The Bible
The name is derived from the Greek expression biblia (the books), which came into use in the early centuries
of Christianity to designate the whole sacred volume.
(The Bible - newadvent.org)
It was by the apostolic Tradition that the Church discerned which writings are to be included in the list of the sacred books. [90]
This
complete list is called the canon of Scripture. It includes 46 books
for the Old Testament (45 if we count Jeremiah and Lamentations as one)
and 27 for the New. [91]
(This means there are a total of 73 books included in the Bible.)
Christians
read the Old Testament in the light of Christ crucified and risen. Such
typological reading discloses the inexhaustible content of the Old
Testament; but it must not make us forget that the Old Testament retains
its own intrinsic value as Revelation reaffirmed by our Lord himself. [105]
Besides, the New Testament has to be read in the light of the Old.
Early Christian catechesis made constant use of the Old Testament. [106] As an old saying put it, the New Testament lies hidden in the Old and the Old Testament is unveiled in the New. [107] (See On the Spirit and the Letter Chapter 27 by St. Augustine)
[108] Nor do the calling of the patriarchs and the exodus from Egypt, for example, lose their own value in God's plan,
from the mere fact that they were intermediate stages.
The Church “forcefully and specifically exhorts all the Christian faithful... to learn the surpassing knowledge of Jesus Christ,
by frequent reading of the divine Scriptures. Ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ. [112]
(Catechism of the CatholicChurch 120, 129, 130, 133)
Catholic
and Protestant Bibles both include 27 books in the New Testament.
Protestant Bibles have only 39 books in the Old Testament, however,
while Catholic Bibles have 46. The seven books included in Catholic
Bibles which are not found in Protestant Bibles are Tobit, Judith, 1 and
2 Maccabees, Wisdom,Sirach, and Baruch. Catholic Bibles also include
sections in the Books of Esther and Daniel which are not found in
Protestant Bibles. These books are
called the deuterocanonical books. The
deuterocanonicals are those books of the Old Testament that were
included in the Bible even though there had been some discussion about
whether they should be. The Catholic Church considers these books to be inspired by the Holy Spirit.
(Understandingthe Bible - FAQ # 3)
It should be noted that protocanonical and deuterocanonical are modern terms, not having been used before the sixteenth century (during the Protestant Reformation).
The terms protocanonical and deuterocanonical, of frequent usage among Catholic theologians and exegetes, require a word of caution. Theyare not appropriate, and it would be wrong to infer from them that the Church successively
possessed two distinct Biblical Canons. Only in a partial and
restricted way may we speak of a first and second Canon. ( There has
been only one Canon of scripture used in the Catholic Bible and
throughout the earliest Christian history.)
Protocanonical (protos,"first") is a conventional word denoting those sacred writings which have been always received by Christendom without dispute. The protocanonical books of the Old Testament correspond with those of the Bible of the Hebrews and the Old Testament as received by Protestants.
(The Hebrew Bible refers to the sacred writings of Judaism, called by
Christians the Old Testament. Judaism is the religion of the Jews.)
The deuterocanonical (deuteros,"second")
are those whose Scriptural character was contested in some quarters,
but which long ago gained a secure footing in the Bible of the Catholic Church, though those of the Old Testament are classed by Protestants as the "Apocrypha"
(which according to the Protestants are biblical or related writings
appended to the Old Testament in the Septuagint and Vulgate versions,
which are rejected by the
Protestants and which they consider as not forming part of or
the accepted by their canon of Scripture). These consist of seven books
not included in the Protestant Bibles such
as: Tobit,Judith, Baruch, Sirach (a.k.a. Ecclesiasticus), Wisdom, First
and Second Machabees; also certain additions to Esther and Daniel.
(Canon of the Old Testament – newadvent.org)
The Septuagint
There
are 46 books in the Old Testament of the Catholic Bibles because they
came from the Septuagint Version of the Old Testament.
The Septuagint is the official text in the Greek Church, and the ancient Latin Versions
used in the western church were made from it; the earliest translation adopted in the Latin Church, the Vetus Itala, was directly from the Septuagint.
The Septuagint is the first translation of the Hebrew Old Testament, made into popular Greek before the Christian era. (Hebrew is the language of the Jews.)
The
Septuagint is the most ancient translation of the Old Testament and
consequently is invaluable to critics for understanding and correcting
the Hebrew text (Massorah),
the latter, such as it has come down to us, being the text established
by the Massoretes in the sixth century A.D. Many textual
corruptions, additions, omissions, or transpositions must have crept
into the Hebrew text between the third and second centuries B.C. and
the sixth and seventh centuries of our era; the manuscripts therefore
which the Seventy (see
Septuagint origin explained below) had at their disposal, may in places have been better than the Massoretic manuscripts. (The Masoretes were groups of Jewish scribe-scholars who worked between the 6th and 10th centuries AD based primarily in present-dayIsrael in the cities of Tiberias and Jerusalem, The Masoretic Text is the authoritative Hebrew and Aramaic text of the Tanakh for Rabbinic Judaism.)
The
Jews made use of the Septuagint long before the Christian Era, and in
the time of Christ it was recognized as a legitimate text, and was
employed in Palestine even by the rabbis. The Apostles and Evangelists
utilized it also and borrowed Old Testament citations from it,
especially in regard to the prophecies. (Septuagint Version - Newadvent.org)
(In Judaism, a rabbi is a teacher of Torah. The name Apostle denotes principally one of the twelve disciples who, on a solemn occasion, were called by Christ to a special mission. The Evangelists are writers of the Four Gospels )
There
are many Old Testament quotes in the New Testament, that came from the
Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Old Testament) which included
the deuterocanonical books that the Protestants later removed.
This
is additional evidence that Jesus and the apostles viewed the
deuterocanonical books as part of canon of the Old Testament.
These are some examples of these quotations in the New Testament taken
only from the Deuterocanonical books of the Septuagint Version of the
Old Testament:
Matthew 6:12 Sirach 28:2
Matthew 6:14 Sirach 28:1-5
Matthew 7:2; Mark 4:24 Wisdom 12:22
Matthew 18:33 Sirach 28:4
Mark 1:15 Tobit 14:5
Mark 2:27 2 Mc 5:19.
Luke 12:19-20 Sirach 11:19
John 3:12 John 6:62-65; Wisdom 9:16-17
John 4:9 Matthew 10:5 Sirach 50:25-26
John 10:22 1 Mc 4:54, 59
(See other Examples of these quotations here )
Origin of the Septuagint:
One
story about the origin of the Septuagint Version of the Old Testament
is described in a letter of Aristeas to his brother
Philocrates. According this story Ptolemy II Philadelphus, King of Egypt
(287-47 BC) had recently established a valuable library at
Alexandria.He was persuaded by Demetrius of Phalarus, chief librarian,
to enrich it with acopy of the sacred books of the Jews. Delegates were
then sent to Jerusalem, to ask Eleazar, the
Jewish high-priest,
to provide him with a copy of the Law, and Jews capable of translating
it into Greek. The embassy was successful: a richly ornamented copy of
the Law
was sent to him and seventy-two Israelites,
six from each tribe, were deputed to go to Egypt and carry out the
wish of the king. (There are twelve tribes in Israel corresponding to
the descendants of the twelve sons of Jacob AKA Israel.) They were
received with great honor and during seven days and astonished everyone by the wisdom they displayed in
answering seventy-two
questions which they were asked; then they were led into the solitary
island of Pharos,where they began their work, translating the Law,
helping one another and comparing translations in proportion as
they finished them. At the end of seventy-two days, their work was completed, The translation was read in presence of
the Jewish priests, princes, and people assembled at Alexandria, who
all recognized and praised its perfect conformity with the Hebrew
original. The king was greatly pleased with the work and had it placed
in the library.
The
authenticity of this letter of Aristeas, however is now universally
denied. Nevertheless, in spite of the divergencies the name of
theSeptuagint Version is universally given to the entire collection of
the Old Testament books in the Greek Bible adopted by the Eastern
Church.
(This story is from where the name “Septuagint”; from
the Latin “Septuaginta”meaning seventy; comes from and this is
abbreviated by the Roman numeral LXX for the seventy men; actually
seventy-two men according to the story; who worked on it.)
The
origin of the Septuagint according to the commonly accepted view is
that the Old Testament was gradually translated into Greek byAlexandrian
Jews in Egypt, as little by little most of them ceased to use and
even forgot the Hebrew language in great part, and there was a danger of
their forgetting the Law.
The three most celebrated manuscripts of the Septuagint known are
1. the Vatican, "Codex Vaticanus" (fourth century);
2. the Alexandrian, "Codex Alexandrinus" (fifth century), now in the British Museum,London; and that of Sinai,
3. "Codex Sinaiticus" (fourth century), found by Tischendorf in the convent of St. Catherine, on Mount Sinai, in 1844 and 1849, now part at Leipzig and in part in St. Petersburg; they are all written inuncials. (Uncials are scripts denoting or written in a majuscule (large letter) scripts with rounded separated letters which is found in European manuscripts of the 4th–8th centuries and from which modern capital letters are derived.) The "Codex Vaticanus" is the purest of the three; it generally gives the more ancient text.
(Septuagint Version -Newadvent.org)
During
the Reformation, primarily for (their own) doctrinal reasons,
Protestants removed seven books from the Old Testament. They did so even
though these books had been regarded as canonical since the beginning
of Church history.
as 1, 2, 3, and 4 Kings—that is, 1 and 2 Samuel are named 1 and 2 Kings, and 1 and 2 Kings are named 3 and 4 Kings.
The history and use of these designations is explained more fully in Scripture reference works.
(The Old Testament Canon - Catholic Answers)
The most explicit definition of the Catholic Canon is that given by the Council of Trent, Session IV, 1546. For the Old Testament its catalogue reads as follows:
The five books of Moses (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy),Joshua, Judges, Ruth,the four books of Kings (corresponding to: 1 and 2 Samuel, and 1 and 2 Kings),two of Paralipomenon (1 and 2 Chronicles) , the first and second of Ezra (which is latter is called Nehemiah), Tobit, Judith, Esther, Job, the Davidic Psalter (in number one hundred and fifty Psalms),
Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, the Canticle of Canticles (Song of Songs), Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus (Sirach), Isaiah, Jeremiah (with Lamentations), Baruch, Ezekiel, Daniel, the twelve minor Prophets (Hosea,Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Michah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zachariah, Malachi), two books of Maccabees, the first and second.
The order of books copies that of the Council of Florence, 1442, and in its general plan is that of the Septuagint. The divergence of titles from those found in the Protestant versions is due to the fact that the official Latin Vulgate retained the forms of the Septuagint. (The Latin Vulgate is the principal Latin version of the Bible, the official text for the Roman Catholic Church.)
During its time, however the Septuagint was the oldest existing copy of the Old Testament, with the Septuagint "Codex Vaticanus" dated in the fourth century.
The
oldest extant copy ofthe Hebrew text was Codex Leningrad which is dated
A.D. 916. The rabbis had a practice of destroying worn out copies of
the Scriptures. (Once the scripture is worn out, they manually write a
new copy and discard the old copy). Hence,the earliest Hebrew texts are
very late.
Most scholars think that rabbis in the Council of Jamnia (approximately
A.D. 90) worked out a standard text; hence, variant readings are
relatively few in the Old Testament as compared to the New Testament.
The
translation of the Old Testament into Greek, known as the Septuagint
(abbreviated by the Roman numeral LXX for the seventy men who worked on
it) was made in approximately 250 B.C. It differs significantly on some
passages from the Masoretic text. Because of the variants between the
LXX, the Samaritan Pentateuch, and the Masoretic Text, scholars
questioned how reliable is the Hebrew text on which we depend. There was
no basis on which to check the reliability of the Masoretic text.
(Dead SeaScrolls and the Text of the Old Testament - Truth Magazine)
(The Masoretic Text is the authoritative Hebrew and Aramaic text of the Tanakh for Rabbinic Judaism. The Tanakh is the canon of the Hebrew Bible. Rabbinic Judaism or Rabbinism has been the mainstream form of Judaism since the 6th century AD. The Samaritan Pentateuch, also known as the Samaritan Torah is a manuscript of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, written in the Samaritan alphabet and used as a scripture by the Samaritans.It constitutes their entire biblical canon.
Samaritans claim they are Israelite descendants of the Northern Israelite tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh, who survived the destruction of the Kingdom of Israel (Samaria) by the Assyrians
in 722 BC. According to the Bible Israel was divided into two kingdoms:
the South is the Kingdom of Judah and the rest of Israel in the north
called Kingdom of Israel in a period called the Divided Kingdom. This
story begins in 1 Kings 12)
The DEAD SEA SCROLLS
Suddenly
in 1947 the Dead Sea Scrolls were found (which has the oldest extant
copies of the Old Testament written in Hebrew), providing (for example) a
copy of Isaiah that is conservatively dated approximately 200 B.C.
(Dead Sea Scrolls and the Text of the Old Testament - Truth Magazine)
The
scrolls provide our oldest copies of any portion of Scripture,
including a few manuscripts that date to the third century (to 200s) BC.
The majority, however, were copied in the period 150BC—AD 68. All of
the protocanonical books of the Old Testament are represented at Qumran
except for Esther and Nehemiah; however, apocryphal books like 1 Enoch
and Jubilees are better represented than most biblical books, and just
as many copies of the “deuterocanonical” Tobit (six) were
discovered as of Jeremiah, Ezekiel, or Job. For this reason, as
mentioned above, most scholars believe the Essene canon was
significantly
different than that of the Pharisees and modern Rabbinic Judaism.
(The Dead Sea Scrolls - St. Paul Center for Biblical Studies )
Suddenly from the Dead Sea Scrolls were found very old copies of the “deuterocanonical” Tobit and Sirach written in Hebrew which Protestants rejected because it was written in Greek.
The Dead Sea Scrolls include the deuterocanonical books included in Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Bibles: Tobit, Sirach, and Baruch.
(Dead Sea Scrolls - Wikipedia)
Among the many answers revealed;
The
Dead Sea Scrolls also vindicated the Catholic position that Works of
the Law seems to be an idiom for the cultic and ritual observances of
the Mosaic law, not a reference to good works in general.
This is in connection with Paul's Soteriology (doctrine of salvation) in Gal.2:16:
"Yet who know that a man is not justified by works of the law but
through faith in Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, in
order to be justified by faith in Christ, and not by works of the law, because by works of the law shall no one be justified"
wherein the Protestants viewed that the"works of the law" refers to good works.
indeed, any human effort to obey God.
(The word “alone” was added so that the statement would look as “A man is not justified by works but by faith alone.” However, this runs contrary to James in James 2:24 which literally says: "a person is justified by works and not by faith alone. " This statement stands without adding any word.)
The Catholic view is that the Works ofthe Law mentioned by Paul here means obedience to
the Old (Mosaic) Covenant, especially its rituals. (This Old Mosaic Covenant refers to the Mosaic Law which
is the body of juridical, moral, and ceremonial institutions, laws and
decisions comprised in the last four books of the Pentateuch, and
ascribed by Christian and Hebrew tradition to Moses.)
This is revealed by scroll named 4QMMT: "Miqtsat Ma'asei ha-Torah" " translated as
" Some Pertinent Works of Torah," or “Some Pertinent Works of the Law” which is a letter from the Essenes to the Pharisees about ritual purity.
In short, ma-ase ha-torah is equivalent to what we know in English from Paul's letters as "works of the law."
This Dead Sea scroll and Paul use the very same phrase. The connection is emphasized by the fact that this phrase appears nowhere in rabbinic literature of the first and second centuries A.D. -- only in Paul and in MMT ("Miqtsat Ma'asei ha-Torah"). This scroll contains the only use of the phrase "works of the law" in ancient literature outside of Paul.
(See Hope of Israel Ministries - Works of the Law ; See also Dead Sea Scrolls - pdf document; The Works of the Law by James Akin)
First Christian Writers Quotations of “Deuterocanonical”Books:
Below we give patristic quotations from each of the deuterocanonical books.
Notice how the Church Fathers (the first Christianwriters) quoted these books along with the protocanonicals.
TheDidache
" Do not be one who opens his hands to receive, or closes them when it is time to give. [Sir. 4:31]" (Didache 4:5[A.D. 70]).
The Letterof Barnabas
"Since,
therefore, [Christ] was about to be manifested and to suffer in the
flesh, his suffering was foreshown. For the prophet speaks against evil,
‘Woe to their soul, because they have counseled an evil counsel
against themselves’ [Is.3:9], saying, ‘Let us bind the righteous man because he is displeasing tous’ [Wis. 2:12.]"
(Letter of Barnabas 6:7 [A.D. 74]).
Clement ofRome
"By
the word of his might [God] established all things, and by his word he
can overthrow them. ‘Who shall say to him, "What have you done?" or who
shall resist the power of his strength?’[Wisdom 12:12]"
(Letter to the Corinthians 27:5 [ca. A.D. 80]).
Polycarp of Smyrna
"Stand
fast, therefore, in these things, and follow the example of the Lord,
being firm and unchangeable in the faith, loving the brotherhood [1 Pet.2:17].
. . . When you can do good, defer it not, because ‘alms delivers from death’ [Tob. 4:10, Tobit 12:9].
Be all of you subject to one another [1 Pet. 5:5], having your conduct blameless among the Gentiles [1 Pet. 2:12], and the Lord may not be blasphemed through you. But woe to him by whom the name of the Lord is blasphemed [Is. 52:5]!"
(Polycarp Letter to the Philippians 10 [A.D. 135]).