Is the Catholic Dogma that the New Testament did not exist until they canonized it a flat out lie?

Question

"iamcatholic has it right: it was impossible for the early Church to establish doctrine based on scripture because there WAS NO bible. It wasn't officially canonized until about the year 400. Most protestants don't understand (or refuse to admit) that there was no bible during those first years. How, then, did the Church spread and grow if it had no bible?

Sacred Tradition is the answer." Written by Danny H.

The basic assumption being used in all arguments about Scripture VS Tradition is that the early church did not have the scriptures.

This is repeated over and over in numerous posts, and on many pro-Catholic websites.

They give the impression that the believers of the first 3 1/2 centuries were without written scriptures at their fingertips to study, re-write, translate, and use for sound doctrinal judgements.

Therefore, in comes the calvary -- Tradition.

It is like that. This bald faced lie has been repeated so much, it clouds the thinking of some.

Answer 1

I am afraid you are twisting my words a bit. Here is my usual answer about Apostolic Tradition:

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Therefore, brothers, stand firm and hold fast to the traditions that you were taught, either by an oral statement or by a letter of ours. (2 Thessalonians 2:15)

The Catholic Church does not use Holy Scripture as the only basis of doctrine. It could not. The early Catholic church existed before and during the time that the New Testament was written (by Catholics).

There were hundreds of Christian writings during the first and second centuries. Which New Testament writings would become official was not fully decided until about 400 AD.

Catholics believe that the Holy Spirit was guiding the early church (and is guiding the church today) to make the correct choices about things like:
+ The Holy Trinity (which is also only hinted at in the Bible)
+ Going to church on Sunday instead of Saturday (which is actually directly against one of the Ten Commandments)
+ The Communion of Saints
+ Which writings include in the New Testament?

Things that are even more modern like
+ Slavery is bad. Slavery is never declared evil in the Bible. This was one of the justifications for slavery in the Confederate States.
+ Democracy is good. The Bible states that either God should be the leader of the nation like Israel before the kings or kings should be the leader, "Give to Caesar that which is Caesar's." This was talked about a lot during the American Revolution.

This second source of doctrine is called Apostolic Tradition.

Do Christians who do not allow the continuing guiding force of the Holy Spirit to make their beliefs more and more perfect, still endorse slavery as Colossians 3:22 commands, "Slaves, obey your human masters in everything"?

We instruct you, brothers, in the name of (our) Lord Jesus Christ,to shun any brother who conducts himself in a disorderly way and not according to the tradition they received from us. (2 Thessalonians 3:6)

I praise you because you remember me in everything and hold fast to the traditions, just as I handed them on to you. (1 Corinthians 11:2)

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I did not say there were no writings. In fact I state there were many writings around and many more continually being written. Some of them were blatantly heretical like the Gospel of Judas. Others were also wrong but in much more subtle ways.

One of the challenges was which of the hundreds of writings were inspired by God and which were not.

I never said the early Christian Church used only Tradition to establish doctrine. My point is that there has always been a healthy mix of Holy Scripture and Holy Tradition.

With love in Christ.

Answer 2

The New Testament as a whole, canonized, codified did not exsit until after the Council; however your question is misleading and faulty.

The books that were included in the NT were CANONIZED in 398 A.D. However they were in exsitence as soon as they were written.

The reason for canonization of the texts was because there was mass confusion among the faithful of which letter, epistle, writings were divinely inspired or not. These were passed around town to town, church to church. The Roman persecutors wanted to kill the Christians and these sweet souls held on to what THEY deemed sacred scripture, and were murdered--however the question was...were they truly sacred scriptures?

I mean the "Book of Barnabas" or "Chronicles of Pontius Pilate" were around during same time frame; they were sacred? Who says? How to make that determination? So the Catholic Church convened the Council to codify those books that were indeed divinely inspired and frankly 'worth dying for'.

Answer 3

You are 100% right that claims the New Testament and indeed much of the Bible was we know it did not exist prior to 320 Council of Nicea is indeed a lie.

In fact, one of th emost controversial findings is that complete Bibles (that is Old testament, synoptic gospels and the dominant writings of Paul of Tarsus) might even have existed in mass publication form as early as the end of the 1st Century CE.

If this is the case, then it begs the question - who was responsible for such mass production? who was in charge if its was already pre-defined? and is the history of the formation of christianity accurate?

Scholars for centuries have contested that it was Paul of Tarsus, aided by the largest scriptorium of scribes in the Middle East, the employees of the House of Ananus that spawned no less than five High Priests and dominated Jewish religion for over 40 years.
See:
http://one-faith-of-god.org/new_testament/apocrypha/founders_christianity/founders_christianity_0020.htm

This would also explain why the the true writings of Jesus, the gnostic gospels did not stand a chance against the religion created by Paul.

To hide this history, the Catholic Church created a brilliant misdirection- they have claimed for hundreds of years- that there were "hundreds" of gospels and it was only through the patient councils of church elders that a final Bible was created.

Its funny how this fantastic myth has survived for so long.

Answer 4

There was not a book called the Bible. There were numerous writings attributed to the apostles and their associates. The books that are in the New Testament were there but they were among many other writings.
It was not until St. Jerome and other scholars determined which books were canonical that the Bible came into existence. That was in the 4th century. No matter what version of the Bible you read, the New Testament books are the same ones that St. Jerome and others decided were valid and should be part of the Bible.
That is why we don[t have books like the Gospel of Thomas in our New Testament.

Answer 5

The first word of the NT was written about 50 A.D., the last word between 90-100 A.D., for a total of 27 books, all of which are accepted as canonical and inspired by Catholics and Protestants alike. The question is, who determined the NT canon of inspired books?

Various bishops developed lists of inspired books:

Mileto Bishop of Sardis, c. 175 A.D.
St. Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons, 185 A.D.
Eusebius, Bishop of Caesarea, c. 3265 AD.
ect.

The canon of the Bible was officially determined in the fourth century by Catholic councils and Catholic popes.


God bless,
Stanbo

Answer 6

It's not a lie. It's historical fact. Pick any encyclopedia you want and it will tell you the NT wasn't canonized until about the year 400.

Now, the books that make up the NT were in existence before that, and were being used throughout the Church, but they were not officially recognized until about 400.

God bless.

Answer 7

This is a good but complicated question... when it comes to catholocism and cannonization, it is sortof like "voting" for what is acceptable or provable to and by the church officials.

With that said, i dont think that it is meant that it did not exist, but but meant that it had to be acceptable to the church as being worthy of being a testament of god's true word. It was just meant that it did not exist as an inspiration from God within the church. There are many Christian works that Catholicism wil never cannoize but they still exist, just not in Catholic Religious Vocabulary.

Answer 8

I've never heard of this alleged "dogma". In what Church document can this be found: "we hereby define that the New Testament did not exist until we canonized it"?

Answer 9

the Church decided what books were inspired by the Holy Spirit to be in the bible.

Answer 10

No it's true actually. I think you are confusing religious texts with canons.