How We Got the Bible — and Why It Still Matters

The Bible did not appear as a finished book. It is the story of God’s Word faithfully carried through centuries — from our Jewish elders, to the Apostles, to the Church that preserved it for every generation.

From Israel to Christ
The Old Testament began with the Law and the Prophets. These were copied with painstaking reverence by Jewish scribes. By the time of Christ, the Greek translation known as the Septuagint was widely used in synagogues. It contained books later removed by some, but still treasured in the Catholic Bible today: Wisdom, Sirach, Baruch, 1 & 2 Maccabees, Tobit, and Judith, along with parts of Esther and Daniel.

When Jesus and the Apostles quoted Scripture, they often quoted directly from the Septuagint. When He stood in the synagogue and opened the scroll (Luke 4:16–21), He was reading from this very tradition. The earliest Christians saw these writings not as optional, but as part of God’s inspired Word.

The New Testament Emerges
After the Resurrection, the Good News spread in letters, homilies, and written Gospels. Some were authentic; others were false. Communities held many writings, but not all were accepted everywhere. For three centuries, Christians lived, prayed, and often died for their faith with no single bound New Testament in hand — only the living Church proclaiming Christ and recognizing the texts that bore true apostolic authority.

This is what we call Apostolic Tradition. The Church came before the Bible. The faith was not born from a book. The book was born from the faith.

Councils and Canon
At the end of the 4th century, the Church gathered in councils at Rome (382), Hippo (393), and Carthage (397). Guided by the Holy Spirit, the bishops asked: Was this book written by the Apostles or their close companions? Was it proclaimed in churches across the Christian world? Did it conform to the faith handed down from the Apostles?

By these marks of authenticity, they confirmed the 73 books of Scripture — the same Catholic Bible preserved to this day. For over 1,000 years, every Christian Bible contained these books. Only in the 16th century, during the Protestant Reformation, were seven books removed, along with parts of Daniel and Esther.

Yet Scripture itself warns against this:

“Do not add to what I command you and do not subtract from it” (Deuteronomy 4:2).
“If anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his share in the tree of life” (Revelation 22:19).
The Catholic Church never added these books — they were there from the beginning. Others removed them.

The Treasure of the Bible
Hand-copying a Bible before the printing press could take years. A single Bible could cost as much as a farm or a small house. For this reason, they were sometimes chained inside churches — not to keep people from them, but to prevent theft. The Church safeguarded the Scriptures so that all the faithful, rich or poor, could hear them proclaimed at Mass.

The monks who copied them by candlelight often decorated the pages with gold leaf and brilliant colors. They knew they were touching holy ground. Today we can download a Bible in seconds. For them, it was a lifetime’s labor of love.

One Stream of Truth
Every Christian today — Catholic, Protestant, or otherwise — receives the Bible through this same stream:

Preserved by the Jewish people.
Fulfilled in Christ.
Discerned by the Catholic Church.
Copied and protected for centuries at great cost.
Handed on, whole and entire, to the world.
The Bible is not a human invention, nor the property of any single movement. It is God’s Word, recognized by the Spirit, safeguarded by His Church, and given to us as the greatest treasure on earth.

The miracle is not just that the Bible was written. The miracle is that it was preserved. And through it, Christ still speaks today with the same voice He spoke to His Apostles.