What is the Catholic Bible?
People sometimes speak of "the Catholic Bible" as if it were a different book. In practice the phrase points to two things: a Bible that carries extra books inside its covers, and an English text translated from Latin rather than from the original Hebrew and Greek.
The Extra Books
The main difference is a group of writings called the Apocrypha. One writer explains where the name came from and how these books travelled into the Latin Bible:
The Bible TreasuryThis word means what is concealed, and seems originally to have been applied to books that were not published and universally known as canonical Scriptures, but were confined to a few heretical congregations, known only to them, and concealed except from the initiated. Then it came to mean, as with us, especially those books sometimes classed as belonging to the Old Testament, but never received by the Jews as such. These books were appended to the ancient Greek translation of the Old Testament, called the Septuagint, and from there transferred to the Vulgate, the Latin translation made from the Septuagint.
Their worth is judged differently by different writers. The same article rates Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus as full of wise and godly advice, and the books of Maccabees as good and reliable history, while calling others worthless romances. Others are far blunter, as we will see.
Where the Extra Books Came From
The decision that fixed these books inside the Roman Catholic Bible was taken at the Council of Trent in the sixteenth century. What is striking is that the disagreement is not really about history — both sides agree the Jews never received these books:
The Bible TreasuryLet it be observed that the Roman Church does not deny the fact on which the Reformers proceeded — that these Apocryphal books were never received as canonical by the Jews. If you look at the preface of the Douay Bible, the English version sanctioned by the Roman Church, you will see that the canonicity of the Apocrypha is made to rest solely on the authority of the Church.
So the whole question narrows to one issue: who decides what Scripture is?
The Douay-Rheims Translation
The English Catholic Bible has its own history. Its New Testament was printed at Rheims in 1582 and its Old Testament at Douay in 1609, both made from the Latin Vulgate rather than from Hebrew and Greek. One writer points out the odd result:
The Bible TreasuryBy preferring a translation of a translation to the original itself, she has committed an absurdity — especially as Jerome, the author of the Vulgate, wished to go back to the Hebrew. The consequence of this high opinion of the Vulgate is that no translation can be tolerated which is not made from it. Our own common version, for example, is rejected by English Roman Catholics, and the Douay Bible and the Rheims New Testament are sanctioned, because they have been rendered from the Clementine edition of the Vulgate.
The Objection Raised
The strongest argument against the added books comes from the very man who produced the Latin Bible Rome relies on. Jerome, who translated the Vulgate, said plainly that these books were not Scripture:
J. N. DarbyOver and over again Jerome declares there are twenty-two books, so excluding the Apocrypha from the canon; and in his preface to Tobias in particular he says it was not in the Hebrew Scriptures. In his preface to the books of Solomon he says, "As, therefore, the church reads Judith and Tobias and the books of the Maccabees, but does not receive them among canonical Scriptures, so also let her read these two volumes for the building up of the people, not to establish the authority of church doctrines."
A second objection is what the books themselves say. Here one writer takes the sharper line:
Morrish Bible DictionaryExpressions of the writers themselves show they had no thought of their books being taken for Scripture. There are also contradictions in them such as are common to human writings. Evil doctrines are found there too; let one example be enough: "Almsgiving delivers from death, and will purge away all sin" (Tobit 12:9). Some parts of the Apocryphal books may be true as history, but in every other respect they should be refused as spurious.
The Larger Issue
The books are only the surface. The same council that added them also lifted church tradition to the same level as the Bible, and that shift changes who is allowed to read and understand Scripture at all:
Samuel RidoutIt is under the plea of the need of a God-given interpreter that Rome has taken the Bible away from the common people. She says the Church alone can interpret Scripture, and that for the average Christian to attempt it will result in error.
Summary
- Contents. A Catholic Bible contains the same books as other Bibles plus the Apocrypha, writings attached to the Greek Old Testament and passed on into the Latin Vulgate.
- Authority. Their place rests not on Jewish reception or ancient agreement but on the ruling of the Council of Trent — the Douay preface says so itself.
- Translation. The Douay-Rheims English Bible was made from Latin, a translation of a translation, though Jerome himself had wanted to work from the Hebrew.
- Evidence. Jerome ranked those books as useful reading but not canon, and their own writers never claimed to be writing Scripture.
- Consequence. Once a church can decide what Scripture is, it can also decide who may read it — and that is the real question behind the extra books.