why are protestant bibles smaller than catholic ones QUESTION from jeremy on April 9, 2003

why are the protestant bibles smaller that catholic ones? why do protestants not believe that those scriptures like the book of tobit and judith are not inspired by god? why do the catholics believe they are inspired? thank you for your time.

ANSWER by Staff on April 17, 2003

Dear Jeremy:
The Jews until around 100AD accepted those books that are in a manuscript called the Septuigint. The Septuigint was a Greek edition of the Old Testament. This was the edition of the Scriptures that Jesus read and loved.
But around 100AD or so the Jewish Rabbis got together in council and decided to exclude from their canon of Scripture any book that was not written originally in Hebrew. Seven books in the Old Testament, including Tobit, were originally written in Greek, so the Rabbis removed them from the canon. This change was really a political one and not about the disputed texts being inspired or not inspired. Some historians also suggest that in addition to the politics of the time concerning Jews and Greek that the Rabbis may have also been motivated by the fact that this these Christians were using the deuterocanonicals to support Christian doctrine.
The problem is that in 33AD God had transferred the Magisterium from the Chair of Moses to the Chair of Peter, thus these Rabbis had no divine authority to make such changes.
The Church continued to consider these disputed books, called the deuterocanicals, as inspired Scripture. In fact the New Testament quotes or refers to these deuterocanocals more than 300 times. So we can see that the Apostles had no problem with them.
There was no major dispute in the Christian world about includingthese deuterocananicals. The Church in the 4th Century made decisions on what was and was not Scripture, and if there were any doubt, the Council of Trent definitively declared the canon of Scripture once-and-for-all.
The reason the Council of Trent made such a pointed declaration when the Church had commonly accepted these texts for nearly 1500 years, was because of the assertions of Martin Luther and the other rebels of the Protestant Revolution.
Martin Luther and the others decided that they would accept the Palestinian Canon set by the Rabbis in around 100AD. Given Martin Luther's personality I believe this was primarily motivated by arrogance and rebellion and not on anything even remotely theologically or historical.
Thus, the Protestants do not have these deuterocanonical passages in their Bible.
The important point to make is that the Catholics DID NOT ADD to the Bible, the Protestants SUBTRACTED from the Bible.
Also, Martin Luther ADDED words to the Bible that were not there. When he was confronted with this sin of adding to the Bible he replied: Bacause Dr. Martin Luther will have it so! This man was one ego-maniac with delusions of popehood.
Anyway, the version of the Old Testament used by Jesus, the Apostles, and the Church since the first century is the version of the Old Testament in the Catholic Bible.
I always say, If it was good enough for Jesus, it is good enough for me!
God Bless,Bro. Ignatius