Did the Catholic Church Give Us the Bible?

In this regular feature Dave and Tom respond to questions from listeners and readers of The Berean Call.  Here is this week’s question:Dear Dave and T. A., Recently I’ve gotten to know a person who is a Roman Catholic and he seems to be very informed about what his faith teaches and also what evangelical or Protestant Christians believe.He’s really a nice guy.When I told him about your program Search the Scriptures Daily, his comment was that Protestants wouldn’t have the scriptures to search if it were not for the Roman Catholic Church.He referred to some church councils which is where he lost me.Is there any truth in that we only have our New Testament because the Catholic Church decided its make up?

Tom:

I’ve heard that before Dave.I hear it quite a bit as a matter of fact.

Dave:

Tom, it’s a tragedy that so many people believe these things.Now if it’s supposedly part of history and you’re not sure, why should you take somebody’s word for it?First of all, it doesn’t make sense from that standpoint.Let’s investigate and find out is this true?But right off the bat, you would know it is not true regarding the Old Testament.

Tom:

Where was the Catholic Church during the Old Testament?

Dave:

Yes.The Catholic Church did not give us the Old Testament.The Old Testament existed before the Catholic Church existed.So if we didn’t need the Catholic Church to give us the Old Testament, why would we need the Catholic Church to give us the New Testament?Furthermore—

Tom:

Dave, before you go on, the Catholic Church gave us more than the Old Testament by adding the books that were written after Malachi, what’s called the Apocrypha.So we’ve got some problems there, but let’s keep going.

Dave:

Right, but actually Tom, they didn’t do that for many centuries.

Tom:

Right, I think it was the Council of Trent that really officially entered these books into the Canon of the Catholic Church.

Dave:

Okay, let’s go to the Councils.There were a number of Councils.

Tom:

Now, let’s explain to our listeners:These Councils were what?Was this official “Roman Catholic” groups of individuals?

Dave:

The Roman Catholic Church was not known at that time.It was not called Roman Catholic Church, but of course, the Roman Catholic Church claims that it succeeded in this.That this was the foundation, the beginning of the Roman Catholic Church.

Tom:

So in retrospect they were in charge.

Dave:

Yes, right.Well, at least they say this was the foundation that was being laid back there.Okay, there were a number of church councils, this would be bishops gathering together to discuss issues.For example, the first ecumenical council, it’s called the Council of Nicaea which discussed the Arian controversy,

Tom:

Yes, a heresy.

Dave:

Denying that Jesus is God.So the leaders, bishops from around the civilized world at that time got together and discussed it and came to some conclusions.Now what did they base their—

Tom:

Dave, I have to interject this.Bishops?I mean we had ordained bishops at that time?

Dave:

Yes, there were, definitely, right.

Tom:

But weren’t these also just elders who were part of fellowships?

Dave:

Yes, unfortunately we had moved beyond elders.The Bible only talks about elders.The word translated bishop in the King James for example really means elder.Acts 20, “From Miletum he sent for the elders of Ephesus.”There’s no indication of some hierarchy.The Bible talks about those—

Tom:

Or priesthood, put that in there, no indication of that at all.

Dave:

Some particular people who have some authority.There is the eldership.The elders met -  the leaders of the church.But there’s no Pope over them.This was something that developed much later.In fact, it took a long time before anybody would accept it.So, what did the bishops—upon what did they base their authority when they got together?They certainly didn’t say, “oh the church in Rome, oh the bishop of Rome, the Pope in Rome, the Roman magisterium, it didn’t exist!What did they base it upon?They based it upon the Bible.

So if you want to go back—well let’s put it this way.The first council that made an official declaration, in fact it hadn’t even been considered to be necessary up until that time.They designated the 27 books of the New Testament; these are the books that we have today in the so-called Protestant Bible.The Catholic Church has more.That was the Third Council of Carthage in 396 AD.That’s way down the line.You mean we have Christians running around for centuries wringing their hands, “Oh I wonder what’s in the New Testament?What would be the New Testament scriptures?Somebody’s got to tell us soon, because we can’t use these epistles of Paul and Peter and the Gospels because we’re not sure whether this is really..."—come on!That’s nonsense!

You could reproduce the entire New Testament with the exception of very few verses just from letters, personal letters that we have found, archaeologists have found, that Christians wrote to one another.They are quoting the scriptures.Peter talks about the writings of Paul as scripture.So the church—what did they do in the Councils long before the Third Council of Carthage in 396?They’re quoting from the Scriptures.This was the basis of their arguments.Well we have to go by the authority of Scripture.They knew what the Scriptures were.

So it was not the Catholic Church that gave us the Bible.That simply is false and it just bothers me that people keep saying this and other people are believing it.What does Paul say in 1 Corinthians 14?“If any man among you thinketh himself to be a prophet or spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things that I write are the commandments of the Lord.How do I know that the Bible is God’s Word?Because the same Holy Spirit who inspired the writers to write it indwells me as a believer in Christ and I recognize God’s Word when I see it and when I hear it. And I can look at the Apocrypha and I can look at the Qur’an and I can tell you that is not the Word of God.This is how we know.

Tom:

Dave, in essence, in style, not just spiritually, but it just—I would challenge any of our readers out there that read the books, the letters that are contained in the Apocrypha and then compare it with any of the writings of the New Testament, the epistles and so on.You will see a stark difference between the two.

Dave:

Right.First of all, 1 Maccabees says there was no prophet and God was not speaking.So how could Maccabees be inspired when it itself says God was not speaking?