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2KI 2:11"And Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven." -vs- JOH 3:13"No man hath ascended up to heaven but he that came down from heaven, ... the Son of Man." Who took Elijah up to Heaven?.. How do we get to Heaven?... No contradiction here. Ah, but that's not what it says. It says "No man hath ascended up to heaven but He that came down from heaven." It doesn't say "No man except Elijah." Mind you, that doesn't rattle me. Elijah evidently went bodily up to heaven instead of rotting in the grave here below-- and without dying, though as a sinner he would have had to die, right? Elijah was a sinner, et he did not die; he went bodily to heaven even though Christ had not yet come to pay he substitutionary price to open the gates of heaven, either. One would think Elijah would have had to go to the shadowy place of waiting, the netherworld, sheol, the bosom of Abraham, right? But no, God evidently makes an exception for him. The rest of us, the saved, are going to go to heaven bodily, after the resurrection of our bodies --- even though out bodies have rotten in the gracve, or been eaten by sharks, or whatever --- because Jesus will bring this about by His own power. I also believe in the Assumption of Mary. No contradiction!

Again....keep John 3 in context and there's no problem with these two verses.

The Assumption of Mary is again speculation at best. Could God do this? Yes.

Does the Bible say He did? Not with Mary.

We have to be very, very careful in announcing these dogmas as the RCC has done with Mary.

If not, it opens the door to future claims by the RCC, or others for that matter, in this arena and other areas that do not have Biblical support.

Mormonism is a good example of this.

It should be obvious by this time that Catholics are not "people of the book" --- not the book alone. We are people of Christ, and His teachings which come to us from the Apostles, written and oral, in print, in preaching and in practice, as discerned by a teaching body which teaches by His authority. ("Those who hear you, hear Me.")

So it's always rather a waste of time to tell educated Catholics that their beliefs are un-Biblical simply because they are universally acknowledged to be both Biblical and extra-Biblical. The Bible and Sacred Tradition make up one single deposit of truth, which is the Faith handed down to us by the Apostles.

Some non-Catholics (I'm not saying this is you) seem to think Christ founded a Church for no articular purpose, with no particular authority, and with no visible existence or structure or process of succession and with no visible continuity through most of 20 centuries.

Fine. But that's not the Church in reality.

The Church in reality is so much bigger than that. It's big, huge. It has immense depth and breadth. It spans history, it spans the globe. You're part of it, whether you know it or not. It is a great communion of love, and it is all Christ's, to use a thousand images, His kingdom, His flock, His dragnet, His family, His body, His bride.

But our ideas of what the Church is, are so different.

(Though I was talking with a dearly loved and respected Baptist man just today, and we and we seemed to have very nearly he same ideas, strangely enough, so there's no tellin' ...)

But to the extent that we do not understand "Church" alike, to that extent we remain, it seems, largely incomprehensible to each other.