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Hi, Winston —
Let's be very clear about terminology here. Catholics
are (or should be!) Christians. A Christian is a
follower of Christ. Any Catholic worth the name follows
Christ; that is the very point of being a Catholic.
Therefore we should distinguish ourselves from other
Christians by calling ourselves Catholic Christians and
other Christians as Protestant Christians, Orthodox
Christians, or whatever is appropriate.
What you are referring to I believe is the difference
in which books Catholic Christians consider canonical
versus other Christians.
Canonical, from the word for rule or measure,
means those books which are considered inspired and
inerrant and part of the Bible.
Briefly, the Catholic Church and the Orthodox churches
recognize seven more books in the Bible than Protestant
churches do. (The Orthodox also recognize a few that
we don't.)
The canon of the Old Testament was fixed
in the Catholic Church from about the late 4th century
on. For various reasons, including the Jewish rejection
of these books and their use by Catholics in defending
doctrine they rejected, the Reformers excluded these
books from their canon.
For details, search
our site using the keyword "deuterocanonical".
A good site with more information on this:
go down to:
I would like information about
the Canon of Scripture, in particular
Why
are Protestant bibles missing certain books of Scripture?
Eric
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