Books of the Bible

Father Pisut,
I have been asked by some Protestants why several books of the Bible have been eliminated from theirs. Can you tell me which ones and why they were left out.

Thanks and blessings,
Kathy

Kathy,

There are seven books of the Old Testament not in the Protestant Bible: Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch and 1 and 2 Maccabees, as well as portions of Esther (10:4 to 16:24) and Daniel (3:24-90 and chapters 13 and 14). While Protestants call these books the Apocrypha Catholics call them deutero-canonical works.These were dropped for a couple of reasons. After the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD the Jewish community sought to distinguish itself from the growing Christian community. As part of this they rejected certain writings, though in common use, that were not originally written in Hebrew. These seven books were writted in Greek and are part of what is known as the Septuagint. Luther and other reformers used this as a rational for removing them as well as the fact that these books contained elements that conflicted with their theology. However, these books would have been known to Jesus and his followers and used by them. Ultimately, under the authority of the Catholic Church, which Christ established and which was guided by the Holy Spirit, these books were included in the Bible. This process of discerning which books would be in the Bible was a long one and was not complete until the 4th century. The canon of Sacred Scripture which contained these books and which we have today was confirmed by the Council of Trent in the 16th century in response to the Protestant Reformation.

Fr. Pisut