Did the Catholic Church give us the Bible?

The quick answer is, “Yes.”

However, let’s delve more deeply into the question in order to make sure that it is understood correctly.

In everyday speech, “Sacred Scripture” is used interchangeably with, “the Bible”. And in most contexts, there is no problem with that. But not in this one.

Because the Catholic Church certainly gave us the Bible, but the Catholic Church did not give us all of Sacred Scripture.

Sacred Scripture v. the Bible

Sacred Scripture

Normally, the two terms are exactly the same thing. Until we get into the details.

Sacred Scripture is the Word of God which the Holy Spirit inspired holy men to write down. For the purposes of this discussion, there are two sets of such Sacred Writings. The Old Testament and the New Testament.

The Old Testament was written by the Jews before Jesus Christ was born.

The New Testament was written by Christians after Jesus was crucified and resurrected. Most of these Christians were Jews, but one of them was a former pagan (i.e. St. Luke). And they were all Catholic.

Thus, we can say that the New Testament was given to us by the Catholic Church. But the Old Testament was given to us by the Jews.

The Bible

The Bible is a compilation of the Old Testament and the New Testament in one binding.

The Western or Roman rite of the Catholic Church has, since the time of St. Jerome, used the 73 book Bible based on St. Jerome’s Vulgate.

As you may already know, Luther took out of the Catholic Bible, 7 books which he called the Apocrypha (and we call the deuterocanon) and established a 66 book canon of the Bible.

And finally, the Jews. They don’t use the Bible. They don’t recognize the New Testament. Nor do they call their canon the Old Testament. They call it the Torah or Tanakh.

I have deliberately not mentioned the Eastern Church (non-Catholic) canon because that is a whole ‘nother ball of wax. As I understand it, some of the Eastern churches have as many as 88 books in their canon.

The Council of Trent and the Vulgate

In the 1600's the Council of Trent was convened to correct Protestant errors. One of their errors was the printing of many heretical and poorly translated bibles. In order to remedy this situation, the Council of Trent isolated one version of the Bible whic was completely trustworthy. The Council of Trent upheld the validity of the Vulgate and anathematized anyone who denied the Sacredness and canonicity of the Vulgate’s books in their entirety and in all its parts. The Vulgate was the Bible of choice in the Western world from the 4th century to the 16th century.

The Council of Trent did not deny the validity, sacredness or canonicity of the Orthodox canon. Obviously, because the Catholic Church still hopes for a reunification.

In conclusion

Yes, the Catholic Church did give the world, the Bible. The Catholic Church wrote the New Testament. Then, took the Jewish Scriptures and combined them with the New Testament to form the Bible.