Books of the Catholic Bible:
The Complete Scriptures

Some books of the Catholic Bible aren't in the Protestant Bible.

Did the Catholic Church add things to the Bible?

No! In fact, the opposite is true: Protestant reformers rejected some parts of the Bible.

When I was entering the Catholic Church, I was confused by the fact that Protestants used a slightly different Bible. Why wasn't there just one Bible?

This article looks at this issue of why the list of books of the Catholic Bible is slightly different. The answer...

...is history!

The Old Testament canon

The accepted list of books in the Bible is called the "canon."

The canon of the Old Testament books of the Catholic Bible is based on history. We didn't make up the list!

At the time of Jesus, there was no official canon of the books of the Old Testament. The process of defining that canon was not yet complete, and there were a few different collections of Scripture in circulation among the Jews.

The two most widely accepted collections of Old Testament writings at that time were:

The Septuagint was a Greek translation of the Old Testament. It contained 46 books:
- Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings, 1 and 2 Chronicles, Ezra and Nehemiah, Tobit, Judith, Esther, 1 and 2 Maccabees, Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, the Song of Songs, the Wisdom of Solomon, Sirach (Ecclesiasticus), Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Baruch, Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zachariah and Malachi.
Another collection of the Old Testament in Hebrew contained just 39 books.
- It omits Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Sirach (Ecclesiasticus), Baruch, and 1 and 2 Maccabees.
- It also omits chapters 10-16 of Esther, and three sections of Daniel: Daniel 3:24-90, Daniel 13, and Daniel 14.
- These books & chapters are called the deuterocanonical books, meaning "second canon."

Jesus and his Apostles knew and used the Septuagint most heavily. The authors of the New Testament's books also quoted directly from the Septuagint most of the time, since this version was the most commonly used in the early Church.

Precisely because the Septuagint was the version most used and accepted by Jesus and the Apostles, the Catholic Church uses the Septuagint's canon of Old Testament books in the Roman Catholic Bible.

The list of the Old Testament books of the Catholic Bible is firmly grounded in history.

The New Testament canon

Defining the canon of the New Testament books of the Catholic Bible was a somewhat different story.

The question now wasn't what ancient books of Jewish Scripture should be in the canon.
Now it was a matter of what new books about Jesus and the Christian life were the accurate, inspired texts of Christianity.

Although the question was a little different, the process of deciding was the same as that used to decide the Old Testament canon.

Soon after Jesus's death, a number of books and letters circulated that claimed to contain the teachings of Jesus and the Apostles. In the early Church, it fell to the bishops, as successors of the Apostles, to determine which books accurately contained the true teachings.

In fact, all of the New Testament books of the Catholic Bible were selected because the Church's bishops agreed that those books alone were divinely inspired, accurate teachers of the true faith received from Jesus and the Apostles.

Some of the books and letters quickly gained acceptance as being faithful, accurate, and inspired by the Holy Spirit. The bishops quickly rejected other books circulating at the time because they contained obvious fabrications and inaccuracies.

A few books continued to be debated for some time. Although ultimately accepted into the canon of Scripture, these are also called deuterocanonical because they were accepted later (although written at the same time as the other canonical books). The deuterocanonical books of the New Testament are:

Hebrews, James, 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John, Jude, and Revelation (the Apocalypse).
Additionally, some parts of the Gospels are deuterocanonical because they weren't in all early manuscripts, and so were debated for longer than the rest of the Gospel sections. These are: Mark 16:19-20, Luke 22:43-44, John 5:4, and John 8:1-11.

Catholics hold that all of the books of the Catholic Bible — both Old and New Testament, both the deuterocanonical and "protocanonical" ones (first canon) — are the divinely inspired Word of God.

This is the full list of the New Testament books of the Catholic Bible:

The Gospels according to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John
The Acts of the Apostles
The Letters of St. Paul to the Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 and 2 Thessalonians, 1 and 2 Timothy, Titus, and Philemon
The Letter to the Hebrews, the Letters of James, 1 and 2 Peter, 1, 2 and 3 John, and Jude
Revelation (the Apocalypse).

Defining the canon

It took a few hundred years to complete this process of officially defining the Christian canon of both the Old and Testament.

During that time, the bishops discussed and debated the matter with each other to determine whether the deuterocanonical texts accurately reflected the teachings of Christ, and whether they contained the inspired Word of God.

Although there was no official canon during this early period in the Church, the vast majority of the the books of the Catholic Bible were already recognized as being authentic Scripture.

The Church, through its bishops, verified and defined the canon of the Bible. In fact, Catholics see this as an outstanding illustration of the Catholic teaching that the Holy Spirit actively leads and guides the bishops of the Church in a special way: we can rely on the accuracy of the Bible only to the extent that we can rely on the divine guidance of the Church. (See the article on Church authority for more.)

Pope Damasus I gathered a representation of bishops from the Christian world (called a synod) in 382 A.D. to define the canon of Scripture for the whole Church. This canon was ratified by numerous other Popes, synods, and Church Councils.

That canon is what we use today — all the books of the Catholic Bible.

What books of the Catholic Bible
Do Protestants reject?

Protestants reject the deuterocanonical books of the Old Testament as being not divinely inspired. Although Martin Luther and other Reformation leaders also rejected the New Testament deuterocanon, they ultimately retained these New Testament books in the Protestant version of the Bible.

Luther and other Protestant leaders rejected many Church teachings and Traditions. Their rejection of the deuterocanonical books allowed them to claim that the disputed doctrines had no basis in Scripture — their new canon of Scripture!

(A Catholic group called Catholics United for the Faith (CUF) has two excellent articles about this topic. The first describes how the canon of the books of the Catholic Bible was defined. The second article describes this history in more detail, including Luther's use of the term Apocrypha to cast a bad light on the Old Testament deuterocanon.)

The canon used by Christ

We Catholics don't think of the deuterocanon as "extra" books of the Catholic Bible!

To us, it's all "the Bible."

Our use of these books is historically based on the fact that Jesus and the Apostles used the Greek Septuagint most often. And it's ultimately determined by the Church's judgment that these books are all divinely inspired — a decision that we are confident was guided by the Holy Spirit during the first centuries of the Church.

The books of the Catholic Bible are the books that all Christians traditionally accepted. We can't change that historical fact just because some reformers rejected parts of the Bible during the Protestant Reformation in the 1500s.

I'll present a reaction in an argument vs. counter-argument format. First, I'll start with the arguments in the post, then toss in a couple more later.

ARGUMENT:Precisely because the Septuagint was the version most used and accepted by Jesus and the Apostles, the Catholic Church uses the Septuagint's canon of Old Testament books in the Roman Catholic Bible.

Note: This may be the reason, but it's not completely factual.

COUNTER-ARGUMENT: There are 15 books of the Apocrypha (14 if you combine the Letter of Jeremiah into Baruch [Baruch Ch.6]). All 15 are contained in the earliest known version of the Septuagint (LXX), which was used to help translate the Vulgate. They are: The Wisdom of Solomon, Ecclesiasticus (Sirach), Tobit (Tobias), Judith, 3 Esdras, 1&2 Maccabees, Baruch (CH 1-5), The Letter of Jeremiah (Baruch Ch 6), 4 Edras, Esther 10:4-16:24, Prayer of Azariah (in other mss listed as "Song of Three Young Men" is Daniel 3:24-90), Susanna (Daniel 13), Bel and the Dragon (Daniel 14), and Prayer of Manassah.

Even though all of these books are contained in the earliest known complete LXX (4th century AD) as well as post 4th century Greek Bibles, the Council of Trent rejected 3&4 Edras and the Prayer of Manassah.

ARGUMENT: Jesus and his Apostles knew and used the Septuagint most heavily. The authors of the New Testament's books also quoted directly from the Septuagint most of the time, since this version was the most commonly used in the early Church.

COUNTER-ARGUMENT: The writers of the New Testament did use the LXX most heavily. However, there are a couple points of contention to using this as a reason to canonize 12 of the 15 Apocryphal books.

First, Palestine was the home of the Jewish canonization process at the time of Christ, not the Greek learning center at Alexandria, Egypt. The fact that the LXX contains the Apocrypha only proves that the LXX translators translated the other religious writings from the intertestamental period. Philo, the Alexandrian Jew and philosopher recognized by Josephus, flatly rejected the Apocrypha as canon. Eventually, Judaism as a whole did, also.

Second, the earliest Greek manuscripts of the Bible (also 4th century) contain ALL the books of the Apocrypha, however, this does not indicate canonization, nor does it indicate that Jesus or His apostles would have accepted the Apocryphal books as canon. There is no evidence that all the Apocryphal books were present in earlier versions of the LXX. There is no indication that 1st - 3rd century Jews accepted these books either(they did not, in fact, rejecting the LXX for Aquila's Greek version sometime in the 2nd century).

ARGUMENT: The books of the Catholic Bible are the books that all Christians traditionally accepted.

COUNTER-ARGUMENT: This is incorrect. Many of the great, early church fathers rejected the Apocrypha, including Melito, Origen, Cyril of Jerusalem, and Athanasius. There is no evidence that any important leader of the church before the time of Augustine accepted all of the books canonized at Trent.

In fact, an important Catholic contemporary of Augustine rejected the Apocrypha as canon. Augustine was able to easily influence the councils of Hippo and Carthage. One reason for that is probably due to the fact that there was no Hebrew scholar present at those councils and the LXX versions were exclusively used to determine canonicity. However, Augustine met resistance later in the person of Sophronius Eusebius Hieronymus (St. Jerome), the leading Hebrew scholar of the time. Jerome so rejected the Apocrypha that he refused to translate it into Latin or add it to the Vulgate. At the end of his life he translated, at the request of the Church, Judith, Tobias, portions of Daniel, and the disputed chapters of Esther. He still would not add these hasty translations into the Vulgate. These books and the rest of the Apocrypha accepted at Trent were added to the Vulgate “over Jerome’s dead body.”

I’ve touched most of the points in the article. I’ll get back to address other arguments soon, but time constrains me.

From my reply:
"Jerome so rejected the Apocrypha that he refused to translate it into Latin or add it to the Vulgate. At the end of his life he translated, at the request of the Church, Judith, Tobias, portions of Daniel, and the disputed chapters of Esther. He still would not add these hasty translations into the Vulgate. These books and the rest of the Apocrypha accepted at Trent were added to the Vulgate “over Jerome’s dead body.”

Because I was challenged on this statement in on another thread, proof:

Among the Hebrews the Book of Judith is found among the Hagiographa, the authority of which toward confirming those which have come into contention is judged less appropriate. Yet having been written in Chaldean words, it is counted among the histories. But because this book is found by the Nicene Council to have been counted among the number of the Sacred Scriptures, I have acquiesced to your request, indeed a demand, and works having been set aside from which I was forcibly curtailed, I have given to this (book) one short night’s work translating more sense from sense than word from word. I have removed the extremely faulty variety of the many books; only those which I was able to find in the Chaldean words with understanding intact did I express in Latin ones.
- St.Jerome, Prologue of Jerome to Judith

This prologue to the Scriptures may be appropriate as a helmeted introduction to all the books which we turn from Hebrew into Latin, so we may be able to know whatever is outside of these is set aside among the apocrypha. Therefore, Wisdom, which is commonly ascribed to Solomon, and the book of Jesus son of Sirach, and Judith and Tobias, and The Shepherd are not in the canon. I have found the First Book of the Maccabees (is) Hebrew, the Second is Greek, which may also be proven by their styles.
- St. Jerome, Prologue to the Book of Kings by Jerome (The Helmeted Introduction or Prologus Galeatus)

Neither should it disturb anyone that the book edited by us is one, nor should they be delighted by the dreams of the third and fourth books which are of the apocrypha, both because among the Hebrews the discourses of Ezra and Nehemiah are confined to one scroll, and those things which are not found among them, nor are of the twenty-four elders, are for throwing away.
- St. Jerome, Prologue to Esther

Also included is the book of the model of virtue (παναρετος) Jesus son of Sirach, and another falsely ascribed work (ψευδεπιγραφος) which is titled Wisdom of Solomon. The former of these I have also found in Hebrew, titled not Ecclesiasticus as among the Latins, but Parables, to which were joined Ecclesiastes and Song of Songs, as though it made of equal worth the likeness not only of the number of the books of Solomon, but also the kind of subjects. The second was never among the Hebrews, the very style of which reeks of Greek eloquence. And none of the ancient scribes affirm this one is of Philo Judaeus. Therefore, just as the Church also reads the books of Judith, Tobias, and the Maccabees, but does not receive them among the the canonical Scriptures, so also one may read these two scrolls for the strengthening of the people, (but) not for confirming the authority of ecclesiastical dogmas
- St. Jerome, Prologue of Jerome to the Books of Solomon

Jerome to the Bishops in the Lord Cromatius and Heliodorus, health!

I do not cease to wonder at the constancy of your demanding. For you demand that I bring a book written in Chaldean words into Latin writing, indeed the book of Tobias, which the Hebrews exclude from the catalogue of Divine Scriptures, being mindful of those things which they have titled Hagiographa. I have done enough for your desire, yet not by my study. For the studies of the Hebrews rebuke us and find fault with us, to translate this for the ears of Latins contrary to their canon. But it is better to be judging the opinion of the Pharisees to displease and to be subject to the commands of bishops. I have persisted as I have been able, and because the language of the Chaldeans is close to Hebrew speech, finding a speaker very skilled in both languages, I took to the work of one day, and whatever he expressed to me in Hebrew words, this, with a summoned scribe, I have set forth in Latin words. I will be paid the price of this work by your prayers, when, by your grace, I will have learned what you request to have been completed by me was worthy. - St.Jerome, Prologue of Jerome to Tobias

He wrote more, I'm just not going to take the time to find it online or copy it from books (I type slow). He argued with Augustine over the Apocrypha, too. Their correspondence is available online, as well as other correspondence with other Christians that confirm his position on the apocrypha.

I'm not saying Jerome was right or wrong, nor am I trying to determine why he didn't treat the Apocrypha as canon (the argument has been made that he studied so long with the Hebrews that he was overly influenced by them. However, there were a number of other leaders of his time - Rufinius, Pope Damasus - who held to Jerome's position), I'm expanding on and defending a statement made in my reply.

I think the article was talking about ‘after their adoption. Even Luther accepted them as a Catholic priest, untillllllll he chose to dissent and nailed his list to the church door.

Even if that is what the author meant, it still would be incorrect. There were Catholic contemporary opponents of Martin Luther that opposed establishing the Apocrypha as cannon. These included Cardinal Ximenes - who compiled a Bible that didn't contain the Apocrypha - and Cardinal Cajetan.

Here we close our commentaries on the historical books of the Old Testament. For the rest (that is, Judith, Tobit, and the books of Maccabees) are counted by St Jerome out of the canonical books, and are placed amongst the Apocrypha, along with Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus, as is plain from the Prologus Galeatus. Nor be thou disturbed, like a raw scholar, if thou shouldest find anywhere, either in the sacred councils or the sacred doctors, these books reckoned as canonical. For the words as well of councils as of doctors are to be reduced to the correction of Jerome. Now, according to his judgment, in the epistle to the bishops Chromatius and Heliodorus, these books (and any other like books in the canon of the bible) are not canonical, that is, not in the nature of a rule for confirming matters of faith. Yet, they may be called canonical, that is, in the nature of a rule for the edification of the faithful, as being received and authorised in the canon of the bible for that purpose. By the help of this distinction thou mayest see thy way clearly through that which Augustine says, and what is written in the provincial council of Carthage.
- Cardinal Catejan in a commentary discussing the Augustine Councils of Hippo and Carthage.

Even on the Council there were those that flatly opposed the canonical authority of the Apocrypha.

Excerpt from Papal Legate At The Council Of Trent, by Catholic historian Hubert Jedin: "Another determined opponent of putting traditions on a par with Holy Scripture, as well as the anathema, was the Dominican Nacchianti. The Servite general defended the view that all the evangelical truths were contained in the Bible, and he subscribed to the canon of St. Jerome, as did also Madruzzo and Fonseca on April 1. While Seripando abandoned his view as a lost cause, Madruzzo, the Carmelite general, and the Bishop of Agde stood for the limited canon, and the bishops of Castellamare and Caorle urged the related motion to place the books of Judith, Baruch, and Machabees in the "canon ecclesiae." From all this it is evident that Seripando was by no means alone in his views. In his battle for the canon of St. Jerome and against the anathema and the parity of traditions with Holy Scripture, he was aligned with the leaders of a minority that was outstanding for its theological scholarship.”
More quotes from Papal Legate At The Council Of Trent, here. Be warned, it is a Reformationist website, but quotes the work of Jedin on the Council of Trent at length.

I'm pretty sure that Luther accepted the Apocrypha in the same way that Pope Gregory the Great, St. Jerome, Cardinal Cajetan, Cardinal Ximenes accepted them, as useful for edification, but not inspired. The later rejection of the books for use in teaching, I think, is a result of the fight, not the content.

Hello. Very thoughtful and respectful response to the original post. Thank you for your effort to remain close to the facts, I will, I hope in equally good faith, make my attempt to do the same as I consider some of your counter arguments.

Today, while I would like to consider all, I have the time perhaps just to begin to address one of your arguments and I won't go far with it.

"Even though all of these books are contained in the earliest known complete LXX (4th century AD) as well as post 4th century Greek Bibles, the Council of Trent rejected 3&4 Edras and the Prayer of Manassah."

I don't know about any mention or denial of the prayer of Manassah at the Council of Trent, yet I believe that your statement about what was said about the books of Esdras needs some correction. The books in mention from Esdras were not rejected at all, nor were they accepted. Among the books found in the Latin Vulgate (Esdras, 4 Ezra, and 3 Maccabees) 3 Bishops voted that they be rejected, 42 Bishops voted that they be passed over in silence, and 8 did just that, they didn't vote.

Yet, this does not add to or deny the force of what you are questioning. Inclusion within the Septuagint itself does not imply all writing within it to be so called “canon” a term that is not within this discussion without its troubles.

I will return to your other arguments, which I believe likewise are in need of bringing to light additional facts as well as perhaps discuss the very use of the word canon itself, which was not itself coined from the Rabbinic/Pharisaic tradition. Still, at this moment I can only hold the most limited sense of general remembrance that there is more to the story that you have up until now revealed and am very curious how I may be used to develop a picture of how the traditional character of the Catholic faith's position here will be shown to be consistent, but too perhaps allow for an appreciation or that my fellow Catholics would receive our separated brethren's concern for the veracity of scripture graciously and understand that the failings of the church were used to divide it.

This is intensely interesting to me as is the whole of reaching out with understanding, charity, hope and compassion, surely, something I do at time fail to do.

And, while I've only read the introduction of David a. deSilva's "Introducing the Apocrypha," I do imagine it would serve you well to read it in support of your position if you have not read it already. It presents some very similar arguments that you have eluded to, but I think goes further into the connection between the church and the Deuteroconanical books or these said reputed books the "Apocrypha." If you have not read it, I think perhaps the evidence between the connection of these books to the New Testament writers might alarm you. And it is not my desire to mislead you to suggest that there are not those who know of a great connection between the Deuteros, as I accept them, and the New Testament writers that also do not hold a similar and view to what I infer you suggest. The position penned by deSilva I think is especially forgiving to your arguments and may point help you anticipate the expected oversights I will think in the future allude to in relation to your presented arguments.

Much of this IS new to me. I have no special training. Although I did have a heart for philosophy in my undergraduate study. But, surely my studies were not without it's struggles.

Pray that for our benefit that we may further bring details to light that would further reveal the relationship between church, scripture, His people, and Christ. Let iron sharpen iron and pillars be pillars.

God bless you, and thank you for your concern to correct by way of your discerning of facts and arguments and bringing them here for us to view and chew over with and perhaps against scripture and tradition. All in all, I pray that I am correct to sense in you the hope for all that they would come to Christ's salvation, as I expect that I would have in my heart a similar hope.

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