Pat Arensberg: Why are our Bibles different?

“The Old Testament is an indispensable part of Sacred Scripture.  Its books are divinely inspired and retain permanent value, for the Old Covenant has never been revoked.”  CCC #121 (mostly quoting Dei Verbum #14)

The Old Testament is the name given to the first 46 books in the Bible.  Many Protestant Bibles contain only 39 books in the Old Testament.  The reason for this is a bit complicated.  I will tell the story in very brief fashion, but please know this:  the Catholic Church never added any books to the Bible.  The 46 books in the Old Testament were accepted as Scripture by all Christians from the time of Jesus (including by Jesus himself) until Martin Luther had them removed in the 16th century.  

On what grounds did Luther remove them?  Well, in about 250 b.c. King Ptolemy II wanted the Jewish Scriptures included in his library in Alexandria.  He commissioned 70 scholars to translate the books from Hebrew into Greek, which was the language of the learned.  Legend has it (and there is some credibility to this) that all 70 scholars, working independently from each other, came up with identical translations.  This version of the Jewish Scriptures is known as the “Septuagint” (Latin for 70).  This is the version of Scripture that 1st century Jews would have used, so Jesus would have used this version.  Christians used the same books from the beginning.  

In the 5th century a.d. the Jews decided to remove from their scriptures all books that were not originally written in Hebrew.  There were 7 books that they thought were written in Greek (not just translated into Greek).  These books were excluded from the Jewish canon.   The Christian community was not inclined to remove those books. For the next millennium the situation remained unchanged.  In the 16th century, Martin Luther placed these 7 books into the Appendix of the Bible, and they were ultimately rejected by his followers.

About Pat Arensberg Patrick Arensberg is the Director of Religious Education for the Archdiocese of Mobile. Previously, he taught for 17 years at McGill-Toolen Catholic High School, where he served as Chairman of the Theology Department. He attended the Gregorian University in Rome and holds an M.A. in Theology from Notre Dame Seminary in New Orleans. He is married to Connie and they live in Mobile with their 5 children.