"What came first. The Church or the Holy Bible?"

You are asking the wrong question. The right question is, "What came first. The Church or the word of God?"

The first occurrence of the word of God coming was recorded in Genesis 1:, "God said, 'Let there be'..." That word of God was subsequently written down. There was the Scripture.

Six days after God first said, "Let there be," He created Adam and Eve in His own image and likeness. His work of creation was later recorded in writing. There was Scripture.

When God created Adam and Eve, He called them to be His people, assembled before Him to tend the Garden, to be fruitful and multiply. Thus, He created the Church. That was recorded in Scripture. There was Scripture. There was Church.

Therefore, the word of God is six days older than the Church.

Having determined that the word of God came first, we can now ask, "What came first. The Church or the Bible?"

The Church began with the creation and calling of Adam and Eve.

Scholars disagree as to whether Genesis or Job was the first word of God to be made Scripture by writing it down. In either case, it is self-evident that the Church came first. Scripture first came, perhaps, a few centuries later.

But the content of Scripture, the word of God, is six days older than the Church. That word created the Church While Scripture is a running account of the history of God as He worked in the world to accomplish His will, it is also a running account of the history of the Church. God would take a step along the path He determined for His history. He would also take a step along the path He determined for His Church's history. He wrote a running record of each step He took in history and church. Sometimes He took the steps first, then had prophets, kings, and priests write them down. Sometimes He had those same men write first to show what was going to happen in the future. So there were times when the Church was first. And there were times when Scripture was first.

In either case, God and His word were always older than Scripture and the Church.

What is wrong here is for the Church to say it compiled Scripture. God compiled Scripture by acting in History and inspiring those who wrote the record of Who God is and what He is doing. The Church merely received what God revealed. God is the Chef, deciding what ingredients and how much to put in the soup. The Church is nothing more than the one who listened to the Chef explain what was to be included on the list of the soup's ingredients.

Without the Chef, there would be no soup. Without the Church, God would raise up other people whom He would inspire and lead, later, to make a list of ingredients.