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Actually, this question is loaded and pretty much a moot point. It's like the proverbial question, "Which came first the chicken or the egg?" The question is like a double edged sword. Could Christianity, (ie: church) survive without the Bible, or would the Bible exist without the work of Christians (ie: the church)?

The Church could and would survive without the Bible, but not without the "Gospel." Matthew 16:18 promises that Christ's church will never face defeat. It does not base that guarantee upon the existence of "the Bible." To defeat Christianity is to defeat God; that cannot and will not happen. Christianity (ie: church) is the body of Christ. He cannot and will not be defeated, therefore we know that the survival of Christianity is/was predestined.

However, God, Himself, inspired written preservation of His words. Because He is omnipresent and knows the heart and nature of man, he knew that to leave the Gospel unwritten, would be leaving it to the mercy of humankind. The Gospel would have been vulnerable to corruption and perversion by men filled with lust for power and selfish motives. Yes, there would have been those men who were faithful enough to stay true to the Gospel as delivered by Jesus. On the other hand, there would have been the unfaithful and egotistical men who chose to pervert His words. Without Scripture to compare with what is/was taught by Christ, there would most likely have been many people who would have followed those who preached lies.

In other words, the Bible is God's method of checks and balances. Scripture holds Christian teachers and leaders accountable for what they teach. If it is contrary to what is revealed in the good Book, it is a false Gospel. God preserved the Gospel in written form to ensure accuracy for the generations to come. In Scripture, Paul and Silas commended the Bereans for testing what they taught according to the Scriptures:

Act 17:11; These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so.

St. Augustine, a father of the Church during the Fourth Century A.D., said in Chapter XV, Book XII of his Confessions:

18. . . . The preachers of Thy Word pass away from this life into another; but Thy Scripture is spread abroad over the people, even to the end of the world. Yea, both heaven and earth shall pass away, but Thy Words shall not pass away. . . . .

He explains the necessity of the written word in his book, On Christian Doctrine, Book II, Chapter 4, Origin of Writing:

5. . . . But because words pass away as soon as they strike upon the air, and last no longer than their sound, men have by means of letters formed signs of words. Thus the sounds of the voice are made visible to the eye, not of course as sounds, but by means of certain signs.

As mere mortals, we can only speculate whether Christianity would have survived after Christ's ascension and continued with any kind of accuracy without being preserved in writing. We do know,however, that God chose to ensure the preservation of His Gospel through written form and oral instruction from His apostles down to today's ministers. Had He decided to preserve His in the form of oral teachings and traditions only, then, yes, His Church (Chrisitianity) would have survived. Because He ordained it to be so.

Learn more about this author, Lisa Collins.
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