Catholic and Protestant versions of the Bible are different because Catholics and Protestants have different doctrine and dogma which result in differences in word choice, translation style and explanatory notes.

But there is only one Bible, and on the whole, the Catholic and Protestant versions of the Bible are very similar. The main difference between Catholic and Protestant versions of the Bible is found in the table of contents. The Catholic version of the Bible contains 73 books of Scripture. Protestant Bibles contain 66. The difference is that the Catholic canon includes 7 Old Testament books that are not found in the Protestant Bible. The New Testament is the same in both Bibles (27 books).

The seven OT books at issue are Tobit, Judith, 1 Maccabees, 2 Maccabees, Wisdom of Solomon, Sirach (or Ecclesaisticus) and Baruch. The Catholic Bible’s OT also contains some extra verses or chapters in the books of Daniel and Esther.

You can sometimes find these contested books in the Protestant Bible along with a few other bits of Hebrew Scriptures collected into a section titled “Apocrypha” and placed between the Old and New Testament. This explains what is meant by a Bible advertised as “with Apocrypha.”