why does the catholic bible have more books?
I love answering questions about the Christian faith online, in person, and via email. the issues involved are usually common to people, so I’m sharing my answers here. today’s question:
answers to common questions from pastors
You are reading: Did martin luther remove books from the bible
why does the protestant bible have fewer books than the catholic bible? did martin luther take out books to adapt them to his theology?
the short answer:
martin luther did not eliminate any book of the bible. this statement is inaccurate and misleading. the books in question were separated from the bible as a result of the reformation. that’s true. But they had been the subject of intense debate since the time of Jesus. they were not considered scripture by the Jewish people. much of the early church did not include them either. the man most responsible for the confusion over books did not regard them as writing. They didn’t even become part of the Catholic canon until 1547. So, while Luther began the process by which the commonly accepted Protestant Bible came to be, its foundations were laid 1,500 years earlier.
the protest against rome
To understand this topic, you have to start with the Protestant Reformation. Really understanding the causes of this world-shaking revolution should clear up questions about these additional books. it can also challenge you to examine the things you accept as “normal religion” in your life.
The reformation began in 1517 as an attempt to solve the problems of the Roman Catholic Church of that period. these weren’t just objections to the practices you heard about in story 101. indulgences, selling salvation, was bad enough. there was so much more going on. the catholic church from 800 ad until the reformation was nothing like the current version. it was not so much a church but rather an absolute religious monarchy. it was an imitation of the secular political structure of the time. the church alone dictated to “regular” people how to worship god, how to live, how to work, and even who they belonged to. it required people to work almost in slavery in the papal lands and constantly pay for their salvation. he even led wars against other Christians and non-believers. the pope was the unquestioned king of this earthly kingdom. he seized vast amounts of land and wealth in the process. every aspect of life ran through and for the benefit of the “princes” of the church. nothing was allowed to belittle or question his authority, and it was enforced with the pain of death at the stake.
freedom to rest – galatians 3
The lure of such immense power and wealth was obviously tempting. wealthy families of the time bought church jobs for their children, who then gave more jobs to their relatives. the pope’s family at the time of luther bought him the position of bishop at age 7 and cardinal at 13, for example. they bribed enough people for him to eventually become pope. this supposed man of god then encouraged a war to give his brother more wealth and power. he also made his cousins, nephews and other relatives bishops and cardinals.
As you can imagine, this had an effect on the doctrines and practices of the church. when priests accumulated too much wealth and passed it on to their children and were outside the control of the church, for example, the vatican decided that priests could not marry. Was there a biblical mandate for this decision? no, but the churchmen needed to preserve their wealth, so they did it anyway. This is not to say that there were not good men and women in the church during these years. but the leadership of so many of these wicked men over a long period of time made an impact. their practices were throughout the church by the 1500s. they were accepted as normal.
then came luther and the other reformers. they weren’t the only ones to see these big issues. they were simply the first to be able to do something about it. Jan Hus raised the same objections as Luther some 100 years earlier. the church killed him to silence his dissent. the reformers sought to return to the real foundation of faith, the bible, rather than accepted practices. They questioned whether the decrees of the palaces of Rome were true and demanded evidence to prove it. this review process led to reform. the church all over the world chose to stop following men and seek only god. salvation by grace came back to the fore. the universal church for the first time in many years opposed killing people in the name of god. the bible was shared freely in all languages instead of hoarding and hiding. Questioning was encouraged to get closer to Jesus. the idea that a normal person is worthy to go to jesus that you now so freely accept was revolutionary for the time.
Is your gospel worth dying for?
The church as a body of believers was reborn! what a wonderful thing!
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the reformers were not done. they examined everything from this new god-focused perspective. It was no longer what the Romans proclaimed from their golden thrones. instead they asked simple questions mostly to make sure he was from god and not some guy who bribed his way into power :
what does the bible say? what does history tell us? why are we doing this act that we claim is in the name of god? would jesus ever do this? what about the early church? Is this true?
we all owe a great debt to the men and women of reform.
if you have a bible in your home in your language and the confidence to read it, this is a fruit of the reform. if you believe that jesus loves you directly, this is from the reform. if you think you’re worthy of communion, bread and wine, this is from luther and friends.
you are enough in jesus
It took brave Christians who stared down the mightiest men of their day to bring all of this back to the common man. they went back to the roots of the church.
the reformers also applied this same scrutiny to the bible. this questioning led us to where we are today: the difference between the catholic and protestant bible that we call apocryphal.
What if I have questions? a shepherd’s response
what are the apocrypha?
the apocrypha are the 7 additional books of the catholic bible: tobias, judith, 1 and 2 macabees, wisdom of solomon, sirac (or wisdom of jesus son of sirac) and baruch. they were written during the period after the old testament but before the new testament. the protestant church generally sees them as deserving of respect and containing some historical truth but not inspired, meaning they are without error and god-breathed. you are free to read them and learn from their historical aspects. they just don’t meet the standard to be included in the bible.
the apocrypha are ancient. they are also likely real in the sense that they are the same books they had back then. they were well known to Jews during the period. they were also known to contain an accurate story about the time between the testaments. so they are very old books that contain the history of the Jewish people read at the time, so it is good. But Josephus’s writings are also ancient, real, and about the Jews. so are any number of ancient Jewish documents. that doesn’t make them writing. this is the big problem involved.
It is worth noting that the New Testament canon has been almost universally accepted since the second century. The doctrines and words of Jesus have been agreed upon for 2000 years.
So what happened to these other books?
why aren’t the apocrypha in the protestant bible?
the reformers studied how we got the bible and how it was put together. they were truth seekers, which is good. they found worrying things about the Apocrypha.
It began with the fact that the Jews themselves did not consider the Apocrypha to be part of the Old Testament Bible. the law keepers who lived in israel at the time of jesus did not keep them with the rest of the bible. neither did they refer to them as bible. so the Hebrew Old Testament read by the Jewish people did not include the Apocrypha. the Jewish people knew the books and read them. they simply treated them as history and not inspired writing. this position never seems to have changed. this should be enough to give us pause, as these are old testament books.
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Are you beginning to see how far this question goes?
continued with the fact that jesus, the apostles and the new testament writers never quote the apocrypha. not once among the many references made by jesus, peter, paul and the like did not one of them say “as the scripture says in…” and quote tobias or macabees. these men quote the bible in every speech they make. jesus quotes from genesis and is based on deuteronomy to fight against the temptation of satan. they also cite non-Christian sources and lost books on several occasions. they had the apocrypha, clearly, but they didn’t quote them once. it is a glaring omission and I think a damning one.
The early church also had problems with these books from the beginning. many early Christians were against the Apocrypha. the laodicean church council in ad 363 considered the apocrypha, for example. they not only rejected these books as scripture but also forbade the church to read these books. Early church leaders like Origen, Melito, Cyril, and Athanasius banded together and all wrote against the Apocrypha. they made the same arguments as above. the basic conclusion of these people was that the books were useful for some things but were not holy scriptures.
if you stop here, some 400 years after jesus, you again understand why there are major problems in these books.
then a simple decision by a guy named jerome entered the narrative and caused all sorts of confusion that persists to this day.
the vulgate
jerome was a church leader in the late 300s. he was commissioned by the bishop of rome to create the latin vulgate. This was the “official” Latin translation of the entire Bible. Jerome did not believe that the Apocrypha were inspired. he agreed that the jewish people in israel never treated them as scripture. he acknowledged that they had not changed that position. Jerome’s position was consistent with the Jews and many others in the early church. Jerome also deviated from the norm that day. he understood Hebrew, so he translated from the original Hebrew Old Testament rather than the more common Greek version. this formed the basis of his position. however, when the vulgate was completed in ad 405, he included the apocrypha in the bible. it seems to have been a concession to the pro-apocryphal position on the part of the church. Jerome wrote introductions to each of them indicating that they were useful but not scriptural. however, the timing and inclusion would have lasting repercussions.
The change of church described above took place in the following centuries, while Latin was the dominant language. people just got used to the apocryphal books being included among the books of the bible. Jerome’s submissions were still there saying they weren’t canon, but most people didn’t even have a bible for years to come. the catholic church was not spared from the problems with the disputed books. it did not add any new scholarship or perspective. but the inclusion of the books alongside those inspired by the official translation made it difficult to tell them apart. the “official” church also forbade anyone to disagree with them. what did that look like? when william tyndale had the nerve to translate the bible into english so people could read it, he was executed as a heretic. you can understand why the arguments died down as a result. therefore, the vulgate and all translations based on it included the Apocrypha for many years.
all these questions arose with luther and the reformers. They asked the same questions that the early church asked, now without the threat of death. The reformers found themselves in agreement with the Jews, many early clergymen, Jerome, and the early church council:
the apocryphal books are not bad, but they are not part of the bible.
The newfound freedom to ask questions led them to the same conclusion as 1,100 years earlier. that’s why the protestant bible has fewer books. As you can see, the problems did not appear out of the blue. it is simply a conclusion based on 2000 years of evidence and discussion, when it was allowed. the difference between the canons does not change the authenticity of the new testament or most of the old testament. it was not a plot by either side. it was simply the result of a difference of opinion that has been going on for a long time.
were the reformers right? I think the evidence is overwhelming. but here’s the big news.
first, these books are not the new testament. Disagreement over the Apocrypha does not affect the truth of Jesus, the gospel, and the clearly documented doctrines of Jesus.
Second, you are free to investigate them yourself. This is the freedom that Jesus won for you on the cross. it is also the right to question and value yourself as a person martin luther and the reformers risked everything to win for you. keep this in mind when exploring issues.
god bless you.
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