Please explain the fundamental differences between Catholics and Protestants

A: In keeping with the theme, I’m only trying to address differences in how the Bible is viewed. Both Roman Catholics and Protestants see the Bible as the “Inspired Word of God,” and look to it as containing all that is necessary for us to learn about, understand, and accept salvation through Jesus Christ alone.

The Roman Catholic Church stated at the Council of Trent that the Church is "...the divinely constituted depository and judge of both Scripture and tradition." Positions like this, that appeared to put the church as superior to scripture and that was one of the controversies that fostered the Protestant Reformation.

At that time in history, Roman Catholic leaders felt the “Holy Word of God” was too important to trust its reading and interpretation to a population of largely uneducated peasants. So the church limited reading the scriptures to church leaders … who read it, interpreted, and taught it (with their own human biases) to the common people. Of course, they developed doctrines based on their interpretation and determined what parts of the Bible should be emphasized and what parts could be looked upon with less authority.

Martin Luther, leader of the Protestant Reformation taught, sola scriptura: “Faith is to be based on scripture alone,” not on any official church teaching of the then only church…the Catholic church.

The Bible had long been available in print form. The Old Testament was translated into Greek about 250 B.C. for the royal library of Alexandria. Named from the seventy translators who are said to have made it, the Septuagint, though made by Jews, has come down to us through Christian channels. Later Greek translations were made in the early period by Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion.

All fifteen apocryphal books except 2 Esdras appear in the Greek translation of the Old Testament, the Septuagint. They were made a part of the official Latin Bible, the Vulgate.

All the apocryphal books, except 1 and 2 Esdras and the Prayer of Mannasseh are considered canonical and authoritative by the Roman Catholic Church.

From the time of the Reformation, the apocryphal books have been omitted from the canon of the Protestant churches.

The evangelistic thrust of the early church gave impetus for many translations to impart the gospel to peoples in diverse language areas of the Roman empire. Before the 400 A.D., the Bible had been made available in Latin, Syriac, Coptic, Ethiopic, Armenian, and Georgian. The succeeding centuries brought still other translations.

In the West, the church primarily used Latin after the end of the second century, and unofficial translations were made. In the fourth century Pope Damascus invited Jerome to revise current Latin translations based on Hebrew and Greek manuscripts. Jerome completed the new translation after eighteen years of work at Bethlehem. Jerome’s translation came to be the accepted Bible, and by 1200 A.D. was called the Vulgate, the official version for the Roman Catholic Church. It was the basis for the church’s teaching and preaching.

The invention of printing in 1443 and the onset of the Protestant Reformation in 1517 stimulated great interest in Bible translation. Most of the modern languages of Europe had printed translations made at that time: German, 1466; Italian, 1471; Spanish, 1478; and French, 1487. Each of these areas has a long history of manuscript translation prior to printing.

>John Wycliff and his associates (A.D. 1382) who are given credit for having first given the English the complete Bible in their own language.