The Catholic Church and the Bible?

[MonicaC]

Hello All,

I have started a new thread for a subjest that has been talked about in another thread hear is the link encase anyone needs a little catching up. forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?p=782301#post782301

I really think that April well get alot more response here without taking ovwer the other threads origanl discousion.

Hello Diana,
How do you do mamn? This is possibly for another thread or maybe there’s already been a thread about this. But if the Catholic Church originally put together or formed the Bible then, how come there’s a Catholic Bible and a regular NIV? Oh another thing, if the Bible was formed by Catholics,how come so many of the Caholic Traditions arent in the Bible? Sorry if you couldnt tell I’m pretty attatched to my Bible.

 

[MonicaC]

I think that one thing that you need to remember is that before the reformation that all christains were catholic. Also just as Daina had mentionedthe Christain religon was already in full swing before the bible was completed. And as I had said along with several other posters mentioned the Catholic mass comes completly from the bible, this is how the first Christains practiced their faith. So I guess you can say that the catholic traditions are fully christain since they were what was used by the the apostles and everyone else that followed. The Bible is used to help us to understand what Christ did, but traditions helps us live as Christ wanted us to.

Also since the Catholic bible is the first bible and the NIV isn’t I would always choose the bible that was put together by the first Chrisatins. (I don’t know I guess jsut my thought)

Monica

 

[LSK]

The gathering of Holy Scriptures into a Bible was done by the Early Church Fathers. During the reformation, Martin Luther changed the Bible to suit his political purpose. In fact, his first effort was rejected by Protestants and he had to redo it.

That is why there are so many different Bibles.

 

[Della]

Oh another thing, if the Bible was formed by Catholics,how come so many of the Catholic Traditions aren’t in the Bible?

To answer this question you have to have some understanding of what Jesus meant to do when he founded the Church. To put it simply, he never commanded writings of his life and sayings be passed on to generations to come. And he didn’t command the Apostles to write letters. The only book of the NT that Jesus directly commanded be written was Revelation.

Jesus himself told us that he would establish HIS CHURCH. He laid the foundations of the Church on his Apostles. They, in turn, wrote most of the NT, Luke and Mark being two of the authors of NT books that weren’t Apostles, but they both were disciples of Apostles, of Paul (chosen out of time as he says himself) and of Peter, the leader of the Apostles.

The NT is the book of the Church. It was written by its members, preserved by its members, interpreted by its members. The Bible was never meant to stand alone outside of the Church and the Church’s commission, given by Christ to take the Gospel into the whole world. IOW, the Bible is a part of the revelation of Christ to men but not the whole of it. The teaching authority of the Church, which we call the Magisterium and the Traditions passed down to us orally by the Apostles and their successors make up the whole of the Church’s teachings.

 

[CheesusPowerKid]

The Catholic church compiled the Bible long after Christ left earth…before that all early Christian relied on was the teachings and the traditions of the Catholic church. The Bible in itself can also be described as a Catholic tradition and teaching. The Catholic bible was the first and only bible until the Reformation, when Martin Luthar took and retranslated and ultimately rewrote it to fit his own personal agenda. After that, new bibles came up everywhere, rephrased and rewritten to fit whoever’s faith they needed to. But the Catholic bible has remained constant since it was compiled…the first and only bible unchanged by men wanting to use it for themselves. And it’s the same bible we use today…the original, and in my opinion, the only true bible.

Another thing, the bible is only ONE of the many tools God gives us to know and follow Him. It cannot be used as the sole rule of faith. Christ never told us that. He did tell us to follow the teachings and traditions of the Apostles, who founded the Catholic church and established its doctrines. The bible then came out of the Catholic church, not to replace those traditions or teachings but to supplement them and ensure that they do not die or become tainted with time. We must use both the traditions and teachings of the Church as well as the bible, they cannot be complete without the other.

In Him,
Britty

 

[tkdnick]

Just a separate twist on what everyone else has already said. The Bible was “put together” by the Catholic church. Essentially up until Martin Luther, every Christian used the same version of the Bible - the Catholic version. It was Martin Luther who made an attempt to remove several books of the Bible. Some accepted his removal, many did not, and thus there was a compromise among Protestants to remove 7 books from the OT and some chapters from some other groups.

This is not the only way, however, that books were removed. Others did so in a more scholarly way. The Apostles, and the Early Church used a version of the OT known as the Septuagint, which was used by Jews in the diaspora and many other Jews. A Jewish council much later convened and decided that this version was incorrect and removed some books. Some Protestant scholars base their shortened Bible on the fact that this Jewish council rejected some books.

As far as things being taught that aren’t written - the answer to that is in the Bible…

John 21:25 (NIV) “Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written.”

There’s another verse (can’t find it) where Paul says to hold to what they were taught, whether by word or in writing. That indicates that there were things taught by word of mouth that were not written down.

 

[DianJo]

Monica,
Thanks for starting this thread. I feel that the main reason non-catholics can’t understand what or how we believe is because they don’t understand the history behind the bible - their one and only source of faith and history.

April, like I said in the other thread, to understand Catholicism you have to first understand that your sole rule of faith - the bible - is a Catholic Tradition. The posters before me explained this very well, probably much better than I could do. You have to take the whole of revelation in order to understand fully what God wanted us to know and you have to use the Magesterium to understand her fully. There are so many beautiful teachings that have been expounded upon over the conturies as our intellect grows so does our understanding of God’s revelation!

The bible was never meant to be purely an instruction manuel for Christianity. We have to listen to what the Apostles and their successors have to say and even the early church fathers - some were even “students” of those Apostles or their immediate successors. You can’t just ignore what they had to say or teach. That’s why Christ gave us a “Church,” not a book.

There are so many tanslations because at the time of the Reformation, people like Martin Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, etc. decided on their own that they knew better than the Church of 1500 years. The Church already had many venacular translations avialable to the people - those we could trust for true translation of meaning in that they were true to the truth left to us by Jesus and the Apostles. Other translations later where done to fit someone’s new interpretation of the faith. Some were made so that they were just easier to read.

First and foremost, you should pick a bible that is true to the truth. Why would you pick and base your faith from a bible that was canonized by the Jews (we know what their agenda was, don’t we?). Why would you look to the Jews for a bible having to do with Christianity and Christ when the Jews didn’t believe He was the Messiah? That’s what the Jewish Council of Jamnia in 90AD did with Old Testament and that’s why Martin Luther discarded the books of the OT that he did. He relied on the Jewsish canon to bring the Church back to how the “early Christians” believed! How does that make sense? The Jews weren’t Christians!

Anyway, stick with the original bible with the OT that Jesus and the Apostles used and you’ll have the whole bible. Turn to the Magesterium to know the true interpretation of the meaning of hard to understand things in the bible - you will know for sure what Jesus taught and what He meant! You can trust that the Magesterium will teach the truth from the 2000 years of study, sholarship, discernment and prayer and comparing today’s teachings with the what Jesus and the Apostles taught. Once you do that you’ll have the whole of God’s revelation to us!

 

[Sanctus]

Read “Where We Got the Bible - Our Debt to the Catholic Church” by Henery Graham which now comes with his conversion story…originally printed in 1911…this is an exaustive history of the Bible throughout the ages in the Church.

 

[b_justb]

The canonization of Scripture is fascinating research. Basically the difference between the Protestant Canon and the Catholic Canon is 7 books incorporated in the Old Testament. The Protestants call these books the Apocrypha (meaning “hidden”) and Catholics refer to them as the Deuterocanon.

The distinction comes from two separate ideas in the Jewish tradition dating back prior to the first century. The Alexandrian Canon contained the Deuterocanon and the Palestinian Canon negated them. When the question came to a head for the Jewish community it was answered in the Rabbinic Council of Jamnia late in the first century (about 85 AD). The interesting part of this (to me) is that the Council of Jamnia was held immediately after the death of St. Paul’s rabbinic teacher Gamamiel and the Canon of Palestine was adopted as The Jewish canon. I find that interesting because it seems to me that Gamamiel still held a soft spot in his heart towards Saul (as he would have referred to Paul) but as soon as he died (the day after as a matter of fact) they held the Council that decreed all Christian writs as off limits to Jews.

The Christian community had already accepted the Alexandrian canon as seen by Pope Clement’s Scriptural list pre-dating the Jewish Council of Jamnia where Pope Clement lists the 7 books in dispute as Sacred Scripture. His list was not an act of closing the canon as John’s Apocalypse had not been written yet.

Luther and company use the Palestinian Canon instead of the Alexandrian one. Why they did and do I have yet had explained to me to make me understand the reason.

There is no conflict or controversy to the New Testament between Protestants and Catholics. As a side bar The Coptic’s have 150 Books in their Canon (I think it’s 150).

Pax,
-B.

 

[tkdnick]

Sanctus:

Read “Where We Got the Bible - Our Debt to the Catholic Church” by Henery Graham

I found this book lacking in some of the earliest info about the Bible. Like certain early church fathers who gave lists of books.

 

[Sanctus]

tkdnick:

I found this book lacking in some of the earliest info about the Bible. Like certain early church fathers who gave lists of books.

I thought it did a pretty good job of explaining the bible in the early church and the reasons and thought process of the ancient Catholic church and why it wasn’t the first thing on the minds of the evangelists to write a history of what they knew. But, to each his own…I do think the book would really help explain some of the misconceptions that the poster in question had.

 

[tkdnick]

Sanctus:

I thought it did a pretty good job of explaining the bible in the early church and the reasons and thought process of the ancient Catholic church and why it wasn’t the first thing on the minds of the evangelists to write a history of what they knew. But, to each his own…I do think the book would really help explain some of the misconceptions that the poster in question had.

I just found that he missed some. I understand why he did it. He needed to stick to official Church declarations, but there (apparantly) are many EC people who talked about the canon of scripture outside of official Church settings. I found his discussions of the Middle Ages to be excellent! He did such a great job explaining that entire era.

I agree that this book would answer many of the questions the poster had.