I recently received an email from a gentleman – Don – who was less than impressed by my article “Did the Roman Catholic Church Give Us the Bible.” I attempted to email him a response, but the email address he provided wouldn’t go through. In the hope that he may return to this website, I decided to respond to his email in this article. So that we’re all on the same page, here is the email he sent to me:
Weakest research ever. No mention of the ecumenical councils convened over several decades to determine the books which would be considered Canonical in the compilation of New & Old Testaments making up the Bible. If I had graded you, you’d have gotten a D, maybe an F. (FYI – it’s The Catholic Church, not the Roman Catholic Church. And when Christianity – East & West – was under one roof, in the 300’s and 400’s A.D., it did give you – and all of us – The Bible.)
This email is a good example of a very common misconception; namely, that some Church council was convened to determine the books of the Bible. Don accuses me of not mentioning “the ecumenical councils convened over several decades to determine [the books of the Bible].” Well Don, I failed to mention them because they don’t exist. This must be understood by everyone, especially our Roman Catholic friends: there has never been an ecumenical council to determine the canon of the Old or New Testaments. This is made immediately evident by the fact that the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church have different canons of Scripture.1 That would not be the case if there had been an ecumenical council determining the biblical canon.
Now, Don may have in mind the councils of Rome (382), Carthage (the synod in 397), or Trent (1545–1563), but those were local councils, not ecumenical councils (Roman Catholic claims to the contrary regarding Rome and Trent). More to the point, are we to believe that anarchy ruled and that Christians had no idea what books were Scripture until some council hundreds of years after Pentecost defined the books? That would be news for Eusebius who, writing in 324 (before even the Council of Nicaea), had a very comprehensive and nuanced understanding of the books of the Old and New Testaments – see for example Eusebius’s Church History 3.10 (OT) and 3.25 (NT). Of note, when discussing the canon, Eusebius appeals not to some council or authoritative declaration, but to common and historical usage throughout the Church. Likewise, Irenaeus (2nd century) and Origen (2nd–3rd centuries) seem to have a pretty good handle on the canon of Scripture before any supposed council defined it for them.
To summarize what has been said elsewhere: the Church inherited the Old Testament from Judaism; the New Testament arose organically from the apostolic writings commonly recognized among congregations of the Church. The canon of the Bible was well defined before any council confirmed it and, furthermore, the councils of Rome, Carthage, and Trent did not so much define the books of the Bible as recognize the books that had already been received by the Church at large. So even the “authoritative pronouncements” of councils regarding the canon were a recognition of facts already established, not new information to be passed down to the Christians in the pews.
For those interested in this subject, pick up a copy of Michael J. Kruger’s book Canon Revisited. Don, I hope this article finds you well.
Studies in the Bible 