Background: The Bible in the Catholic Church in his study. The translation he made of the Bible, called the
Vulgate, gained common usage in the Catholic Church. In the early centuries of
Christianity, the Greek-language
Septuagint, a translation of the
Old Testament from the
Biblical Hebrew was first used and formed the basis of texts used by the Christian Church (including the
Latin Church). Supposedly, this was originally created in the 3rd century BC at the request of
Ptolemy II Philadelphus, Pharoah of
Ptolemaic Egypt and was carried out by seventy translators from the community of the
Jews of Alexandria. With the coming of the
Christian Church (what Catholics hold to be the
Catholic Church), when the
Roman Empire was the prevailing political power in the
Mediterranean, Latin gradually replaced Greek as the
lingua franca and the
Septuagint was translated into various different Latin versions known collectively as the
Vetus Latina (making them translations of a translation). Evidence of a complete list of books of the
New Testament, which is now considered as canonical, is first found in a letter of
Athanasius of Alexandria from 367. For the Church, defining the approved books of the
Biblical canon for the single
Catholic Bible (including both the Old Testament and New Testament) from a wide range of scriptures that had been passed down was proclaimed at the
Council of Rome of 382, presided over by
Pope Damasus I. The late 5th century manuscript
Decretum Gelasianum, associated with
Pope Gelasius I, also affirms this same canon. This canon was reiterated by a number of other
synods, such as the
Synod of Hippo (393) and the
Councils of Carthage (397 and 419), which were ratified by
Pope Innocent I. This Biblical canon was confirmed in later
ecumenical councils of the Catholic Church, first the
Council of Florence (1431) and then the
Council of Trent (1545), in the latter of which including the aforementioned books in the Bible was defined as an article of faith for Catholics. The Council of Trent, an ecumenical council of the Catholic Church, most directly approached the subject of sacred scripture in its Fourth Session on 8 April 1546. The Second Decree of the Fourth Session, "
Concerning the Edition and Use of the Sacred Books", would declare that, "out of all the Latin editions, now in circulation", the old
Vulgate translation in
Latin was to be regarded as the authoritative edition for use in lectures, debates, sermons and expositions. While carrying a favoured and influential position in the Latin Church, it was not declared as the definitive "official Bible" in the
1917 Code of Canon Law. During the Second Palmarian Council, from 1995 to 2002, the Palmarian Bible, also known as the
Sacred History or Holy Palmarian Bible (2001), was developed. As this process gathered steam, members of the Palmarian Church (including its Bishops), were expected to hand in their old versions of the Bible, typically the Latin
Vulgate, to be destroyed. This caused a significant amount of discontent among the unhappy faction, who protested that they could not even study the
Treatise of the Mass which references the
Vulgate throughout (this was the result of the First Palmarian Council and until the Sacred History, had served as the pivotal text). On the 5 November 2000, the group of clerics who were discontented with the
Palmarian Bible; eighteen Palmarian bishops and seven Palmarian nuns; were anathematised and excommunicated, expelled from the Palmarian properties and declared ex-Palmarian. Ex-Fr. Isaac (José Antonio Perales Salvatella), the former confessor to the Pope was pointed to as the supposed leader of the group and declared a heresiarch, a new
Martin Luther, A significant number of the group moved to
Archidona, near
Málaga (from which they took their name) and continued to proclaim themselves as true Palmarian Catholics, but now
sedevacantist, claiming that the Pope had fallen into error and lost the Chair of St. Peter. As part of this, the group rejected changes after 1995 and rejected the new
Palmarian Bible in favour of the old Latin
Vulgate. ==Books==