- Nov 30, 2003
- 1,437
- 372
- 70
- Faith
- Catholic
- Politics
- US-Republican
True, it is God's Word. It originated by God, inspired by the Holy Spirit. But God compiled and preserved the Bible through the Catholic Church.
We do not have any of the original Biblical documents. They are long gone! What we have instead are copies and copies of the documents. Who wrote them? Hermits wrote them. They were celibates who lived in caves. Thank the Lord for celibacy! If these men were married with children they would not have had the time to write these copies. And later on, it was done by Catholic monks. This had to be done until the 16th century before the printing press was created. Thanks to the Catholic, and Orthodox, monks we have the Bible that we have today.
But not only this. The Catholic Church compiled the Bible from different documents. Up until the 6th century, there was no such thing as the "Bible". Instead, you had the the gospels, the letters of Paul, the letters of Peter, etc. It was the Church that put them all together into what we now call the Bible. This was not a small task! For instance, there were 19 different gospels. I do not know them all, but I am aware of the Gospel of Peter, the Gospel of Judas, the Gospel of Thomas, and the Gospel of Mary Magdalene. The Church had a Council to determine which ones were genuine. They only accepted Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John as being the genuine gospels. Well, first they prayed for the Holy Spirit. But they did more than that. They used common sense. They knew the teaching that was passed from the apostles, to the apostle's disciples, and to the next generation of disciples. Other gospels (Gospel of Peter, the Gospel of Judas, the Gospel of Thomas, Gospel of Mary Magdalene, etc) contradicted what was passed down to them. So they knew they were forgeries. They used the teaching of what was passed down to them to determine what was genuine and put them in the Bible. Now, could this Council be wrong? To the Catholic, no - the Holy Spirit had worked infallibly to give us a Bible that is a genuine Word of God. But I do not see how the Protestant can be sure. The Protestant believes that no Council is infallible. So it is possible that this Council made mistakes. Maybe the Gospel of Matthew should not have been in the Bible. And maybe the Gospel of Peter should be in the Bible. Who knows? The problem is that the Protestant does not have an objective standard to determine that. It seems to me that the only standard the Protestant has is that the Bible as is gives him a certain feeling or that the Bible as is is what he was brought up with.
The point of this thread is to point out we would not have the Bible as we have it today if we had never had tradition. Tradition means "to pass on". God did not drop the Bible from the sky. It was passed on from copies and copies. The Bible is part of written tradition. But the compilation of the Bible was determined by accepting only the documents that were in harmony with oral tradition. Those that contradict oral tradition were rejected. So the Bible vs. Tradition is a false dichotomy. The Bible is part of tradition! There are false, man-made traditions. But there is a true tradition that the Holy Spirit has led just as not all gospels are true gospels (Gospel of Thomas is a false gospel). We do not reject all oral traditions simply they are oral. And we do not accept all written traditions simply because it is written.
The Bible is a Catholic Book. God preserved and compiled it through the Catholic Book. This is why it can only be translated and interpreted it by Catholic Church.
BTW, I did post this on another forum. So if you do find it there, that does not mean I stole this from someone else. In both forums I use the same name.
We do not have any of the original Biblical documents. They are long gone! What we have instead are copies and copies of the documents. Who wrote them? Hermits wrote them. They were celibates who lived in caves. Thank the Lord for celibacy! If these men were married with children they would not have had the time to write these copies. And later on, it was done by Catholic monks. This had to be done until the 16th century before the printing press was created. Thanks to the Catholic, and Orthodox, monks we have the Bible that we have today.
But not only this. The Catholic Church compiled the Bible from different documents. Up until the 6th century, there was no such thing as the "Bible". Instead, you had the the gospels, the letters of Paul, the letters of Peter, etc. It was the Church that put them all together into what we now call the Bible. This was not a small task! For instance, there were 19 different gospels. I do not know them all, but I am aware of the Gospel of Peter, the Gospel of Judas, the Gospel of Thomas, and the Gospel of Mary Magdalene. The Church had a Council to determine which ones were genuine. They only accepted Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John as being the genuine gospels. Well, first they prayed for the Holy Spirit. But they did more than that. They used common sense. They knew the teaching that was passed from the apostles, to the apostle's disciples, and to the next generation of disciples. Other gospels (Gospel of Peter, the Gospel of Judas, the Gospel of Thomas, Gospel of Mary Magdalene, etc) contradicted what was passed down to them. So they knew they were forgeries. They used the teaching of what was passed down to them to determine what was genuine and put them in the Bible. Now, could this Council be wrong? To the Catholic, no - the Holy Spirit had worked infallibly to give us a Bible that is a genuine Word of God. But I do not see how the Protestant can be sure. The Protestant believes that no Council is infallible. So it is possible that this Council made mistakes. Maybe the Gospel of Matthew should not have been in the Bible. And maybe the Gospel of Peter should be in the Bible. Who knows? The problem is that the Protestant does not have an objective standard to determine that. It seems to me that the only standard the Protestant has is that the Bible as is gives him a certain feeling or that the Bible as is is what he was brought up with.
The point of this thread is to point out we would not have the Bible as we have it today if we had never had tradition. Tradition means "to pass on". God did not drop the Bible from the sky. It was passed on from copies and copies. The Bible is part of written tradition. But the compilation of the Bible was determined by accepting only the documents that were in harmony with oral tradition. Those that contradict oral tradition were rejected. So the Bible vs. Tradition is a false dichotomy. The Bible is part of tradition! There are false, man-made traditions. But there is a true tradition that the Holy Spirit has led just as not all gospels are true gospels (Gospel of Thomas is a false gospel). We do not reject all oral traditions simply they are oral. And we do not accept all written traditions simply because it is written.
The Bible is a Catholic Book. God preserved and compiled it through the Catholic Book. This is why it can only be translated and interpreted it by Catholic Church.
BTW, I did post this on another forum. So if you do find it there, that does not mean I stole this from someone else. In both forums I use the same name.
Last edited: