Why do catholic bibles contain more books than protestant ones? Few questions elicit more curiosity (and anguish) about the history of the Bible than why and how the two main Western branches of Christianity have different books on the book. The Roman Catholic Bible has 73 books, while the Protestant Bible contains 66.
Both groups claim that the Bible serves as their authority for doctrine, although admittedly in different ways. That is, Protestants and Catholics claim that the Bible is their canon or authority for faith and morals. Before we can understand how each group reads their bible, we need to learn the differences between the bibles they read. To do this, we’ll detail the main differences, describe the canon’s history, and then show why the question is important.
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the differences
Catholics and Protestants have the same New Testament of 27 books. therefore, the differences between their bibles refer to the limits of the old testament canon. In short, Catholics have 46 books, while Protestants have 39. Thus, Catholics have seven more books and also some additions within the shared books: Tobit, Judith, Wisdom of Solomon, Ecclesiasticus / Sirach / Ben Sira, 1 -2 macabees, baruch, and the additions to daniel and esther.
Protestants collectively call these books, “the Apocrypha”, while Catholics refer to them as “the Deuterocanon”. here “deuterocanon” does not mean second in authority but second only in reception in time. the Protestant Old Testament agrees with the narrower contents of the Hebrew canon (although not with the order and numbering of the books), while the Catholic Old Testament contains these same books plus the deuterocanonical books.
how the different canons arose
In the beginning, several simplistic answers should be avoided. These include the notion that Protestants removed books from the Bible or that Roman Catholics finally published their Bible outright at the Council of Trent. As we shall see, the history of the Old Testament from the beginning of the Christian era to the sixteenth century was quite complex. one must understand the early history of the canon’s relationship to these other books before making general statements about what happened in the sixteenth century.
early christian history (100-400 AD)
early christians answered the question “what is the old testament?” different in recognizing the voice of his shepherd in the Jewish writings that remained. Jesus and the apostles did not leave a list of authorized books for the early church, and there were several spiritually significant books and differing opinions about them. The complete fourth-century Greek biblical codices (Vaticanus, Sinaiticus, Alexandrinus) contained many of the deuterocanonical books along with the others. they were integrated along with the rest of the old testament.
Clearly, Christians were copying and reading these books. whether they regarded them with authority or not is a separate question, as we shall see. Furthermore, in the third century, Christians began to cite the deuterocanonical books as “scripture.” clearly, they considered these works important. although the new testament and second century authors never cite the deuterocanonical books as scripture, they do allude to them, showing knowledge of them. (See, for example, the allusion to the Jewish martyrs of 2 Maccabees 6-7 in Heb. 11:35).
but paul’s statement in romans 3:2, “the oracles of god were entrusted to the jews,” probably led many early christians to conclude that the church’s old testament canon should agree with the jewish canon . the first lists of melito of sardis from the second and third centuries, the list of bryennians, origin of alexandria, and the greek lists of the fourth century (eg, cyril of jerusalem, athanasius of alexandria, gregory of nacianzus) books ( For example, some still included Baruch as part of Jeremiah.)1 For these lists and more in the original languages and English translation, see Edmon L. gallagher and john d. Meade, The Biblical Canon Lists of Early Christianity: Texts and Analysis (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017).
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These Christians and others also did not outright reject the deuterocanonical books. rather, they considered them useful for believers to read for edification, but not authoritative for doctrine. that is, its first level canonical works established doctrine for the church, while its second level readable books illustrated piety for believers. that’s a crucial distinction that is sometimes lost nowadays.
The first level books established the doctrine, while the second level books illustrated piety for believers.
However, in the Latin West, another development was underway. Instead of asking if a book was part of the Jewish canon, some early Christians accepted a book into the canon if the churches read and received it. Augustine Hippopotamus and Pope Innocent I, for example, clearly accepted the Deuterocanonical books based on this consideration. But other Latin Christians such as Jerome of Stridon and Rufinus of Aquileia continued to promote the narrower canon, placing the deuterocanonical books in a secondary list of edifying books that did not establish church doctrine.
related
- how can you know we have the right books in the bible
any study of the canon must eventually ask how Christians know which books belong and which don’t.
what this brief survey shows is that fourth century christians were divided on the criteria of the old testament canon. Based on the canonical lists, most Christians would have followed the criteria of the Hebrew canon to determine what belonged to their own. But others determined the Christian Old Testament by looking at what books the churches read in public and accepted. the two points of view agreed in the Hebrew canon but disagreed on the status of the deuterocanonical books, some relegating them to a secondary and edifying status and others integrating them with the rest of the books. the issue was still being debated in the period of the early reformation and in the period of the roman catholic response at the council of trent (1546).
period of reform and council of trent
although the council of florence around 1445 included a list of old testament books that incorporated the deuterocanonical books, the list had no dogmatic definition. This means that Catholics before the Council of Trent were still debating the Old Testament canon in different ways. For example, Cardinal Ximénes (best known for his role as Grand Inquisitor), Cardinal Cajetan (known for his role as reviser of the teachings of Martin Luther at the Diet of Augsburg in 1518), and the great Catholic scholar Erasmus would likely have been in agreement with the first protestants on the content of the old testament and the distinction between the canonical books and the deuterocanonical edifying books. But other Catholic theologians were persuaded that Pope Innocent, Pope Eugene, and the Council of Florence, among others, included the deuterocanonical books in the canon.
when the council of trent met in 1546 to discuss the canon of scripture, they undertook to print the list of books from the council of florence, but they did not believe they were settling once and for all the debate between augustine and jerome—a debate alive at the time between humanist and protestant scholars on the one hand and catholics on the other.
but when the council published its decree on the canon, the text did not clearly reflect this lively debate. instead, it came with an unqualified list of books that included the deuterocanonical books on the same level as the other books. But the minutes and documents of the meetings of the Council of Trent suggest a different story. they show that theologians and church leaders believed they were not resolving the long-running debate over the deuterocanonical books even though their decree published the larger list of books without any qualification or explanation. as a recent Catholic historian puts it, “in this case at least, the council itself must be held responsible for the misunderstanding.” 2john w. O’Malley, Trent: What Happened at the Council (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013), 92.
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From this point on, Catholic apologists, who should have known better, began to defend this canon as part of the Roman Catholic identity. for their part, the protestants also understood the decision of trent as a way of including the deuterocanonical books that supported some of their doctrinal positions.
In 1566, the Roman Catholic theologian Sixtus of Siena coined the term “deuterocanonical” to describe these books along with a few others that Christians would not call deuterocanonical today (for example, revelation). by “deuterocanonical,” sixtus means second in receiving time, not second in authority and dignity. these books took longer to be received into the canon of church scripture, and thus he called them deuterocanonical, while Protestants continued to call them “apocrypha”, clearly preserving the old distinction between them and the canonical books.
Do the differences matter?
as early as 1519, the differences between these canons could be felt. In a debate in Leipzig, Martin Luther and the Catholic Johann Maier von Eck debated the doctrine of purgatory and the role of indulgences among other topics. As Luther questioned the biblical authority for purgatory, he pointed out that 2 Maccabees 12:43-45 might offer some insight, but “since Maccabees is not in the canon”, it is only effective for the faithful and provides no such authority. only the canon books could establish doctrine. if the canonical status of a book was disputed, as all deuterocanonical books were, then it was not sufficient authority. In this, Luther was appealing to Jerome’s opinion.
In 1547, a year after Trent’s decree on the canon, John Calvin in his Antidote argued that Trent’s leaders “provide themselves with new support when they grant full authority to the Apocrypha. of the second of the Maccabees they will taste purgatory and the cult of the saints; out of tobit satisfactions, exorcisms, and what not. from the ecclesiastic they will borrow not a little. because where could they best get their feces from?” 3 from Selected Works of John Calvin: Treatises and Letters: Volume 3: Treatises, Part 3, ed. Henry Beveridge and Jules Bonnet (Edinburgh; Calvin Translation Society, 1851; Rep. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1983), 68.
It was clear to these early Protestants that the Apocrypha taught different doctrines than the canonical books, and once given full authority by the Roman Catholic Church, many of their teachings were also able to find full support. clearly, the differences between the two canons are not trivial. canon means authority and thus authoritative support for the teachings of the church.
Clearly, the differences between the two canons are not trivial. canon means authority and thus authoritative support for the teachings of the church.
conclusion
Today, due to different canons, Catholics and Protestants have different biblical authorities. Opening up the history of the matter shows that the Catholics of Trent did not think they were settling the canonical debate or publishing the Catholic Bible once and for all, even though the decree had that effect.
Similarly, the history of the matter shows that the Protestants were not removing books from the bible, as their canon was not only traditional but, to the extent that it was consistent with the Hebrew canon, it actually had a oldest precedent. Knowledge of the Bible story eliminates the caricatures and misinformation that surround this question.
This article is also available in Polish.
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