Friday, June 3, 2011

Wondering What Is the Difference

What is the Difference Between Protestant and Catholic Bibles?

The Old Testament

The First Christian Bible
At the time the Christian Bible was being formed, a Greek translation of Jewish Scripture, the Septuagint, was in common use and Christians adopted it as the Old Testament of the Christian Bible. However, around 100 A.D., Jewish rabbis revised their Scripture and established an official canon of Judaism which excluded some portions of the Greek Septuagint. The material excluded was a group of 15 late Jewish books, written during the period 170 B.C. to 70 A.D., that were not found in Hebrew versions of the Jewish Scripture. Christians did not follow the revisions of Judaism and continued to use the text of the Septuagint as the Old Testament.

Protestant Bibles
In the 1500s, Protestant leaders decided to organize the Old Testament material according to the official canon of Judaism rather than the Septuagint. They moved the Old Testament material which was not in the Jewish canon into a separate section of the Bible called the Apocrypha. So, Protestant Bibles then included all the same material as the earlier Bible, but it was divided into two sections: the Old Testament and the Apocrypha. Protestant Bibles included the Apocrypha until the mid 1800s, and the King James Version was originally published with the Apocrypha. However, the books of the Apocrypha were considered less important, and the Apocrypha was eventually dropped from most Protestant editions. The books of the Apocrypha are also known as the deuterocanonical books.

Catholic and Orthodox Bibles
The Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches did not follow the Protestant revisions, and they continue to base their Old Testament on the Septuagint. The result is that these versions of the the Bible have more Old Testament books than most Protestant versions. Catholic Old Testaments include 1st and 2nd Maccabees, Baruch, Tobit, Judith, The Wisdom of Solomon, Sirach (Ecclesiasticus), additions to Esther, and the stories of Susanna and Bel and the Dragon which are included in Daniel. Orthodox Old Testaments include these plus 1st and 2nd Esdras, Prayer of Manasseh, Psalm 151 and 3rd Maccabees.(http://www.twopaths.com/faq_bibles.htm)

Thursday, June 2, 2011

Grace Before Meals

God our Father, help us never to fear Your Second Coming, but to welcome You with great joy – not just on one particular date but every day of our lives! Keep our families strong and secure in the food that we receive in the true teachings of Your Church. Help us always to be ready for that great day when our “foretaste of Heaven” through the Eucharist is fulfilled when we hear that invitation, “Come you who are blessed by My Father, receive the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world (Mt 25:34).” Amen.