Why is the Catholic Bible correct?

Answer 1

A:

The Catholic Bible is correct for Catholics and the Protestant Bible is correct for Protestants. This does not mean either of them is objectively true, for that is a matter of faith on the part of Catholics or Protestants.

Jerome, who translated the Vulgate Bible, considered the Epistle Of Barnabas to be authentic and canonical, yet this is not included in the canon of the Catholic Bible. Jerome considered what are known as the Additions to Esther to be late interpolations and only retained them as an appendix for their theological value; in most Catholic Bibles they have been returned to the positions in which they were originally inserted. Protestant Bibles do not include either the Epistle Of Barnabas nor the Additions to Esther.

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Catholic AnswerThe Sacred Scriptures are correct because they are the very Word of God in the Words of God. They were written with God as their primary author (although the human authors were true authors) and they contain all that He wishes to have in them, and nothing else. The Second Vatican Council addressed this at length in the document Dei Verbum, and the Catechism covers it in the paragraphs 101 - 114 and following. As the Sacred Scriptures are the very Words of God, they, in a very real sense, are Christ, and convey everything that He intended. As His Church, also, is infallibly guided by Him, and the Church wrote and compiled the Sacred Scriptures, guarding them and teaching them, you may rest assure that any Bible that contains an Imprimatur and a Nihil Obstat in its beginning is a "correct" Bible.

from

The Catechism of the Catholic Church, second edition, English translation 1994

105 God is the author of Sacred Scripture. "The divinely revelaed realities, which are contained and presented in the text of Sacred Scripture, have been written down under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit." (Dei Verbum 21.)

"For Holy Mother Church, relying on the faith of the apostolic age, accepts as sacred and canonical the books of the Old and the New Testaments, whole and entire, with all their parts, on the grounds that, written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, they have God as their author and have been handed on as such to the Church herself." (Dei Verbum 11.)

106 God inspired the human authors of the sacred books. "To compose the sacred books, God chose certain men who, all the while He employed them in this task, made full use of their own faculties and powers so that, although He acted in them and by them, it was a true authors that they consigned to writing whatever he wanted written, and no more." (Dei Verbum 11; cf. Jn 20:31; 2 Tim 3:16; 2 Pet 1:19-21; 3:15-16)

107 The inspired books teach the truth. "Since therefore all that the inspired authors or sacred writers affirm should be regarded as affirmed by the Holy Spirit, we must acknowledge that the books of Scripture firmly, faithfully, and without error teach that truth which God, for the sake of our salvation, wished to see confided to the Sacred Scriptures." (Dei Verbum 11)