Firstly: The most accurate biblical text in English is the Douay-Rheims Catholic Bible, which is an exact translation, word for word as exact as possible in matching the languages. In fact the Douay-Rheims Bible is so accurate that even many Protestant ministers purchase this bible for its exactness. All others are opinionated translations both Protestant and other Catholic Bibles, where you have translators not completely expert in the necessary languages, or they translate (this is what I think it means, or this is what it should mean), etc.

Short history of the Bible: Pope St. Damascus in the 4th century asks St. Jerome and his monks to sort out all the dozens and dozens of gospels, epistles, etc and find the ones that are original. St. Jerome and his monks were experts by both the spoken and written languages of Greek, Hebrew, Aramiac, and Latin. St. Jerome, then, with his monks assembled all the gospels and epistles they could find.

Many good intentioned persons, after hearing a gospel or epistle taught by the Apostles would write them down, as they heard it, putting in their own words, and thus many copies came to be that were full of errors, or not even originating with the Apostles. St. Jerome, with his monks and being very close to the time of the originals, determined which were authentic and which were not.

First St. Jerome translated the Old Test from the Hebrew and from the Greek Septugiant. The Greek Septugiant is identical to the Catholic Old Test and its authenticity and authority are confirmed by Christ and the Apostles as it was the Septugiant that Christ quoted His scripture from and not the Hebrew. Then St. Jerome collected all the “authentic” books of the Old Test and New Test, put them together into one volume and called it the “bible” which is Greek for “collection of books”.

The Councils of Rome, Carthage and Hastings, at the end of the 4th. century, the Catholic Church declared to be the authentic books of the bible those which St. Jerome had massed and collected together, to this day these are the books of the Catholic Bible.

However, during the Reformation, Luther threw out seven books of the Old Test, parts of Esther and 77 versus of Daniel; Luther also wanted to throw out Revelations, the Gospel of St. John, and the Epistle of St. James, calling the Epistle of St. James and Epistle of Straw.

The Catholic Church accepts both the bible and “tradition” as equal in transmitting the faith. The faith existed before Scripture did and there are also 22 books mentioned in the New Test. by the Apostles that were “divinely inspired” meaning they would be in the bible if we had any copies of them – these 22 books have been missing and lost since the time of the Apostles.

Up until the 16th. century, the only bibles existing were those that were printed by hand by the monks. In those early days before the printing press, monks would have to get permission from the King to shoot some dear in order to have hides to write on. As these bibles, hand printed with beautiful writing and graphics, were so expensive, very few were made, and one was always, put at the back of the churches, chained to the wall, for all to read. When the printing press came – Guttenburg’s first publication was the Catholic Bible.

We have several “Manuscripts” of the Old Test and the New Test and some with both together, all are identical to the “Catholic Bible” or official Catholic Bible of St. Jerome called the “Latin Vulgate” by which all others are measured and translated. None of the original bibles are in existence today.

Here is mentioned the great “apostasy” which is indeed happening – but “apostasy” means to separate or denouce or abandon what was before, original, the true faith. All of Christendom was Catholic from the time of Christ until the 16th Century and the Protestant Deformation. Luther, Huxley, Cromwell, Henry VIII, Zwingli, Calvin, etc, as all other “reformers” were originally Catholic; they left the Catholic faith and each started their own religions. “Many will come later in my name but are not of Me”. Now, with Luther and the others denying the Papacy, all are Popes now, everyone and his brother now interprets the bibles how they choose.

You can trace all and every Catholic priest back to the Apostles. All the records are there showing the priests being ordained by who back to the Apostles. Christ sent the Apostles, the Apostles made priests and Bishops and sent them out, and they in turn till today. Who sent the Protestant Ministers ?? Themselves, none have the powers of ordination given only to the Apostles and passed down through the Bishops till today. You can name the originator or author of all Protestant religions, now that there are around 700-900 different sects – Luther started an avalance. But only the Jews, Catholics and “Orthodox” can show Apostolic succession.