# Christian Bible - KJV and apocrypha
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christian-bible-kjv-and-apocrypha/131718
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [October 10, 2002, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christian-bible-kjv-and-apocrypha/131718 "2002-10-10T19:20:55Z")
**Posts on this page:** 18
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Arnold\_Winkelried](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arnold_Winkelried)
#### Post date: [October 10, 2002, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christian-bible-kjv-and-apocrypha/131718/1 "2002-10-10T19:20:55Z")
As we all know, there are differences in the list of books in the Christian Bible used by Roman Catholics vs. other denominations, namely those books sometimes called the Apocrypha:
[list=1][li]Tobias[/li][li]Baruch[/li][li]Judith[/li][li]Wisdom[/li][li]Ecclesiasticus[/li][li]I Maccabees[/li][li]II Maccabees[/li][li]Seven chapters of the Book of Esther[/li][li]66 verses of the 3rd chapter of Daniel, commonly called “the Song of the Three Children”.[/list=1][/li]When the King James Version (KJV) translation was created (do we know the name of the person(s) who made this translation), were those books[list=A][li]also translated and then excluded later, orwere they not translated at all?[/list=A][/li]If the answer to the above question is B (which is what I always thought), did someone else ever come along to translate the apocrypha in the same language and style as the KJV to create a “complete”, “catholic” KJV? If so, what is that “complete” version/translation called?
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### Author:  [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)
#### Post date: [October 10, 2002, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christian-bible-kjv-and-apocrypha/131718/2 "2002-10-10T20:23:45Z")
I believe the “Apocrypha” was included in the original KJV with the disclaimer, “These books aren’t scriptural, but still may be of interest.”
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### Author:  [@Arnold\_Winkelried](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arnold_Winkelried)
#### Post date: [October 10, 2002, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christian-bible-kjv-and-apocrypha/131718/3 "2002-10-10T21:15:03Z")
The thing is, when I look in the bookstore, none of the KJV Bibles I see include the apocrypha in the table of contents. There were a few larger, fancier ones, but they were shrink-wrapped so I couldn’t see what books were included.
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### Author:  [@Nametag](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nametag)
#### Post date: [October 10, 2002, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christian-bible-kjv-and-apocrypha/131718/4 "2002-10-10T22:08:01Z")
[http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/kjv.browse.html](http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/kjv.browse.html)
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### Author:  [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)
#### Post date: [October 10, 2002, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christian-bible-kjv-and-apocrypha/131718/5 "2002-10-10T23:08:21Z")
The full Bible, including “the Apocrypha,” was translated by King James’s men. The reason it isn’t included in most KJV Bibles is that most of them are sold to Protestants who don’t consider it Scripture. Also, in England there are regulations adopted by evangelical low-church Anglicans for a couple of their mission groups (the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, and the Society for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge) that preclude them from including the Apocrypha in their published Bibles.
The attitude of the Church of England roughly contemporaneously with the KJV translation can be found in the following, from the Articles of Religion:
> [@](#):
>
> Article VI
> Of the sufficiency of the Holy Scripture for Salvation
> Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation: so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man, that it should be believed as an article of the faith, or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation.
> In the name of Holy Scripture, we do understand those Canonical books of the Old and New testament, of whose authority was never any doubt in the Church.
>
> Of the names and number of the Canonical Books.
> Genesis.
> Exodus.
> Leviticus.
> Numbers.
> Deuteronomy
> Joshua.
> Judges.
> Ruth.
> The First Book of Samuel.
> The Second Book of Samuel.
> The First Book of Kings.
> The Second Book of Kings.
> The First Book of Chronicles.
> The Second Book of Chronicles.
> The First Book of Esdras.
> The Second Book of Esdras.
> The Book of Esther.
> The Book of Job.
> The Psalms.
> The Proverbs.
> Ecclesiastes, or the Preacher.
> Cantica, or Songs of Solomon.
> Four Prophets the Greater.
> Twelve Prophets the Less.
> All the books of the New Testament, as they are commonly received, we do receive, and account them canonical.
> And the other books (as Hierome saith) the Church doth read for example of life and instruction of manners; but yet doth it not apply them to establish any doctrine. Such are these following:
>
> The Third Book of Esdras.
> The Fourth Book of Esdras.
> The Book of Tobias.
> The Book of Judith.
> The rest of the Book of Esther.
> The Book of Wisdom.
> Jesus the Son of Sirach.
> Baruch the Prophet.
> The Song of the Three Children.
> The Story of Susanna.
> Of Bel and the Dragon.
> The Prayer of Manasses.
> The First Book of Maccabees.
> The Second Book of Maccabees.
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### Author:  [@Arnold\_Winkelried](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arnold_Winkelried)
#### Post date: [October 11, 2002, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christian-bible-kjv-and-apocrypha/131718/6 "2002-10-11T19:29:54Z")
Nametag, thank you for the link, that answered the question in the OP. And thank you for your list Polycarp.
Joining the list at Nametag’s link to Polycarp’s list and the list in the OP, and knowing that Ecclesiasticus (my list) = Sirach, I see that these books are included in the KJV Apocrypha but missing from the “catholic” list:
[list=1][li]Bel (Of Bel and the Dragon)[/li][li]1 Esdras ( = The Third Book of Esdras from Polycarp’s list?)[/li][li]2 Esdras aka 4 Ezra (= The Fourth Book of Esdras from Polycarp’s list?)[/li][li]Prayer of Manassheh / Manasses[/li][li]Susanna[/list=1][/li]Does anyone know where to find either of the following?
a) A printed version of the Bible, the KJV translation, but in the “Catholic” format (i.e. all books present and included in the approved order for a catholic Bible)
b) A “Catholic” KJV Bible as mentioned in a), but also including in an appendix the addition 5 apocrypha that were translated in the original KJV effort?
Also, mentioning again a question in the OP - are the names of any of the KJV translators known?
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### Author:  [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)
#### Post date: [October 11, 2002, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christian-bible-kjv-and-apocrypha/131718/7 "2002-10-11T20:41:51Z")
Arnold
[The Bible: Authorized King James Version with Apocrypha](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0192835254/ref=ase_ianbritton/103-8507817-0012616#product-details) has the complete Apocrypha.
[This site](http://www.jesus-is-lord.com/transtoc.htm) (near the bottom of the page) will give you the names of most of the translators as well as biographies on them. You can also read their original introduction. (Warning: it is quite long.)
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### Author:  [@Arnold\_Winkelried](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arnold_Winkelried)
#### Post date: [October 11, 2002, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christian-bible-kjv-and-apocrypha/131718/8 "2002-10-11T21:09:19Z")
Muchas Gracias Libertarian. I owe you one.
I hope it’s not blasphemous to say that the painting on the cover of the KJV with Apocrypha (that I plan on adding to my book collection this week-end), representing God The Father, also reminded me of Santa Claus (please forgive me Michalangelo!)
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### Author:  [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)
#### Post date: [October 11, 2002, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christian-bible-kjv-and-apocrypha/131718/9 "2002-10-11T21:19:34Z")
Bel and the Dragon, and the story of Susanna are found within the Book of Daniel in Catholic collections: Susanna, Chapter 13; Bel, Chapter 14.
The other three are considered Apocryphal even by the RCC.
The Orthodox maintain 1 Esdras and 2 Esdras with their canonical books and frequently maintain a copy of the Prayer of Manassheh with their scripture while acknowledging that it is of the Apocrypha.
(I am not sure who publishes Orthodox copies of scripture, although you might be able to find a publisher at the [Orthodoc Church in America](http://www.oca.org/) site.)
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### Author:  [@Arnold\_Winkelried](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arnold_Winkelried)
#### Post date: [October 11, 2002, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christian-bible-kjv-and-apocrypha/131718/10 "2002-10-11T21:26:06Z")
tomndebb, do you know if the Catholic Church ever gave its “imprimatur” to the KJV translation?
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### Author:  [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)
#### Post date: [October 11, 2002, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christian-bible-kjv-and-apocrypha/131718/11 "2002-10-11T21:39:46Z")
As for “how many books did Esdras write, anyway?” – IIRC, Jewish manuscripts join Ezra and Nehemiah (half of which is about Ezra). Early Uncial Bibles listed them as I Esdras and II Esdras, Esdras being Greek for Ezra. These two and the two Apocryphal books in question are therefore either “Ezra, Nehemiah, I Esdras, and II Esdras” or “I, II, III, and IV Esdras” depending on which terms you use. King James’s men, Bible scholars all, knew the two canonical books used to be called I Esdras and II Esdras, and so referred to the Apocryphal ones by III and IV.
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### Author:  [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)
#### Post date: [October 12, 2002, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christian-bible-kjv-and-apocrypha/131718/12 "2002-10-12T00:23:53Z")
I was reading the Encyclopedia in the back of our family Bible, (this was from 1975, the year my parents got married), and the List of Forbidden Books was still in force. It seems any Bible other than a Catholic Bible was on the list.
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### Author:  [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)
#### Post date: [October 12, 2002, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christian-bible-kjv-and-apocrypha/131718/13 "2002-10-12T00:58:32Z")
> [@](#):
>
> do you know if the Catholic Church ever gave its “imprimatur” to the KJV translation?
In 1966, Boston’s Cardinal Cushing gave his _Imprimatur_ to the Oxford Annotated RSV with the Apocrypha. I don’t know of any publications of the KJV that have received either an _Imprimatur_ or a _Nihil Obstat_. On the other hand, that is probably just a matter of no publisher bothering to go and ask for one. Any local bishop can issue one or the other for a work and if Zondervan wanted to put out a “Catholic” KJV they would probably just have to ask Bishop Rose to provide it. They would probably need to include the “Roman Apocrypha,” but I doubt that there is much else preventing it. (Of course, there is probably no market for such a book, so going to the trouble of asking (with the attendant costs of having someone on Rose’s staff actually read through it looking for conflicts) would probably kill the idea before it got off the ground.) I would think that a better chance to find a Catholic-approved KJV would be in Great Britain (but probably not in Ireland).
Yeeesh, I’m getting old. I double-checked the current bishop for Grand Rapids (where Zondervan would go for approval) and found out that Joe Breitenbeck is now bishop _emeritus_. I still think of him as one of those “young” bishops.
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### Author:  [@Kerriensis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kerriensis)
#### Post date: [October 12, 2002, 12:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christian-bible-kjv-and-apocrypha/131718/14 "2002-10-12T12:17:36Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by tomndebb \*
> \*\*. Any local bishop can issue one or the other for a work and if Zondervan wanted to put out a “Catholic” KJV they would probably just have to ask Bishop Rose to provide it. They would probably need to include the “Roman Apocrypha,” but I doubt that there is much else preventing it. (Of course, there is probably no market for such a book, so going to the trouble of asking (with the attendant costs of having someone on Rose’s staff actually read through it looking for conflicts) would probably kill the idea before it got off the ground.) I would think that a better chance to find a Catholic-approved KJV would be in Great Britain (but probably not in Ireland).
> [/size] \*\*
There’s also what’s known as the Revised Standard Version - Catholic Edition. According the the introduction of my copy the Revised Standard Version was a 1952 update of the American Standard Version (1901) which was an updated version of the King James Version (1611). The RSV was, of course, a ‘Protestant Bible’. The RSV Catholic Version was a 1966 version of the RSV which included all the extra Catholic bits, along with the Catholic naming system, etc as well as some minor textual changes in areas where the traditional Catholic translation was chosen over the traditional Protestant one. Imprimatur was given by Bishops Bartholome of St. Cloud, Minnesota and Hanlon of St Andrews and Edinburgh. There’s also a foreword by Cardinal Cushing.
AFAIK, this version is favoured by relatively conservative Catholics who like the language used. (It’s felt in some circles that the ‘gender-neutral’ tranlation used in the New Revised Standard Version - the latest update of the RSV- is less satisfactory, both from a literary and a scholarly point of view, tho’ any discussion on that point is liable to be a Great Debate.)
I’d also draw your attention to the Douay Rheims Bible (New Testament 1582, Old Testament 1609 - Revised by Bishop Challoner in the mid 1700’s) which is an earlier translation of the Bible than the King James Version(!). It was prepared by the (Roman Catholic) English Colleges of Douay and Rheims - seminaries located in Europe when Catholicism was unlawful in England. Given its provenance, the translation is a fairly literal one of St. Jerome’s Vulgate and contains many ‘Latinisms’, which probably makes it tougher reading than the KJV.
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### Author:  [@dougie\_monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dougie_monty)
#### Post date: [October 12, 2002, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christian-bible-kjv-and-apocrypha/131718/15 "2002-10-12T19:46:25Z")
_Originally postyed by Kerriensis_
> [@](#):
>
> Given its provenance, the translation is a fairly literal one of St. Jerome’s Vulgate and contains many ‘Latinisms’, which probably makes it tougher reading than the KJV.
I believe you can find a mention of this in _The Catholic Encyclopedia_ (published around 1910).
It says that the stiff, awkward rendering into English–and the English of 1582 to 1609 at that–was done deliberately so that “an ordinary reader, finding the word unintelligible, would pause and inquire its meaning.”
This, of course, defeats the very purpose of language, which is to convey ideas clearly, rather than forcing a reader to “pause”. It’s unquestionably irritating and disruptive to one’s reading attention to have to “pause” or hold one finger in a glossary!
But, of course, a good Catholic reader would naturally make such inquiry of a priest, who would, I suspect, be as useful as a parachute on a submarine to a curious reader in this regard.
(If the shoe fits, wear it.)
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### Author:  [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)
#### Post date: [October 12, 2002, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christian-bible-kjv-and-apocrypha/131718/16 "2002-10-12T20:05:30Z")
> [@](#):
>
> (If the shoe fits, wear it.)
So carrying on one’s personal vendettas against other groups is acceptable in **GQ** , now?
Whatever. . . .
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### Author:  [@Kerriensis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kerriensis)
#### Post date: [October 12, 2002, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christian-bible-kjv-and-apocrypha/131718/17 "2002-10-12T21:22:08Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by dougie\_monty \*
> \*\*
> I believe you can find a mention of this in _The Catholic Encyclopedia_ (published around 1910).
> It says that the stiff, awkward rendering into English–and the English of 1582 to 1609 at that–was done deliberately so that “an ordinary reader, finding the word unintelligible, would pause and inquire its meaning.”
> This, of course, defeats the very purpose of language, which is to convey ideas clearly, rather than forcing a reader to “pause”. \*\*
For the sake of clarity, could I point to the article itself -
[http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05140a.htm](http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05140a.htm)
and in particular to the fragement quoted above placed in context :
_Then, also, in the translation, many technical words were retained bodily, such as pasch, parasceve, azymes, etc. In some instances, also where it was found difficult or impossible to find a suitable English equivalent for a Latin word, the latter was retained in an anglicized form. Thus in Phil., ii, 8, we get “He exinanited himself”, and in Heb., ix, 28, “Christ was offered once to exhaust the sins of many”. It was considered that an ordinary reader, finding the word unintelligible, would pause and inquire its meaning and that this was preferable to satisfying him with an inadequate rendering._
Having some experience in trying to study philosophical texts originally written in foreign languages, I would suggest that it’s not uncommon for an author’s precise sense to be virtually untranslatable into ‘ordinary’ or ‘clear’ English and the use of German (for example) terms or Germanisms forces pause for thought and inquiry into the author’s meaning, something much more useful than a less precise, if more readable translation…
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### Author:  [@dougie\_monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dougie_monty)
#### Post date: [October 13, 2002, 7:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christian-bible-kjv-and-apocrypha/131718/18 "2002-10-13T07:26:15Z")
Let me put it this way: Read the Douay Version from beginning to end and compare its rendering to that of more modern translations–even _Knox, The Jerusalem Bible, The New American Bible,_ if you will. Given what I mentioned about the goal of language, I sense that the Douay translators failed to carry the meanings over, even from Jerome’s Vulgate, into the English. Merely anglicizing Latin words is to me an unsatisfactory measure; my own reading of that version (albeit with a Confraternity New Testament) failed to turn up a feature which would have been a boon in this regard: footnotes which would clarify the “anglicized” words in the text.
Besides, isn’t it likely that, since the Catholic Church did not sanction any language but the Latin of Jerome’s time, they failed to muster an adequate source of texts for translation? The Jewish and Protestant translators were not too good to use the Hebrew Masoretic text for the Old Testament and various prepared Greek texts (including the Westcott and Hort Greek text, used for many modern translations) rather than settling for only the Vulgate, as if–I’m getting a bit sarcastic now–the Vulgate were handed down from Heaven by divine dispensation, the way some Protestants seem to think the King James Version was.