Why do Catholics and Protestant churches differ in the number of Books in their Bible?

Historical Antecedents (The Palestinian Jews versus the Jews in the Diaspora)

6^th Century BCE (Before Christian Era) Jerusalem was destroyed, free Jewish state disappeared, and Jewish religion was shattered. Jewish religious leaders were becoming more concerned in saving their faith. They deemed it necessary to define a single reference of their sacred writing, where the remaining Jews – the Hebrew speaking Jews can turn into. They decided to list official books of their sacred Scriptures to be recognized by the Jewish people. Thorough evaluation and scrutiny to each book has been applied. Since not all of the books circulating among religious sectors contain undisputable theological ideas. Some of them contain “suspicious and frankly, even dangerous.”

They finally decided to list 39 books to be accepted as Sacred Scriptures. These books were considered undoubtedly divinely inspired. This compilation of official books recognized by the Jewish community as inspired and containing authentic doctrine is called canon, which means “norm” or “rule”, for it serves as a rule of life for the believers. The books that have been rejected are called “apocryphal”, which means “hidden”, because they contained questionable teachings and were thus considered to have spurious origins.

            Outside Palestine a constantly growing in number of Jews flourished. Accordingly this is the largest Jewish colony in the diaspora consisting of 100, 000 population. They settled in Alexandria, a city in Egypt near the Mediterranean coast. These Jews can no longer understood Hebrew, consequently in the 3^rd century they had their Hebrew Scriptures translated into Greek, the language they were using. Since then they used this version in their worship and liturgies. They called this translation as Septuagint because the translation was performed by the 70 wise men in Egypt. But aside from 39 books translated into Greek, the Septuagint was added with another 7 books directly written in Greek. (For the fuller view of these books please refer to my previous article How Many Books does the Bible have?)

            The effort of the Alexandrian Jews was not favorable by the Palestinian Jews, so they out rightly rejected their version of the Scriptures. Since then the Jewish people have two canons of Scriptures, the Palestinian and the Alexandrian.

The Main Event

            Following the theology found in Matthew (Mt. 5:17), that Jesus did not come to abolish but to fulfill and complete the Old Testament, the first community of Christians recognized in their Bible the books used by the Jews. But which of the canons of Scriptures should they use, the shorter canon that of Palestinian version or the longer canon that of Alexandrian?

            Let us remember that in this time, Jews were growing in number in the diaspora, meaning outside Palestinian territory. Therefore, many of them do not know the Hebrew language. So, in favor of the majority, the first Christian believers opted for the Alexandrian version, the Septuagint which uses the Greek language. In reaction to the Christians, the Jews defined their canon of the Scriptures favoring the Palestinian version consisting of 39 books.

            Sometimes in the 16^th century CE (Christian Era), Martin Luther started a reformation in the Church which resulted eventually to the erection of another community of believers, the Protestant church. One of the changes Luther introduced to his new church was the use of the shorter canon. This is considered as the landmark of Luther’s reformation, breaking the tradition maintained by the Catholic Church for 15 centuries about using the longer canon.

            Since then, Catholic Church and the Protestant Churches differ in the canons of Scriptures. The Catholic maintains the use of Alexandrian version, 46 books while Protestants followed the Palestinian canon, 39 books.

            The Catholic Church has finally decreed its definitive canon of Scriptures through the Council of Trent (1545-1563) issuance of the decree De Canonicis Scripturis on April 8, 1546, recognizing the Old Testament of the Bible as having 46 books including the seven books unauthorized by the Protestants.

           

            It should be noted here importantly why our discussion focus on the Old Testament only. Since both churches agreed the number of canons in the New Testament which is 27 books.

Sources:

The New American Bible

The Bible: Questions People Ask, vol. 1 by Ariel Alvarez Valdez

The Christian Faith: In The Doctrinal Documents of the Catholic Church by J. Neuner, SJ and J. Dupuis, SJ.