Episode 12 - Which Came First, the Bible or the Church?

Father Mark Stoll answers about which came first, the Bible or the Church? Why do we have a Pope? Which parts stayed the same after Vatican II? Also discussed is the reality of Hell and how many people go there.

Tune in Wednesday nights at 9pm on Siouxland Catholic Radio 88.1 FM.

Be illuminated, informed and inspired!

The show is sponsored by St. Augustine Indian Mission.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

I have questions. I don't understand. I'm confused. What's going on? That's number one I learned in school. What does the church really teach? Welcome to Father Numbers Bush from the studios of 88.1 FM, K-F-A-C, Pankasu City, and K-O-I-A Storm Lake. Brought to you by the St. Augustine Indian Mission Minobago. We all have questions and curiosity about matters of faith, as it is normal for humanity to ask questions and seek answers in the timeless quest for understanding regarding matters of faith in the church. We believe that there is no such thing as a foolish or dumb question. Only opportunities to learn and to connect. And I say the only dumb question is the one that is not asked. And the reality is that the questions you have are like questions others have, and so it is good to ask. Sometimes an answer leads to more questions. Sometimes the questions and answers will lead us to insights we never considered. We at Sudan Catholic Radio want to invite our listeners from Jackson, Nebraska to Elk Point, South Dakota, to Stromlick, Iowa, and everywhere in between and beyond, send your questions to us at FatherKnowsBest Show at Yahoo.com. Or mail them to Father Knows Best, Sioux Lan Catholic Radio, 701 West Fifth Street, Sioux City, Iowa, 51103. During this time, once a week, I or another guest will do our best to answer some of the questions I've received here at the studio so we may discover, learn, and engage our hearts and souls and minds, so we may be illuminated, informed, and inspired. So I thank you for tuning in. We invite you to open your mind, let the questions begin, and let your curiosity find its voice. I'm Father Mark Stowe, Priest of the Diocese of Sioux City with you today, and joining me today again is Tim Sodine, Second Director of the Sioux Line Catholic Radio, presenting some of the questions I've received from you, our listeners. How do you this time this Tim?

SPEAKER_01 1:48

I am doing wonderful this evening. I always look forward to Wednesday nights, and here we come to another Wednesday night when I get to learn more about the faith.

SPEAKER_00 1:57

And we are actually doing episode 12. Believe that, 12 episodes now.

SPEAKER_01 2:00

It's gone by really quickly. It has so fast that these weeks just go by and by, and I I can't begin to explain how much I've learned through these sessions.

SPEAKER_00 2:11

We've uh I've received some wonderful questions. I love doing the research. I was working on some more questions this morning, and it's like this is fun. So I'm really glad you tuned in and glad Tim is here, and also, of course, Ann here at the control board to help us sound good. So let's dive into our questions this evening. So, what is our first question?

SPEAKER_01 2:29

A faithful listener asks, What came first? The Bible or the church?

SPEAKER_00 2:35

Oh, thank you very much for that question. Wonderful question. And I'm just gonna be clear this question is actually easier to answer than the question is which came first, the chicken or the egg? So, the Bible, of course, we know is a collection of sacred writings that date back thousands of years before Jesus was born. It was first composed by various and many Jewish authors, and then after Jesus' ascension, the New Testament composed by various and many Christian authors. This collection of sacred writings, both what we call the Hebrew scriptures and the Christian scriptures, that is the Old and New Testament, were first called the Bible somewhere around the fourth century, as I mentioned in a previous episode in the writings of St. John Chrysostom, when he referred to the Old and New Testament as Tablibia, the books, which is Latin for Biblios. Thus it was around the fourth century that these collections of writings began to be put together in a certain order that this collection of writings and letters started shaping into the one volume book that we have and we're familiar with today. But let's create a little timeline of the creation of the Bible versus the creation of the church. So, from the dawn of creation until the time right before Moses, at the time of the Exodus, there were no writings made. Nothing was written down, nothing being included in the Bible. Brother, during this time of history, we have the stories of creation, stories of Adam and Eve, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob. All those stories were shared orally from one generation to the next generation. And these are the stories that make up the book of Genesis. The first books of the Old Testament, the first, excuse me, the first five books of the test of the Old Testament called the Pentateuch, which is Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. It is believed that they were composed primarily during what we call the Mosaic era. That's of course around the 13th century BC. And many of these writings believe to be that Moses is a substantial author under divine inspiration, but again, he's not the only author of those first five books. But again, remember the Exodus took place in the late 13th century, you know, someplace around what we call post-Ramses II, which is around 1281 BC. There's other books in the Old Testament, Hebrew scriptures called the historic books, which include Joshua, Judges, Ruth 1 and 2, Books of Kings, and others. There's prophetic books, including Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel. There's the wisdom books of Job, Psalms, Song of Songs, Wisdom, others including Tobit, Esther 1 and 2, and Maccabees, excuse me, first and 2nd Maccabees. Those all would have been composed sometime between the time of Moses, a lot of them being composed around the Babylon exile, all the way up to about a hundred years before Jesus was born. And so these first 46 books that we find in our Catholic Bible then were translated into Greek, you know, from the original Hebrew into Greek, probably around by the year 132 BC, and then became called what was known as the Septuagint at the time of St. Augustine of Hipporal, which is sometime between 340, you know, 354 to 430 AD. Okay, so that's the Old Testament, all before Jesus was born. Jesus, of course, was born sometime, we don't know exactly when, but sometime between 7 BC and one and 0 A.D. And during Jesus' lifetime, the Jewish people did not fully agree on what books were part of their scriptures. They knew, of course, the first five books are. That's definite. And of course, we hear Jesus proclaiming, you know, from like the prophet Isaiah. So again, prophets and others. But so there's still kind of a, you know, what books belong to our scriptures for the Jewish people. Jesus Christ, of course, established his church, our church, the Catholic Church, during the his earthly ministry, which was culminated at the Pentecost when the Holy Spirit descended upon the apostles. This would have been sometime around 3033 A.D. The stories then that of Jesus were then shared by the apostles and other disciples, including Saint Paul, and that was done orally when they went from community to community, with Saint Paul during his first writing of his epistles, his letter sometime around 50 A.D., which had been 1 Thessalonians. The Gospels, of course, were composed a bit later, sometime between 60 and 100 A.D. And again, those are composed by a few apostles and some other close associates. In the early years of the church, then we see again a visible we call hierarchical reality. It was led by the apostles, with Peter being the head and their successors. And this is all being done before even the New Testament's texts were written. In fact, the early liturgical practices, including the celebration of Mass, relied on some scripture portions and creeds like the Apostles' Creed, which were being transmitted orally at that time. By the late second century, we see what we call core nucleus emerging. That Christians were saying there are four gospels and 13 Pauline epistles were being accepted across all the churches, wherever you know the Christianity was being promoted and rising. Then we have local councils, groups of bishops that would get together, such as in Hippo in the year 393, and Carthage in 397, and other people like St. Augustine, who began to affirm what we call the full canon. What are the books that belong to our scriptures? And it was over this time that we began to recognize again the 46 books of the Old Testament, which is found in the Septuagint, and then 27 books in the New Testament. It was in 1442 at the Council of Florence that they finally accepted the 27 books of the New Testament and the Septuagint. And in 1546, at the session four of Council of Trent, the Catholic Old Testament, which kings approved 46 books, was definitively approved. And so it really wasn't until 1546 that the Bible we have today was definitively approved. And so, in short, there was no complete Bible that existed in the first century, as local churches used parts of the Old Testament, parts of the Septuagint, and the emerging apostolic writings, the writings like St. Paul and St. Peter, and of course, alongside with oral tradition. And again, we should be clear that the church did not create the Bible. It was basically discerned. The church discerned the canon of the books of the Bible under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, as it recognized which writings were divinely inspired, which were apostolic in origin, and this process over unfolded for over years, many years. And so, in short, which came first, the Bible, the Church. We know that the Catholic Church preceded the Bible as the church was founded by Christ through the apostles who further and first proclaimed the gospels orally before any New Testament writings existed, and before there was any official list of books of the Old Testament, New Testament, which were officially approved again, as I said earlier, Council Trent in 1546. So I hope this answers your question.

SPEAKER_01 9:40

I'd really like that question because that was one I would have thought of on my own. So I'd really like that answer too.

SPEAKER_00 9:46

And there's many people ask that question. So let's try another one.

SPEAKER_01 9:48

Another faithful listener asks this question. Who was the first pope and by whose authority?

SPEAKER_00 10:00

Again, thank you for this question. Again, it's a question that we as Catholics sometimes ask, and even especially non-Catholics, ask of us, especially when they become very curious when they see that the Pope dies and a new one is elected, as happened in May of 2025. So it's again, first good to remember that it was Jesus Christ who founded the Catholic Church. Again, we just talked about that in the previous question. And Jesus Christ gave us his mission the day he ascended to heaven, 40 days after his resurrection. It was Jesus who gave us the Holy Spirit, gave it to the apostles and other disciples at Pentecost to give birth to the church. And I would say Jesus Christ also knew that if his church was to thrive and grow, his church needed a leader. And so Jesus chose one of his apostles, Simon Peter, to be the first pope, as we see in the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 16, 19. Chapter 16, verse 19, when he says, I give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, whatever you loosen on earth will be loosed in heaven. We as Catholics see this passage is central to a Catholic understanding of Peter's authority and the papacy. And to begin with, when we look at this imagery of keys that Jesus uses when he speaks to Peter, this image comes from Isaiah chapter 22, verse 15 and following, where it talks about the key of the house of David. Again, this key symbolizes supreme stewardship and authority over the royal househood household. And this includes being in the power to omit or even to exclude people from the household. And so we as Catholics believe the keys that Jesus gave to Peter signifies Christ entrusting to Peter and his assessors the supreme authority over the entire church. And it'd be just like, again, we see in the Old Testament and few other places in the Gospel, and Jesus talks about the good steward, the steward or prime minister would be given full rights and privilege to govern in the name and the place of the king when he was absent. And so let's dive a little deeper into this, what this is all about. And I'm going to explain it maybe this way. Whenever we see a country or an organization or company founded, you know, someone is its leader, someone is its founder. And why? Because we know that no country, no organization, no company can survive or thrive when there's no one in charge. We're going to have chaos, anarchy, disorder, pandemonium, whatever. And so when we when we see a country or organization found it, sometimes, many times the first leader will be be its founder. A couple examples. Blessed Father Michael McGivney founded and was the first leader of the Knights of Columbus. St. Catherine Drexel, founder of the Blessed Sacrament, Sisters of Indians and Colored People, now known as the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament. There's Charlie Kirk, who was the founder and first leader of Turning Point USA. John Deere was the founder and first leader of John Deere Company, Henry Ford for the Henry Ford Company, and of course Jesus for the Catholic Church. Now, we often see that when a founder sets up a country or organization company, gives it a vision or mission. And when that first leader then retires or dies, there needs to be a successor. Someone's going to carry on that vision and mission for the company, country, organization. And so going back to the Catholic Church, the founder and first leader of the church was, of course, Jesus Christ. But however, unlike Blessed Father Begivine, St. Catherine Drexel, Charlie Kirk, John Deere, Henry Ford, who are all human beings, who founded human organizations or companies, Jesus Christ is God who founded a human institution of divine origin. Let me repeat that again. The church is a human institution of divine origin. That's very key here. And so again, Jesus, if he he knew that if the church was to survive and thrive, he needed to place one person in charge to carry out his vision and mission. And the first person that Jesus chose was a sinful fisherman from Galilee who attempted to encourage Jesus not to die, who ran away when Jesus was arrested, who denied knowing Jesus three times while Jesus was on trial, and even went in hiding when Jesus was crucified. Of course, we know Peter was not perfect, you know, not a perfect choice of the first leader, but we know that after the Pentecost, Jesus became a strong leader. He went on to preach and teach and be crucified upside down because he firmly believed and dedicated his life to Christ. And the other apostles and disciples looked to Peter as the leader. And so since then there have officially been 267 popes, from Saint Peter to our current Pope, Pope Leo XIV, who have been elected to carry on the mission first given to Saint Peter. And so it's also good to note that the word Pope, which is not found in Scriptures, is a word that is derived from the Greek word papas, which is an affectionate term meaning father or daddy, which again in Latin is Papa, and in English it's Pope. And so this term would have been used very early in the church to refer to Peter and successors, with the second Pope being Saint Linus. And so when we look at all these men who have served as Pope since Saint Peter, all of them are human beings like you and me. None of them are perfect. None of us are free from sin or faults. There are no perfect choices for Pope. But that is why we need Jesus Christ, who helps us through the power of the Holy Spirit. That is why Jesus Christ gave the Holy Spirit to help us, the church, to stay as true as possible to the vision and mission of Christ. Again, which is not always easy, not always possible, due to the human beings that are leading our church, our dioceses, parishes, and even parish organizations. That's why we are encouraged to continue to pray for our Pope, our bishops, pastors, and lay leaders to lead us in the ways of Christ. So, in short, Jesus gave us the role of Pope to lead us and to lead his heavenly church here on earth through the power of the Holy Spirit, carry on the work of Christ in the church, of which all we are we are all a part, and we all have roles to fill by just by virtue of our baptism. So I hope this answers your question. I thought that was very a very thorough answer. That's good. Thank you very much. So I just want to point out that uh you're just tuning in. You are listening to Sudan Catholic Radio here and Father Knows Best as I present some of the questions I received from your listeners. I'm joined with by Father by Tim Swadeen, who is presenting some of the questions I have received from you. And so, Tim, what's our next question?

SPEAKER_01 16:32

Lisa from Sioux City sent this question in. Most people focus on what changed in the Mass after Vatican II. Yet, what parts of the Mass stayed the same after the same?

SPEAKER_00 16:45

That is a very interesting question. Um I just want to point out, just you know, for the record, that I was actually born a year after Vatican II ended, after it concluded, so I was not raised attending the traditional Latin Mass. Um I do not remember any details of when the new Mass was being developed and introduced. However, I've heard from people, including my parents who went through this, that people experienced changes. It seems like every week something new was happening there, you know, in the early late 60s, early 70s, including the vernacular language that was being introduced, the language of the people rather than Latin, and the priest, you know, turning to face the people at the altar rather than before when he faced uh the tabernacle of the altar with his back to the people. And I should also, because of you know, uh 33 years of being a priest, um, I've only actually attended one traditional Latin Mass because of my my schedule. But so, based on my formal education I had in seminary, some research, let's look at what did not change in the Mass from the Traditional Latin Mass, and what we call it now the Norvis Ordal, which was introduced by Pope Paul VI after Vatican II. On December 4th, 1963, Pope Paul VI promulated the Second Vatican Council, Sacum Sacum Concilium, the Constitution of Sacred Liturgy, to focus on primarily how to reform and to promote the liturgy. I've talked about this document before. It's a very key document regarding the liturgy. And so in this document, there's really kind of what we call uh five ways that the document is focused on. We want to first invigorate the uh the Christian life of the faithful. Two, we want to adapt institutions to contemporary needs. Three, we want to foster unity among Christians. Fourth, we want to restore and simplify the Mass while preserving its substance and safeguarding the deposit of tradition. And fifth, as I'm going to quote a long paragraph, paragraph fifty, it says, the right of the mass is revised in such a way that the intrinsic nature and purpose of its several parts, as also the connection between them, may be more clearly manifested, and the devout and active participation of the faithful may be more easily achieved. For this purpose, the rights will be simplified, due care is taken to preserve their substance, elements which, with the passage of time, can become duplicated or were added with little advantage, but now are to be discarded. Other animal elements which have suffered injury through the accidents of history are now to be restored to the vigor which they had in the days of the Holy Fathers, as may seem useful and necessary. End of quote. So what we're saying in that document is that the core elements of the Mass, its intrinsic nature, purpose, doctrinal foundation, and many of the ancient texts will remain unchanged, ensuring the continuity of the church's unbroken liturgical heritage. There are significant portions of the Mass and prayers, of course, that have not changed. And let's uh kind of focus on a few of these. Again, these prayers and expressions have been drawn from the Church's most ancient sources and former editions of the Roman Emissal. So remaining unchanged include the structured format, which means we have four parts introductory rite, liturgy of the word, liturgy of the Eucharist, including rite. Second thing that has not changed, many of the collects, the opening prayers, prayers of the gifts, prayers of the Holy Communion are the same. Of course, now translated into the vernacular. The first Eucharist prayer, known as the Roman canon, is still there. The Lord's Prayer, the use of Gregorian chant, the use of Latin is still encouraged, use of vestments, use of sacred vessels and various items. And in short, as we see in Sacro Concilium chapter or paragraph 55, the dogmatic principles which were laid down by the Council of Trent remain intact, including, which is I found this surprising, I didn't realize this, but it says, including that communion under both kinds, which may be allowed when the bishop sees fit, not only to clerics and religious, but also to the laity, and in cases betered by the Apostolic See, as, for example, communion of both kinds may be offered to the newly ordained at Mass of their sacred ordination, to the newly professed of the mass of their religious profession, and to newly baptized in the mass which follows their baptism. So again, some of the principles laid down in Council Trent have not changed. We may have expanded some of those now with like communion of both kinds a little more common. But in summary, the Vatican II emphasized again continuity over novelty, emphasizes the mass's substance, its many ancient texts, divinely instituted elements, and doctrinal core which remain unchanged. The changes called for Vatican II, of course, was to serve to restore some of the more ancient customs and to provide better accessibility to the people who were who are encouraged to actively participate in responding and singing rather than simply observing and watching the priest offer the holy sacrifice to the Mass. So, in short, I hope this answers your question. Very good. I didn't have time to go in and compare all the text side by side, but that's in short what happened. Well, the document from Vatican II is very sweeping, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 21:58

And very broad.

SPEAKER_00 21:59

There's a lot to it. And again, we can talk for another three or four hours or more of some of the changes that were not correct permitted. But that's another show. I agree. So we should we attempt another question?

SPEAKER_01 22:11

I think we have one last one for this show. Let's try it. Is there a hell? And if so, do many souls go there?

SPEAKER_00 22:19

Oh, very interesting question. Um, yes, there is a hell. And again, I know I spoke about the existence of hell as well as purgatory uh in a previous episode, I believe it was episode six of the show. In short, again, as defined by the church, hell is a state of definitive self-exclusion from communion with God and the blessed, reserved for those who refuse their very by their own free choice to believe and be converted from sin, even to the end of their lives. And this is stated in paragraphs 1033 to 1037 in the Catechism Catholic Church. The simple answer to this is no on earth knows how many people go to hell. However, we do know that God predestines no one to go to hell, and this is again clearly stated in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 1037. The Catholic Church teaches definitively that hell does exist as an eternal state of punishment for those who died unrepentant mortal sin, but again, we provide no specific number or even certainty regarding how many souls are there. At the same time, we can say that no one on earth knows how many people go to heaven. And yes, the Catholic Church does, through the process of canonization, uh officially declare some people to be in heaven, such as the Blessed Virgin Mary, all the way to St. Carlos Accudis, but and of course we believe there's many more people there besides just the ones we've canonized, but and those are the uh the all saints that we celebrate on November 1st, Assembly of all saints. And of course, in the book of Revelation, it talks about countless number of people in heaven. However, we again we have no firm knowledge of how many or who is in hell. Now Jesus in his teachings speaks about hell. Again, he warns about this like in the Gospel of Mark, chapter 9, verses 42 to 53, when he talks about better for you to enter into the kingdom of heaven with one eye than two eyes to be thrown into God Hannah, where the worm does not die or the fire does not quench. Or in Luke chapter 12, verse 4 to 5, when he says, I warn you, fear him, after he has killed, has authority to cast in hell. Or in Matthew chapter 23, verse 33, when Jesus denounces hypocrisy, when he says, How will you flee from the judgment of hell? And there's one reference I found, and maybe more, but Jesus makes a comment about how many people go to hell. In Matthew chapter 7, verse 13 and 14 says, Enter through the narrow gate, for the gate is wide and the road is easy that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it. And there are other references we can look at. People talk about people going to hell, you know, in various visionaries, such as Lady of Fatima visionaries or St. Maria Frostina, who mentioned many souls are in hell. But in short, there is no magisterial teachings, especially how many people are there. You know, uh we simply encourage hope in God's mercy as we implore the mercy, you know, that uh we do not want anyone to perish but to come to repentance, as we find in 2 Peter verse uh chapter 3, verse 9. Um and there are some people that believe in what we call infernalism, which says hell is populated. There's others believe in universalism, which says there's hope for an empty hell. But uh St. John Paul II noted that we lack knowledge of which is true. We don't know if there's many or it's empty. Right. All we can only speculate is that hell is real and it's possibly populated, but the exact number is unknown to us, except maybe just to God. And so we trust souls to divine mercy to repent, pursue happiness through uh sacraments to avoid the fate of hell, and hopefully we don't end up there. So I hope that answers your question.

SPEAKER_01 25:53

It does, but I I guess I would have one follow-up. The one stor one of the stories that I remember from my readings of the Bible is Lazarus. Yes. Because he's already in hell trying to talk to Saint Peter up in heaven.

SPEAKER_00 26:08

It was actually the rich man talking to Lazarus. Yeah, exactly. We don't have the name of the rich man, but yeah. Right.

SPEAKER_01 26:13

And so there in that story, there is someone who's officially in hell.

SPEAKER_00 26:17

At least that was Jesus telling us. Right. And so I think Jesus is telling us it must be true. It is true. Very true. Probably at least one in there. Along with Satan and all his uh the story of Lazarus, for whatever reason, that that story really sits with me. Interesting. Well, I think, Hannah, we ran out of time. We are, so it's time to quit. So again, it's a wonderful show. We really appreciate you tuning in to Sioux Land Catholic Radio as we offer these, again, national and local programs, including Faith in Action, Joanne Fox, and drawing here with Fred and Kira and Life Plan, Catholic Ministry Professionals, and Fine Minister Chaplain, Sunday Morning Mass. Please, please check out the Facebook pages for Sioux Land Catholic Radio and for Father Those Best for more information about the show, including information about questions and answers that I've addressed, and more information about questions I've not addressed. As we wrap up today's questions and answers, we extend our heartfelt thanks to all of our listeners for tuning in, sharing your thought-provoking questions, your curiosity and engagement makes the show possible, and we are always inspired by the incredible range of topics you bring to the table. We hope you'll find the answers both informative and enlightening, but you'll carry some of the new insights with you as you go about your week. If your question was not answered today, you may hear your answer to your question next week. If you missed this episode or like to listen to any of the other episodes, please visit our website, Sulancath Radio.com, and visit the programs drop-down menu and local programs to find this episode, other episodes of Father Knows Best and other local programs. Again, if you have any questions, please send your questions to us at Father Knows Best Show at Yahoo.com or mail them, Father Knows Best, Sue Land Catholic Radio, 701 West Fifth Street, Two City, Iowa, 51103. And thank you to our sponsors and Dusty Indian Mission, Winnebago. Please join us again next Wednesday at 9 p.m. for another round of questions and answers. Until then, stay curious, stay faithful, keep your lights shining, and keep those questions coming. And for now, I'm Father Mark Stoll, your host, I and off. Wishing you a great week ahead. Amen.