Sixto-Clementine Vulgate in the context of "Nova Vulgata"

Novum Instrumentum Omne, later titled Novum Testamentum Omne, was a series of bilingual Latin-Greek New Testaments with substantial scholarly annotations, and the first printed New Testament of the Greek to be published. They were prepared by Desiderius Erasmus (1466–1536) in consultation with leading scholars, and printed by Johann Froben (1460–1527) of Basel. All five editions included Erasmus' collated and corrected Vulgate Latin version side-by-side with the Greek version, and the fourth edition also included his de novo rendition of the Greek into more refined Latin to bring out the similarities and difference from the Vulgate, for scholars not expert in Greek.

An estimate of up to 300,000 copies were printed in Erasmus' lifetime. After Erasmus' death, his New Testament work was republished and revised notably by Robert Stephanus: the corrected Latin Vulgate, shorn of mentions of Erasmus, soon became a reference text for the Leuven Vulgate which was ultimately the basis of the official Catholic Sixto-Clementine Vulgate Bible and subsequent Catholic vernacular translations; the Greek text was the basis for the majority of Protestant Textus Receptus translations of the New Testament in the 16th–19th centuries, including those of Martin Luther, William Tyndale and the King James Version.

The Sixtine Vulgate or Sistine Vulgate (Latin: Vulgata Sixtina) is the edition of the Vulgate—a 4th-century Latin translation of the Bible that was written largely by Jerome—which was published in 1590, prepared by a commission on the orders of Pope Sixtus V and edited by himself. It was the first edition of the Vulgate authorised by a pope. Its official recognition was short-lived; the edition was replaced in 1592 by the Sixto-Clementine Vulgate.

In 1546, the Council of Trent had decreed that the Vulgate was authoritative and authentic, and ordered that it be printed as correctly as possible. No edition of the Vulgate officially approved by the Catholic Church existed at the time. Twenty years later, work to produce an official edition of the Vulgate began: Pius V appointed a commission to produce an official edition of the Vulgate. However, his successor, Gregory XIII, did not continue the work.

The term Catholic Bible can be understood in two ways. More generally, it can refer to a Christian Bible that includes the whole 73-book canon recognized by the Catholic Church, including some of the deuterocanonical books (and parts of books) of the Old Testament which are in the Greek Septuagint collection, but which are not present in the Hebrew Masoretic Text collection. More specifically, the term can refer to a version or translation of the Bible which is published with the Catholic Church's approval, in accordance with Catholic canon law. The current official version of the Catholic Church is the Nova Vulgata.

According to the Decretum Gelasianum (a work written by an anonymous scholar between AD 519 and 553), Catholic Church officials cited a list of books of scripture presented as having been made canonical at the Council of Rome (382). Later, the Catholic Church formally affirmed its canon of scripture with the Synod of Hippo (393), followed by a Council of Carthage (397), another Council of Carthage (419), the Council of Florence (1431–1449), and the Council of Trent (1545–1563). The canon consists of 46 books in the Old Testament and 27 books in the New Testament, for a total of 73 books in the Catholic Bible.