"The Bible Is Not A Catholic Book"
It is wonderful to know that we live in a land where there is still a freedom of speech; press, and religion. At least, we can air our differences religiously, politically, etc. It should be the constant prayer and aim to help preserve this priceless heritage.
The Knights of Columbus, a Catholic organization, has published recent articles stating that the Bible is "a Catholic book;" that the world is indebted to the Catholic Church for the Bible. Their statements sound plausible to the uninformed, but they are not statements of fact and truth.
The three oldest manuscripts of the Bible are the Sinaitic, Alexandrian, and the Vatican. Of these three, the Sinaitic is the most perfect manuscript intact. It contains the entire New Testament. The Vatican manuscript is in possession of the Catholics, but they do not rely upon it, because they say the "Vulgate" (which is a translation of a translation) is the only perfect translation. The Douay version (which is the translation the Catholics use now, and which is a translation of Jerome's Latin Vulgate) has 78 books. Jerome's Vulgate however had only 66 books. These include the 89 books of the Old Testament (as is true of the Bibles used by Protestants) and was said by Pope Sixtus V to be a "perfect translation." Two years later, however, Clement VIII made over 2,000 changes in it; many of them of a serious nature!
Those who have given to us our modern Bible have had access to all of these oldest manuscripts (above mentioned) while the Catholic Church has never had possession of the Sinaitic, the most perfect and the only complete one.
Apocryphal Books
Catholics have added a number of "apocryphal" books to their canon. These books are all added to the Old Testament portion of the book. They are not entitled to any place in inspired writings for these obvious reasons:
1. In the New Testament there are hundreds of references to the Old Testament scriptures, but not one single quotation from or allusion to any of these apocryphal books.
2. Not one time did Christ or any apostle quote from an apocryphal book.
3. Not one time did any inspired writer ever refer to one of them.
4. The Jews, to whom the Old Testament books were given, and from whom we received them, have never recognized any of these books. This is proof positive that these books were added to the Old Testament scriptures by Catholics, and do not deserve any place in the sacred canon; they are entirely traditional.
The last book of the Bible was written by John on Patmos, about 96 A.D. This was long before the development of the Catholic Church, and was about 610 years before the wicked emperor Phocus bestowed the title of "Universal Bishop" upon Boniface II, who was the First Pope. Therefore, the claim that the Bible is a Catholic book is wholly without foundation. The claim that "members of the Catholic Church, under God's inspiration, wrote the New Testament in its entirety" is not true. The church of the New Testament was not a Catholic Church. Those who wrote the Book were Christians (Acts 11:26) not Catholics.