Episode Transcript
Speaker 1 00:00:05 Okay. Pastor Michael, I know that this question is one of the ones you've been looking forward to the most as we've mo moved through our Roman Catholic questions. Why does the Catholic Bible have extra books? Now? I'm gonna give you five minutes to tell me everything you know. Ready?
Speaker 2 00:00:19 Okay. All right. I'm gonna do this in under five minutes. So, so you're gonna, you're gonna notice when you pick up a Catholic Bible, it's gonna be a little bit bigger <laugh>. It's gonna have seven extra books in the Old Testament. It's also gonna have extra chapters at the end of the book of Daniel and the end of, of the Book of Esther. And all these seven books come from a really important time in biblical history. Uh, it's a time called the inter testament period, and it's exactly what it sounds like. There's two testaments, the Old Testament of the New Testament. The Old Testament ends with the book of Malachi around 4 35, 25 bc. Um, the New Testament begins with the birth of Christ around zero 80 ish. Sure. Give or take a couple years <laugh>. Yep. So you have this like roughly 400 year inter testament period.
Speaker 2 00:01:04 And so for the Jewish people, there were no prophets, and the prophets were the ones who wrote the scriptures. Um, there are a ton of books written in this time, though. None of them were written in Hebrew. They were written in Greek because as the, uh, Jews in the inter testament period were kind of taken over by different people. Yeah. They were, um, handed from a Syria to Babylon. The list goes on. Um, they are now writing in, in Greek, so they're, they still have people who write in Hebrew, but the most of the literature is being done in Greek. Yeah. Um, and so this, uh, inter testament period found, um, a ton of books. And so there's a group of books called Apocryphal. Apocrypha is a funny word that means hidden. It's a large group of books called Apocryphal books. Okay. Lots and lots and lots of them.
Speaker 2 00:01:53 And all of them are written in this 400 year period. And they're all written in Greek. Oftentimes they speak about mysterious things. Some of them get really weird, some of them are really awesome. Some of them are really helpful books. Some of them are just kind of like in left field. Right. There is a subset of apocryphal books called Deutero Canonical. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> Deutero means second. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> canonical means basically from God. Right? Yeah. And so what they would say is that these are this group of books, um, that are canonical, meaning they're scripture and they, they're kinda the second scripture. They came after the Old Testament. They're living in this inter testament period. And so the Deutero canonical books, there's seven of them Right. Are the ones you're gonna find in the Catholic Bible. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, if you'll put up a Protestant Bible or a Jewish Bible, they're not gonna be in there.
Speaker 2 00:02:42 Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, not only are the seven books a part of the deutero canonical canon, uh, but you're also gonna find, again, sections of the book of Daniel. So if you go to the Catholic Bible, like there's the Book of Daniel, and then there's the extra Parts in Daniel. And the same thing with the Book of Esther. Hmm. So, uh, Protestants have never acknowledged the Deutero canonical books as scripture. The Jews have never acknowledged the Deutero canonical books as scripture. Um, only the Roman Catholics, and there's a little bit of debate on Orthodox there, but we're talking about Roman Catholics. They are the ones who have, who've just kind of like doubled down on us here. The books, here's the names, Barrack First and second Maccabees, which by the way, if you've never read the Maccabees, really good. Yeah. It's a historical book about the story of the Macee.
Speaker 2 00:03:32 Mm-hmm. <affirmative> and Family, the Maccabee Revolt. Again, these are actually all really great books. Um, we just don't believe they're scripture, uh, tobit Judith Crich wisdom. Um, and, uh, yeah. So it's, it's, um, great books, not scripture. Um, and I, I'll give you an example of why we don't consider these scripture. So our Old Testament, the Protestant Old Testament, also the Jewish Old Testament, uh, it is quoted at least 295 times in the New Testament. Our Old Testament is directly referenced 695 times in the New Testament. Our Old Testament is indirectly referenced 4,105 times in the New Testament. Um, there are only five books in the Old Testament, the Protestant and Jewish Old Testament that aren't referenced in the New Testament. Hmm. So even secular writings are quoted four times in the New Testament of all the deutero canonical books. Do you know how many times they are referenced explicitly, directly, indirectly, or in any way? Zero. Zero. Not even a hint of one. Now there's gonna be somebody listening and they might go in the comments and they might take away What about
Speaker 1 00:04:45 The, what about Enoch?
Speaker 2 00:04:46 What about Enoch? Okay. Remember we had apocryphal books. There's tons of 'em. And a subcategory, a deutero canonical mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Right. Which are the ones that are in the Catholic Bible. Yeah. Enoch is an apocryphal book. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And that is referenced in the New Testament in the book of Jude. And, and first or second Peter Enoch is not a deutero canonical book. It is not in the Roman Catholic Bible. The, the New Testament references, apocryphal books. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, it does not reference the due to a canonical books. Interesting. And so you kind of pull back and, and here's what we do know, Jesus's Old Testament, he affirms this, it is the Jewish Old Testament. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, um, and Paul's Old Testament is Jesus's Old Testament. All the authors is scripture. They have an Old Testament. And
Speaker 1 00:05:30 We can probably agree that the one that Jesus used,
Speaker 2 00:05:34 Probably, this is my thing. I'm like, listen, hopefully the one, listen everybody, I'm, if, if Jesus is going to, if Jesus believed the world was created in six days, I'm just gonna agree with him <laugh>. You know what I mean? Like Yeah. If Moses, we'll talk
Speaker 1 00:05:47 About it when we get to heaven,
Speaker 2 00:05:49 And if, if I'm wrong, then I misunderstood Jesus. Yeah. Cause whatever Jesus believes is good. If Jesus gives us a breakdown of his Bible, and he has the threefold breakdown of the Jewish mm-hmm. <affirmative>, you know, like breakdown of scripture. I'm just gonna agree with him on that. And it really wasn't, I believe, until the Council of Trent that the, um, uh, dro canonical books were officially canonized. Again, there's been debate on it, and that's good debate's, healthy, um, but, uh, uh, 1600 years after the Birth of Christ is a long time, I'm sorry, 1,575 years-ish. You can round up Yeah. Is a long time to wait to make seven books Cannon. Yeah. And as we've talked about in this, um, this series of episodes in Roman Catholicism, uh, the Council Trent was a reaction to the Protestants. And the Protestants were saying, stop teaching from these books.
Speaker 2 00:06:36 They're not in the scriptures. Jesus never referenced 'em. They're not in the Jewish scriptures. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> teach the Bible. Um, no, it's interesting though. I, I just wanna say this about these extra books. There's nothing threatening in them. Right. There's nothing heretical. The, there is a section of the book of Maccabees where, um, the Roman Catholics do pull out, because there is a story with a dead I prayed for. It's, it doesn't promote it or condemn it, it just kind of tells the story. And so they go into that and say, oh look, they prayed for the dead. We can pray for the dead. Sure. That's where, where some of that comes from. Mm-hmm. Uh, it comes from a dedo canonical source that isn't advocating or condemning, just describing. So it's, that's not enough for me to say, let's pray for the dead personal as a Protestant.
Speaker 1 00:07:16 So the authority of the Bible proven time and time and time again, its withstood the test of time. God has protected it. Yep. Um, when it comes down to it, probably gonna agree with Jesus. Yep. Absolutely. Enough. Um, what Bible was used. Yep. Um, I have one last question for you. Is it under five minutes,
Speaker 2 00:07:31 Seven minutes and 36 seconds?
