Protestant Bible

Modern High German translation of the Christian Bible by the Protestant reformer Martin Luther (1534). The widespread popularity of the Bible translated into High German by Luther helped establish modern Standard High German.[1]

A Protestant Bible is a Christian Bible whose translation or revision was produced by Protestant Christians. Typically translated into a vernacular language, such Bibles comprise 39 books of the Old Testament (according to the Hebrew Bible canon, known especially to non-Protestant Christians as the protocanonical books) and 27 books of the New Testament, for a total of 66 books.[2] Some Protestants use Bibles which also include 14 additional books in a section known as the Apocrypha (though these are not considered canonical) bringing the total to 80 books.[3][4] This is in contrast with the 73 books of the Catholic Bible, which includes seven deuterocanonical books as a part of the Old Testament.[5] The division between protocanonical and deuterocanonical books is not accepted by all Protestants who simply view books as being canonical or not and therefore classify books found in the Deuterocanon, along with other books, as part of the Apocrypha.[6] Sometimes the term "Protestant Bible" is simply used as a shorthand for a bible which contains only the 66 books of the Old and New Testaments.

It was in Luther's Bible of 1534 that the Apocrypha was first published as a separate intertestamental section.[7] Early modern English bibles also generally contained an Apocrypha section but in the years following the first publication of the King James Bible in 1611, printed English bibles increasingly omitted the Apocrypha. However, Lutheran and Anglican churches have still included the Apocrypha in their lectionaries.[8]

The practice of including only the Old and New Testament books within printed bibles was standardized among many English-speaking Protestants following a 1825 decision by the British and Foreign Bible Society.[9] More recently, English-language Bibles are again including the Apocrypha, and they may be printed as intertestamental books.[10] In contrast, Evangelicals vary among themselves in their attitude to and interest in the Apocrypha but agree in the view that it is non-canonical.[11]

  1. ^ Lobenstein-Reichmann, Anja (29 March 2017). "Martin Luther, Bible Translation, and the German Language". Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Religion. Oxford: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acrefore/9780199340378.013.382. ISBN 9780199340378.
  2. ^ Meade, John (7 November 2021). "Why Are Protestant and Catholic Bibles Different?". Text & Canon Institute.
  3. ^ King James Version Apocrypha, Reader's Edition. Hendrickson Publishers. 2009. p. viii. ISBN 9781598564648. The version of 1611, following its mandate to revise and standardize the English Bible tradition, included the fourteen (or fifteen) books of the Apocrypha in a section between the Old and New Testaments (see the chart on page vi). Because of the Thirty-Nine Articles, there was no reason for King James' translators to include any comments as to the status of these books, as had the earlier English translators and editors.
  4. ^ Cite error: The named reference TedfordGoudey2008 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  5. ^ Roman Catholic Code of Canon Law, 825
  6. ^ Henze, Matthias; Boccaccini, Gabriele (20 November 2013). Fourth Ezra and Second Baruch: Reconstruction after the Fall. Brill. p. 383. ISBN 9789004258815. Why 3 and 4 Esdras (called 1 and 2 Esdras in the NRSV Apocrypha) are pushed to the front of the list is not clear, but the motive may have been to distinguish the Anglican Apocrypha from the Roman Catholic canon affirmed at the fourth session of the Council of trent in 1546, which included all of the books in the Anglican Apocrypha list except 3 and 4 Esdras and the Prayer of Manasseh. These three texts were designated at Trent as Apocrypha and later included in an appendix to the Clementine Vulgate, first published in 1592 (and the standard Vulgate text until Vatican II).
  7. ^ Bruce, F.F. "The Canon of Scripture". IVP Academic, 2010, Location 1478–86 (Kindle Edition).
  8. ^ Readings from the Apocrypha. Forward Movement Publications. 1981. p. 5.
  9. ^ Howsham, L. Cheap Bibles: Nineteenth-Century Publishing and the British and Foreign Bible Society. Cambridge University Press, Aug 8, 2002.
  10. ^ Cite error: The named reference Ewert was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  11. ^ Carson, D. A. (2 January 1997). "The Apocryphal/Deuterocanonical Books: An Evangelical View". In Kohlenberger, John R. (ed.). The Parallel Apocrypha (PDF). Oxford University Press. pp. xliv–xlvii. ISBN 978-0195284447.