Differences between Catholic and Protestant Bibles
All Biblical quotations and sources used in this project come from translations of Protestant Bibles, specifically the English Standard Version (ESV) translation or the New Living Translation (NLT) version. However, the Roman Catholic Church uses an official Biblical source different from the sources used in Protestant churches. The Latin Vulgate Bible, translated by Saint Jerome in the fourth century, is the official Bible used by the Roman Catholic Church. This Bible contains 73 books, seven more books than are included in Protestant Bibles.
The Latin Vulgate Bible was not the first translation of the Bible into Latin. Before Jerome, who translated the Bible from the original Hebrew into Latin, the Bible had been translated from the Greek Old Testament, called the Septuagint, into what became the Old Latin Translation. (Although scholars feel that the more accurate translation of the word “Septuagint” refers to only the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Old Testament, the Septuagint more commonly refers to the Greek Translation of all the books of the Old Testament.) Somewhere during the process of developing the Old Latin Translation, additional texts made their way into the Greek Old Testament and therefore the Old Latin Translation. Aware of this when translating his text, Jerome decided to still include these additional texts but clarify that they were not part of the original Bible. The ESV Study Bible explains that he "added prefaces at various points to emphasize that they were not true parts of the Bible, and he called them by the name 'apocrypha' (Gk. apokrypha, 'those having been hidden away')" (2581). In Protestant churches, the Apocrypha is therefore simply a collection of texts that come from Biblical times, specifically between the Old and New Testaments in terms of chronology, that are not actual parts of the Bible. Some of the texts are continuations of or additions to other books of the Bible, such as Esther, Jeremiah, and Daniel. Most Protestant translations today organize the Apocrypha into its own separate section, or they exclude the Apocrypha altogether.
According to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, seven books from the Apocrypha as well as other apocryphal stories that add to Esther and Daniel are accepted as legitimate in the Roman Catholic Church and are included in Catholic Bibles. (These additions make up for the discrepancies between traditional Catholic and Protestant Bible translations.) The Books of Tobit and Judith come between Nehemiah and Esther; apocryphal additions are made to the end of Esther (Cambridge University Press's 2017 edition of the Apocrypha simply calls these additions “The rest of Esther”); 1 and 2 Maccabees come between Esther and Job; The Wisdom of Solomon followed by Ecclesiasticus come between Song of Solomon and Isaiah; and Baruch, with the Epistle of Jeremiah comes between Lamentations and Ezekiel ("Books of the Bible"). Three apocryphal texts are additional stories that occur at various places in Daniel, including The Song of the Three Holy Children, The History of Susanna, and Bel and the Dragon. These books or additions from the Protestant Apocrypha "are called the deuterocanonical books" ("Frequently") in the Catholic Church.
Works Cited
The Apocrypha: Translated out of the Original Tongues and with the Former Translations Diligently Compared and Revised by His Majesty's Special Command. 1992. Pitt Brevier ed., Cambridge, Cambridge UP, 2017.
"Books of the Bible." United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, https://bible.usccb.org/bible.
ESV Study Bible: English Standard Version. Translated by Crossway, ESV text ed., Wheaton, Crossway Bibles, 2011.
"Frequently Asked Questions: Questions about the Bible." United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, www.usccb.org/faq.