentecost, the rabbis no longer had authority from God to settle such issues. And we, of course, do get it, particularly if we're reading the story in the original Hebrew. Likewise, the canon of Scripture, though it more or less assumed its present shape — which included the deuterocanonical books — by about A.D. 380, nonetheless wasn't dogmatically defined by the Church for another thousand years. However, many Protestant versions of the Bible today will state, "King James version with Apocrypha." Host: Linda, let me use it a little hockey analogy: you’ve given a really good slap shot at the goalie, let me just put my stick up and tip the puck as it goes by me to ask Dr. Barber to define what Linda means by the deuterocanonical books. Remember, these Palestinian rabbis were not in much of a mood for multiculturalism after the catastrophe they had suffered at the hands of Rome. The modern bible is not just one book, but many books, stories and historical events that have been compiled into a single volume. Response: The Catholic Bible contains all the books that have traditionally been accepted by Christians since the Canon of Scripture was recognized by the Synod of Rome in 382. This was precisely why the Sadducees argued with Jesus against the reality of the resurrection in Matthew 22:23-33: they couldn't see it in the five books of Moses and they did not regard the later books of Scripture which spoke of it explicitly (such as Isaiah and 2 Maccabees) to be inspired and canonical. Just read thru (for the first time) the assention of our Holy Mother Mary into Heaven in one of the books in the Orthodox Bible. Here are 5 books that are not included in the Bible. This is why using the DSS is not used as evidence for any Biblical canon - Catholic, Protestant, or otherwise. To tweak the old proverb, "What's sauce for the apostolic goose is sauce for the deuterocanonical gander." How the Bibles Diverted During the 1500’s, Martin Luther broke away from the Catholic Church and embraced St. Jerome’s argument, and lead the Protestant Reformation, with the return to the original Hebrew scripture and away from the Greek translation. The accepted list of books in the Bible is called the “canon.”The canon of the Old Testament books of the Catholic Bible is based on history. They were added by the Catholic Church at the Council of Trent after Luther rejected it. For in fact, Jesus held people accountable to obey their conscience and therefore, to obey Scripture insofar as they were able to grasp what constituted "Scripture.". When certain people decided to snip some of this canon out in order to suit their theological opinions, the Church moved to prevent it by defining (both at Florence and Trent) that this very same canon was, in fact, the canon of the Church's Old Testament and always had been. In 1534, Martin Luther translated the Bible into German. Discussion: The most noticeable differences occur in the number of books included and the order in which they have been arranged. And more than once, Christ Himself drew on the text of Sirach 27:6, which reads: "The fruit of a tree shows the care it has had; so too does a man's speech disclose the bent of his mind." This myth proves nothing other than the Catholic doctrine that the books of Sacred Scripture really were composed by human beings who remained fully human and free, even as they wrote under the direct inspiration of God. He grouped the seven deuterocanonical books of the Old Testament under the title "Apocrypha," declaring. The following list is the 7 books that the Catholics include that the Protestants do not. Does He bind them to acknowledge these books as canonical? First, it's important to note that the New Testament of the Bible is exactly the same between Catholics and Protestants. The fact is, if we follow Luther in throwing out the deuterocanonical books despite the overwhelming evidence from history showing that we shouldn't (ie. These 7 books are called the deuterocanon (“second” canon). Jesus, standing near the Temple during the feast of Hanukkah, speaks of His being "set apart," just as Judas Maccabeus "set apart" (ie. The result is that these versions of the Bible have more Old Testament books than most Protestant versions. Second, if quotation equals canonicity, then there are numerous books of the protocanonical Old Testament which would have to be excluded. But this is also untrue. The same way we deal with other incidents in Scripture where similar incidents of lying or "errors" happen. All twenty-seven books in the New Testament are included in the Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant versions of the Bible. We’ll take a look at that today. Let's examine it. Let's take the problem of alleged "factual errors" first. In addition, the Greek Orthodox, or Eastern Orthodox, Church accepts a few more books as canonized scripture. So the Catholic Bible has extra books. But the Epistle of James wasn't the only casualty on Luther's hit list. By this device, the author is saying (with a nudge and a wink), "Psst, audience. Indeed, we even recognize that the Spirit can inspire the writers to make true statements about themselves, such as when St. Paul tells the Corinthians he couldn't remember whom he had baptized. In the intervening time, we can find a few Fathers writing before Nicaea who, in good faith, expressed theories about the nature of the Godhead that were rendered inadequate after Nicaea's definition. 1 Corinthians 7:40 provides an ambiguous statement that could, according to the principles of this myth, be understood to mean that St. Paul wasn't sure that his teaching was inspired or not. In the same way, it is largely the ignorance of this sad history that drives many to reject the deuterocanonical books. Sirach opens with a brief preface by the author's grandson saying, in part, that he is translating grandpa's book, that he thinks the book important and that, "You therefore are now invited to read it in a spirit of attentive good will, with indulgence for any apparent failure on our part, despite earnest efforts, in the interpretation of particular passages." He trusted in God; let Him deliver him now if he wants him. These books are called Deuterocanonical by Catholics and Orthodox and Apocryphal by Jews and Protestants. Catholic vs. Protestant Bibles By Greg Witherow Catholic Bibles contain Old Testament books not found in Protestant Bibles and as such Catholics are sometimes asked to explain this discrepancy. Baruch 6. Envoy is a bi-monthly journal of Catholic apologetics and evangelization. These details were used in a metaphor to rebuke King David for his adultery with Bathsheba. Christianity began to rapidly bloom, especially right after the death of Christ. But the divine establishment of this key feast day is recorded only in the deuterocanonical books of 1 and 2 Maccabees. The Hebrew Bible has 24 books. Of James, for example, he said, "I do not regard it as the writing of an Apostle," because he believed it "is flatly against St. Paul and all the rest of Scripture in ascribing justification to works" (Preface to James' Epistle). So he is the king of Israel! It assumes that if a book is quoted or alluded to by the Apostles or Christ, it is ipso facto shown to be part of the Old Testament. This means that doctrines which may not have been clearly defined sometimes get defined. Correction: Two of the deuterocanonical books seem to disclaim inspiration, and even that is a dicey proposition. Why is that? When Tobit cried out to God for help, God immediately answered him by sending Raphael. No! Which 7 books are not in the Protestant Bible but in the Catholic Bible? What does contingent mean in real estate? In strict fact, there was no ewe lamb, no theft, and no rich and poor men. For example, when Jesus begins the parable of the Prodigal Son saying, "There was once a man with two sons," He is not shown to be a bad historian when it is proven that the man with two sons He describes didn't actually exist. In fact, the opposite is true: Protestant reformers rejected some parts of the Bible.. It's that truth and not any fluff about history or geography or the fun using an alias that the author of Tobit aims to tell. Both the Jewish Bible and the Hebrew canon in a Protestant Bible (aka Old Testament) contain 39 books, whereas a Catholic Bible contains 46 books in the Old Testament. In 1534, Martin Luther translated the Bible into German. First, it's important to note that the New Testament of the Bible is exactly the same between Catholics and Protestants. 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