Why does the Catholic Bible have more books than the Protestant Bible? In the several centuries before the coming of Christ, the Jews in Palestine re-examined and eliminated some of the books from the existing collection as not in harmony with the Law of Moses and of doubtful inspiration. the Pharisees set up four criteria which their sacred books had to pass in order to be included in the revised Jewish canon: (1) They had to be harmony with the Pentateuch (Torah or Law); (2) They had to have been written before the time of Ezra; (3) They had to be written in Hebrew; (4) They had to have been written in Palestine. The application of these arbitrary criteria eliminated Judith, probably written in Aramaic; Wisdom and 2 Maccabees, written in Greek; Tobit and parts of Daniel and Esther, written in Aramaic and probably outside of Palestine; Baruch, written outside of Palestine; and Sirach and 1 Maccabees, written after Ezra. By the 1st Century after Christ, this revised canon was greatly accepted by all Jews. That was the Palestinian Canon. The Church Recognizes the Alexandrine Canon. From the earliest times, the Christian Church recognized the Jewish canon of the Greek-Roman tradition, or Alexandrine canon, as being the true Bible. Jesus Himself quoted from this Bible, and not until the Reformation was this canon seriously challenged. These seven disputed books are called the deuterocanonical books, while the rest of the books of the Old Testament comprise the protocanonical books. Luther, the Protestant Reformer from the 16th Century rejected the deuterocanonical books of the Old Testament. At one time he also eliminated Hebrews, James, Jude, and Apocalypse (Revelation) from the New Testament, but later Protestants reinserted them. Today the Catholic and the Protestant New Testament books are identical. So who got the Original Bible? And who added or removed books? The Catholic Bible was uncontested by all Christians for 16 centuries until the Protestant reformation. Thats when Protestants removed 7 books (Wisdom, 1 Maccabees, 2 Maccabees, Tobit, Judith, Baruch, Sirach & parts of Daniel & Esther) from the Old Testament, and 4 books (Hebrews, James, Jude, & Revelation) from the New Testament, but the 4 books from the New Testament got reinserted.
Posted on: Fri, 23 May 2014 09:24:47 +0000
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