Question: Is it not true that the Roman Catholic Church gave us the Bible? This is what Catholic ...

October 1, 1995

TBC Staff

Question: Is it not true that the Roman Catholic Church gave us the Bible? This is what Catholic friends tell me and they substantiate that claim by saying that it was the early Church Councils which decided which books were to be in the canon of Scripture. Why don’t you admit this?

Answer: Because it isn’t true. Most obviously, the Roman Catholic Church didn’t exist in Old Testament times or in the days of Christ or the apostles, so it had nothing to do with deciding what books would be in the Old Testament. Nor is there any indication that any ecclesiastical body of rabbis decided which books should be in the Old Testament. Psalm 1 speaks of “the man” who meditates on God’s Word, just an ordinary man, and not a hint that he had to consult a rabbi, either to know what constituted God’s Word or to understand it. Psalm:119:9 says that a “young man”—any young man—can heed God’s Word and thereby cleanse his way. And again, no hint that he had to look to some religious authority to tell him either what books were in God’s Word or what it meant. Christ rebuked the two on the road to Emmaus very harshly, calling them fools for not reading, understanding or paying attention to “all that the prophets have spoken.” Again that tells us that all of God’s Word at that time (the Old Testament) was readily available and could be understood by the average person.

If the Roman Catholic Church wasn’t needed to decide which books were included in, or to interpret, the Old Testament, then surely it wasn’t needed for the New Testament either. In fact, the Roman Catholic Church didn’t even exist in its present form with dominance of a “pope” in Rome over the other churches until nearly a thousand years after Christ. For the first 800 years the church councils were called by the emperors and not by the bishops of Rome, who were themselves subservient to the emperors. Moreover, no church council decided what books would be included in the New Testament. The inspired writings were recognized by consensus of the entire body of believers on the basis of the Holy Spirit indwelling them, not by decree of a council.

The writings of Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch (martyred 116) demonstrate a familiarity with most of the New Testament, which he quotes as authoritative Scripture. Likewise Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna (69- 155), quotes much of the New Testament in his letter to the Philippians. One can reproduce almost every verse in the New Testament from quotations found in personal letters written by Christians within 100 years after Christ. The New Testament was accepted and used by common consent because the same Holy Spirit who inspired its writing indwelt the Christians to enable them both to recognize and to understand it.

It was not until the Third Council of Carthage in A.D.397 that the canonical books of the New Testament (the same 27 we have today) were listed as such. This was only after these books had been referred to as Scripture for more than 300 years both by individual Christians and as the final authority in previous council arguments against heresy. For example, the Council of Nicaea (325) argued from the New Testament books but did not list them. The Council of Laodicea (363) decreed in its 59th Canon that only canonized books of both Old and New Testament were to be read in the churches. Yet it didn’t even list them, showing that the canon had already been so well established by common consent that everyone knew the books it contained.

All of the books of the New Testament (except the five written by John) were written between A.D.45 and 75 and those by John between A.D.85 and 95. It is both historically inaccurate and absurd to suggest that more than 300 years passed without anyone being able to use the New Testament, in fact until the Third Council of Carthage gave the official pronouncement in A.D.397! Yet that is the position of Roman Catholicism, which says we cannot know which books ought to be in the Bible without the Church telling us. Augustine went so far as to say that he would not believe the gospel if the Church didn’t tell him it was true. This Catholic position is destructive of the gospel and God’s Word. Never do we read that in preaching the gospel the apostles appealed to an ecclesiastical authority in Rome or elsewhere as having attested to its authenticity. The gospel has its own power to convince those who hear it, as does the Word of God, which is “quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword” (Heb:4:12).

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