Catholic vs Protestant

Why do Catholics have 7 more books in the Bible than Protestants?

💬Answer

The Catholic Bible contains 73 books, while most Protestant Bibles contain 66. The seven additional books are called the Deuterocanonical books: Tobit, Judith, 1 Maccabees, 2 Maccabees, Wisdom, Sirach (Ecclesiasticus), and Baruch, along with additional passages in Daniel and Esther. These books were part of the Septuagint — the Greek translation of the Old Testament widely used by Jews in the time of Jesus and quoted frequently by New Testament authors. The early Church consistently used these books, and they were affirmed as canonical at the Councils of Hippo (393), Carthage (397 and 419), and definitively at the Council of Trent (1546). Martin Luther removed them during the Reformation because they supported certain Catholic doctrines he rejected (such as prayer for the dead in 2 Maccabees 12:46) and because they were not in the Hebrew canon established at the Jewish Council of Jamnia around 90 AD. Catholics do not consider these books 'added' but rather that Protestants removed them from the original Christian canon.

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