catholicsince33ad

So Where did the bible come from? This is a question that most Christians never ask nor do they find a correct answer to. Many people are so accustomed to having a Bible on the shelf at their local bookstore, many assume that it has always been like that  or that it just fell from heaven. Many people believe that the Bible has always been around in some way or another as the go to guide for their answers of how to live or for truth. But the Bible is not a single book but a collection(library) of books. These books were written by human beings (under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit) over a long period of time(over centuries 1500 b.c- 100.a.d). Its original languages were not English but Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, . So our English bibles are translations.

So how did all these books come to be?

1. Which is the True Bible? There’s so many out today, one might ask “Would the real Bible please stand up!!”. There can only be one right answer here, which is it?
2. Who decided which writings were actually the Word of God and not just the word of man (since some claimed to be inspired by God or apostles but are not in our bibles today)?
3. How did people in Old Testament times find Gods truth?
4. Who interpreted the Scriptures ? Did they take what scriptures they had available to them and practice Sola Scriptura(Bible Alone), While disregarding the Authority of God’s appointed Representatives who were to be the channel of Gods truth?
5. What about those who lived during the time of the apostles ,when the Apostles were still writing the books of the New Testament, How did the New Testament people find Truth? and what doctrines were of God not mere man?
6. Was there a closed cannon of the Old Testament at the time of the Apostles?
7. If not who decided the Old and New Testament Cannon?
8.  In what year?
9. By what authority?
10. How many Books are there?
11. Did God give the Bible to the human race , so that we can interpret it for ourselfs? If so, Why then do so many christians interpret it differently?
12. Did Christ say to the Apostles “go out and write books”, leaving each person to act as the final interpreter of Holy Scripture ( each person acting as Pope).
13. Did Christ ever say evrything is to be written down(Excluding book of Revelation), or was the New Testament written for other reason’s?

Now quoting from a former Calvinist “Henry G. Graham” in his book “Where We Got the Bible, our Debt to the Catholic Church” he speaks of a common misconception or tradition of men that started from the time of the reformation that has plagued the minds of many Americans and people across the world causing great scandal and suppressing the truth.

He says “ If all were true that is alleged against the Catholic Church in her treatment of Holy Scripture, then the proper title of these papers should be not how we got , but how we have not got the bible. The common and received opinion about the matter among non-Catholic in Britain, for the most part, has been that Rome hates the Bible, that she has done all she could to destroy it-that in all countries where she has held power and sway she has kept the Bible from the hands of the people, she has taken it and burned it whenever she found anyone reading it. Or if she cannot altogether prevent its publication or its perusal, at least she renders it as nearly useless as possible by sealing it up in a dead language which the majority of people can neither read nor understand. And all she does (so we are told) , because she knows that her doctrines are absolutely opposed to and contradicted by the letters of Gods written word- she holds and propagates dogmas and traditions which could not stand one moments examination if exposed to the searching light of Holy Scripture. As a matter of fact, is it not known to everybody that , when the Bible was for the first time brought to the light and printed and put into the peoples hands in the sixteenth century, suddenly there was a great revolt against the Roman Church- there was a glorious reformation? The people eagerly gazing upon the open bible, saw they had been befooled and hoodwinked , and been taught to hold ‘for doctrines the commandments of men’, and forthwith throwing off the fetters, and emancipating themselves from the bondage of Romanism, they embraced the pure truth of the word of god as set forth in Protestantism and protestant bible.

Is this not the tale that history tells about Rome? Has she not always waged a cruel and relentless war against the Holy Book- issued prohibitions and framed decrees against reading it, or even having bonfires of heaps of old and new testaments, as Tunstall, Bishop of London did to William Tyndale’s ? Has she not burned at the stake or at least banished from their home and country, servants of the lord like John Wycliffe and Tyndale for no other crime than that of translating and printing and putting into the lay folk’s hands the sacred text of the gospel of Jesus Christ?

But for happily there are now a goodly number of enlightened and impartial persons, and of scholars who have studied the matter fairly for themselves, men for example , of the stamp of the late Dr S.R. Maitland, among whom the idea is quite exploded. One may not blame the masses too severely for entertaining the notion above alluded to: how indeed, we may ask , could they possibly think otherwise in face of the tradition handed down to them from their forefathers since the reformation. They have believed the tradition as naturally as they believed that the sun rose in the east and set in the west ; or that monasteries and convents were sinks of iniquity and dens of corruption; or that there was once a female pope called Joan; or that Catholics pay money to get them their sins forgiven. You cannot blame them altogether, for they had , humanly speaking , no opportunity of knowing anything else. Rome has been painted as all black and hideous , and no beauty could be seen in her.

Consequently people came to believe the tradition as a matter of course, and accepted it as history, and no more dreamed of enquiring whether it was true or not. Nowadays many are enquiring -Is it really so? Are we sure of our facts? Are we not building up mountains of abuse and calumny on a false supposition? Just as all have come to know that the sun , as a matter of fact, does not rise or set but stands still, that there never was a Pope Joan but his name was John, that monasteries are homes of learning and sanctity and charity and that no Catholic ever pays or ever could pay a single farthing to get his sins remitted and all this through the spread of knowledge and education and enlightenment and study-so also I venture to think that people will now be rightly considered ignorant and blameworthy , and at least behind the times, if they do not learn that the notion I have alluded to above about the Catholic church and the Bible is false and nonsensical- historically false and inherently nonsensical.

By a calm consideration of the facts of history and a mind open to conviction on genuine evidence, they will be driven by sheer force of honesty to the conclusion that the Catholic Church , so far from being the monster of iniquity that she is painted , has in very truth been the parent, the Author and Maker under God, of the Bible; that she has Guarded it and Defended it all through the ages ; and preserved it from error or destruction; that she has ever held it in the highest veneration and esteem , and has grounded her Doctrines upon it; That She Alone has the Right to Call it Her Book; that She Alone possesses the true Bible and the whole Bible , and that copies of the scriptures existing outside of her pale , are partly incorrect and partly defective , and that whatever in them is true , is true because derived from her who alone possesses the Book in its fullness and its truth.

If they were Catholics , they would love Gods Holy Word more and more; they would understand it better ; they would adore the Divine Providence that took such a wise and sure means of preserving and perpetuating it; and they would profoundly admire the Catholic Church for her ceaseless vigilance, untiring zeal , and unswerving fidelity to the commission entrusted to her by almighty God”-Henry G. Graham “where we got the bible, our debt to the catholic church pg 1-7]

As we will see shortly that it was the Catholic church, the Church that can trace her succession person by person all the way back to the Apostles themselve’ that decided with divine Authority the Cannon of the Old and New testament. The Catholic Church wrote it ( since the apostles were bishops of the Church which was named Catholic while the Apostles were alive-See St Ignatius), copied it and published it for all to read. The Church protected the Scriptures with her life. All bibles even after the reformation had the same number of books in their bibles but over some time the so called extra 7 books were taught to be less than scripture, then re arranged in protestant bibles, then completely removed .

**The Catholic Church belongs to Christ since he started it. We are his family, so the Church is our heritage. We as christians should know where we came from and be proud of it, regardless of the fact that there was some bad members. If we love Gods Word, should we not also love his Body the Church, who has given us his word. Without the Body(Church) there would be no Word (Holy Scripture).