What is the difference between the Catholic and Protestant Bibles? This topic came up at work and my Fundamentalist co-worker stated that the Catholics have added books to the Bible. I objected and said that "No, Martin Luther removed books from the Bible." I was unable to give him the exact dates of the two Councils which ratified the exact canon of books. I know it was some time in the 4th Century AD. Can you help me with this?

God Bless you and EWTN- Sal

The formation of the canon and its recognition took place over the first decades and centuries of the Church. The first official decree is that of Pope Damasus in 382, in the course of the Roman synod of that year, which affirmed what was already represented by various writings of the Fathers and some early lists of the Bible. This decree identified the 73 books--accepted by Catholics to the present--to be inspired by God. There were subsequent early witnesses to this canon in local Councils at Hippo and Carthage in 393 and 397, at which St. Augustine played a prominent role. Pope Innocent I reaffirmed the canon in 405. Pope Damasus commissioned St. Jerome to translate the Bible into Latin, and this ancient Vulgate as it is known, standardized and universalized the canon throughout the Latin Church for over one thousand years--roughly 1100 years. At the time of the Reformation, Protestant leaders rejected the traditional canon for theological reasons of their own and abandoned seven works of the Old Testament, which are often collectively referred to the deutero-canonical works. The Council of Trent reaffirmed the ancient canon and listed every work of the Bible, identical with those of the official decree of the fourth century. We must affirm that the canon was long established as a matter of divine revelation in the form of Tradition long before the Council of Trent, which formally affirmed what was already known and in place in the life of the Church from at least as early as the 4th century. Often the Church makes explicit or more formal a matter of Tradition as a response to some heresy or schism, such as was the case with professions of faith and teachings regarding such matters as the Trinity of Persons and the two natures of Christ. That is not to say that such was not taught or believed prior to the time a council or pope made a definitive declaration on such matters, but became formalized for one reason or another, as guided by the Holy Spirit. ©

Thanks, Salvatore

Father Echert