Catholic vs Protestant Bible: the seven extra books, explained
Catholic Bibles have 73 books, Protestant ones 66. The seven extra books, the longer Esther and Daniel, why they differ, and how much more there is to read.
The short answer
A Catholic Bible has 73 books and a Protestant Bible 66. The New Testament is the same 27 books in both. The difference is in the Old Testament, where Catholic Bibles include Tobit, Judith, 1 and 2 Maccabees, Wisdom, Sirach and Baruch, and read Esther and Daniel with their Greek additions. Catholics call these books deuterocanonical; Protestants usually call them the Apocrypha and leave them out or print them apart. Together they add 145 chapters, about seven hours of reading.
In this guide
- What is the difference between the Catholic and Protestant Bible?
- The seven books in a Catholic Bible
- Why Esther and Daniel are longer in a Catholic Bible
- How much longer is the Catholic Bible?
- Why do Catholics have more books in the Bible?
- Did the King James Bible have the Apocrypha?
- Orthodox and Ethiopian Bibles have more again
- Which Bible to read
- Questions people ask
- Sources
Set a Catholic Bible beside a Protestant one and almost everything matches: the same four Gospels, the same letters of Paul, the same Genesis and the same Malachi. The difference between the Catholic and Protestant Bible is a short list of Old Testament books, and two books that run longer, which Catholics read as Scripture and most Protestants have set apart since the Reformation. Here is exactly what differs, how much reading it adds, and what each tradition says about why, in its own words.
- 73books in a Catholic Bible
- 66books in a Protestant Bible
- +145chapters, all in the Old Testament
- 7 hoursof extra reading at an average pace
What is the difference between the Catholic and Protestant Bible?
A Catholic Bible has 46 books in its Old Testament and a Protestant Bible 39, and both have the same 27 books in the New Testament, which makes 73 against 66. The Catechism of the Catholic Church gives the count as 46 and 27, or 45 in the Old Testament if Jeremiah and Lamentations are counted as one book.
The 39 books of the Protestant Old Testament are the books of the Hebrew Bible. Jewish tradition counts them as 24, because it treats 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings, 1 and 2 Chronicles, Ezra and Nehemiah, and the twelve minor prophets as one book each, but the contents are the same. Every book a Protestant Bible has, a Catholic Bible has too.
| Catholic Bible | Protestant Bible | |
|---|---|---|
| Books | 73 | 66 |
| Old Testament | 46 books, 1,074 chapters | 39 books, 929 chapters |
| New Testament | 27 books, 260 chapters | 27 books, 260 chapters |
| Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Sirach, Baruch, 1 and 2 Maccabees | Included, among the other books | Left out, or printed apart as the Apocrypha |
| Esther | 16 chapters, with six Greek additions | 10 chapters |
| Daniel | 14 chapters, with three Greek additions | 12 chapters |
| Words (World English Bible, our count) | about 854,000 | about 750,000 |
| Silent reading at 238 words a minute | just under 60 hours | about 52 and a half hours |
The King James Version, the NIV, the ESV and other Protestant translations all have the 66 books. So “Catholic Bible vs King James” comes down to the same seven books and two longer ones, with one twist in the King James Bible’s own history, told further down.
The seven books in a Catholic Bible
The seven books Catholic Bibles include and Protestant Bibles leave out are Tobit, Judith, 1 Maccabees, 2 Maccabees, Wisdom, Sirach and Baruch. With the longer Esther and Daniel, they bring 145 chapters a Protestant Bible does not have, every one of them in the Old Testament:
| Book | In the Catholic Bible | Chapters added |
|---|---|---|
| Tobit | A whole book. A journey with an angel in disguise. | 14 |
| Judith | A whole book. A widow walks into an enemy camp. | 16 |
| Esther | 6 more chapters: the Greek additions | 6 |
| 1 Maccabees | A whole book. The revolt and the rededicated temple. | 16 |
| 2 Maccabees | A whole book. The same revolt, told for the heart. | 15 |
| Wisdom | A whole book. Greek thought meets Hebrew faith. | 19 |
| Sirach | A whole book. A grandfather's practical advice. | 51 |
| Baruch | A whole book. Jeremiah's secretary, writing from exile. | 6 |
| Daniel | 2 more chapters: the Greek additions | 2 |
| From 1,189 chapters to 1,334 | +145 | |
Each of the seven is its own kind of book:
- Tobit (14 chapters) is a family story told among the exiles in Nineveh. A devout man goes blind, and his son Tobias travels to Media to collect money left in trust, with a companion who turns out to be the angel Raphael.
- Judith (16 chapters) tells of a widow who walks into the camp of Holofernes, the general besieging her town of Bethulia, and comes back with his head.
- 1 Maccabees (16 chapters) is a history of the Jewish revolt against the Greek king Antiochus Epiphanes, led by Judas, called Maccabaeus, and his brothers, including the rededication of the temple’s altar.
- 2 Maccabees (15 chapters) tells part of the same story again, as an abridgment of five books by Jason of Cyrene, with more prayers and visions and the deaths of seven brothers and their mother.
- Wisdom (19 chapters), also called the Wisdom of Solomon, speaks in Solomon’s voice and reflects on wisdom, justice and what becomes of the righteous.
- Sirach (51 chapters), also called Ecclesiasticus, is a long book of practical teaching in the manner of Proverbs, signed near its end by “Jesus, the son of Sirach Eleazar, of Jerusalem”.
- Baruch (6 chapters) is set in Babylon and given in the name of Baruch, the scribe who wrote down Jeremiah’s words. Its sixth chapter is the Letter of Jeremiah.
Most of them read like the books around them. This is Sirach on friendship:
A faithful friend is a strong defense. He who has found him has found a treasure.
Sirach 6:14, World English Bible
Where they sit in a Catholic Bible
A Catholic Bible does not gather the seven into a section of their own. In the order the Catechism of the Catholic Church gives, Tobit and Judith follow Nehemiah, with Esther and then 1 and 2 Maccabees after them; Wisdom and Sirach follow the Song of Songs; and Baruch follows Lamentations. Older lists put the Maccabees last: the Council of Trent’s ends the Old Testament with “two books of the Machabees, the first and the second”. A Protestant Bible that prints them at all usually keeps them together in a section between the testaments.
Why Esther and Daniel are longer in a Catholic Bible
Esther and Daniel are longer in a Catholic Bible because it reads them as the Greek Old Testament has them, with passages the Hebrew text does not contain. The Council of Trent received the books “entire with all their parts”, and the introduction to Esther in the U.S. bishops’ Bible says the whole book, Greek additions included, was received into the canon there.
- Esther has six additions, lettered A to F: Mordecai’s dream at the start and its meaning at the end, the text of the king’s two decrees, against the Jews and then in their favor, the prayers of Mordecai and of Esther, and a longer telling of her going in to the king. The Hebrew Esther is one of only two books in the Hebrew Bible, with the Song of Songs, that never mention God explicitly; the prayers in the Greek additions do.
- Daniel has three additions: the Prayer of Azariah and the Song of the Three Holy Children, sung in the furnace (Daniel 3:24–90, sixty-seven verses set inside chapter 3); Susanna, in which a young Daniel clears a woman falsely accused by questioning her accusers apart (chapter 13); and Bel and the Dragon, two short stories against idols (chapter 14).
Lutheran and Anglican Bibles that print the Apocrypha carry these additions too, in that section.
Why Esther has 10 chapters in some Catholic Bibles and 16 in others
How many chapters Esther has depends on the edition, not on the text. Jerome moved the additions to the end of his Latin translation, so Bibles that follow the Vulgate’s numbering, the Douay-Rheims and the Knox among them, run Esther to chapter 16. Most modern Catholic translations, among them the RSV-CE, the NRSV-CE and the New American Bible, set the additions inside the story instead. The RSV-CE and NRSV-CE keep the Vulgate’s chapter and verse numbers there, and the New American Bible letters them A to F among ten numbered chapters.
Counting a Catholic Bible's chapters
The figure of 1,334 chapters counts Esther as 16 chapters, the Vulgate’s way. Count only the numbered chapters of a New American Bible and you get 1,328. The words are the same either way. Our guide to how many chapters are in the Bible gives every book’s count in all five canons.
How much longer is the Catholic Bible?
A Catholic Bible is about an eighth longer than a Protestant one: 1,334 chapters against 1,189, which is 145 more (12 percent), and by our count of the World English Bible about 103,600 more words (14 percent). At the average adult reading pace of 238 words a minute that is a little over seven hours of extra reading, and about eight and a half at a relaxed 200.
| Book | Chapters | Words | Reading time |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tobit | 14 | 6,746 | 28 minutes |
| Judith | 16 | 10,936 | 46 minutes |
| 1 Maccabees | 16 | 22,144 | 1 hour 33 min |
| 2 Maccabees | 15 | 16,604 | 1 hour 10 min |
| Wisdom | 19 | 10,271 | 43 minutes |
| Sirach | 51 | 26,297 | 1 hour 50 min |
| Baruch | 6 | 4,999 | 21 minutes |
Words are our own count of the World English Bible, a public-domain modern translation, with the longer Greek Esther and Daniel where this canon reads them. Reading time is silent reading at 238 words a minute, the adult average.
Sirach is the longest of the seven, at 51 chapters and close to two hours; only Psalms, Isaiah and Jeremiah have more chapters in a Protestant Bible. Baruch is the shortest, at about 20 minutes. The seven together take just under seven hours, and the Greek parts of Esther and Daniel add a little over 20 minutes more.
Spread over a reading plan, the difference is small. A year is about 3.7 chapters a day in a Catholic Bible against 3.3 in a Protestant one, roughly 12 minutes a day against 11:
| To finish in | Protestant (1,189) | Catholic (1,334) |
|---|---|---|
| 90 days | 13.2 | 14.8 |
| 6 months | 6.5 | 7.3 |
| 1 year | 3.3 | 3.7 |
| 2 years | 1.6 | 1.8 |
Each canon’s chapter total divided by the days.
At one chapter a day it is 1,334 days against 1,189, about five months more. Our Catholic Bible reading plan works through all 73 books at whatever pace suits you.
Why do Catholics have more books in the Bible?
Catholics have more books because the Catholic Old Testament follows the wider collection of the Greek Old Testament, while Protestant Bibles follow the shorter Hebrew one. The seven books are in the Septuagint, the earliest surviving Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, and not in the Hebrew Bible itself, whose canon in Rabbinic Judaism leaves them out. The Catholic Church traces its list to the apostolic Tradition, by which, in the Catechism’s words, “the Church discerned which writings are to be included in the list of the sacred books”.
Both lists have a long history among Christians. Church councils at Hippo in 393 and at Carthage in 397 and 419 listed Tobit, Judith and two books of Maccabees among the Scriptures. Jerome, in the prologues to his Latin translation, the Vulgate, described a canon of the Hebrew books only and called the others apocrypha, though his translation included Tobit and Judith and his letters cite some of the others as Scripture.
The question was settled in different ways at the Reformation, and each tradition put its answer in writing:
| Tradition | Where it says so | What it says about these books |
|---|---|---|
| Catholic | Council of Trent, 8 April 1546 | Received “as sacred and canonical”, “entire with all their parts, as they have been used to be read in the Catholic Church” |
| Catholic | Catechism of the Catholic Church, 120 | Lists Tobit, Judith, 1 and 2 Maccabees, Wisdom, Sirach and Baruch among the 46 books of the Old Testament |
| Lutheran | Luther’s complete Bible, 1534 | Gathered into a separate section between the testaments: “not held equal to the Scriptures, but are useful and good to read” |
| Anglican | Article VI of the Thirty-nine Articles | “The Church doth read for example of life and instruction of manners; but yet doth it not apply them to establish any doctrine” |
| Reformed | Westminster Confession of Faith, 1.3 | “Not being of divine inspiration, are no part of the Canon of the Scripture” |
So Protestant traditions do not hold one view. Luther’s German Bible printed the Apocrypha between the testaments for centuries, the Church of England reads them without building doctrine on them (Article VI cites Jerome for that, “as Hierome saith”), and the Westminster Confession treats them as other human writings. Whether anything was “removed” depends on which of those you mean; our guide to whether books were removed from the Bible follows the printing history in detail.
What “deuterocanonical” and “Apocrypha” mean
Deuterocanonical means “of the second canon”. The theologian Sixtus of Siena coined the word in 1566 for books whose recognition had come second. It describes when recognition came rather than a lower standing: Trent’s decree lists these books among the rest and receives them all as sacred and canonical. Apocrypha comes from a Greek word for “hidden”, and it is the name Protestant traditions have usually given the same books. Each word carries its tradition’s view, which is why this page uses both. Our guide to the deuterocanonical books and the Apocrypha takes each book in turn.
Same books, different names
Older Catholic Bibles, and the Council of Trent’s own list, use names a modern reader may not recognize:
| In Trent’s list and older Catholic Bibles | In most modern Bibles |
|---|---|
| Tobias | Tobit |
| Ecclesiasticus | Sirach |
| 1 and 2 Kings | 1 and 2 Samuel |
| 3 and 4 Kings | 1 and 2 Kings |
| 1 and 2 Paralipomenon | 1 and 2 Chronicles |
| 1 Esdras | Ezra |
| 2 Esdras, “entitled Nehemias” | Nehemiah |
| Canticle of Canticles | Song of Songs |
| 1 and 2 Machabees | 1 and 2 Maccabees |
The names Esdras cross over in a confusing way. The Apocrypha’s 1 and 2 Esdras, which Article VI calls the third and fourth books of Esdras, are different books again from Ezra and Nehemiah, and neither is in the Catholic canon.
Did the King James Bible have the Apocrypha?
Yes. As first published in 1611, the King James Bible had 80 books: 39 in the Old Testament, 14 in the Apocrypha between the testaments, and 27 in the New. Its Apocrypha held the Catholic deuterocanonical books (Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch with the Epistle of Jeremy, 1 and 2 Maccabees, and the additions to Esther and Daniel as separate pieces), along with 1 and 2 Esdras and the Prayer of Manasses, which are not in the Catholic canon.
Every King James Bible published before 1666 included the Apocrypha. Printing it became less common in England in the early 1800s, and in 1826 the British and Foreign Bible Society decided that none of its funds would pay for printing the Apocryphal books. The American Bible Society lifted its restrictions on Bibles with the Apocrypha in 1964, and the British and Foreign Bible Society followed in 1966.
Worth knowing
The Geneva Bible of 1560 printed the Apocrypha as well, most of it in a section between the testaments, with a preface saying these books “were not received by a common consent to be read and expounded publicly in the Church”. Setting the books apart and leaving them out of the printing were two different steps, centuries apart.
Orthodox and Ethiopian Bibles have more again
Orthodox and Ethiopian Bibles have more books than a Catholic one. Orthodox Old Testaments carry the Catholic deuterocanonical books and add others such as 1 Esdras, 3 Maccabees, the Prayer of Manasseh and Psalm 151, and Orthodox churches do not all draw the line in exactly the same place. The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church’s Old Testament is wider again, with books that only it holds canonical, such as Enoch, Jubilees and the three books of Meqabyan. Here are the five canons BibleRing counts against, with the app’s count for each:
| Canon | Books | Chapters | Old + New Testament |
|---|---|---|---|
| Protestant | 66 | 1,189 | 929 + 260 |
| Catholic | 73 | 1,334 | 1,074 + 260 |
| With Apocrypha | 76 | 1,360 | 1,100 + 260 |
| Orthodox | 78 | 1,386 | 1,126 + 260 |
| Ethiopian | 80 | 1,564 | 1,304 + 260 |
The With Apocrypha canon is the Catholic books plus 1 and 2 Esdras and the Prayer of Manasseh, as Anglican Bibles print the Apocrypha. Our guides to the Orthodox Bible and the Ethiopian Bible go through which books each one holds, and why the counts vary.
Which Bible to read
The usual answer is the Bible your church reads: Catholic translations such as the New American Bible or the RSV-CE carry all 73 books, and Protestant translations carry the 66. Reading across the line is ordinary, though.
- Reading the seven as a Protestant. Any Catholic Bible has them, and so does a Protestant edition printed with the Apocrypha. Lutherans have an English edition of their own, published by Concordia Publishing House in 2012.
- Reading a Protestant Bible as a Catholic. It has every book of the Catholic Bible but seven, and Esther and Daniel without their Greek passages. The New Testament is identical.
- Reading the extra books for the first time. Tobit takes under half an hour at an average pace and Judith under an hour, so either makes a single sitting. Sirach, like Proverbs, can be read a chapter at a time.
Whichever Bible is on your shelf, most of it is shared: 1,189 of a Catholic Bible’s 1,334 chapters, nearly nine in ten, are in every Protestant Bible too.
Questions people ask
Is the New Testament the same in Catholic and Protestant Bibles?
Yes. Both have the same 27 books in the same order, from Matthew to Revelation, with the same 260 chapters. Catholic and Protestant translations word some verses differently, as any two translations do, but no book or chapter of the New Testament is in one Bible and missing from the other.
Did Martin Luther remove books from the Bible?
Luther's complete German Bible of 1534 kept them, but gathered them into a separate section between the Old and New Testaments under the name Apocrypha, saying they "are not held equal to the Scriptures, but are useful and good to read". For centuries, every Lutheran Bible in Luther's German translation printed that section. Protestant Bibles without the books at all became common much later.
Did the original King James Bible include the Apocrypha?
Yes. The King James Bible of 1611 had 80 books, with 14 books and parts of books of the Apocrypha printed between the testaments. Every King James Bible published before 1666 included them. Printing them became less common in England in the early 1800s, and in 1826 the British and Foreign Bible Society stopped paying for them.
Can a Protestant read a Catholic Bible?
Yes. A Catholic Bible contains every book a Protestant Bible has, with the same New Testament, plus the seven deuterocanonical books and the longer Esther and Daniel. The extra books sit among the others rather than in a section of their own, so the order of the Old Testament looks slightly different, and the translation's wording will differ from the one you know.
Is the Catholic Bible the same as the Christian Bible?
Catholics are Christians, so a Catholic Bible is a Christian Bible, and so are Protestant, Orthodox and Ethiopian ones. All of them contain the same 27 books of the New Testament. Where they differ is the Old Testament, from 39 books in a Protestant Bible and 46 in a Catholic one to more in Orthodox and Ethiopian Bibles.
Sources
- Council of Trent, Fourth Session (8 April 1546), Decree concerning the Canonical Scriptures, Papal Encyclicals Online
- Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 120, Holy See
- Articles of Religion (Article VI), Book of Common Prayer, Church of England
- Westminster Confession of Faith, chapter 1, in Schaff, The Creeds of Christendom, Christian Classics Ethereal Library
- CPH publishes first Lutheran English edition of Apocrypha, Reporter (Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod), 2012
- Esther, introduction, New American Bible Revised Edition (USCCB)
- Deuterocanonical books, Wikipedia
- Biblical apocrypha, Wikipedia
- List of books of the King James Version, Wikipedia
- Book of Esther, Wikipedia
- Additions to Daniel, Wikipedia
- Hebrew Bible, Wikipedia
- Old Testament, Wikipedia
- Brysbaert, M. (2019). How many words do we read per minute? A review and meta-analysis of reading rate. Journal of Memory and Language, 109, 104047.
- World English Bible, verse-per-line edition (public domain), eBible.org
- King James Version, verse-per-line edition (public domain), eBible.org
