Many Christians today question whether the Catholic Church is actually Biblical. Such a question is highly paradoxical for the simple historical reason that the entire New Testament originated from within that very same church. Note that St. Paul wrote his early epistles well before all four gospel accounts were even composed. This means that when Paul refers to the authority of Scripture (as in Romans 15:4), he can only be referring to the Old Testament canon known as the Septuagint ─ not the Bible we know today, because the New Testament part of the Bible did not yet exist.

This fact raises an interesting point. During his entire life on earth, Jesus Christ never wrote a single line of Scripture. He certainly could have done so but he chose not to. Instead what he left us was an oral tradition in custody of the Church which he founded. It was the leaders of this same Church who would eventually compose the New Testament, and centuries later decide which of the countless texts then circulating among various Christian communities were divinely inspired ─ and which were not. This final canon of 27 books plus the Hebrew Scriptures containing 45 books were confirmed by Church authorities at the end of the fourth century, some 300 years after the death of the last apostle, John. This means that the authority of the Bible rests upon the authority of that apostolic Church founded by Jesus Christ who commissioned it to “go therefore and make disciples of all nations.” (Mt 28:19) Continue reading →