Bible
What Bible Do Catholics Use?
Last updated: May 31, 2026
Written by Blake Boege
The question of what Bible Catholics use centers on the historical development of the Christian biblical canon and ecclesiastical authority. The Roman Catholic Bible contains seventy-three books, consisting of the twenty-seven books of the New Testament and forty-six books of the Old Testament. This canon includes seven deuterocanonical books—Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Sirach, Baruch, and First and Second Maccabees—plus additions to Esther and Daniel, which are excluded from the sixty-six-book Protestant Bible. Catholics use translations approved by ecclesiastical authorities, such as the New American Bible Revised Edition. Readers and scholars search for this topic to compare denominational canons and study church history.
Roman Catholics use translations approved by the Catholic Church (the NABRE, the RSVCE, the Douay-Rheims, the Jerusalem Bible, among others) and a canon that includes the deuterocanonical books. The New Testament is the same 27 books as in Protestant Bibles; the Old Testament includes seven additional books and some additional sections of Esther and Daniel.
Quick Answer
Roman Catholics use Bibles that contain 73 books, including the 7 deuterocanonical books (such as Tobit and Maccabees) in the Old Testament, and are approved by Catholic ecclesiastical authority.
Direct answer
Roman Catholics use translations approved by the Catholic Church (the NABRE, the RSVCE, the Douay-Rheims, the Jerusalem Bible, and others) and a canon that includes the seven deuterocanonical books (Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Sirach, Baruch, 1-2 Maccabees), plus additional sections in Esther and Daniel.
The Catholic New Testament is the same 27 books as the Protestant New Testament. The total Catholic Bible has 73 books; the Protestant Bible has 66.
Examples
NABRE
Official U.S. Catholic translation for Mass readings
RSVCE / NRSV-CE
Widely used Catholic editions of the RSV / NRSV
Douay-Rheims
Classic Catholic English translation from the Latin Vulgate
Jerusalem Bible / NJB
Popular Catholic translation, especially in the UK
Catholic canon
73 books (Protestant: 66; OT includes deuterocanon)
How it works
The page summarizes the main approved Catholic English translations, the Catholic canon, and the relationship to the Protestant Bible. It does not endorse a single translation; that choice is up to the reader, parish, or diocese.
All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:2 Timothy 3:16, KJV
Approved Catholic translations
The Catholic Church does not require one single English Bible. It requires that a translation be approved by an appropriate bishop or bishops' conference (signified by an 'imprimatur,' a Latin phrase meaning 'let it be printed'). In English, several translations are widely used. The NABRE is the official translation for U.S. Mass readings. The RSVCE and NRSV-CE are common in study Bibles and scholarly use. The Douay-Rheims is the classic Catholic English translation, made from the Latin Vulgate at roughly the same time as the King James Version. The Jerusalem Bible and New Jerusalem Bible are popular in many English-speaking countries outside the U.S.
The Catholic Old Testament
The Catholic Old Testament has the same Hebrew books as the Protestant Old Testament, plus seven additional books, often called the deuterocanonical books: Tobit, Judith, 1 Maccabees, 2 Maccabees, Wisdom, Sirach (also Ecclesiasticus), and Baruch. It also includes additional sections in Esther and Daniel (the Prayer of Azariah and the Song of the Three Young Men in Daniel 3, the story of Susanna in Daniel 13, Bel and the Dragon in Daniel 14, and additions to Esther). The total is 46 Old Testament books in Catholic counting, compared to 39 in Protestant counting.
The Catholic New Testament
The Catholic New Testament is the same 27 books as the Protestant New Testament: the four Gospels, Acts, the letters of Paul, the General Epistles, and Revelation. The differences between the two traditions concern only the Old Testament and the deuterocanonical books, not the New Testament.
How the Catholic canon came to be
The deuterocanonical books were part of the Greek Septuagint, the Old Testament translation used widely in the Jewish diaspora and adopted by the early Christian church. Many of the church fathers cited them as Scripture. Protestant Reformers in the 16th century separated them from the Hebrew canon, which they treated as the Old Testament proper. The Council of Trent in 1546 formally affirmed the deuterocanonical books for Roman Catholics. The Orthodox canons are similar but slightly broader.
Pastoral note
For Christians comparing translations, the practical guidance is to read a Bible that you actually understand and that you can verify is faithful to the Hebrew and Greek originals. Catholic and Protestant translations agree on the entire New Testament and on the Hebrew Old Testament; the difference is the presence or absence of seven Old Testament books and a few additional sections. Each tradition has long made the case for its canon; treating one another's Bibles with respect is part of Christian unity.
Related Bible pages
- Ethiopian Bible for the canon of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church.
- How many books are in the Bible for Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox canon counts.
- Books of the Bible in order for the canonical Protestant 66-book list.
- All Bible pages and tools.
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Frequently asked questions
Several. The four most commonly seen in English-speaking Catholic life are: the New American Bible Revised Edition (NABRE), the official translation used in U.S. Mass readings; the Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (RSVCE) and the New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (NRSV-CE); the Douay-Rheims, a classic translation from the Latin Vulgate (analogous in feel to the KJV); and the Jerusalem Bible / New Jerusalem Bible, popular in the UK and elsewhere. The Catholic Church does not require a single translation; it requires that translations be approved (have an imprimatur).
The Catholic Old Testament includes seven additional books that Protestants do not include in the Old Testament: Tobit, Judith, 1 Maccabees, 2 Maccabees, Wisdom (of Solomon), Sirach (also called Ecclesiasticus), and Baruch. It also includes additions to Esther and Daniel. Catholics call these books deuterocanonical (a 'second' or later-recognized canon); Protestants typically call them the Apocrypha and place them outside the Old Testament or in a separate section. The New Testament is the same 27 books in both traditions.
The Catholic Church accepts the books that were included in the ancient Greek Septuagint and used by Jewish communities in the Greek-speaking world in the centuries before and after Christ. Many early Christian writers cited them. The Council of Trent (1546) formally affirmed their inclusion in the Catholic canon. The Protestant Reformers in the 16th century distinguished these books from the Hebrew canon, which they treated as the Old Testament proper.
The King James Version is a Protestant translation, made in 1611 for the Church of England, and does not have a Catholic imprimatur. Catholics may read it for study or comparison, but it is not used in the liturgy and is not the standard Catholic English text. The Catholic counterpart in the same era was the Douay-Rheims, translated from the Latin Vulgate.
Close but not identical. Eastern Orthodox canons typically include several additional books beyond the Catholic canon (for example, 1 Esdras, 3 Maccabees, sometimes 4 Maccabees and the Prayer of Manasseh). The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church has a still broader canon (including 1 Enoch and Jubilees). The Catholic and Orthodox traditions agree on the deuterocanonical books that are not in the Protestant Bible, while disagreeing among themselves about a few more.
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