Sharon Hooley ask: "Is there a difference between the Catholic Bible and the 
new Jerusalem Bible?"

Angel wrote: "There is no such thing as a 'Catholic' bible. The Roman 
Catholic church recognizes the New Jerusalem bible, however.  She recognizes 
all bibles which are translated from the Septuagint wherein are found the 
deuterocanonical books."

john schwery comments: When I see a version with the Apocrypha added, that 
is a Catholic Bible."

Grant comments:  Below I will provide several quotations which indicate that 
there is a Roman Catholic version of the Bible officially designated by the 
Council of Trent, 1546. I also provide the info from the title page of a 
braille New Testament given to me 45 years ago which seems to indicate that 
there is a Roman Catholic Bible.

Begin:
  The New Testament of Our Lord Jesus Christ, Translated from the Vulgate, A 
Revision of the Challoner-Rhemes Version, Edited by Catholic Schollars, 
under the Patronage of THE EPISCOPAL COMMITTEE of the CONFRATERNITY OF 
CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE, St. Anthony Guild Press, Patterson, New Jersey. End of 
quotation.
This comes in ten braille volumes with multitudinous explanatory notes 
reflecting Roman Catholic views.

Secondly, I quote numerous snipits from: Baker Encyclopedia of Christian 
Apologetics, Norman L. Geisler, 1999. This is lengthy. I will provide the 
entire 8 pages if you want to read the full section. Write me off list.
Begin:
     Apocrypha, Old and New Testaments. Apocrypha most commonly refers to 
disputed books that Protestants reject and Roman Catholics and Orthodox 
communions accept into the Old Testament. The word apocrypha means "hidden" 
or "doubtful." So those who accept these documents prefer to call them 
"deuterocanonical," or books of "the second canon."
     ...
     The Septuagint and the Apocrypha. The fact that the New Testament often 
quotes from other books in the Greek Old Testament in no way proves that the 
deuterocanonical books it contains are inspired. It is not even certain that 
the Septuagint of the first century contained the Apocrypha. The earliest 
Greek manuscripts that include them date from the fourth century A.D.
     ...
     It is also important to remember that these books were not part of the 
Christian (New Testament period) writings. Hence, they were not under the 
province of the Christian church to decide. They were the province of the 
Jewish community which wrote them and which had, centuries before, rejected 
them as part of the canon.
     ...
     The Catholic Arguments in Summary. At best, all that the arguments 
urged in favor of the canonicity of the apocryphal books prove is that 
various apocryphal books were given varied degrees of esteem by various 
persons within the Christian church, usually falling short of claims for the 
books' canonicity. Only after Augustine and the local councils he dominated 
pronounced them inspired did they gain wider usage and eventual infallible 
acceptance by the Roman Catholic church at Trent. This falls far short of 
the kind of initial, continual, and full recognition among Christian 
churches of the canonical books of the Protestant Old Testament and Jewish 
Torah (which exclude the Apocrypha). True canonical books were received 
immediately by the people of God into the growing canon of Scripture. ... 
Any subsequent debate was by those who were not in a position, as was the 
immediate audience, to know whether they were from an accredited apostle or 
prophet. ...
     Arguments for the Protestant Canon. Evidence indicates that the 
Protestant canon, consisting of the thirty-nine books of the Hebrew Bible 
and excluding the Apocrypha, is the true canon. The only difference between 
the Protestant and ancient Palestinian Canon lies in organization. The 
ancient Bible lists twenty-four books.... The Palestinian Jews represented 
Jewish orthodoxy Therefore, their canon was recognized as the orthodox one. 
It was the canon of Jesus, Josephus, and Jerome. It was the canon of many 
early church fathers, among them Origen, Cyril of Jerusalem, and Athanasius.
     ...
     Jewish Rejection. In addition to the evidence for the propheticity of 
only the books of the Jewish and Protestant Old Testament, there is an 
unbroken line of rejection of the Apocrypha as canon by Jewish and Christian 
teachers.
     Philo, an Alexandrian Jewish teacher (20 B.C.-A.D. 40), quoted the Old 
Testament prolifically from virtually every canonical book. However, he 
never once quoted from the Apocrypha as inspired.
     Josephus (A.D. 30-100), a Jewish historian, explicitly excludes the 
Apocrypha, numbering the Old Testament as twenty two books (= thirty-nine 
books in Protestant Old Testament). Neither does he ever quote an Apocryphal 
book as Scripture, though he was familiar with them. In Against Apion (1.8) 
he wrote:
     For we have not an innumerable multitude of books among us, disagreeing 
from and contradicting one another [as the Greeks have] but only twenty-two 
books, which are justly believed to be divine; and of them, five belong to 
Moses, which contain his law, and the traditions of the origin of mankind 
till his death. This interval of time was little short of three thousand 
years; but as to the time from the death of Moses till the reign of 
Artaxerxes king of Persia, who reigned at Xerxes, the prophets, who were 
after Moses, wrote down what was done in their times in thirteen books. The 
remaining four books contain hymns to God, and precepts for the conduct of 
human life. [Josephus, 1.8.
     These correspond exactly to the Jewish and Protestant Old Testament, 
which excludes the Apocrypha.
     The Jewish teachers acknowledged that their prophetic line ended in the 
fourth century B.C. Yet, as even Catholics acknowledge, all apocryphal books 
were written after this time.
     ...
     Jesus and the New Testament writers never quoted from the Apocrypha as 
Scripture, even though they were aware of these writings and alluded to them 
at times (e.g., Heb. 11:35 may allude to 2 Maccabees 7, 12, though this may 
be a reference to the canonical book of Kings; see 1 Kings 17:22). Yet 
hundreds of quotations in the New Testament cite the Old Testament canon. 
The authority with which they are cited indicates that the New Testament 
writers believed them to be part of the "Law and Prophets" [i.e., whole Old 
Testament] which was believed to be the inspired and infallible Word of God 
(Matt. 5:17-18; cf. John 10:35), Jesus quoted from throughout the Old 
Testament "Law and Prophets," which he called "all the Scriptures" (Luke 
24:27).
    ...
     Early church council rejection. No canonic list or council of the 
Christian church accepted the Apocrypha as inspired for nearly the first 
four centuries. This is significant, since all of the lists available and 
most of the fathers of this period omit the Apocrypha. The first councils to 
accept the Apocrypha were only local ones without ecumenical force. The 
Catholic contention that the Council of Rome (382), though not an ecumenical 
council, had ecumenical force because Pope Damasus (304-384) ratified it is 
without grounds. It begs the question, assuming that Damasus was a Pope with 
infallible authority. Second, even Catholics acknowledge this council was 
not an ecumenical body. Third, not all Catholic scholars agree that such 
affirmations by Popes are infallible. There are no infallible lists of 
infallible statements by Popes. Nor are there any universally agreed upon 
criteria for developing such lists. At best, appealing to a Pope to make 
infallible a statement by a local council is a double-edged sword. Even 
Catholic scholars admit that some Popes taught error and were even 
heretical.
     Early fathers' rejection. Early fathers of the Christian church spoke 
out against the Apocrypha. This included Origen, Cyril of Jerusalem, 
Athanasius, and the great Roman Catholic Bible translator, Jerome.
     ...
     Conclusion. Differences over the Old Testament Apocrypha play a crucial 
role in Roman Catholic and Protestant differences over such teachings as 
purgatory and prayers for the dead. There is no evidence that the Apocryphal 
books are inspired and, therefore, should be part of the canon of inspired 
Scripture. They do not claim to be inspired, nor is inspiration credited to 
them by the Jewish community that produced them. They are never quoted as 
Scripture in the New Testament. Many early fathers, including Jerome, 
categorically rejected them. Adding them to the Bible with an infallible 
decree at the Council of Trent shows evidence of being a dogmatic and 
polemical pronouncement calculated to bolster support for doctrines that do 
not find clear support in any of the canonical books.... (End of 
quotations.)

Hopefully this has been helpful to your understanding of Biblical history 
and its canonicity.

Listening for His shout!

Grant E. Metcalf
Bartimaeus Alliance of the Blind, Inc.
Email:  [log in to unmask]
Desk:  650-754-4207
Home:  650-589-6890
Website:  http://bartimaeus.us/