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Catholic vs Protestant Scriptures?
How and when did the Roman Catholic and Protestant Churches start using Bibles with different books in them? If I assume correctly that it was Protestants who started pulling out certain books of the Bible, on what authority did they do so? How did they decide?
10 Answers
- SldgmanLv 71 decade agoFavorite Answer
The Catholic set of books was known as the Septuagint. This was teh list of scripture used by the Apostles in their preaching. It contained some books that were originally written in Greek. This canon was adopted by the Catholic Church Also c. 400, Jerome produced a definitive Latin edition of the Bible, the canon of which, at the insistence of the Pope, was in accord with the earlier Synods.
In reaction to the Christianity movement, Jewish scholars convened and wrote their own canon of scripture, throwing out teh Greek books.
From about 400 AD to the time of the Protestant Reformation, the canon of Christian scripture did not change. Proestant reformers, as part of their wish to remove things Catholic from their faith, discarded teh Christian canon of Scripture and adopted the Jewish cannon of scripture.
- imacatholic2Lv 71 decade ago
The New Testament canon of the Catholic Bible and the Protestant Bible are the same.
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, 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 Christian Church did not follow suit but kept all the books in the Septuagint.
1500 years later, Protestants decided to change its Old Testament from the Catholic canon to the Jewish canon. The books they dropped are sometimes called the Apocrypha.
With love in Christ.
- 1 decade ago
The Protest-ants had no authority to throw out certain books. The Bible was not "put" together for a VERY long time after the death of Christ and so the Early Christians (Catholics) relied upon traditions, rather than the written Word. Thus, living by only the Bible (Sola Scriptura) is unbiblical (even the bible tells us that we should hold fast to our traditions).
- CLv 71 decade ago
The Catholic Church has not always been perfect! We admit where our ancestors have fallen, but still adhere to the word of God Through his Church, the message is still there.
Some within decided that they were better fit to define the will of God than the Church, and split out on their own.
Many of the changes were changes for the sake of change to distance themselves from the Catholic Church. This included removal of several Books of the Bible.
One day we shall be re-united!
Peace!
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- Anonymous1 decade ago
Protestants use the Masoretic text for the Old Testament. Catholics traditionally use the Septuagint.
Neither side changed the canon. They just choose one of two different Jewish traditions.
- Anonymous1 decade ago
Catholics added five books that werent in the original scrolls. There are books in the library to read for more explanation
Also read Kingdom of the Cults
Avoid Mor*ons and JW Those are cults
- ShossiLv 61 decade ago
When it came to what you call the NT, who had the authority to say this is true? It is not the Holy Scriptures. This is what you call the OT.
- 1 decade ago
I am a Catholic but heas preferred to read on a Protestant Bible which is the King James version for it's cause....There are alot of sects of Protestants, but here is an excerpt from ...
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"A brief history of the King James Bible"
As the reign of Elizabeth (1558-1603) was coming to a close, we find a draft for an act of Parliament for a new version of the Bible: "An act for the reducing of diversities of bibles now extant in the English tongue to one settled vulgar translated from the original." The Bishop's Bible of 1568, although it may have eclipsed the Great Bible, was still rivaled by the Geneva Bible. Nothing ever became of this draft during the reign of Elizabeth, who died in 1603, and was succeeded by James 1, as the throne passed from the Tudors to the Stuarts. James was at that time James VI of Scotland, and had been for thirty-seven years. He was born during the period between the Geneva and the Bishop's Bible.
One of the first things done by the new king was the calling of the Hampton Court Conference in January of 1604 "for the hearing, and for the determining, things pretended to be amiss in the church." Here were assembled bishops, clergymen, and professors, along with four Puritan divines, to consider the complaints of the Puritans. Although Bible revision was not on the agenda, the Puritan president of Corpus Christi College, John Reynolds, "moved his Majesty, that there might be a new translation of the Bible, because those which were allowed in the reigns of Henry the eighth, and Edward the sixth, were corrupt and not answerable to the truth of the Original."
The king rejoined that he:
"Could never yet see a Bible well translated in English; but I think that, of all, that of Geneva is the worst. I wish some special pains were taken for an uniform translation, which should be done by he best learned men in both Universities, then reviewed by the Bishops, presented to the Privy Council, lastly ratified by the Royal authority, to be read in the whole Church, and none other."
Accordingly, a resolution came forth:
"That a translation be made of the whole Bible, as consonant as can be to the original Hebrew and Greek; and this to be set out and printed, without any marginal notes, and only to be used in all churches of England in time of divine service."
The next step was the actual selection of the men who were to perform the work. In July of 1604, James wrote to Bishop Bancroft that he had "appointed certain learned men, to the number of four and fifty, for the translating of the Bible." These men were the best biblical scholars and linguists of their day. In the preface to their completed work it is further stated that "there were many chosen, that were greater in other men's eyes than in their own, and that sought the truth rather than their own praise. Again, they came or were thought to come to the work, learned, not to learn." Other men were sought out, according to James, "so that our said intended translation may have the help and furtherance of all our principal learned men within this our kingdom."
Although fifty-four men were nominated, only forty-seven were known to have taken part in the work of translation. The translators were organized into six groups, and met respectively at Westminster, Cambridge, and Oxford. Ten at Westminster were assigned Genesis through 2 Kings; seven had Romans through Jude. At Cambridge, eight worked on 1 Chronicles through Ecclesiastes, while seven others handled the Apocrypha. Oxford employed seven to translate Isaiah through Malachi; eight occupied themselves with the Gospels, Acts, and Revelation.
Fifteen general rules were advanced for the guidance of the translators:
1. The ordinary Bible read in the Church, commonly called the Bishops Bible, to be followed, and as little altered as the Truth of the original will permit.
2. The names of the Prophets, and the Holy Writers, with the other Names of the Text, to be retained, as nigh as may be, accordingly as they were vulgarly used.
3. The Old Ecclesiastical Words to be kept, viz. the Word Church not to be translated Congregation &c.
4. When a Word hath divers Significations, that to be kept which hath been most commonly used by the most of the Ancient Fathers, being agreeable to the Propriety of the Place, and the Analogy of the Faith.
5. The Division of the Chapters to be altered, either not at all, or as little as may be, if Necessity so require.
6. No Marginal Notes at all to be affixed, but only for the explanation of the Hebrew or Greek Words, which cannot without some circumlocution, so briefly and fitly be expressed in the Text.
7. Such Quotations of Places to be marginally set down as shall serve for the fit Reference of one Scripture to another.
8. Every particular Man of each Company, to take the same Chapter or Chapters, and having translated or amended them severally by himself, where he thinketh good, all to meet together, confer what they have done, and agree for their Parts what shall stand.
9. As any one Company hath dispatched any one Book in this Manner they shall send it to the rest, to be considered of seriously and judiciously, for His Majesty is very careful in this Point.
10. If any Company, upon the Review of the Book so sent, doubt or differ upon any Place, to send them Word thereof; note the Place, and withal send the Reasons, to which if they consent not, the Difference to be compounded at the general Meeting, which is to be of the chief Persons of each Company, at the end of the Work.
11. When any Place of special Obscurity is doubted of, Letters to be directed by Authority, to send to any Learned Man in the Land, for his Judgement of such a Place.
12. Letters to be sent from every Bishop to the rest of his Clergy, admonishing them of this Translation in hand; and to move and charge as many skilful in the Tongues; and having taken pains in that kind, to send his particular Observations to the Company, either at Westminster, Cambridge, or Oxford.
13. The Directors in each Company, to be the Deans of Westminster, and Chester for that Place; and the King's Professors in the Hebrew or Greek in either University.
14. These translations to be used when they agree better with the Text than the Bishops Bible: Tyndale's, Matthew's, Coverdale's, Whitchurch's, Geneva.
15. Besides the said Directors before mentioned, three or four of the most Ancient and Grave Divines, in either of the Universities, not employed in Translating, to be assigned by the vice-Chancellor, upon Conference with the rest of the Heads, to be Overseers of the Translations as well Hebrew as Greek, for the better observation of the 4th Rule above specified.
The work began to take shape in 1604 and progressed steadily. The translators expressed their early thoughts in their preface as:
"Truly (good Christian Reader) we never thought from the beginning, that we should need to make a new Translation, nor yet to make of a bad one a good one,...but to make a good one better, or out of many good ones, one principal good one, not justly to be excepted against, that hath been our endeavor."
They had at their disposal all the previous English translations to which they did not disdain:
"We are so far off from condemning any of their labors that travailed before us in this kind, either in this land or beyond sea, either in King Henry's time, or King Edward's...or Queen Elizabeth's of ever renowned memory, that we acknowledge them to have been raised up of God, for the building and furnishing of his Church, and that they deserve to be had of us and of posterity in everlasting remembrance."
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Source(s): http://www.av1611.org/kjv/kjvhist.html and it's written within the Preface of the King James Version Bibles