Did the Roman Catholic Church Give Us the Bible?

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Blake Hudson

(This article is largely taken from a paper that I wrote for one of my classes at HCU)

Update, 2025: I received an email from a reader that didn’t much like what I wrote here. After reading this article for yourself, why don’t you check out my brief response to his complaint: The Biblical Canon and Ecumenical Councils – A Response to Don

Introduction

Roman Catholics will sometimes claim that the Roman Catholic church is the true Church because it defined which books were in the Bible and so the Bible is dependent on the Roman Catholic Church. In the book Journeys of Faith, Francis Beckwith makes a claim along these lines to defend his (re)conversion to Roman Catholicism. He says:

So I could not legitimately isolate and insulate my Protestant reading of the New Testament from the practices of the Church that fixed the canon of that New Testament without suggesting the counterintuitive notion that the Church had enough of the Holy Spirit to know what books belong in Scripture but not enough of the Holy Spirit to know what practices and ecclesiology are consistent with, or legitimate derivations from, that Scripture. For if I remained Protestant, I had to bear the burden of explaining why I could not read the Scripture along with the Church that fixed Scripture’s canon.1

On first reading, it may seem like Beckwith has made a good argument in favor of Roman Catholicism, but upon closer consideration it is easily seen that his reasoning is found wanting. The Roman Catholic Church did not give us the Bible, but even if it did, it would stand condemned by the very Scriptures it defined. Let’s consider Beckwith’s argument more closely.

Define Church

One of the first challenges when approaching the discussion of the Church’s role in the development of the canon is defining what is meant by Church. In the case of many Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholics, Church is practically equated with the Magisterium (that is, the official teaching hierarchy within their church structure). From Beckwith’s comment, it appears that he is speaking of the Church as practically equivalent to this hierarchical, authoritative structure and not as the body of all believers everywhere. Thinking of the Church in terms of the Magisterium biases the debate in favor of Beckwith’s conclusion from the outset. If, on the other hand, Church is defined as “The community of faithful believers, of whom Jesus Christ is the head,” then the debate changes. Instead of looking for official declarations made by a Magisterium, we will also be looking at how the canon was received by the community of God’s people as a whole.2

Was the Canon Closed by a Unilateral Decision of the Magisterium?

Beckwith’s assertion that the canon of the New Testament was fixed by the Church (equated with the Magisterium) is deceptive in that it gives the impression that there was no concept of a New Testament canon until an official declaration was made. Contrary to this, there is no evidence that there was ever a point after the apostles at which there was no canon of Scripture. To begin with, from the beginning of the Church the Old Testament was received as authoritative. Regarding the New Testament, the earliest extra-biblical writings such as 1 Clement, The Didache, and Ignatius of Antioch quote or allude to New Testament documents as authoritative.3 Even before there were any explicit statements on the extent of the New Testament canon, there was already a de facto New Testament consisting of the core books that we still acknowledge today.4

There is also evidence of a developing canon within the New Testament itself. As Michael Kruger notes, the idea that Scripture cannot be identified as such without a formal declaration ignores the intrinsic qualities of Scripture.5 For example, the New Testament documents assert their authority on the reader in passages such as Galatians 1:1, 1 Thessalonians 2:13, 1 Corinthians 14:37-38, 1 John 1:1-4, Revelation 1:1-3 and others.6 Also, there is cross-connection between several New Testament books that begin to build a web of documents. Considering the connections between 2 Peter 3:16 and Paul’s letters, 1Timothy 5:18 and Luke 10:7, and Luke’s letters and Acts, a canon begins to arise naturally from Scripture itself.7

Is the Roman Catholic Church the Church of the First Five Centuries?

Beckwith states that the Roman Catholic Church is “the Church that fixed the canon of the New Testament,”8 but can it legitimately be said that the Roman Catholic Church of today is the Church that fixed the canon? This question is related to the definition of Church discussed above. If Church is defined in such a way that it equates to a hierarchy preserved through official succession, then the Roman Catholic Church has an argument in its favor. Here, however, the Roman Catholic Church also runs into a problem, because it is not the only church that can trace its bishops back to the apostles. The Eastern Orthodox Church can do the same, not to mention the various groups with legitimate apostolic succession that were deemed unorthodox (for example, Nestorians, Monophysites, and Donatists). Even by Roman Catholic standards, something other than apostolic succession determines who constitutes the Church: correct doctrine. This point was made by Tertullian (155-220 AD) who states, “churches, who, although they derive not their founder from apostles or apostolic men … yet, since they agree in the same faith, they are accounted as not less apostolic because they are akin in doctrine.”9 All Christians who hold to correct doctrine constitute the Church, and so “the Church that fixed the canon” cannot be equated with the Roman Catholic Magisterium.

Recognizing a Canon is an Act of Submission

Finally, as Everett Ferguson notes, “recognizing the canon of Scripture is a testimony against the authority of the church. Recognizing a canon was an act of placing herself under another authority.”10 This is an important point to consider. Even if it is conceded for the sake of argument that no canon existed until an official declaration, once a declaration is made that certain books were authoritative Scripture, those books then become the final authority. By way of analogy, once a set of rules is agreed upon by the players of a game, those rules then become the authority to which the players must appeal, even though they created the rules. This being the case, Protestants absolutely can “read the Scripture along with the Church” and can use that Scripture as the standard against which the Church’s actions are to be judged.

Conclusion

The claim that the Roman Catholic Church gave us the Bible is false and is not a legitimate argument in favor of Roman Catholicism. The existence of other groups that can trace back their lines of bishops just as well as the Roman Catholic Church gives the lie to the claim. The development of the biblical canon was a natural outgrowth of the authority of the apostles and does not rely on an authoritative statement from the Roman Catholic magisterium. The Church (i.e., the body of Christians) does not define the books of the Bible, but receives and submits to them. Even if we concede for the sake of argument that the Roman Catholic Church defined the books of the Bible, the practices and teachings of the Roman Catholic Church can easily be shown to contradict the teachings of the Bible. If the Roman Catholic Church defined the books of the Bible, then it has simply tied the noose with which it is hung.

Footnotes

  1. Plummer, Journeys of Faith, 112-113.
  2. Martin H. Manser et al., eds., “Church” in Dictionary of Bible Themes: The Accessible and Comprehensive Tool for Topical Studies (London: Martin Manser, 2009).
  3. Michael J. Kruger, Canon Revisited: Establishing the Origins and Authority of the New Testament Books (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2012), 210-232.
  4. John Wenham, Christ and the Bible, 3rd ed (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1994. Repr., Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2009), 163-164.
  5. Kruger, Canon Revisited, 43.
  6. Michael J. Kruger, The Question of Canon: Challenging the Status Quo in the New Testament Debate (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2013), 119-154.
  7. Kruger, Canon Revisited, 204-206.
  8. Plummer, Journeys of Faith, 112.
  9. Tertullian, The Prescription against Heretics, ch. 32.
  10. Everett Ferguson, Church History, Volume One: From Christ to the Pre-Reformation, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2013), 120.

Further Reading