Bible or the Church?

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DavidFilmer said:
We know nothing of the identity of the person who wrote Matthew.

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Origen Church History (Book III)
5. And the rest of the followers of our Saviour, the twelve apostles, the seventy disciples, and countless others besides, were not ignorant of these things. Nevertheless, of all the disciples of the Lord, only Matthew and John have left us written memorials, and they, tradition says, were led to write only under the pressure of necessity.
  1. For Matthew, who had at first preached to the Hebrews, when he was about to go to other peoples, committed his Gospel to writing in his native tongue, and thus compensated those whom he was obliged to leave for the loss of his presence.
    Tertullian mentions Matthew as the author of a Gospel
    I believe the testimony of those who were close to the event rather than those 2000 years separated from the event.
 
The Torah (Old Testament) came before and the Church was before the New Testament and also the Bible (Old and New Testament).

For more info read “Where We Got The Bible” by Bishop Henry G. Graham
 
Faith1960 said:
How was it decided?
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As luck would have it, good ol’ Father Saunders has the answer once again in his trusty column! 😃

See below for the relevant quote and link:
Meanwhile, the writing of the New Testament books occurred between the time of our Lord’s death and the end of the first century. (Recent studies of the Dead Sea Scrolls by some scholars suggest a date of the earliest writings closer to the time of our Lord’s death, whereas much scholarship seems to place the writings between 50 and 100 AD). After the legalization of Christianity in 313, we find the Church striving to formalize what writings of the New Testament were truly considered inspired and authentic to the teachings of our Lord. St. Athanasius in his Paschal Epistle (367) presented the complete list of 27 books of the New Testament saying, “These are the sources of salvation, for the thirsty may drink deeply of the words to be found here. In these alone is the doctrine of piety recorded. Let no one add to them or take anything away from them.” This list of 27 books along with the 46 books of the Old Testament (including the deuterocanonical ones) was affirmed as the official canon of Sacred Scripture for the Catholic Church by the synods of Hippo (393), Carthage I & II (397 and 419). The letter of Pope St. Innocent I in 405 also officially listed these books.
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Source: catholicherald.com/stories/The-Missing-Books-of-the-Bible,6751
 
Remember the Church put the Bible, the Bible didn’t make the church.
 
ProVobis said:
Maybe because they were lost or maybe they were just of very poor quality, among other things? Can you read everyone’s handwriting, for example? Or maybe others just couldn’t decode them. Plenty of reasons why they never made it. Of course, one could argue they weren’t inspired if one couldn’t read them, but still…someone had to decide what went into what we know as the OT. Ever notice the style (broken up into short versicles, etc.) of all the writings. (Compare that against old Church documents or Greek or Roman writers.) Why are they mostly the same, despite all the writers and paraphrasers that put work into them? A lot of originality must have been stripped, though the gist of what they wrote survives in the form of book, chapter, and verse. You do know they weren’t written that way, don’t you? We see only the final product. Or did God give instructions on how to organize the Bible that way as they wrote them, I don’t know? 🤷
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The chapter and verse divisions were added centuries later as a reference tool, of course, but are you suggesting that the texts themselves were adjusted to fit a certain style or rhythm? I don’t think that’s supportable.

I also don’t think that God would inspire writings and then see them be lost to the ages, so I believe that what we have is all that He inspired (with allowances for the variance between Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox OTs, but not for entirely lost works).
 
Usagi said:
The chapter and verse divisions were added centuries later as a reference tool, of course, but are you suggesting that the texts themselves were adjusted to fit a certain style or rhythm?
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Or maybe they had the same translator(s) who made it look that way (short sentences in mainly subject-verb-object order, pretty much at the same grade level), I don’t know. I certainly don’t believe the translators or interpreters were more divinely inspired than the original authors, some of which no doubt ran into some very complex and philosophical thoughts.
 
hu324b said:
Jesus did not say He came to establish a book - He came to establish a Church the Body of Christ - all of us - whom the keys were handed to St. Peter.
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I’ll add that the Church is the pillar and ground of truth. (1 Tim. 3:15)
 
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