Different Old Testament Catholic Books?

Q: I was talking with some Catholic relatives and they said the origional bible included the Catholic books and it wasn't until the reformation that they were eliminated. Do you know why Martin Luther eliminated them? I understand they contain some talk about purgatory and praying to the saints.

A: Your relatives did not provide a complete picture. The books you are mentioned are called Deuterocanonical books and have never been part of the Hebrew Bible, which is our Old Testament. Jesus affirmed the Hebrew Bible as we know it (which is in our non-Catholic Bibles – NIV, ESV, KJV, etc.). The Deuterocanonical books have been included for years in many of the Christian lists of Old Testament books, so in that your relatives are correct. There were debates in the early Church about whether they should be read in the churches and be classified as canonical texts. The word Deuterocanonical comes from the Greek meaning 'belonging to the second canon' and indicates doubt about the inclusion of these books in the canon (canon means standard). They have always been considered as secondary, even by Catholics and Eastern Orthodox Christians (both of whom still include them in their Old Testament). These books are also sometimes referred to as “Apocrypha.” There was a Greek version of the Old Testament (called the Septuagint), which contained some of these books at the time of Jesus. Since the early church was primarily Greek speaking, it is probable that they got their Old Testament from that source rather than the Hebrew Bible, which explains why early Catholic Bibles included them, as well.

The exclusion was not something Martin Luther did. The newer Bibles which were being printed in the common languages were being translated from the original languages of the Hebrew Bible and the Greek Bible, with a separate section including those other books (called Apocrypha). In fact it was the opposite – it was at the Council of Trent (1545) that the Catholics confirmed the Deuterocanonical books in their Bible, as a reaction against Luther's placement of these books in the Apocrypha of his edition. The Catholics do use these books to validate both purgatory and prayer to the saints (especially 2 Maccabees 12:43-45).

Here is a list of those books:

• Tobit
• Judith
• Additions to Esther (Vulgate Esther 10:4-16:24[14])
• Wisdom
• Sirach, also called Ben Sira or Ecclesiasticus
• Baruch, including the Letter of Jeremiah (Additions to Jeremiah in the Septuagint[15])
• Additions to Daniel:
•  Prayer of Azariah and Song of the Three Holy Children (Vulgate Daniel 3:24-90)
•  Susanna (Vulgate Daniel 13, Septuagint prologue)
•  Bel and the Dragon (Vulgate Daniel 14, Septuagint epilogue)
• 1 Maccabees
• 2 Maccabees

By the way, some of these books are interesting to read. The two Maccabees books fill in some history between the last book of the Old Testament and the Gospels. However, if you are a Bible reader you will note that as you read them there is not the same sense of the Spirit at work in them.