Dear Stacey:

The Catholic Bible does not have "extra" books. The Protestant Bible is missing those books.

The Old Testament that Jesus read and loved was the same Old Testament that is in the Catholic Bible. I don't think Jesus would be supporting counterfeit scripture. It was not until around A.D. 100 that the Jewish rabbis changed the Old Testament Canon to exclude those seven books. There were two primary reasons the rabbis changed the canon of scripture: 1) The seven books in question were originally written in Greek and they decided to limit their Bible to only those books written in Hebrew; 2) there was a new religious sect that the Jewish leadership did not like who were using passages from those seven books to form their doctrine. So the rabbis wanted to exclude those books as a way to invalidate the new religious sect. That new religious sect was "Christianity."

In any event, the rabbis did not have the authority to change the canon of scripture as they were no longer the leaders of God's people. When Jesus died and resurrected the Mosaic Covenant came to an end and a New Covenant was established. The Jewish rabbis were the priests of the Old Covenant that had ended. Thus, they had no authority. The old magisterium of Moses was replaced by the new magisterium of Peter. Thus, the only ones with the authority to determine which books are in the Bible was the Church.

The Old Testament used by all Christians until the time of Martin Luther was the same Old Testament used by Jesus -- based upon the Greek Septuigint -- and what we now call the Catholic Bible.

When Martin Luther had his hissy-fit he ripped out of the Bible those seven books in the Old Testament. Luther also wanted to rip out the books of James, Hebrews, and Revelation but he did not succeed in getting that one done.

Thus, if you want to read the same Old Testament that Jesus read, read from the Old Testament found in the Catholic edition of the Bible.

Here is an article that gives some quotes from the Church fathers: Click here

God bless,
Bro. Ignatius Mary