The Bible

The Bible is split up into two parts: the Old Testament and the New Testament. The Old Testament records events which happened prior to the birth of Christ, while the New Testament contains the life of Christ and apostolic exhortations.

The Old Testament was written and compiled over several hundred years. It was written in several languages, but primarily in Hebrew. One of the most famous translations of the Old Testament canon was the Septuagint. According to tradition, seventy wise men took the Hebrew writings and translated them into Greek. At its conclusion, all seventy translations were almost identical, thus demonstrating that the translation was accurate and in accordance with what God wanted conveyed.

The New Testament was written within about seventy years of Christ's death. It was written by the apostles and their close followers. These authors had the events about which they wrote and the teachings of Christ fresh in their minds, so they are very reliable sources of information about the life of Christ and what the early Church believed and taught.

Many people question whether the events recorded in the Bible, particularly the New Testament, are historically accurate. They wonder if a man such as Jesus really existed, because his life contained so many amazing events and miracles. Although we do not have the original documents of the gospels, we do have very early copies of them, from just a few hundred years after their writing. First of all, there is no reason to doubt that whatever was originally written down by the four evangelists was false. They were writing in the lifetime of people who were contemporaries of Jesus. If their stories and accounts had been false, there would undoubtedly been members of the Christian community who would have made sure that the false stories did not surface. The early Christians were persecuted, and they would not have wanted any more fantastical stories than the truth to be promulgated, for the more that the life of Jesus was difficult to believe and accept, the more they would be persecuted. Additionally, there are contemporary historians, from Jewish and Roman cultures, who mentioned the life of Jesus, his death by crucifixion and his miracles. Neither of these cultures were friendly to the followers of Christ, so there would be no reason for their historians to lend credence to the founder unless his life had actually happened as recorded in the gospels. Secondly, even though we do not have the original manuscripts, we have manuscripts from a relatively close time to the original authorship. There is no record of any Christian scholar or prominent figure denouncing a new translation or edition of the scriptures because it had significantly changed portions of the text.

Catholics believe that the Bible was divinely inspired. This does not mean that God actually wrote the Bible. The author of each book wrote in his own style and using his own words. However, God inspired these authors to include the information and doctrine that He wished to convey to us and He made sure that there were no doctrinal errors written down by the authors. They did the actual writing, while God nudged them in the correct direction to ensure that we would have a reliable, written record of spiritual truths.

Regarding the New Testament, there are plenty of disputes as to what actually makes up the list of inspired books of the New Testament. For about four hundred years after the death of Christ, the issue was not completely decided. There was a definite idea of generally what belonged in the New Testament, but there were some disagreements on specific books. In 393 and 397, there were two Church councils, the Councils of Hippo and Carthage respectively, which came out with the definitive list of the New and Old Testaments. After these councils, the issue was settled for the Catholic Church. The decided-upon books were declared to be divinely inspired and although the others left out may still have spiritual benefits, they were determined to not be worthy of the level of respect accorded to the Bible. This list has never been changed since that first definitive decision. Several church councils since, including the Council of Trent in the 16th century, have upheld the decision of those 4th century councils. In the 16th century, Luther, Calvin and the other Protestant reformers wanted to change the list of books, throwing out some of which they disapproved. It was in response to this that the Council of Trent re-affirmed the proper list. This is why it is so important to get a Catholic Bible, and not just any Bible. Only Catholic Bibles contain the entire number of divinely-inspired books. Other Bibles may leave out some books or include others which are not part of the canon.

One common Protestant critique of the Catholic position on the Bible is that Catholics take tradition into account, while Protestants believe that the Bible alone should be the source of faith. They also believe that each individual should interpret the Bible for himself, as opposed to having the

Church interpret it for all. On this latter claim, it is important to look at unity. If each individual person is free to interpret any part of the Bible as he or she wishes, then there will be no unity. Everyone will be their own master and essentially the head of their own religion, believing whatever they happen to think of for that day or year. On the other hand, if there is one central authority to whom is given the authority to interpret scripture, then there will be unity, because there will be only one voice and all who wish to know the truth will go to that one source. Christ wanted unity among His followers, but if there is more than one voice dogmatic interpretations of the Bible, then there will certainly be disunity.

This is not to suggest that there can be no theological speculation, but rather that it must occur within certain boundaries of dogma. There are indeed plenty of passages in the Bible on which the Church has not made a dogmatic proclamation one way or another, and on these theologians are free to speculate and discuss how they add to the composite of faith and a greater understanding of God. However, they can't come to conclusions that would contradict any teachings which the Church has made. If everyone were allowed to privately interpret the Bible, one person could come up with the belief that Jesus was God, and another person could believe that He wasn't. They probably both have decent reasons for believing what they believe. However, both these can't be true, so if truth is the ultimate goal, there has to be one central authority, sanctioned by God, to interpret the Bible.

Also, the Church is not wrong to hold up Sacred Tradition as part of the two-pronged approach to faith along with the Bible. As noted above, the Bible did not exist in its current, codified form for almost four hundred years after the time of Christ on earth. During this long, intervening time, there had to have been some sort of source for Church belief. While the books of Bible certainly did exist in this period, they were still disputes as to which were inspired and which were not. During those years, they could not have relied solely on the Bible, since it didn't exist as we know it; instead they would have relied upon the Tradition of the Church handed down to them along with the sacred books. Additionally, the Church had to rely on something when making a decision on what should be included and what should be excluded from the canon of Scripture. Besides the promptings of the Holy Spirit, they relied on tradition and what had been handed down through the generations to determine what should be included. They could not go to the Bible to determine what should be in it, because there wasn't a Bible. Without tradition, there wouldn't be a definitive Bible, so it is foolish to throw aside that Tradition once the Bible is in place. That goes against the history and development of the Church and its doctrine.