can you tell me why the prostestants took out one of the books from the catholic bible. theirs is different. the ones i have that a read through out the year in bible study is not catholic. i ask the prostestant ministers they never answer as to why this is thanks.

There was debate in the early decades of Christianity as to what works--Gospels, Epistles, Apocalypse--belonged in the canon of the Bible. Remember, there was not single list and these works were written at different times, places and by multiple Sacred Authors. The biggest debate regarded certain works of the Old Testament. There were two canons or lists of Scripture known, the shorter list of the ultra-conservative Jews and the longer list of the Jews who were out of Alexandria, Egypt. The ultra-conservative Jews rejected all works not written in Hebrew, to include all Christian writings. The longer included seven works in Greek, some originally Hebrew. This matter was settled in 382 in a Council of Rome by Pope Damasus, who declared the canon formally as we Catholics now know it. For more than 1000 years this was settled, until Martin Luther and company re-openned the issue, for the purpose of rejecting one of these seven works which supports prayers for the dead. Since this text, from Second Maccabees, exposed Luther as a heretic, he and others rejected all seven works which had been disputed by Judaism and in the very early Christian period. The first edition of the King James Bible included these seven works, but by the second edition, even England succumbed to the Protestants and removed them.

God bless,

Father Echert

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