Posted on 08/08/2015 2:06:13 PM PDT by NYer
Actually the Catholic doctrine of purgatory alone perverts this doctrine...
The verse and its context explain the passage...
Can any Catholic point out in the verse where it says a man will be burned??? No??? No...That's because it's not there...
It is works that get burned, NOT people...Bad works get burned up so there is no record of them...
1Co 3:15 If any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire.
See how simple that is, and how simple it is to understand???
1Co 3:13 Every man's work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is.
There is no punishment there...No retribution...No one is sentenced to spend time anywhere...
It's as simple as a kid picking blueberries...He picks a bucket full of berries and brings them to the sorter...The person sorts out the bad berries and disposes of them...The kid then gets paid for the good berries...The bad berries are thrown away...
The only loss incurred is the bucket may be short of good berries after the sorting to get the full reward for a full bucket...He may end up a few cents short on the rewards...
There is absolutely no purgatory in Corinthians, or the entire bible for that matter...
The version of the Bible in use at the time of Jesus was the Septuagint...This version of the Bible included the seven Deuterocanonical books
They did not only use the Septuagint, but also Hebrew texts, while the Septuagint (LXX) of the 1st century cannot be said to contain the Deuterocanonical (henceforth DC). There is no historical evidence that the Septuagint was a uniform body of texts in the time of Christ which contained all the apocryphal books at that time,The earliest existing Greek manuscripts which contain some of them date from the 4th Century and are understood to have been placed therein by Christians.
Edward Earle Ellis writes, “No two Septuagint codices contain the same apocrypha, and no uniform Septuagint ‘Bible’ was ever the subject of discussion in the patristic church. In view of these facts the Septuagint codices appear to have been originally intended more as service books than as a defined and normative canon of Scripture,” (E. E. Ellis, The Old Testament in Early Christianity [Baker 1992], 34-35.
British scholar R. T. Beckwith states, Philo of Alexandria's writings show it to have been the same as the Palestinian. He refers to the three familiar sections, and he ascribes inspiration to many books in all three, but never to any of the Apocrypha....The Apocrypha were known in the church from the start, but the further back one goes, the more rarely are they treated as inspired. (Roger T. Beckwith, "The Canon of the Old Testament" in Phillip Comfort, The Origin of the Bible [Wheaton: Tyndale House, 2003] pp. 57-64)
Manuscripts of anything like the capacity of Codex Alexandrinus were not used in the first centuries of the Christian era, and since in the second century AD the Jews seem largely to have discarded the Septuagint…there can be no real doubt that the comprehensive codices of the Septuagint, which start appearing in the fourth century AD, are all of Christian origin.
Nor is there agreement between the codices which the Apocrypha include...Moreover, all three codices [Vaticanus, Sinaiticus and Alexandrinus], according to Kenyon, were produced in Egypt, yet the contemporary Christian lists of the biblical books drawn up in Egypt by Athanasius and (very likely) pseudo-Athanasius are much more critical, excluding all apocryphal books from the canon, and putting them in a separate appendix. (Roger Beckwith, [Anglican priest, Oxford BD and Lambeth DD], The Old Testament Canon of the New Testament Church [Eerdmans 1986], p. 382, 383; http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2008/01/legendary-alexandrian-canon.html)
Likewise Gleason Archer affirms,
Even in the case of the Septuagint, the apocryphal books maintain a rather uncertain existence. The Codex Vaticanus (B) lacks [besides 3 and 4] 1 and 2 Maccabees (canonical, according to Rome), but includes 1 Esdras (non-canonical, according to Rome). The Sinaiticus (Aleph) omits Baruch (canonical, according to Rome), but includes 4 Maccabees (non-canonical, according to Rome)... Thus it turns out that even the three earliest MSS or the LXX show considerable uncertainty as to which books constitute the list of the Apocrypha.. (Archer, Gleason L., Jr., "A Survey of Old Testament Introduction", Moody Press, Chicago, IL, Rev. 1974, p. 75; http://www.provethebible.net/T2-Integ/B-1101.htm)
The German historian Martin Hengel writes, “Sinaiticus contains Barnabas and Hermas, Alexandrinus 1 and 2 Clement.” “Codex Alexandrinus...includes the LXX as we know it in Rahlfs’ edition, with all four books of Maccabees and the fourteen Odes appended to Psalms.” “...the Odes (sometimes varied in number), attested from the fifth century in all Greek Psalm manuscripts, contain three New Testament ‘psalms’: the Magnificat, the Benedictus, the Nunc Dimittis from Luke’s birth narrative, and the conclusion of the hymn that begins with the ‘Gloria in Excelsis.’ This underlines the fact that the LXX, although, itself consisting of a collection of Jewish documents, wishes to be a Christian book.” (Martin Hengel, The Septuagint as Christian Scripture [Baker 2004], pp. 57-59)
Also,
The Targums did not include these books, nor the earliest versions of the Peshitta, and the apocryphal books are seen to have been later additions, and later versions of the LXX varied in regard to which books of the apocrypha they contained. “Nor is there agreement between the codices which of the Apocrypha include. (Eerdmans 1986), 382.
And Cyril of Jerusalem, whose list rejected the apocrypha (except for Baruch) exhorts his readers to “read the Divine Scriptures, the twenty-two books of the Old Testament, these that have been translated by the Seventy-two Interpreters,” the latter referring to the Septuagint but not as including the apocrypha. (http://www.bible-researcher.com/cyril.html)
Furthermore, if quoting from some of the early Septuagint, which the NT does, means the whole of what is found in some versions is sanctioned, then since the Psalms of Solomon, which is not part of any scriptural canon, is found in copies of the Septuagint as is Psalm 151, and 3 and 4 Maccabees (Vaticanus [early 4th century] does not include any of the Maccabean books, while Sinaiticus [early 4th century] includes 1 and 4 Maccabees and Alexandrinus [early 5th century] includes 1, 2, 3, and 4 Maccabees and the Psalms of Solomon), then we would be bound to accept them as well.
With the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem by the Romans in the year 70 A.D. and because the Christians were seen as a threat, the Jewish leaders saw a need to get their house in order...They did this at the Council of Jamnia (about 100 A.D.), at which they rejected the seven Deuterocanonical books
Which manifests ignorance. Many refer to a Council of Jamnia as authoritatively setting the Hebrew canon around 100 A.D., but modern research research no longer considers that to be the case, or that there even was a council, while some scholars argue that the Jewish canon was fixed earlier by the Hasmonean dynasty (140 and c. 116 B.C.). — http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_of_Jamnia
Robert C. Newman writes,
Among those who believe the Old Testament to be a revelation from the Creator, it has traditionally been maintained that the books composing this collection were in themselves sacred writings from the moment of their completion, that they were quickly recognized as such, and that the latest of these were written several centuries before the beginning of our era.
The Jewish historian Flavius Josephus appears to be the earliest extant witness to this view. Answering the charges of an anti- Semite Apion at the end of the first century of our era, he says:
“We do not possess myriads of inconsistent books, conflicting with each other. other. Our books, those which are justly accredited, are but two and twenty, and contain the record of all time....” — Josephus, Against Apion, 1,8 (38-41)
On the basis of later Christian testimony, the twenty-two books mentioned here are usually thought to be the same as our thirty-nine,2 each double book (e.g., 1 and 2 Kings) being counted as one, the twelve Minor Prophets being considered a unit, and Judges-Ruth, Ezra-Nehemiah, and Jeremiah-Lamentations each being taken as one book. This agrees with the impression conveyed by the Gospel accounts, where Jesus, the Pharisees, and the Palestinian Jewish community in general seem to understand by the term "Scripture" some definite body of sacred writings."
"...the pseudepigraphical work 4 Ezra (probably written about A.D. 1208)...admits that only twenty-four Scriptures have circulated publicly since Ezra's time."
Newman concludes,
"In this paper we have attempted to study the rabbinical activity at Jamnia in view of liberal theories regarding its importance in the formation of the Old Testament canon. I believe the following conclusions are defensible in the light of this study. The city of Jamnia had both a rabbinical school (Beth ha- Midrash) and court (Beth Din, Sanhedrin) during the period A.D. 70-135, if not earlier. There is no conclusive evidence for any other rabbinical convocations there. The extent of the sacred Scriptures was one of many topics discussed at Jamnia, probably both in the school and in the court, and probably more than once. However, this subject was also discussed by the rabbis at least once a generation earlier and also several times long after the Jamnia period. No books are mentioned in these discussions except those now considered canonical. None of these are treated as candidates for admission to the canon, but rather the rabbis seem to be testing a status quo which has existed beyond memory. None of the discussions hint at recent vintage of the works under consideration or deny them traditional authorship. Instead it appears that the rabbis are troubled by purely internal problems, such as theology, apparent contradictions, or seemingly unsuitable content...
But no text of any specific decision has come down to us (nor, apparently, even to Akiba and his students). Rather, it appears that a general consensus already existed regarding the extent of the category called Scripture, so that even the author of 4 Ezra, though desiring to add one of his own, was obliged to recognize this consensus in his distinction between public and hidden Scripture." — Robert C. Newman, "THE COUNCIL OF JAMNIA AND THE OLD TESTAMENT CANON," Westminster Theological Journal 38.4 (Spr. 1976) 319-348.
(In 1947, however, fragments in Hebrew of Tobit and Sirach were discovered among the Dead Sea Scrolls.
However, what the RC fails to tell you, or is ignorant of, is that,
these included not only the community's Bible (the Old Testament) but their library, with fragments of hundreds of books. Among these were some Old Testament Apocryphal books. The fact that no commentaries were found for an Apocryphal book, and only canonical books were found in the special parchment and script indicates that the Apocryphal books were not viewed as canonical by the Qumran community. — The Apocrypha - Part Two Dr. Norman Geisler http://www.jashow.org/Articles/_PDFArchives/theological-dictionary/TD1W0602.pd
And only two of the apocryphal books were found, while one of the additional books was Pslam 51, which Rome rejects as canonical. Thus it is Rome's argument for the apocryphal books that is supportable based on the DSS.
The early Church continued to accept the books of the LXX version, although some debate about these books continued through the 5th century.
Which is misleading, as in reality "the early church" in the NT did not refer to any of the DC books as Scripture, or as "thus saith the Lord" or as " it is written" as was expressly done for many Hebrew texts, though the inspired writers could quote or refer to extracanonical statements as Enoch (Jude 1:14,15) and even from pagans. (Acts 17:28)
In addition, while the DC was generally accepted, substantial doubt and disagreement continued down thru the centuries and right into Trent, which after the death of Luther - who had no infallible canon to dissent from - settled the canon for RCs (though perhaps not excluding late additions) apparently after an informal vote of 24 yea, 15 nay, with 16 abstaining (44%, 27%, 29%) as to whether to affirm it as an article of faith with its anathemas on those who dissent from it.
As even the Catholic Encyclopedia states,
At Jerusalem there was a renascence, perhaps a survival, of Jewish ideas, the tendency there being distinctly unfavourable to the deuteros. St. Cyril of that see, while vindicating for the Church the right to fix the Canon, places them among the apocrypha and forbids all books to be read privately which are not read in the churches. In Antioch and Syria the attitude was more favourable. St. Epiphanius shows hesitation about the rank of the deuteros; he esteemed them, but they had not the same place as the Hebrew books in his regard. The historian Eusebius attests the widespread doubts in his time; he classes them as antilegomena, or disputed writings, and, like Athanasius, places them in a class intermediate between the books received by all and the apocrypha. The 59th (or 60th) canon of the provincial Council of Laodicea (the authenticity of which however is contested) gives a catalogue of the Scriptures entirely in accord with the ideas of St. Cyril of Jerusalem. On the other hand, the Oriental versions and Greek manuscripts of the period are more liberal; the extant ones have all the deuterocanonicals and, in some cases, certain apocrypha.
The influence of Origen's and Athanasius's restricted canon naturally spread to the West. St. Hilary of Poitiers and Rufinus followed their footsteps, excluding the deuteros from canonical rank in theory, but admitting them in practice. The latter styles them "ecclesiastical" books, but in authority unequal to the other Scriptures. St. Jerome cast his weighty suffrage on the side unfavourable to the disputed books... (Catholic Encyclopedia, Canon of the Old Testament, eph. mine)
● The Catholic Encyclopedia also states as regards the Middle Ages,
In the Latin Church, all through the Middle Ages [5th century to the 15th century] we find evidence of hesitation about the character of the deuterocanonicals. There is a current friendly to them, another one distinctly unfavourable to their authority and sacredness, while wavering between the two are a number of writers whose veneration for these books is tempered by some perplexity as to their exact standing, and among those we note St. Thomas Aquinas. Few are found to unequivocally acknowledge their canonicity. The prevailing attitude of Western medieval authors is substantially that of the Greek Fathers. The chief cause of this phenomenon in the West is to be sought in the influence, direct and indirect, of St. Jerome's depreciating Prologus (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03267a.htm) ^
This list, as accepted by the Catholic Church, was affirmed by the Council of Hippo
But which was not ecumenical thus its list nor any others before Trent (and after the death of Luther in 1546) was not infallible/indisputable, thus scholars could and did differ on its contents.
In addition, it is a matter of debate whether the canon of Trent is exactly the same as that of Carthage and other councils:
“The claim that Hippo & Carthage approved the same canonical list as Trent is wrong. Hippo (393) and Carthage (397) received the Septuagint version of 1 Esdras [Ezra in the Hebrew spelling] as canonical Scripture, which Innocent I approved. However, the Vulgate version of the canon that Trent approved was the first Esdras that Jerome designated for the OT Book of Ezra, not the 1 Esdras of the Septuagint that Hippo and Carthage ( along with Innocent I) received as canonical. Thus Trent rejected as canonical the version of 1 Esdras that Hippo & Carthage accepted as canonical. Trent rejected the apocryphal Septuagint version of 1 Esdras (as received by Hippo and Carthage) as canonical and called it 3 Esdras.” More
Roman Catholic apologist Gary Michuta, states,
► "This is a matter of record, not of interpretation. On March 29, 1546 the Council Fathers took up the fourth of fourteen questions (Capita Dubitationum) on Scripture and Tradition. At issue was whether those books that were not included in the official list, but were included in the Latin Vulgate (e.g. The Book of Esdras, Fourth Ezra, and Third Maccabees), should be rejected by a Conciliar decree, or be passed over in silence. Only three Fathers voted for an explicit rejection. Forty-two voted that the status of these books should be passed over in silence.
More here by God's grace.
" In the 16th century, Martin Luther adopted the Jewish list, putting the Deuterocanonical books in an appendix. He also put the letter of James, the letter to the Hebrews, the letters of John, and the book of Revelation from the New Testament in an appendix. He did this for doctrinal reasons (for example: 2 Maccabees 12:43-46 supports the doctrine of purgatory, Hebrews supports the existence of the priesthood, and James 2:24 supports the Catholic doctrine on merit). "
Actually, the author is engaging in pyschohistory, as Luther had strongly scholarly (and he was a scholar) reasons for his non-binding decisions here, following the lead of other (RC) scholars, and like them he cited the lack of apostolic authorship as a reason for his doubts about the status of these books as being Scripture proper, though like prior RCs who rejected some, he also quoted from some of the DC.
In addition, the RC author does not explain what doctrinal reasons would compel rejection of the books he names except for 2 Maccabees 12:43-46. And while Luther would have some doctrinal motivation for rejecting that book since RCs saw it as supporting the meritorious character of purgatorial suffering and for indulgences to escape that, yet it actually does not, but only supports prayer in making an offering for the dead who died due to mortal sin (for whom Rome holds there is no hope) they they may be forgiven and be rewarded in the resurrection, not escape purgatory.
And Luther allowed for prayers for the dead as later as 1528, but not "satisfaction for sins upon the works of men and the merits of saints, whereas only Christ can make and has made satisfaction for us." http://beggarsallreformation.blogspot.com/2012/11/luthers-prayers-for-dead.html
Luther added the word "alone" (allein in German) to Romans 3:28 controversially so that it read: "So now we hold, that man is justified without the help of the works of the law, alone through faith"
And Luther was also joined by many RCs who added the word "alone" since the work are excluded in obtaining justification in this context. Ratzinger himself affirmed Luther's view here, though "works of the law" by implication includes all systems of justification by deserving salvation by moral merit.
Amazing also that a man who wanted so much to stick to the Hebrew Bible became so anti-Semitic afterward
The same can be said of pro-Palestinian Rome, except as having greater longevity .
In The Popes Against the Jews : The Vatican's Role in the Rise of Modern Anti-Semitism, historian David Kertzer notes,
“the legislation enacted in the 1930s by the Nazis in their Nuremberg Laws and by the Italian Fascists with their racial laws—which stripped the Jews of their rights as citizens—was modeled on measures that the [Roman Catholic] Church itself had enforced for as long as it was in a position to do so” (9). More in part 5 of a series (1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5, 6 . And see here .
Yes; you Have ‘RAMBLED’!
Where did you learn this stuff from?
But it SOUNDs so GOOD!
It just HAS to be right!
Where? Same place as everyone does.
Just from leading a life of quiet curiosity while looking for signs, meaning and God in the details and events of the day, just like everyone else.
You're saying it's not obvious?
In the process. Canon of the Old Testament
Enjoy your (now) two forums, where you are free to speak out against what we believe. What is it you're afraid of? That we may have a genuine, peaceful uninterrupted caucus? Why not open one of your own? Are you looking to run us out of here? It makes me sick to see what's spewed out in the name of fraternal correction. Give me a break. Very few are genuinely concerned about Catholic souls. Many gloat that we are, in their blind eyes, "damned to hell." Lol, see you in Purgatory, people! I hope and pray that all of us will one day go to Heaven! When we do, your loved ones called in to eternity before you will be thankful that we crazy, stupid Catholics carried them in our hearts- while the rest of you sat at your keyboards and hassled us for it. Purgatory is, and that's a fact. Sorry, people. As Cronkite used to say, "Thaaat's the way it is!"
Oh, and I'm sorry if anyone is disappointed, but I don't intend this to be an opus. Later, people!
G-d ♡ bless you!
Grateful ✟ ✡
And this flies totally against the one time sacrifice of Christ on the Cross.
You're back to works....man-made works. Paul made it crystal clear in his writings works will not cut it.
If the Blood of Christ won't do it, the weak prayers of man will not "help" make reparation for anyone.
That is your opinion, based on Luther's discreditation of our Church for his own purposes. You aren't aware of the fullness of Catholicism, and the myriad of teaching one cannot learn here.
The reading I did for my long response to you was a real eye-opener for me! Works, that's why he wanted to discredit/ eliminate James! How many graces are missed...
G-d ♡ bless you!
Grateful ✟ ✡
Can you show in the NT a clear example of purgatory, anyone praying for the dead, the communion of saints?
Why the New? The OT is not significant? Can you give me a legitimate reason why the Reformers felt they had the right to alter the NT to suit their doctrine? Shouldn't it be the other way around? Why be sola scriptura when the dissidents tried to discredit most of the Bible? What do you believe to be a clear example?
Luther's Canon
"In his preface to the New Testament, Luther ascribed to several books of the New Testament different degrees of doctrinal value: "St. John's Gospel and his first Epistle, St. Paul's Epistles, especially those to the Romans, Galatians, Ephesians, and St. Peter's Epistle-these are the books which show to thee Christ, and teach everything that is necessary and blessed for thee to know, even if you were never to see or hear any other book of doctrine. Therefore, St. James' Epistle is a perfect straw-epistle compared with them, for it has in it nothing of an evangelic kind." Thus Luther was comparing (in his opinion) doctrinal value, not canonical validity."
What of the Synoptic Gospels? Acts? The entire Old Testament? Revelation? You're tying my hands, friend!
I'm Catholic. We embrace the entire Bible. We embrace Sacred Tradition, not sola scriptura. We acknowledge the Magisterium of the Church. Do all 2.1 billion of us feel the same way? Not any more than did the early Christians:
Branches of first-century Christianity Early Christianity is often divided into three different branches that differ in theology and traditions, which all appeared in the 1st century AD. They include Jewish Christianity, Pauline Christianity and Gnostic Christianity.[2] All modern Christian denominations are said to have descended from these three branches. There are also other theories on the origin of Christianity.[3]
So let's face it: whatever I tell you won't suffice. You're playing on a narrow field. And you questioned my honesty in a recent post, and didn't see fit to address the insult. And, honestly, do you really know what we truly mean by the Communion of Saints?
You're obviously a bright person. Open your mind! Check this out:
...the Church has consistently believed in a purification of the soul after death. This belief is rooted in the Old Testament. In the Second Book of Maccabees, we read of how Judas Maccabees offered sacrifices and prayers for soldiers who had died wearing amulets, which were forbidden by the law; "Turning to supplication, they prayed that the sinful deed might be fully blotted out," (2 Mc 12:43) and "Thus, (Judas Maccabees) made atonement for the dead that they might be free from sin" (2 Mc 12:46).
This passage gives evidence of the Jewish practice of offering prayers and sacrifices to cleanse the soul of the departed. Rabbinic interpretation of Scripture also attests to the belief. In the Book of the prophet Zechariah, the Lord spoke, "I will bring the one third through fire, and I will refine them as silver is refined, and I will test them as gold is tested" (Zec 13:9). The school of Rabbi Shammai interpreted this passage as a purification of the soul through God's mercy and goodness, preparing it for eternal life. In the Book of Sirach, "Withhold not your kindness from the dead" (Sir 7:33), was interpreted as imploring God to cleanse the soul. In sum, the Old Testament clearly attests to some kind of purification process of the soul of the faithful after death.
Why do you think this was downplayed?
Continuing Fr. Saunders:
"The New Testament has few references about purging of the soul or even about heaven for that matter. Rather, the focus is on preaching the gospel and awaiting the second coming of Christ, which only later did the writers of sacred Scripture realize could be after their own deaths. However, in Matthew's Gospel, Jesus' statement that certain sins "will not be forgiven either in this world or in the world to come" (Mt 12:32), at least suggests a purging of the soul after death. "
But Matthew's is one of the Synoptic Gospels, thus not deemed "doctrinal" enough.
The Communion of Saints is based on passages throughout the Bible. It is a much more in-depth concept, rich in the love of God's children for Him and for one another. It spans time and eternity, past and present. We'll save it for another post. It's late; I'm tired; and it's too important to just gloss over.
Good night, e, and God bless you!
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