not really.
The First Christian
Bible
At the time the Christian Bible was being formed, a Greek
translation of Jewish Scripture,
the Septuagint,
was in common use and Christians adopted it as the Old Testament of
the Christian Bible. However, around 100 A.D., Jewish rabbis
revised their Scripture and established an official canon of
Judaism which excluded some portions of the Greek Septuagint. The
material excluded was a group of 15 late Jewish books, written
during the period 170 B.C. to 70 A.D., that were not found in
Hebrew versions of the Jewish Scripture. Christians did not follow
the revisions of Judaism and continued to use the text of the
Septuagint as the Old Testament.
Protestant
Bibles
In the 1500s, Protestant leaders decided to organize the Old
Testament material according to the official canon of Judaism
rather than the Septuagint. They moved the Old Testament material
which was not in the Jewish canon into a separate section of the
Bible called the Apocrypha. So, Protestant Bibles then
included all the same material as the earlier Bible, but it was
divided into two sections: the Old Testament and the Apocrypha.
Protestant Bibles included the Apocrypha until the mid 1800s, and
the King James Version was originally published with the Apocrypha.
However, the books of the Apocrypha were considered less important,
and the Apocrypha was eventually dropped from most Protestant
editions.
Catholic
and Orthodox Bibles
The Roman Catholic and Orthodox
Churches did not follow the Protestant revisions, and they continue
to base their Old Testament on the Septuagint. The result is that
these versions of the the Bible have more Old Testament books than
most Protestant versions. Catholic Old Testaments
include 1st and 2nd Maccabees, Baruch, Tobit, Judith, The
Wisdom of Solomon, Sirach (Ecclesiasticus), additions
to Esther, and the stories of Susanna and Bel
and the Dragon which are included in
Daniel. Orthodox Old Testaments include these
plus1st and 2nd
Esdras, Prayer of
Manasseh, Psalm 151 and 3rd
Maccabees.
It must be highlighted that one of the motivations of these
Jewish abbis in trying to revise (including re-translating) the
commonly used Greek Septuagint was because Christians at that time
were using the Septuagint for evangelistic purposes - they were
converting Jews to Christianity using the Jews' own Greek
scriptures ! Tthis took place around 90-100 AD, after the
destruction of the Jewish temple by the Romans (70 AD) and after
God had replaced the old wine and wineskin (Judaism) with the new
wine (the gospel) and new wineskin (the Church). Why would any
Christian then accept the decision of those rabbis on scripture as
authoritive and binding ? I wouldn't.
The new testament authors quoted from the original Greek
Septuagint and the Septuagint was accepted by Christendom as
part of the bible for 1500 years before protestants came along and
decided that they would follow the example of those Jewish rabbis
in throwing out various books from the old testament.
...
HISTORY:
The Catholic Church has a long history over which time it has
changed in many ways, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the
worse.
Protestant Christianity began in the 1500's when a group of people
began to protest against some of the wrong things they believed the
Catholic Church was doing and teaching. These protesters became
separated from the Catholic Church and formed their own Church
which was more inline with what they believed was the truth. Just
like the Catholic Church, Protestant Churches are not perfect, they
have also changed many times in many ways.
The main issue is Catholics have believed and done some things
differently to what Protestants believe the Bible has instructed.
Protestants believe this is a result of Catholics believing what
certain individuals and traditions have said, rather than what God
has said through the Bible. The problem of traditions becoming more
important than God's truth is something all religions have at some
time been guilty of, including Protestants. The Catholic Church has
admitted to some of the errors it has been guilty of in the past,
and has changed. But there are still some beliefs and practices
that Protestants would say are against what the Bible
teaches.
An example of change in the Catholic church is, the fact that
today, the Catholic Church does encourage Bible reading. But in the
past the Catholic church has discouraged personal study of the
Bible, in fact reading the Bible was at one time banned by the
Church. Only certain people were allowed to do so. People that did
read, or spread the Bible, were even killed by the Catholic Church,
like William Tyndale who was one of the first people to translate
the Bible into English.
The Catholic Bibles include certain books which Protestants say
should not be there. They are called the apocryphal books, which
are writings protestants do not believe have been approved as
inspired by God. Since they are not referred to as Scripture by
Jesus or His disciples.
At one time almost all Catholic Church services were entirely in
the Latin language, and only a few people could understand Latin.
This is no longer case.
2 diff sources
Yes, the Catholic Church has changed over the centuries. Worship
practices have changed (services conducted in Latin previously and
now in various languages including english) but its dogma
and doctrines have never contradicted one another or the bible even
as theological development took place. Catholics believe
Jesus' promises in Mathew 16 that the gates of Hell
would never prevail against the Church, and that the Church is the
pillar and foundation of the truth, as written by St Paul in
1Timothy3:15.
In the past, the Church has certainly erred in terms of
politics, the conduct of its clergy etc. Afterall, as with any
human organisation, the Church is made up of human beings prone to
sin; but this is entirely distinct from its teachings of dogma
and doctrines which we believe to contain no error. Your
write-up puts it very well when it says, "These protesters became
separated from the Catholic Church and formed their own Church
which was more inline with what they
believed was the truth." (emphasis added)
As regards to reading the bible, the Church has never
discouraged the reading or personal study of the bible. What it
discouraged and even banned where necessary were bible translations
that were inaccurate at best or at worst, corrupt and full of
heresy in trying to teach false doctrine and morals. The article
link provided by SmartyBoy gives more details of the Tyndale
episode. One point to note though, personal study of the bible does
not mean that each Christian is free to interpret scripture any way
he likes without regard to the teachings of the Church. This is the
surest way to the fragmentation of doctrine that we see in the
protestant world today.