How Do the Major Christian Traditions Understand Scripture?

The churches differ not only in which books they receive, but in how Scripture relates to tradition and to the church that reads it. Here is how each tradition describes its own position.

One question, several answers

Every Christian tradition treats the Bible as authoritative, and they all affirm the same core creeds. They part ways on a different question: what stands next to Scripture, and who has the final word when readers disagree. The descriptions below are how each tradition states its own position, not an outsider's verdict. Our article on how the canon was decided covers which books each receives; this one covers how they are read.

Protestant: Scripture as the final court

The Reformers of the sixteenth century held that the church's teaching must be tested against the Bible, and that the Bible is clear enough on essentials for ordinary believers to read it. This is the principle called sola scriptura. It does not mean ignoring the past. Most Protestant churches use historic creeds and confessions, but they treat these as subordinate to Scripture. Translation into everyday languages was central to the movement, which is why the King James Version, among others, matters in this tradition.

Catholic: Scripture and Tradition together

The Catholic Church teaches that Scripture and Sacred Tradition flow from the same source and together make up one deposit of faith. The Council of Trent affirmed this in the sixteenth century, and the Second Vatican Council restated it. The task of authoritatively interpreting both belongs to the Magisterium, the teaching office of the bishops in communion with the pope. Catholic Bibles contain the seven deuterocanonical books, which Protestants call the Apocrypha, and the Council of Trent confirmed this list.

Eastern Orthodox: Scripture inside Holy Tradition

Orthodox writers generally do not set Scripture and tradition side by side as two sources. They describe Scripture as the central written expression of the one Holy Tradition, which also includes the creeds, the ecumenical councils, the writings of the Fathers and the liturgy. The Bible is read in worship throughout the year and interpreted through the Fathers. The Orthodox use the Septuagint as their Old Testament, and their churches have not issued a single closed list in the way Trent did for Catholics.

Oriental and Ethiopian Orthodox

The Oriental Orthodox churches, which include the Coptic, Armenian, Syriac, Eritrean and Ethiopian churches, separated after the Council of Chalcedon in 451 and kept their own traditions. They read Scripture in the same way, inside the church's inherited life, but each has its own books and commentary. The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church has the broadest canon, including 1 Enoch and Jubilees, and a centuries-old tradition of written commentary in Geʿez.

Where they agree

Across all these traditions, Christians read the same four gospels, confess the same Trinitarian creeds from Nicaea, and treat the Psalms as the church's prayer book. Their differences are real, and they explain why the same verse can be taught differently from church to church. Knowing which tradition you are reading in, or reading about, is the first step in a cross-canon study, as our practical guide describes.