KJV

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Hi, I been asked on several occasions what the differences were between the "Catholic bible" and the "protestant bible" and found I really don't know. Does anyone have a good link for info on this?

Thank you in advance,

Frank

-- Someone (ChimingIn@twocents.com), January 09, 2000

Answers

That should be:

"Hi, I HAVE been asked..."

Oops,

Frank

-- Someone (ChimingIn@twocents.com), January 09, 2000.


Frank, I have never heard of a "Protestant Bible". Where have you seen one? Maybe getting the Catholic Bible and the "Protestant Bible" together and seeing the difference would help. I don't understand why there are so many bibles with different denominational names around. I feel that God is the God of all who don't reject him.

-- Yolie Duarte (yondelac@nmda-bubba.nmsu.edu), January 12, 2000.

Dear Yolie, It used to be that the protestant bible was the King James version and the Catholic bible was the one with the Nihil obstat and Imprimatur showing that it was sanctioned by the RCC. Now days, in north america, both the Catholic and protestant churches use the Good News Bible, unless you are Mormon or JW. Ellen

-- Ellen K Hornby (dkh@canada.com), January 14, 2000.

Frank, there is some difference between what we could call *protestant Bible* and *Catholic Bible*. The Catholic Bible contains seven books called DEUTEROCANONICAL that the Protestant Bible does not have. The protestants call them APOCRYPHAL.

I read in the Oxford Companion to the Bible:

"Protestants were unanimous in accepting the Jewish definition of the Old Testament canon. They were agreed that the extra books of the Greek canon, which is also that of the Latin Vulgate should be gathered together and removed from among the books of the Hebrew canon..."

Enrique

-- Enrique Ortiz (eaortiz@yahoo.com), January 14, 2000.


{{The Catholic Bible contains seven books called DEUTEROCANONICAL that the Protestant Bible does not have.}}

What are these books about? Can I find this in the internet?

-- Yolie Duarte (yondelac@nmda-bubba.nmsu.edu), January 14, 2000.



Yolanda, The only Bible in English I have is one edited by Protestants and has not the deuterocanonical books. I will give them by their names in Spanish. (BTW yau can find them in any *catholic* Bible):

Tobmas, Judith, Sabidurma, Eclesiastico, Baruc, I Macabeos, II Macabeos.

Enrique

-- Enrique Ortiz (eaortiz@yahoo.com), January 15, 2000.


Good news, Yolanda. You can find the complete text of the *catholic* Bible in internet and consult the deuterocanonical books:

http://www.nccbuscc.org/nab/bibl/

Enrique

-- Enrique Ortiz (eaortiz@yahoo.com), January 15, 2000.


The Roman Catholic Church, as noted in prior posts, has a formal method for identifying books that are ecclesiastically approved. This is applied to approval of translations of the Bible as well. To assume that there is any Protestant unanimity on the validity of any version is wishful thinking. I know some people that reject the KJV as having been corrupted through use of material that had been in the Vatican Library and others who hold that it is the last valid (not dishonest or corrupt) translation. I knew a Baptist Pastor that was very fond of the Jerusalem Bible, a fairly current RC translation (originally in French and subsequently into English). He would joke that is was well done but don't read the foot-notes. I'm sure he would also avoid the books and passages most Protestants reject. In a very, very simple sense, the differences stem to a great extent from the differences between the traditional Hebrew language scriptures and those that further evolved and were translated into latin at about the time of the Roman Empire. At the time of the Reformation and translations of the Scriptures into local languages in Europe, there was an examination of the canon. Most of the Protestant Churches did not choose to accept those books from the latin language Old Testament that were not also in the accepted canon of Hebrew Old Testament books. For example, the Anglican Church includes those other books typically to be "read for example of life and instruction of manners; but yet doth it not apply them to establish any doctrine." This comes from a historic document, the Articles of Religion, which were adopted as part of the solution of the problem of the Episcopal Church in the United States separating from the Anglican church (in England) politically as a result of the American revolution. You may check the link give. Article VI addresses the various books of the Bible. Note that the language is archaic and that these Articles don't necessarily represent current thought. I offer it as an easy way to find some comment on the differences between Bibles (and much easier than typing the lists).

http://justus.anglican.org/resources/bcp/Historical_Docs.pdf

Good luck in your quest.

-- Craig (cgillette@thegrid.net), January 24, 2000.


I just re-read my post. The Articles of Religion that I linked to were adopted only by the Protestant Episcopal Church, that is the Church in the United States. It is an evolution of the same Articles in the Anglican Church. It reflects differences (and notes them in italics) reflecting the secular political realities after the Revolution. The church in England has it's own version.

-- Craig Gillette (cgillette@thegrid.net), January 24, 2000.

Dear friends in Christ,

Here are a few observations ...

1. Please read the essay on the "canon" (list of inspired books) of the Old Testament that you can find at this URL: http://www.catholic.com/ANSWERS/tracts/_otcanon.htm
Here you will learn that (1) all Christians agree on the books of the New Testament; (2) Catholics and Eastern Orthodox have, for almost 2000 years, listed 46 books of the Old Testament as inspired by God; and (3) the minority of Christians [i.e., those other than Catholics and Orthodox] have mistakenly believed for about 450 years that the Old Testament has only 39 books.

2. The Bible you choose to read really does matter. Every Catholic should have at least one Bible that contains all the books of the Old Testament. The best ones available in English are the "Ignatius Bible" (which is the "Revised Standard Version - Catholic Edition" or "RSV-CE" of the 1940s/1950s), the New American Bible (the "NAB" of about 1970), and the Jerusalem Bible (of about 1965). [Each of these has a more recent edition, but I don't recommend them, because the language has been butchered to please radical feminists.] A Catholic is permitted to own other, incomplete versions, too (such as the King James Version [KJV], the New International Version [NIV], etc.), for research and for other good reasons.

3. The Good News Bible and certain other versions are very modern "paraphrases," some of which do not contain the full Old Testament. Also, since they are not careful translations, they are not as accurate as the Bibles I listed above. They are not recommended by Scripture teachers, but they can be good "starting points" for young people.

4. The new URL for the New American Bible is this: http://www.nccbuscc.org/nab/bible/index.htm
I have a URL for the RSV, and I will supply it by e-mail, because it requires some explanation.

I wish you God's blessings.

-- J. F. Gecik (jgecik@desc.dla.mil), January 24, 2000.


Sorry to have to post an afterthought ... This is to correct a few small mistakes in Craig Gilette's otherwise very good message.
He wrote:
"At the time of the Reformation and translation of the Scriptures into local languages in Europe, there was an examination of the canon. Most of the Protestant Churches did not choose to accept those books from the latin language Old Testament that were not also in the accepted canon of Hebrew Old Testament books."

1. It is becoming more and more widespread for Protestants to be "friendly" (out of respect for Catholics' sensitivity) by not speaking/writing of the actions of some Christians in the first half of the 16th Century as the "Reformation" of the Church. [Catholics do not consider what Protestants accomplished as having "reformed" their Church.] Similarly, Catholics are showing respect to Protestants by trying to avoid referring to the actions of Luther, Zwingli, Henry, and others as the "Apostasy" or "Rebellion" against the Church. An inoffensive way for Craig to have started his sentence would have been this: "At the time of the 16th-Century division of Western Christians ..."

2. Contrary to what Craig implied, that time of "division" was not simultaneously the "time of ... translation of the Scriptures into the local languages of Europe." I have read that, even before Father Luther was born, there were large numbers of vernacular Catholic Bibles, even in German. For example, I believe that much of the Bible was translated into a primitive form of English by St. Bede before the year 1000. One of many anti-Catholic myths says that the Bible was copied only in Latin until Luther's time, so that the Church's leaders could hide the truth from their flock.

3. The seven Old Testament books rejected by Protestants in the 16th century were not simply in "the latin language Old Testament." Before that, they were in the Greek Old Testament that was in use by Greek-speaking Jews throughout the Mediterranean area, and especially in northern Egypt. Moreover, fragments of some of these seven books were found (in Hebrew) among the Dead Sea Scrolls in the Holy Land. Finally, many quotations found in the Gospels and other New Testament books come right from the first-century Greek Old Testament. This means that the Apostles and their disciples knew and honored the Greek Bible, making it logical to conclude that they considered the seven books in question to be inspired. It should surprise no one to learn that readings from those books were used by some of the very early local churches when they assembled for worship, and that those books were declared part of the official "canon" of inspired works in local councils of bishops around 400 A.D. (and also by a pope of that era). It does not make sense for any Christians to follow a so-called "Hebrew Old Testament Canon," made official by a group of rabbis around 100 A.D.. Those same rabbis were wrong in rejecting Jesus as Messiah and in persecuting the early Christians of that time. This demonstrated their terrible fallibility and their complete inability to bind Christians to a canon of their devising. It was only the Apostles and their successor bishops who had the gift of infallibly declaring which books written by Jews before Christ's birth should be considered inspired by God. Since Protestants accept the Catholic bishops' decision (of around 400 A.D.) on the canon of the New Testament's 27 books, so we must pray that they will accept the very same bishops' decision on the canon of the Old Testament.

I wish all of you the peace of Christ.

-- J. F. Gecik (jgecik@desc.dla.mil), January 24, 2000.

Speaking about the translations of the Bible to vernacular languages I know that, at least into Spanish, there were two translations before Luther's time:

- Biblia Alfonsina, 1280 - Biblia del Duque de Alba, 1430

I'll try to give more details about these translations on a later date.

Enrique

-- Enrique Ortiz (eaortiz@yahoo.com), January 25, 2000.


J.F. wrote: *(and also by a pope of that era)*

The Pope in question was Innocent I. In 405 he gave a decretal approving the canon of books for the OT and NT as the Catholic Church has it today.

Enrique

-- Enrique Ortiz (eaortiz@yahoo.com), January 26, 2000.


Oops,

I never got around to saying "thanks" for the responses, so here it is

Thanks,

Frank

-- Someone (ChimingIn@twocents.cam), February 18, 2000.


I own a King James Bile that possesses the Apocrypha though. It was simpley stpred in a seperate secion called "The Apocrypha."

They still make them in fact. So it's not like the King James Bible was initially "Incomplete" as you say.

Further, the reason for omiting the Apocrypha was that the Jews didnt recognise them as cannon. The issue is far more complexe than simpley sayng " You are wrong and we are right" which is what boht sides do do.

-- ZAROVE (ZAROFF3@JUNO.COM), October 02, 2003.



Zarove, the books removed from the Old Testament by protestants are not properly referred to as the "Apocrypha." That is a term reserved to books that were not inspired by God. The seven removed books were inspired by God. Your repeated references to "Apocrypha" are offensive to informed Catholics -- though I realize that you probably intended no offense. I hope that you will stop using the term incorrectly.

God bless you.
John

-- J. F. Gecik (jfgecik@hotmail.com), October 02, 2003.


Nonetheless, the books wsheren't removed from the King James Bible until the 19th century, and many STILL print the books in queatsion in the King James translation.

-- ZAROVE (ZAROFF3@JUNO.COM), October 06, 2003.

Jmj
Hello, Zarove.

In your first post, above, you stated that the seven Old Testament books were "simply stored in a separate section called 'The Apocrypha.' ... So it's not like the King James Bible was initially 'Incomplete' as you say."

In calling the KJV "incomplete," we Catholics already knew about the presence of the seven books in the early editions. But we still contend that the KJV was "incomplete," because it failed to recognize those books as inspired by God. When you emphasize that the books were present in the KJV, you can mislead people into thinking that the old Anglicans considered them inspired. In reality, they were printed, not where they belonged (interspersed among the other books), but in a special section labeled "Apocrypha" [sic] between the Old and New Testaments. They were present as "historical" or devotional reference material, but not to be taken as authored by God.

Moreover, you can mislead people by saying that the seven books were not removed from the KJV until the 19th century. Yes, they were not officially removed (by Canterbury) until that century, but they were already being removed unofficially less than twenty years after the first edition was published!
I found the following at a protestant Internet site:
"In 1599, twelve years before the King James Bible was published, King James said this about the Apocrypha [sic]: 'As to the Apocriphe bookes, I OMIT THEM because I am no Papist (as I said before) ...' (King James Charles Stewart, Basilicon Doron, page 13).
"The Apocrypha [sic] began to be omitted from the Authorized Version in 1629. Puritans and Presbyterians lobbied for the complete removal of the Apocrypha from the Bible, and in 1825 the British and Foreign Bible Society agreed. From that time on, the Apocrypha [sic] has been eliminated from practically all English Bibles -- Catholic Bibles and some pulpit Bibles excepted."

God bless you.
John

-- J. F. Gecik (jfgecik@hotmail.com), October 07, 2003.


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