Why more books in the Catholic Bible?

Catholics and the Orthodox rely on a pre-Christian Jewish list of inspired books. . .

Al Kresta

So, why are there more books in the Catholic Bible? Most simply: Catholics and Orthodox rely on a pre-Christian Jewish list of inspired books. Protestants rely on a post-Christian Jewish list of inspired books. This is unfamiliar territory for a lot of us.

When we pick up a Bible we want sure teaching about life and sturdy standards for living it. In short, we want a word from the living God. We accept the volume in our hands as the Bible. We don’t check to see if all the books are in there or if some are added. We are rightly assured that any responsible version of the Bible contains the written Word of God and can lead to salvation in Christ (2 Tm 3:16).

All Christian communities agree on the “canonical” 27 books of the New Testament. However, Christians disagree about the extent of the Old Testament. Protestant Bibles omit at least seven books from the collection of sacred writings that are hallowed by the Catholic and Orthodox Churches.

The omitted books are called the “deuterocanonicals,” meaning “second canon,” as opposed to “protocanonicals,” meaning “first canon.” The deuterocanonicals are considered “second” because they are, for the most part, written later than the protocanonicals. They include Tobit, Judith, 1 and 2 Maccabees, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus (Sirach) and Baruch. Catholic Bibles also contain an additional six chapters (107 verses) in the Book of Esther and another three chapters (174 verses) in the Book of Daniel.

A debate over the number of books in the Old Testament heated up after the rise of Christianity in the late first century because neither the Hebrew nor Christian Bibles contained a “table of contents.” For most Christians and Jews, “The Book” wasn’t finished.

So how did the deuterocanonicals get excised? In the 16th century, Martin Luther became the first person to extract them from their traditional order in scripture and cluster them after the protocanonicals. He reasoned that since they supported prayers for the dead and Purgatory, they could not be inspired. The Council of Trent, however, reaffirmed the tradition of the early Church and taught that Christians should venerate, love and obey the deuterocanonicals for God had authored them.

Al Kresta is CEO of Ave Maria Communications and host of Kresta in the Afternoon. This column is taken from his book “Why Do Catholics Genuflect?” © 2001. Used with permission of St. Anthony Messenger Press. To order copies, call 1-800-488-0488 or visit servantbooks.org.