Church came first. New Testament wasnt put together until the 300s
True, the Church came first, because the Gospels were written much later. We had a whole section at my church devoted to early believers. That is A.D. 33-250. They didn’t have texts to refer to. In fact most people besides those in the clergy were illiterate. But we discussed just how powerful their faith was, even to the point of being killed for believing in Jesus. We talked about how powerful their faith must have been, being based on first hand, and even fourth hand accounts of who Christ was. Imagine listening to Peter tell thousands of people about Jesus. It would have been overwhelming. Acts describes Peter doing things that even Jesus didn’t do, like curing people who simply had his shadow pass over them.