Was the first Bible Catholic or Protestant?

Answer 1

The word Protestant was first used to describe a religious group, or religious groups, in the 1500s, many centuries after the Bible was written.

The word catholic has several meanings, one of which is 'universal' or 'general'. In other senses of the word, the Church of England (Anglican) has legitimate claim to be "Catholic", though Roman Catholics would identify the Anglican Church as being Protestant. However, in the context of the question, Catholic might specifically mean the 'Roman Catholic Church', a term that began to be used by part of the latin church in the 16th Century, to distinguish itself as 'the part of the Latin Church that remained under the Roman obedience after the Reformation.' (Oxford English Dictionary.)

The Bible itself is a collection of 66 books (i.e. scrolls and letters) written by Jews. The Old Testament (OT) was written in Hebrew (plus some in Aramaic) by practisers of Judaism. The New Testament (NT) was written by Jews who had accepted Jesus as the Anointed One. (Anointed = Messiah Hebrew; ChristGreek).

They had become Christians. (See Acts 11:26; 26:28).

The last scrolls written that comprise the Bible as we know it today were written/completed in the first century AD, and were written in Greek, (except the gospel of Matthew which was first written in Hebrew then translated into Greek), not in the Latin of the Romans. The first 'church' council of the new 'Christian' way, was held in Jerusalem, and Jerusalem was the base of operations for Christians at that time. Decisions of the Jerusalem council were sent out from Jerusalem to adherents in other towns, cities, districts and countries. ( Acts 16:4) According to Bible records, these early Christians did not call themselves Roman Catholics. They were followers of the Jesus, the Christ. The Bible does not show that they had a leader in Rome that they called the Pope.

In the first century, Palestine was occupied by the pagan Roman army, but the religion of the Christians was not Roman.

The various sacred scrolls used by Christians were widely copied and circulated. Thousands of ancient Bible manuscripts have been found and are in museums today.

Historians note that early Christians kept lists of such sacred writings, i.e. that they considered to be 'of God'. The conversion of the numerous scrolls into leaf-form (a codex) would seem to be a natural progression, and leaf-form 'books' began to appear in the second century, according to bible historian Professor Goodspeed, although complete 'bibles' that have been found in this form can only be dated to later centuries.

Christian scripture was referred to in Greek as Ta Biblia(The Bible) as early as 223 AD, approximately. However, Greek speaking pre-christian Jews (i.e. several centuries before Christ Jesus) also referred to the septuagint (the OT in GreeK) as Ta Biblia.

So the first 'Bible' as such, pre-dates Protestantism, Catholicism and Christianity!

The earliest evidence of a leaf-form 'bible' with which we are more familiar today, would seem to be in the 5th Century. This was determined by an analysis of the Codex Ephraemi, which contained, under what was probably 12th-century writing, a part of the Hebrew and Greek Scriptures in writing thought to be of the 5th century AD. The earliest surviving complete manuscript of the entire Bible as we have it today is the Codex Amiatinus, a Latin translation produced in a monastery in England in the 8th century.

Traditionally many hold the view that, by Apostolic Succession, the Roman Catholic Church dates back to the first century, with Peter being the first appointed Pope. If this is so, then all the first century Christians would have been Roman Catholics, and, although it could not be claimed that the ancient Bible writers such as Moses, King David and all the prophets of Judaism were also Roman Catholic, nevertheless it could be claimed, by those who hold this view, that all the NT writers were Catholics and therefore that it would follow that the whole early church was Catholic and that the gospel was only spread by Catholics, and that the collection of the various scrolls and letters into one codex was also the production of the Catholic faith.

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Answer 2

Catholic