From my understanding, he took someone else's laws and applied them and discovered something new. Now some people are telling me that he discovered them all on his own through the inspiration of the bible.
Newton definitely did not come up with the three laws of motion all on his own; he relied on over a hundred years of research in the science of mechanics (i.e. the science of motion) when he produced the Principia, his major scientific work, which is where the three laws come from. It's important to point out that the reason the Principia was so important was not because it contained many major results (although it did), it was because it introduced a method of dealing with the science of mechanics: forces, which could be manipulated mathematically via calculus.
The simplest and most common way to express where Newton's laws came from is this: The first law (law of inertia) was definitely not discovered by Newton; it was a cornerstone of Galileo's mechanics, and had been well known for over fifty years before the Principia (Newton explicitly credits Galileo for the first law). The second law (F=ma) was a concept that was 'floating around' at the time; similar ideas had been expressed by people like Huygens before Newton. What Newton did for the second law was express it in his new terminology, forces, and show how this was a powerful way of tackling problems. The third law (to every action there is an equal and opposite reaction) is all Newton; you really can't come up with this law unless you have a concept of forces, and seeing as Newton is the only one with a concept of forces it's pretty obvious that it had to be essentially all his own work.
So who discovered what?
First law: Discovered by Galileo.
Second law: Various people, Newton makes an important contribution.
Third law: Discovered by Newton.
As for Newton's fondness for the bible; although Newton spent many many years studying the bible, there is no evidence it had an impact on his work on mechanics. Newton's major breakthrough was introducing forces to mechanics, an idea which he very clearly took from his work on alchemy.