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To: PetroniusMaximus

-—You are merely pushing back your supposed problem by one level.
The Magesterium is ALSO subject to the limitations of time and culture. It’s pronouncements ALSO need to be interpreted.-—

It’s the difference between a living authority and a dead letter.

Regardless, the teaching authority of the Church is real and true, while the doctrine of “the Bible ALONE” is man-made, incoherent and false.

Why? See below.

Proving Inspiration

The Catholic method of proving the Bible to be inspired is this: The Bible is initially approached as any other ancient work. It is not, at first, presumed to be inspired. From textual criticism we are able to conclude that we have a text the accuracy of which is more certain than the accuracy of any other ancient work. 
 
An Accurate Text

Sir Frederic Kenyon, in The Story of the Bible, notes that “For all the works of classical antiquity we have to depend on manuscripts written long after their original composition. The author who is the best case in this respect is Virgil, yet the earliest manuscript of Virgil that we now possess was written some 350 years after his death. For all other classical writers, the interval between the date of the author and the earliest extant manuscript of his works is much greater. For Livy it is about 500 years, for Horace 900, for most of Plato 1,300, for Euripides 1,600.” Yet no one seriously disputes that we have accurate copies of the works of these writers. However, in the case of the New Testament we have parts of manuscripts dating from the first and early second centuries, only a few decades after the works were penned. 

Not only are the biblical manuscripts that we have older than those for classical authors, we have in sheer numbers far more manuscripts from which to work. Some are whole books of the Bible, others fragments of just a few words, but there are literally thousands of manuscripts in Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Coptic, Syriac, and other languages. This means that we can be sure we have an authentic text, and we can work from it with confidence. 
 
The Bible as Historical Truth

Next we take a look at what the Bible, considered merely as a history, tells us, focusing particularly on the New Testament, and more specifically the Gospels. We examine the account contained therein of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection. 

Using what is in the Gospels themselves and what we find in extra-biblical writings from the early centuries, together with what we know of human nature (and what we can otherwise, from natural reason alone, know of divine nature), we conclude that either Jesus was just what he claimed to be—God—or he was crazy. (The one thing we know he could not have been was merely a good man who was not God, since no merely good man would make the claims he made.) 

We are able to eliminate the possibility of his being a madman not just from what he said but from what his followers did after his death. Many critics of the Gospel accounts of the resurrection claim that Christ did not truly rise, that his followers took his body from the tomb and then proclaimed him risen from the dead. According to these critics, the resurrection was nothing more than a hoax. Devising a hoax to glorify a friend and mentor is one thing, but you do not find people dying for a hoax, at least not one from which they derive no benefit. Certainly if Christ had not risen his disciples would not have died horrible deaths affirming the reality and truth of the resurrection. The result of this line of reasoning is that we must conclude that Jesus indeed rose from the dead. Consequently, his claims concerning himself—including his claim to be God—have credibility. He meant what he said and did what he said he would do. 

Further, Christ said he would found a Church. Both the Bible (still taken as merely a historical book, not yet as an inspired one) and other ancient works attest to the fact that Christ established a Church with the rudiments of what we see in the Catholic Church today—papacy, hierarchy, priesthood, sacraments, and teaching authority. 

We have thus taken the material and purely historically concluded that Jesus founded the Catholic Church. Because of his Resurrection we have reason to take seriously his claims concerning the Church, including its authority to teach in his name. 

This Catholic Church tells us the Bible is inspired, and we can take the Church’s word for it precisely because the Church is infallible. Only after having been told by a properly constituted authority—that is, one established by God to assure us of the truth concerning matters of faith—that the Bible is inspired can we reasonably begin to use it as an inspired book. 


9 posted on 02/03/2012 7:15:59 AM PST by St_Thomas_Aquinas
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To: St_Thomas_Aquinas

Don’t forget to quote your sources...
http://www.catholic.com/tracts/proving-inspiration

************

“while the doctrine of “the Bible ALONE” is man-made, incoherent and false.”

The teaching that the Bible contains in it all that a person need to find salvation and live a life pleasing to God is EXACTLY what St. Paul taught the early Christians.

You are free to choose not to believe St. Paul if you wish.


10 posted on 02/03/2012 7:25:23 AM PST by PetroniusMaximus
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To: St_Thomas_Aquinas
"Further, Christ said he would found a Church. Both the Bible (still taken as merely a historical book, not yet as an inspired one) and other ancient works attest to the fact that Christ established a Church with the rudiments of what we see in the Catholic Church today—papacy, hierarchy, priesthood, sacraments, and teaching authority."

May want to check your Greek and your history. The term "Church" is a word made up in later years from "kirk", a Scottish term. The word in the Scriptures is "assembly" and it is used to describe even the mob gathered in Ephesus. There is no papacy described in the Bible, no sacerdotalism, no sacraments, and none of the other errant traditions held by Rome.

16 posted on 02/03/2012 8:07:12 AM PST by Dutchboy88
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To: St_Thomas_Aquinas
"...the Church is infallible.

Says who?

258 posted on 02/07/2012 9:13:24 AM PST by spunkets
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