DID YOU KNOW?

There exists in the language of religion an interesting distinction of Bibles. We have all heard reference to the “Catholic Bible” versus the “Protestant Bible”. The difference between the two hinges on a collection of books that are labeled apocryphal - 14 books that were determined by the Protestant Reformation to not be inspired by God.
 
The Septuagint, the Greek translation of Jewish Scripture, is the collection of divinely inspired books known today as the Old Testament. It was the Scripture used by Jesus when he taught during his public life, and it was also used by the Apostles and the early Church when the Good News of Christ was first being taught and spread throughout the world. Over the course of centuries and through multiple councils and decrees, the Church discerned the canon of the Bible. While lists of the canon of Scripture were recorded at various times, the first official list was presented at the Council of Carthage in AD 397. This is the council which many Protestant and Evangelical Christians take as the authority for the New Testament canon of books. The Old Testament canon from that council is identical to Roman Catholic canon today. Another Council of Carthage, in AD 419, offered the same list of canonical books. The Council of Florence, in AD 1441,  listed the definitive canon in response to   a heresy declaring that there were separate sources of inspiration for the Old and  New Testament. The Council’s response not only dispelled the heresy, but also listed the books for the complete canon    of the Old and New Testament.
 
In AD 1517, Martin Luther nailed his 97 Theses to the door of a church; this was  the formal beginning to the Protestant Reformation. Out of the Reformation process, a revised canon of the Bible was generated. At the Jewish Council of Javneh in AD 90, in order to counteract the use    of Hebrew Scripture by the growing Christian cult, the Jewish leaders solidified the Old Testament to include only those books of the Septuagint that were originally written in Hebrew. Because these books weren’t in the Hebrew Bible dating from AD 90, Luther determined they shouldn’t be in the Christian Bible, either. This became the canon of the Protestant Old Testament. These books became known as the Apocrypha and include: Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Sirach, Baruch, I and II Maccabees and parts of Daniel and Esther.
 
Did you know that by removing these books from the canon of the Bible, the Protestant Bible does not have the same Scripture that Christ used when he taught? The books that were removed by Luther not only contain scriptural references to Catholic doctrine that Luther rejected, - for example in 2 Maccabees we see the scriptural teaching of purgatory in the passage that encourages “praying for the dead that they may be freed from their sins” (2 Macc. 12:41-45) - but also passages that are referenced in the New Testament. For example, in Heb 11:35, “Women received their dead by resurrection. Some were tortured, refusing to accept release, that they might rise again to a better life” -  we are told to emulate those who willingly suffer for the promise of eternal life as told in the story found in 2 Macc. 7 that  describes a Jewish mother and  her seven sons who are martyred for refusing to eat pork, which is forbidden by their faith.
 
By rejecting the books labeled Apocrypha, Luther rejected books in the canon of the Bible that had been used  by Jesus and the Apostles to teach the Truth of Christ as the fulfillment of God's promise of salvation. Fourteen books that have been recognized as Inspired Scripture in the Christian Church, for millennia!

Cathy Pressimone
EMCC Parish Life Coordinator
Master Catechist