So the Catholics actually had the original Bible.
No, of course not. We have the Hebrew Old Testament and the New Testament that evolved in a period between about 700 BCE to 400 AD. As far as the NT the Church Fathers compiled, edited and redacted the books of the NT from different sources, before the Roman Church (RCC).
The Old Testament evolved in this period pretty much among the Jewish Priesthood by either the 'Supplementary Hypothesis.' Documentary Hypothesis' over a period of time.
I like the following ideas:
From:
The Making of the Pentateuch - Wikipedia
According to Whybray:
"Rendtorff has merely replaced the comparatively simple Documentary Hypothesis which postulated only a small number of written sources and redactors with a bewildering multiplicity of sources and redactors" (p. 21), while Blum's approach was, if anything, more complex and more dogmatic – not to mention less demonstrable – than Rendtorff's."
"Whybray's own, alternative hypothesis, is based not on the documentary model but on a fragmentary model. He suggests that the Pentateuch was the product of a single author (not the four authors and multiple editors of the documentary hypothesis) working at some time in the 6th century BC "[with] a mass of material, most of which may have been of quite recent origin and had not necessarily formed part of any ancient Israelite tradition" (p. 242). Whybray saw this author as a national historian, aware of contemporary Greek history and writing in conscious imitation of Greek models, with the aim of extending the existing
Deuteronomic history backwards in time to create a national history of the Israelites from the creation of the world."
The Dead Sea scrolls just contain parts of the texts at the time. Based on the evidence large numbers of texts were destroyed in the various wars at the particularly centered around Jewish rebellion. Earlier texts than this are at present unknown.
