Did the Catholic church decide on bible canon?

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# QUESTION Did the Catholic church compile the bible?

It is not unusual to read that the Cathoic church selected the books should be included in the bible canon notably at Council of Nicea. This is far from the case; in fact the evidence indicates that the books we have today in the Christian "canon" were essentially fixed by the end of the first century.

The Hebrew bible

The official listing for the Hebrew Scriptures (often called the Old Testament) was fixed by the end of the fifth century B.C.E. Jesus Christ and his apostles used only books from this catalog when quoting Scripture. Jesus for example quoted or refered to over half of the books of the hebrew scriptures without once making a single referrence to the so called apocryphal books. Catholics therefore evidently had no say in compilation of the 39 books of the Hebrew scriptures.

# Did catholics decide which books would be included in the Christian Greek Scriptures ("New Testament")?

No. Unlike the Hebrew scriptures which were for the most part professionally copied and catagorised, the Christian Greek scriptures were indeed effectively collections of letters; letters that were copied by the "addressees' or the people that received them. As the letters (and gospel accounts) became available they were circulated from congregation to congregation, each congregation (or groups of congregations) making and keeping their own copies. As time progressed then, the congregations would effectively have "collections" of books which had been available to them or catalogs.


Who decided which books (letters/gospels) were authorative?


Which letters, gospels or books were accepted as inspired record is reflected in which books were used by the Christian community under their given leadership (on the outset the writers themselves, the Apostles and the leading men of the 1st Christian community). While the apostles and eyewitness followers of Jesus were alive the authenticity of an account was not an issue, those 12 men and other elders associated with them would ensure that no unauthorized teachings circulated in the congregations in spoken or written form. It was during this period (from around 41-90 CE) that the gospels were written.

After the death of those first century and early second century "church Fathers" the need did arise to protect what had already been authorized since the did indeed begin to emerge uninspired gnostic writings from dubious sources. These listings are often referred to as "catalogs". There are at least 16 outstanding early catalogs of the Christian Greek Scriptures, from the Muratorian Fragment of 170 C.E. to the Third Council of Carthage of 397 C.E. All of the outstanding Early Cataloges included all four Gospels.

The Council of Nisea

If the Council of Nicea came and gave their "official" stamp of approval to the collection, it was done AFTER the fact. This is like a fashion expert visiting all the dance clubs in an area and finally declaring a trend "fashionable". It's not the "expert" that makes the trend, its the young people that took to wearing a particular style. The expert simply came along later and declared what had already been decided through use. In a similar way, the Nicean council simply noted that a certain set of books had long been used by the Christian community and declared them "offically" part of the Canon. They did not remove any books that previously had been included (on the contrary it chose to INCLUDE extra books that had no place in the earlier canons). So did the 'Catholic' Coucil of Nicea decide? Not at all, it was all decided long before this famous meeting by the first century Christian community itself headed by the Apostles and later trusted men in the Christian community as reflected in catalogs written long before the Catholic church ever existed.

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REFERENCES FOR THE INFORMATION ABOVE

Jewish tradition: Rabbinic literature attributes the fixing of the Hebrew canon to "The Men of the Great Assembly" also known as The Great Synagogue at the end of the 5th Century BCE.

Hebrew Bible

That the Jews had an accepted set of books they viewed as sacred scripture by the 3rd century BCE supported by commentaries, such as the first century writer and philosopher Philo (a contemporary of Josephus) who referred to "the law of Moses" and "national scriptures" - The Works of Philo, p. 494

Josephus, who himself referred to "our sacred books. They indeed contain in them the history of five thousand years." Flavius Josephus of the Antiquities of the Jews - Preface

The Dead Sea Scrolls, which include fragments from every book of the Old Testament except for the Book of Esther, dated at approx 200 BCE, testify to the existence of such an catalog. - Israel Museum, Jerusalem
dss.collections.imj.org.il/project

The Christian Greek scripture writers (dated approx 40-90 CE) make frequent reference to these Jewish writings, often quoting the Greek Septuagint, the oldest fragment of which, Papyrus Fouad 266 is dated to the first century or 2nd century BCE. - Housed at Societé Royale de Papyrologie, Cairo, Egypt

Christian Greek

The evidence regarding the collections of Christian copies if found in the sheer volume of manuscripts available around the world. To date, over 5800 Greek New Testament fragments have been found. One of the most extensive collection is The Chester Beatty biblical papyri, which includes a manuscript of the epistles of Paul from sometime near 200 C.E., a manuscript of the four canonical Gospels and the book of Acts from 200-250 C.E. - Chester Beatty Library, Dublin, Ireland. The Bodmer collection includes copies of some of the canonical Gospels that may be as early as the late second century or early third century C.E., and the famous John Rylands Fragment(P52) dated at approx 125 CE, is holds a fragment of the Gospel of John that is widely thought to be the earliest Christian manuscript - The Rylands Library (Manchester)


Catalogs : List or catalogs of recognized books provide a historical record of how the bible developed. Below is a list of some of the earliest bible catalogues.


source: All Scripture Inspired of God, pub wbts 1963, study IV p. 303

"By the close fo the second century [...] a high degree of unanimity concernng the greater part of the New Testament was attained among the very diverse and scattered congregations of believers not only throughout the Mediterranean world but also over an area extending from Britain to Mesopotamia" -- Bruce Metzger, Bible Scholar