Objections to 'Who wrote the Bible' part I

In response to my last post, Quooba,asked some question wanting evidence & explanation for some of the stuff I wrote about the Bible. I thought it would be better to answer her fully, rather than in the ‘comments’ section, and hence this post!
To make it more manageable I will write each objection in a separate post.
If anyone wants to supplement what I've written then then PLEEEASE do so!



1. Could you back up your belief about Catholics creating the Bible? Last time I checked, those who did write the Words of God did not have the identity of being "Catholic". They were followers of God, inspired by the Holy Spirit, but there were no denominations during that time.


The term ‘Catholic’ was first used at the beginning of the second century (by Ignatius of Antioch if you wanna look it up!)
….so not even 100years after Jesus died the word ‘Catholic’ was in use to describe the followers of Christ.

The word “Catholic” means ‘universal’ and refers to a single visible communion, distinct from others (e.g. Jews, pagans etc).

It was not a term made up to identify a certain denomination of Christians….because there were no denominations! It was a term used to describe those who were baptised & believed that this ‘Jesus of Nazareth’ guy was the Messiah, the Son of God, the Saviour of the Mankind.

This belief was spreading so fast all over the known world that the term ‘Catholic’ was used to encompass all these believers and to show that they, though scattered in place, were all part of one, single, visible and unified body and all proclaimed the same beliefs.
Thus all people baptised in the name of the Father, Son & Holy Spirit were ‘Catholics’.

We know from the vast quantities of writings from the New Testament, from the early Church Fathers and other historical documents that the organisation & worship of these early Christians and the Church is much the same was as the Catholic Church now-a-days.

They believed in the sacrifice of the Mass, the true presence of Christ in the Eucharist, had validly ordained Priests, a hierarchical structure of the Church, believed in Papal primacy (& had an unbroken succession of Popes following St. Peter), and in Tradition etc etc.
I could give countless more examples of things the very first Christians did and believed that the Catholic Church today still does and believes.

Some digestible reading on this is here
But any good book on the early Church Fathers will show this.

The distinction between ‘Catholics’ and ‘non-Catholics’ is only as stark as it is now-a-days because of the multitude of non-Catholic groups who have broken away in protest from the Catholic Church.
All the faithful in the early Church were Catholic.
That’s what Christians were, they were Catholic!

The problem here is that the word ‘Catholic’ was actually invented after some of the Gospel writers lived (although not long after, because it was first in use in the early 2nd century as I said).
The word was used to describe these early Christians; who they were and what they believed.
I think that the problem in understanding this is because it is a bit of a chicken and egg situation!
The ‘chicken’ ( some of the New Testament writers & Christian faithful) actually came a bit before the ‘egg’ (the word ‘Catholic’).

But the key fact is that ALL Christians were Catholics and believed and did the same things that the Church does today.

Like I said, any book on the early Church will show you this.

Ignatious of Antioch wrote a load of letters and documents that show this so very clearly; he was a Bishop (a Catholic…because there were no other types of Christians!) and was taught the Good News by John himself (the Gospel writer). His writings date from around 110AD and his writings of what the early Church believed and did is practically identical to what the Catholic Church still believes and does today.

It is a historical fact; the first baptised believers were Christians….and all Christians were Catholics!