What Bible Do Catholics Use and What Can Protestants Learn from It?
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If you come from a Protestant background, you may ask what Bible Catholics use and whether it’s true that it has different books in it.
This may be an important discussion today when Western society often appears more hostile to Christians of every denomination than ever before. As Christians of every tradition struggle with what to do, unity on the core Christian beliefs matters. But we can’t achieve unity unless we are willing to discuss our differences and see how much we have in common.
So, what should we know about the Catholic view of the biblical canon?
Do Catholics Use a Different Bible from Protestants?
The short answer to this is yes and no. Yes, because Catholics have all the same books Protestants have. No, because they have an additional seven that were part of the canon until the Protestant Reformation.
In Catholic Bibles, these additional seven books are:
- Tobit
- Judith
- 1 & 2 Maccabees
- Wisdom of Solomon
- Baruch
- Ecclesiasticus (also known as Sirach or The Wisdom).
The Catholic Bible also contains additional sections of Esther and Daniel, which are not in most Protestant Bibles. You can read a summary of each of these books on Theology Pathfinder by Derek Demars.
It should be noted that Orthodox Christians have even more books in their Bibles, but that is a story for another time.
Where Can We Find the Extra Books in Catholic Bibles?
These seven books are known as the Deuterocanon or Apocrypha. As Connor Salter of Christianity.com puts it:
“The Apocrypha is a collection of pre-New Testament works by Jewish writers, many collected in the Septuagint, a Greek translation of Hebrew texts including the 39 canonical books of the Old Testament. These books are considered Scripture by the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church, but not by Protestant denominations.”
Some Protestant Bibles, such as the King James Version (KJV) and English Standard Version (ESV), include the Apocrypha in the back. Catholic Bibles, such as the Revised Standard Version (RSV) or the New Revised Standard Version-Catholic Version (NRSV-CE), put these seven books within the Old Testament because they consider them sacred scripture.
Now, Catholics have their reasons about why they have more books in the Bible, just as Protestants have their reasons for removing certain books from the biblical canon. So how did the Catholic church develop its biblical canon that included these books?
How Did the Catholic Church Develop Its Biblical Canon?
Arguing over what books belong in the Bible is not a new problem. Even in Jesus’ time, people did not universally agree on the Old Testament canon. We see this in the separation between the Pharisees and the Sadducees. Jason Evert notes that the Pharisees held that the Torah (the first five Old Testament Books) and the writings of the Prophets were divinely inspired. In contrast, the Sadducees only held to the Torah to be canon.
So why do Catholics have the seven additional books in their Bibles? Many assume that the canonization didn’t become official until the Council of Trent in 1546, in response to Martin Luther’s Reformation. The canonization was affirmed and re-affirmed at multiple councils in the first millennia of Christianity. The Council of Hippo (393 A.D.), the Council of Carthage (397 A.D. and 419 A.D.), and the Council of Nicaea II (787 A.D.) all affirmed these books. It’s key that these early councils affirmed these books because they all occurred when the church was united as one holy, catholic, and apostolic church. Only two major church councils occurred in the medieval period after the Great Schism of 1054. They were strictly within the Roman Catholic Church, not involving the Orthodox Church: the Council of Florence (1442) and the Council of Trent (1546). Jimmy Akins provides more detail on this point if you want to look further into it.
Granted, it wasn’t a universal consensus. Some church leaders, most notably St. Jerome, did not agree with the ancient councils about including these books. However, there was a general consensus, so Catholics continued to include these books in their Bibles. Maintaining historic church tradition is of high value, and the councils want to maintain the tradition of including these books in the biblical canon.
So, why are these books left out of most Protestant Bibles?
Do Protestants Believe the Apocrypha Is Inspired?
Linda Lyle sums up the shift that came with the biblical canon when the Protestant Reformation happened:
“During the Protestant Reformation, Martin Luther rejected the deuterocanonical books because they were written after God stopped speaking to the prophets and called them The Apocrypha. In response to the Reformation, the Council of Trent (1546) voted to make the so-called Apocrypha dogma, and they were included in the Catholic Bible as scripture. On the other hand, Martin Luther included the books in his 1534 Bible but separated them with a note stating they were not divinely inspired. It remained a separate section in The Geneva and King James Bibles (although it was removed from the KJV in 1885).”
It should be emphasized that many Classical Protestants (Lutherans, Anglicans, Anglo-Catholics, Methodists) still use the Apocrypha for learning and teaching while separating it from what they consider sacred scripture. They view the material as useful, if not inspired.
So, why do Protestants reject their canonization?
Why Don’t Protestants Include Some Books from the Catholic Bible?
A major reason why Protestants don’t include the Apocrypha is history.
They note that the Apocrypha books are rarely mentioned in the recognized Old or New Testament—not even 1-2 Maccabees, books about important events between the Old and New Testament. That raises questions about whether the early church considered these seven books important or canonical. As Matt Whitman puts it:
“In the New Testament, you have quotes all over from the Old Testament. Direct quotes. But there are no references to the Apocrypha. So, the absence of any reference to the Apocrypha means that Jesus may not have viewed that as Scripture. It is likely the Disciples did not view that as Scripture. Further, if you look at the trend as these books were debated, and they were debated, you will see that support chronologically as we move along wanes for viewing the Apocrypha as Scripture.”
So, to summarize, because the Apocrypha did not have any references in the New Testament, especially from the words of Christ, and because their support was challenged multiple times, Protestant church leaders concluded that these books were not as authoritative as the rest of scripture.
It should be noted that this decision is also complex—just like there were complexities in the Catholic church councils when leaders like Jerome argued against including the Apocrypha. Some Protestant leaders were willing to omit other books, too. Luther famously wanted the book of James removed from the New Testament, calling it “an epistle of Straw.” His primary issue is that James’ emphasis on works didn’t seem to mesh well with Luther’s faith-alone stance.
What Can the Catholic Bible Teach All Christians?
We can debate whether we agree with the Catholic or Protestant stance on the biblical canon.
However, we can still learn some key things from the Bible that Catholics use.
For one thing, the discussion teaches us how important it is to talk not only about Scripture but also about how we got it. We must consider how the canon became what we have today and realize both sides have funny stories (Jerome wanting the deuterocanonical books removed, Luther wanting James removed) we may want to overlook.
For another, it reminds us that even if we talk about Sola Scriptura (“Scripture alone”), we all need to know some church history. We need to recognize how history—records from historians like Eusebius, the early church fathers’ writings, and so on—informs how we got the biblical canon.
We can also respect the strive to stick with the historic faith. Even if we don’t see eye to eye with other Christians about the apocryphal books, we can respect the craving to seek honest sources and follow the faith we have passed down from its earliest roots.
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