(07-04-2015 03:25 AM)CatMom Wrote: They also threw out a lot of Books of the Bible to suit what they wanted to be taught. Why was that? Then the Catholic church added a lot of bull and nonsense that directly contradicts what is taught (or stated) in the Bible, so there's that, too. (Priests can't marry, purgatory, praying to Mary to intercede, confessing to someone other than Jesus/God, elevating people to saints)
They didn't really "throw out books" because there was no completed bible they began with. Saying they "threw out books" suggests something was changed, but nothing was changed because there was no widely accepted canon of the bible before then to alter.
What they did was debate and narrow down the bible from a larger collection of books that had been collected from the Jews and the early church fathers.
These books that were "left out" are widely available today and read and debated by many theologians and scholars, as well as many regular folks like you and me. The overwhelming consensus is most of the books left out are not inspired by God, in other words, not part of his Word. Why? Mostly because anyone can read them and see gross contradictions to the other 66 accepted cannon books, and many others simply add nothing useful to the Gospel or cannon at all.
There is a small collection books that are considered to be possibly inspired by some denominations, such as the Maccabees, Tobit, Judith, Enoch, Jasher and a few others. Some of these books are mentioned or even quoted in the 66 book cannon. But all these books are widely available for you to read today, and we have thousands of ancient manuscripts and to compare them with to see if any changes were made.
I personally disagree with a few of the books the Catholics included in their bible as well (7 books actually). The 66 canonized books have been widely accepted as the Word of God for almost 1/3 of human history. Some bibles include a few more books (such as the Catholics), but we have the ability to read them and decide for ourselves. The RCC didn't full authorize the 7 additional books until the 1500's.
I see nothing wrong with reading the other books that are not part of the 66 book cannon. Matter of fact, I think its a good idea for most Christians to read them at least once so they can consider what is in them for themselves. But always in the context that they are extra works outside of the Word of God.