JESUS CHRIST: GOD-MAN - Vital Christianity

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So-called "common copies" for private use also were made with great care but could
include marginal notes. The Talmud (Jewish Commentary covering a period between 400 B.C.
until A.D. 500) specified that any biblical manuscript (which was a handwritten copy) that
contained one mistake, or was worn out from constant use, must be ceremonially buried.61
HEBREW BIBLE VS. OTHER BIBLES
Even though the Hebrew Bible has fewer books (24), it has exactly the same content as
other versions of the Old Testament (39). The reason is that the Hebrew Bible combines the pairs
of the books of Samuel, Kings, Chronicles, and Ezra-Nehemiah into one book each.
The Minor Prophets (12) are also grouped into one book, The Twelve.
The Protestant version of the Hebrew Scriptures stems from the Septuagint, the Greek
version of the Old Testament. It was translated into Greek about 250 B.C. This is a witness to the
fact that the Old Testament canon was completed before that time.
WHY IS THE ROMAN CATHOLIC BIBLE BIGGER?
For the first 1900 years after the completion of the Hebrew Scriptures, only 39 books
were considered sacred. Judaism has definitively rejected the apocrypha. Two Jewish sources
state the composition of the Old Testament canon as that of the 39 books as we know them
(II Esd. 14:19-48 [117 B.C.]; Josephus CAP i.8 [39-46] [A.D. 90]) and omit the apocryphal and
pseudepigraphical books. It was not until A.D. 1546 that the Roman Catholic Church added
other books to the canon.62
These added books are known as the apocrypha which means "hidden." These were
produced between 200 B.C. and A.D. 100. These apocryphal books were rejected until the
Council of Trent, in reaction to the Protestant Reformers, they added some of them to the Roman
Catholic Bible in 1546. The apocryphal literature provided justification for such practices of the
Roman Catholic Church as praying for the dead and receiving forgiveness of sins by doing good
deeds.
Since some pieces of apocryphal literature were added to existing books of the Hebrew
Scriptures, the Roman Catholic Old Testament has 46 separate books compared to the
Protestant's 39 books.
THE APOCRYPHA
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APOCRYPHAL BOOK IN ROMAN CATHOLIC BIBLE AS:
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1. The Wisdom of Solomon (ca. 30 B.C.) Book of Wisdom
2. Ecclesiasticus (Sirach—132 B.C.) Ecclesiastes
3. Tobit (ca. 200 B.C.) Tobias