The Purpose of the Bible

In Jewish worship, starting in the temple and continuing in the synagogues, the Torah is read using a structured cycle over the course of a year. This is known as the Parshah and allows the faithful to hear specific portions of the Torah read each week. A Ba'al Koreh is someone specifically trained in the reading of the Torah. If a Ba’al Koreh is not available, then a rabbi will do the reading.

The Torah Is written in Hebrew. In the third century BC, Ptolemy II Philadelphus wanted the Hebrew scriptures translated into the common language of the day, which was Greek. Legend says that he brought together six translators from each of the twelve tribes of Israel to individually translate the Hebrew scriptures into Greek. When they were finished the seventy-two copies were compared to one another and all seventy-two matched identically. This became the Septuagint and was the equivalent of the Jewish Old Testament. Jesus quotes from the Septuagint in many places of the New Testament.

The Christians continued the Jewish tradition of reading scriptures as part of their official worship, but these early Masses lacked any structure. There was no official cycle of readings so what you heard read in one Church would vary from another. They would often read things that were specific to their church. For example, the Church in Galatia would read St. Paul’s letter to the Galatians, which he wrote to them specifically. The other churches did likewise. In fact, every book or letter contained in the New Testament was originally written to a specific community for a specific reason. None of them were written to the Church as a whole. Although the churches shared the same structure of the Mass, there was no universality in the universal church.

This fact was not lost on Church leadership. In 382 Pope Damasus convened the Council of Rome and the Church began the process of spiritual discernment and investigation, guided by the Holy Spirit, to determine which writings were inspired by the Holy Spirit and which were not. They did this not only for the writings that would become the New Testament, but they did it for the Old Testament as well.

They created the Canon of Scripture which became the bible. It is from this canon that the cycle of readings was created and then read at every church universally. This cannon was reaffirmed by the councils of Hippo in 393, Carthage in 397, and the council of Florence in 1442. The ecumenical Council of Trent solemnly defined this canon in 1546 after it came under attack by Martin Luther.

The bible was compiled to bring universality to the Mass. The bible was compiled for the Mass, not the people. The bible’s use outside of its intended purpose is useful and good for instruction, but does not grant one the authority, nor justify him to start a church apart from the one true Church Christ himself created.

Sola Scriptura teaches that the bible alone is the ultimate authority for Christian faith and practice. This goes against the very purpose for which the bible was complied. The Church is the ultimate authority for Christian faith, practice, and especially worship. The bible tells us this itself in 1 Timothy 3:15 –

“I am writing these things to you, hoping to come to you before long; but in case I am delayed, I write so that you will know how one should act in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and bulwark of the truth.”

It is the Church and her leadership to whom Jesus bestowed his authority to, not a book that would not exist for several hundred years. He said that those who received bishops received him, not those who read the book for themselves. Martin Luther had to squash this fact so that he could teach the bible according to his own opinion. He supplanted proper authority for his own and led people away from Jesus, not towards him.

The entire reformation and all of the ecclesial communities that have sprung into existence since must comply with sola scriptura for without it they don’t have a leg to stand upon. They stand in opposition with the Church that Jesus made, not in union with it. They have no authority granted to them by Jesus so they have to take authority from the only place they can, namely their interpretation of the bible. And when that interpretation differs from someone else? Well, their interpretation is right and the others got it wrong somewhere.

If the Holy Spirit were guiding people on the correct interpretation of scripture, as Martin Luther claimed was possible, we would have 30,000+ identical interpretations as the Jews did with the Septuagint. The Holy Spirit is only guiding the Catholic Church and she has the sole authority to interpret the bible. It is the Catholic Church who gives the bible its authority.

Sola Scriptura simply cannot make this claim.

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