What are the Books of the Catholic bible?

Answer 1

All the books in The Bible are Catholic. However, you are probably referring to those the Protestants threw out of The Bible - the deuterocanonical texts.

I. The Deuterocanonicals

The 7 books that are commonly referred to as deuterocanonical texts are:

• Tobit
• Judith
• Baruch
• Wisdom
• Sirach (also called Ecclesiasticus)
• 1 Maccabees
• 2 Maccabees

Catholic translations also preserve the following texts:

• Prayer of Azariah and Song of the Three Holy Children (Daniel 3:24-90 NAB)
• Susanna's Virtue (Daniel 13 NAB)
• Bel and the Dragon (Daniel 14 NAB)
• Esther (chapters labeled A, B, C, D, E, and F in the NAB)

These books may also be found in many early Reformed translations of the Bible as well, such as the original printing of the 1611 King James Version; i.e.

Before 1599, nearly all Protestant bibles included the Deuterocanonical books; between the years 1526 to 1631, Protestant bibles with the Deuterocanon were the rule and not the exception. It was not until the middle of the seventeenth century that the tide began to turn toward smaller bibles for Protestants. By 1831, the books of the Deuterocanon, along with their cross-references, were almost entirely expunged from Protestant translations. (Michuta 2007, p. 245)

II. The Catholic Letters

Another grouping of 7 letters that are commonly referred to as the Catholic Letters are the following:

• James
• 1 Peter
• 2 Peter
• 1 John
• 2 John
• 3 John
• Jude

The term "catholic letter" first appears, with reference only to 1 John, in the writings of Apollonius of Ephesus, a second-century apologist, known only from a citation in Eusebius' Ecclesiastical History. Eusebius himself (A.D. 260-340) used the term to refer to all seven letters. (Confraternity of Christian Doctrine 1991, p. 1340)

REFERENCES

Confraternity of Christian Doctrine. The New American Bible, (Iowa Falls: IA, World Bible Publishers, Inc. 1991).

Michuta, G. Why Catholic Bibles Are Bigger - The Untold Story Of The Lost Books Of The Protestant Bible, (Port Huron, MI: Grotto Press, 2007).