Sola Scriptura: 8 Problems With “Bible Only” (and What the Bible Says Instead)

I love the Bible. I read it, I quote it, and I build my faith on what it teaches. That’s exactly why sola scriptura bothers me. The idea that the Bible alone is the only and final authority for Christians, and that God has nothing more to say, isn’t something the Bible teaches. It came along about 1,500 years after Christ, in the Reformation. And when you hold it up to the Bible itself, it runs into problems it can’t get out of. Here are eight of them.

First, a fair definition. The Westminster Confession puts it this way: “The whole counsel of God concerning all things necessary for his own glory, man’s salvation, faith and life, is either expressly set down in Scripture, or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture: unto which nothing at any time is to be added, whether by new revelations of the Spirit, or traditions of men” (Westminster Confession 1.6). That last line is the part that matters. No new revelation, ever.

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1. Show me the verse

If the Bible is the only authority, then “Bible only” has to be taught in the Bible. So where is it? The verse people reach for first is 2 Timothy 3:16–17:

All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works.

2 Timothy 3:16–17 (KJV)

Read it carefully. It says scripture is inspired and profitable. It doesn’t say scripture is the only authority, and it doesn’t say God will stop speaking. And look at the verse right before it. Paul tells Timothy, “from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures” (2 Timothy 3:15). The scriptures Timothy knew as a child were the Old Testament. There was no New Testament when Timothy was a child. If this verse proves sola scriptura, it proves the Old Testament alone was enough, and no Protestant believes that. (I go deeper on this verse in “God-Breathed”: What 2 Timothy 3:16 Says, and What It Doesn’t, and on the search for a proof text in Sola Scriptura: Which Verse Teaches It?)

The circle problem

There’s also a logic problem. Using the Bible to prove that only the Bible has authority is circular. The Bible never names itself as a finished collection, so any verse you quote is a verse from one book, talking about the scriptures its author knew. Something outside the verse has to tell you which books count. That’s the next problem.

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2. There’s no inspired table of contents

No book of the Bible gives a list of which books belong in the Bible. There’s no inspired table of contents. The list came later, from people.

The Catholic Encyclopedia, which has every reason to defend the canon, walks through the history. Books like Hebrews, James, 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John, and Jude were contested for a long time, while books like the Shepherd of Hermas and Barnabas were treated as scripture by some. Athanasius listed the disputed New Testament books inside the canon in A.D. 367. The councils of Hippo (393) and Carthage (397) adopted the list (Catholic Encyclopedia, “Canon of the New Testament”).

So here’s the honest question for a Protestant: if you accept the councils’ list of books, you’re trusting a church authority outside the Bible to tell you what the Bible is. That’s the very thing sola scriptura says you can’t do. And if the canon could be decided after the apostles, why couldn’t it ever grow again? (More in The Canon Was Never Meant to Close.)

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3. Copied by human hands

Even if every word was inspired when it was written, we don’t have the originals. We have copies of copies, and the copies don’t all agree. Most modern Bibles say so in their own footnotes.

• Mark 16. The ESV brackets the last twelve verses with the note, “Some of the earliest manuscripts do not include 16:9–20” (ESV, Mark 16).
• 1 John 5:7. The KJV reads, “For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one” (1 John 5:7). The NIV leaves those words out and notes they are “not found in any Greek manuscript before the fourteenth century” (NIV, 1 John 5).

This isn’t a Latter-day Saint talking point. It’s in the margins of the Bibles evangelicals carry. It’s exactly why the eighth article of faith says, “We believe the Bible to be the word of God as far as it is translated correctly” (Articles of Faith 1:8). (More in “As Far As It Is Translated Correctly”.)

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4. Lost in translation

The Bible was written in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. Every English reader is trusting a translator’s choices, and some of those choices hide real differences.

Take “hell.” In the KJV, Jesus warns that whoever calls his brother a fool “shall be in danger of hell fire” (Matthew 5:22). A few chapters later He says “the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (Matthew 16:18). Same English word, two different Greek words: geenna (Strong’s 1067) and hadēs (Strong’s 86). One is a place of judgment, the other is the realm of the dead. A reader with only the English can’t see that.

Or take John 1:1, “In the beginning was the Word” (John 1:1). The Greek logos carries a range of meaning, including word, speech, and reason (Strong’s 3056). Translators have to choose. If the text alone settles everything, why does it take scholars and footnotes to tell us what it says?

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5. The Bible says it’s incomplete

This is the one I come back to most. The Bible itself tells you it isn’t everything. John ends his Gospel this way:

And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written. Amen.

John 21:25 (KJV)

And the Bible names books it doesn’t contain:

• Paul’s earlier letter to Corinth: “I wrote unto you in an epistle not to company with fornicators” (1 Corinthians 5:9).
• The letter from Laodicea: “that ye likewise read the epistle from Laodicea” (Colossians 4:16).
• The book of Jasher: “Is not this written in the book of Jasher?” (Joshua 10:13).
• The records of Samuel, Nathan, and Gad: “they are written in the book of Samuel the seer, and in the book of Nathan the prophet, and in the book of Gad the seer” (1 Chronicles 29:29).

Paul told the Colossians to read the Laodicean letter. We can’t. So how can “all of God’s words are in the Bible” be true when the Bible points to inspired writings that aren’t in it? (The full list is in Books the Bible Quotes That Aren’t in the Bible.) The Book of Mormon answers this head-on:

Wherefore, because that ye have a Bible ye need not suppose that it contains all my words; neither need ye suppose that I have not caused more to be written.

2 Nephi 29:10

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6. One Bible, thousands of churches

Sola scriptura says an honest reader, guided by the Spirit, can understand the Bible for himself. The result has been thousands of denominations, all reading the same book and disagreeing on baptism, communion, grace, predestination, and how a person is saved. If the Bible alone were clear enough to settle doctrine, it would have settled it by now.

The Bible saw this coming. Peter warned:

Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation. For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.

2 Peter 1:20–21 (KJV)

He also said Paul’s letters contain “some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest” (2 Peter 3:16). And when Philip asked the Ethiopian, “Understandest thou what thou readest?” he answered, “How can I, except some man should guide me?” (Acts 8:30–31). God’s answer wasn’t a better study Bible. It was a servant He sent.

Even the doctrine most churches use to define “Christian” didn’t come from the text alone. The Nicene formula took a council in 325 and a non-biblical Greek word to define (see Nicaea 325 and Councils and Who Counts as Christian).

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7. The first Christians didn’t have a Bible

Here’s a question every sola scriptura believer should answer: what did Christians do before there was a New Testament? The books were written over decades, as letters to specific churches, and weren’t gathered into an agreed list for centuries. The first Christians couldn’t have lived by “Bible only.” They lived by apostles.

Therefore, brethren, stand fast, and hold the traditions which ye have been taught, whether by word, or our epistle.

2 Thessalonians 2:15 (KJV)

“By word, or our epistle.” Paul put his spoken teaching right alongside his letters. When the church hit a hard doctrinal question, they didn’t hold a Bible study. “The apostles and elders came together for to consider of this matter” (Acts 15:6). Even the Bereans, who “searched the scriptures daily,” were checking a living apostle’s preaching against the Old Testament (Acts 17:11). Scripture plus living apostles. That was the pattern.

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8. The text and the list kept shifting

People also shaped the text and the list over time. Psalm 22:16 in the KJV reads, “they pierced my hands and my feet” (Psalm 22:16). But the NIV footnote explains that most manuscripts of the Masoretic Text, the standard Hebrew text, read “like a lion” instead, while the Dead Sea Scrolls, some Masoretic manuscripts, and the Septuagint support “pierced” (NIV, Psalm 22). Which reading is “the Bible”? Somebody had to choose.

And even the Reformers didn’t all treat the list as settled. Luther couldn’t harmonize James with Paul and called James an “epistle of straw” (Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church). The Catholic Church answered by formally defining its canon at the Council of Trent in 1546 (Catholic Encyclopedia). To this day, Catholic and Protestant Bibles don’t have the same Old Testament. If the Bible alone is the authority, which Bible?

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What the Bible points to instead

So if not “Bible only,” then what? The Bible answers that too. It never describes God’s people without prophets:

Surely the Lord God will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets.

Amos 3:7 (KJV)

And in the New Testament, Paul says Christ gave the church living leaders, and tells us how long they were supposed to last:

And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ: Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ: That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive;

Ephesians 4:11–14 (KJV)

“Till we all come in the unity of the faith.” We’re not there yet. Look at problem number six. Apostles and prophets were God’s answer to being “tossed to and fro… with every wind of doctrine,” and sola scriptura took that answer away. Jesus promised the Spirit would “guide you into all truth” and “shew you things to come” (John 16:13). That’s a promise of ongoing revelation, not a closed book. (See the topics on living prophets, continuing revelation, and the Great Apostasy, plus The Great Apostasy in the New Testament’s Own Words.)

That’s what Latter-day Saints believe: “We believe all that God has revealed, all that He does now reveal, and we believe that He will yet reveal many great and important things pertaining to the Kingdom of God” (Articles of Faith 1:9). We don’t believe less of the Bible than our critics. We believe what it says about prophets, and we don’t limit God to one book. And no, Revelation 22:18 doesn’t close the canon either (see Revelation 22:18 and “This Book”).

So here’s my challenge, and I mean it kindly. Show me sola scriptura in the Bible. Not a verse that says scripture is good. We agree on that. A verse that says scripture is all God will ever give. Until then, the burden is on the rule, not on the prophets. (More at galatians18.app: Bible alone and Bible inerrancy.)

Sources

• Bible (KJV), via churchofjesuschrist.org: Joshua 10, 1 Chronicles 29, Psalm 22, Amos 3, Matthew 5, Matthew 16, John 1, John 16, John 21, Acts 8, Acts 15, Acts 17, 1 Corinthians 5, Ephesians 4, Colossians 4, 2 Thessalonians 2, 2 Timothy 3, 2 Peter 1, 2 Peter 3, 1 John 5
• Book of Mormon and Pearl of Great Price: 2 Nephi 29, Articles of Faith 1
• Westminster Confession of Faith, chapter 1, section 6 (Orthodox Presbyterian Church edition).
• “Canon of the New Testament,” Catholic Encyclopedia (New Advent). Source for the contested books, Athanasius (367), Hippo (393), Carthage (397), and Trent (1546).
• Footnotes in ESV Mark 16, NIV 1 John 5, and NIV Psalm 22 (BibleGateway).
• Strong’s Greek entries at Bible Hub: 1067 geenna, 86 hadēs, 3056 logos.
• Philip Schaff, “Luther’s Translation of the Bible,” from History of the Christian Church, via Bible Research. Source for Luther’s “epistle of straw.”

• Featured image and in-post graphic: original graphics by thebookofmormon.ai (no photographs or likenesses of real people).