The doctrine of the Catholic Church is that the Bible, though written by man, was inspired by God, making it essentially God's word, to answer Sandman's question.
The old testament was translated from Hebrew ( a dying language at this time) to Greek about 290 B.C. in Alexandria; the Greek version, which the Catholic church has always used, is referred to as the 'Septuagint'. It got the name from the 70 or 72 translators used to translate the bible- 6 from each tribe of Israel.
The last part of the NT was finished, as Nereas said, in 99 A.D. It was not compiled and 'sealed', AKA finalized, until 405 AD by Pope St. Innocent I. All 73 books, by the authority of the church, are said to be divinely inspired.
Being an undergrad Marine Bio student and avid Catholic, I have always found the idea of Creationism and Evolution being mutually exclusive quite silly. I think that Evolution is a wonderful tool for God to use to shape life. It obviously works, as can be seen every day in many different situations. If you don't think that evolution is real, consider this. Evolution relies on Natural Selection as its main tool. Natural selection occurs whenever an organism with a different genetic identity (genotype) from another organism contributes more genetic material to the next generation based on selective pressures. For example, a much higher proportion of people from African descent have sickle cell anemia than any other ethnic make up. Why is this? "Doesn't this mean that Evolution is wrong? Isn't sickle cell anemia bad? Why would it ever be selected for?"
Sickle cell anemia is a genetic condition caused by a mutation in a single gene. The mutation causes red blood cells to adopt a sickle shape as opposed to a round shape- i believe the reason is a defunct protein from a swapped codon somewhere along the coding line, but i may be mistaken. The pain associated with the condition occurs when someone has too many sickle shaped cells clogging capilaries (think about it, it can be alot harder to pull one branch out of a pile than to pull a disk out of a pile), which causes not only backed up blood on one side, but lack of oxygen on the other, which can cause cell death. Again, this is from memory, but it may not be 100% correct.
Isn't this disease terrible? Not if you live near Malaria. The gene is much more common in African Populations because it is selected for there- the Sickle Cell gene provides significant resistance against the Plasmodium Protazoan that infects the brain, giving people with the gene (that live in a population with Malaria) a significant advantage, and thus the opportunity to contribute more to the gene pool, as they don't drop dead from Malaria quite as often, and thus can overall have more children. That, my friends, is Evolution at work.
The church adopts this. They say evolution is real, and (aside from humans) affects and changes populations, even to the point of speciation. The church also accepts the Big Bang theory, which is another theory that makes alot of sense and is not mutually exclusive with creationism.
So friends, open your eyes! The next time you dive and see fish, ask yourself: "What does this fish have that I don't that makes it much better suited to be here?"
Biology is wonderfully simple while at the same time being incredibly complex. Evolution is very real. Who is to say that isn't the tool God uses to shape our world?
Also, Evolution being labled a theory by evolution bashers: it doesn't work. The word 'theory' is almost a certificate of honor in the scientific community- it means the idea holds a whole lot of merit, over decades of scrutiny, and has not been disproven. Calling Evolution a theory is really giving it a compliment
