Did The Catholic Church Give The World The Bible?

• Defining The Issues:

          -The Church of Rome argues that if we did not have its allegedly apostolic oral traditions, we would not know what books belong in canon of Scripture. This claim is obviously one of its attempts to exalt itself as an infallible authority in addition to the Bible.
          -It is claimed that the canon issue was settled at the Council of Hippo (393 AD) and the Council of Carthage (397 AD). Then, these decisions are said to have been reaffirmed at the Council of Trent (1545-1563 AD). As a result of this major decision, we are indebted to Rome and obligated to submit to its claims to infallible teaching authority.

          -Roman Catholic apologists oftentimes argue that we must embrace the traditions of their church in order to know with certainty which writings comprise the Bible. These people assert that we can have no certainty as to which books belong in the canon of Scripture, apart from Rome's authoritative declarations on the matter.

• A Circular Appeal:

          -This point can be illustrated in the following manner: "The Bible and Sacred Tradition are true because the infallible Church defined them to be such. The Roman Catholic Church is infallible because the Bible and Sacred Tradition are interpreted by Rome as saying so." That is circular reasoning. We cannot know whether the Roman Catholic Church's claims to infallibility are true, unless we are permitted for ourselves to evaluate the meaning of Scripture and weigh that against various oral traditions, a premise denied to us from the very beginning. If that were to be admitted, then Rome's extremely skeptical approach to our ability to understand Scripture without an infallible teaching authority has been undermined. After all, we would be competent to assess the truthfulness of claims without reference to an infallible teaching authority, defeating the very purpose for which Rome claims to have been established. This is clearly a difficult position from which there is no escaping. Further, "infallible" dogmas must be fallibly interpreted by the individual, further making absurd the claim that we need an infallible teaching authority to interpret Scripture for us.

• The Councils Of Hippo And Carthage Were Local Synods, Not Ecumenical:

          -The Councils of Hippo and Carthage were only provincial. The decisions of these groups were limited to their respective regions, despite there being debates with broader implications than their associated localities like clerical discipline, baptism, and heretical practices. Their rulings were not binding on the Christian church as a whole. These were African councils, not decisions made by Rome. Moreover, neither the Councils of Hippo nor Carthage were able to definitively settle any issues occurring in the church during that specific time.

• How Can We Know Which Person Wrote Which Books Of The Bible, Since It Does Not Contain Its Own Table Of Contents?:

          -We must be dependent on outside sources of information in order to correctly identify the canon of Scripture. No figure from the early church can directly tell us which books of the New Testament are inspired because they are now deceased. The apostles themselves are no longer alive to be able to tell us anything. Therefore, we must resort to the extant extra-biblical writings of the early church (for the New Testament canon) as well as Jewish authorities (for the Old Testament canon). We must draw a number of our conclusions from people who lived before us.

          -As far as the New Testament canon is concerned, there was surprisingly little disagreement over its contents. Early councils only affirmed what was already widely regarded as canonical. There has been unanimous consensus on that matter for roughly 1,500 years. This picture is contrasted with something like the apocrypha, which has always been challenged as to its reliability.

          -As far as apocryphal gospels are concerned, they contain fanciful stories of Jesus bringing deceased friends back to life, Him healing the bones of people, and turning clay birds into living ones that fly away. None of this silliness is consistent with the simplicity of the four canonical gospel accounts, which points to their authenticity. Those usually were written long after the apostles were deceased, which eliminates them for consideration into the New Testament canon.

          -Canonical writings such as Job and Hebrews have unknown authors, yet the Roman Catholic Church has never officially identified who wrote those books. If "not knowing the author" automatically means a denial of the divine inspiration of a text, then would Roman Catholics be willing to discard those books of the Bible, since their authors are unknown?

• The Problem Of The Old Testament Canon:

          -How did the Jewish people, who lived centuries prior to the birth of Jesus Christ, correctly identify which Old Testament books were inspired by God? How did they know what writings were inspired without the assistance of an infallible teaching authority? For example, the Prophet Daniel makes mention of the Book of Jeremiah (Daniel 9:2). Jesus cited the Prophet Isaiah by name (Matthew 15:7-9). Peter cited Joel by name (Acts 2:16-18). Paul specifically cited Isaiah (Romans 9:27-29). The author of Hebrews quotes David from the Psalms (Hebrews 3:7-11). The author of Matthew quotes Jeremiah by name (Matthew 27:9).

          -The Roman Catholic Magisterium could not have identified the inspired books of the Old Testament for the Jews because it did not exist before the birth of Christ. Moreover, there is no historical evidence pointing to any sort of belief in the infallibility of the Jewish religious leaders. Jesus Christ rebuked the scribes and Pharisees for doctrinal errors (Matthew 15; Mark 7). This undercuts any claims made by Rome that we need an infallible authority to declare which books are canonical, since the Jews did so by themselves and had no such thing available to them.

• The Irony Of Affirming The Need Of Infallible Certainty Over The Canon:

          -“According to Catholic doctrine, the proximate criterion of the Biblical canon is the infallible decision of the Church. This decision was not given until rather late in the history of the Church (at the Council of Trent). Before that time there was some doubt about the canonicity of certain Biblical books, i.e., about their belonging to the canon.” (The New Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume 3, page 29, Copyright 1967; Under “Canon, Biblical”)

            *If infallible certainty over the canon is as important as Roman Catholic apologists make it sound, then why did it take Rome over 1,500 years to officially settle the issue at the Council of Trent? Why would a supposedly infallible institution wait so long to give adherents infallible certainty as to the canon of Scripture?

            *If the Roman Catholic Church dogmatically settled the issue of the canon during the fourth century, then why did other canon lists continue to get produced and circulated at much later times? Was Rome unsure of itself on this issue?

            *The claim that the Roman Catholic Church is the custodian of the canon of Scripture collapses under the weight of its own absurdity. Many Catholic scholars no longer hold the traditional authorship of various biblical works.

• The Canon Of Scripture And Church Councils:

          -While church councils helped to make more pronounced the canon of Scripture, they did not give those books their authority. On a different note, that claim is not an official teaching of the Roman Catholic Church, but a popular assertion parroted by its apologists. Church councils mostly reflected the popular opinion of their times.

          -The degree of certainty that one can possess regarding the canon is sufficient certainty. The early Christians identified inspired writings and affirmed them as such. The lists produced by church councils were not inspired, but the lists named inspired books.

          -There were already lists containing almost the entire New Testament canon by the second century. Given that our knowledge of this period is fragmentary, it is possible that there may have been earlier lists that corresponded exactly to what we have today.

          -Rome was never the sole contributor to the development of the canon or its sole possessor. It would be an oversimplification to claim that any single church council decided for all time and for everybody else what books belonged in the canon of Scripture.

          -"It is a remarkable fact no early Church Council selected the books that should constitute the New Testament Canon. The books that we now have crushed out all rivals, not by any adventitious authority, but by their own weight and worth. This is in itself a strong proof of the genuineness and authenticity of the books that have survived. It is not until the close of fourth that any Council even discussed the subject." (Henry Clarence Thiessen, Introduction to the New Testament, p. 25)