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To: ZULU
The Inquisition read the same Bible - essentially - we all read here.

The Catholic Church wrote, canonized and preserved Sacred Scripture for 1500 years before Luther removed 7 books. Sheesh.

83 posted on 04/07/2004 3:20:46 PM PDT by Aquinasfan (Isaiah 22:22, Rev 3:7, Mat 16:19)
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To: Aquinasfan
The Catholic Church wrote, canonized and preserved Sacred Scripture for 1500 years before Luther removed 7 books. Sheesh.

Oi vey. Not to start yet another round of debate, but: Bull!

Your statement that the RCC wrote the Bible presupposes that the Apostles (not to mention the prophets before them) were Catholics in the modern sense, despite the lack of evidence of a host of modern Catholic teachings in the Scriptures that they wrote.

Your statement that the RCC canonized the Scriptures ignores what the canon actually is: A list of authoritative books, rather than an authoritative list of books. A list of sacred books is useful to save the dilligent student time, but not evidence of the listing group's authority over them.

Your statement that the RCC preserved the Scriptures is true (and our thanks), but ignores the fact that for several centuries the RCC did it's damndest to avoid letting the laity actually read it, even to the point of threatening excommunication and death to those who rendered a translation. And you can't complain that the laity weren't literate--if the RCC had had the motivation, it could have corrected that problem in short order, as the Reformation did.

Finally, your statement that Luther removed several books ignores three major points: 1) Those books are not listed in the earliest canons. 2) Those books contain contradictions to the rest of Scripture, so either they're wrong or God is unable to communicate a clear message. And 3) even Catholics call those books the Deuterocanonical books, i.e. the "second canon," and therefore assign them a lesser position to the true canon. It wasn't until the Council of Trent that they suddenly went from "useful" (which at least a few are) to "essential."

Besides, no major doctrine of Christianity depends upon a single passage, or even a single book. At worst, you may lose some resolution about a given teaching, but not the essential teaching itself, if you remove a book or even several books. Far too many modern Catholic teachings depend upon a heavily-disputed interpretation of a single passage, if they have any Scriptural backing at all. The Inquisition's excesses stem from just such a hermeneutic.

Regarding the actual article: This sounds like wonderful news to me! God is using Gibson's movie to open up opportunities to share the Gospel all over the world, it seems, and I can't understand those who are "wary" about that. Yes, there may be a backlash--Muslims are prickly that way. But there may also be thousands or millions of souls saved because the Holy Spirit used this movie to prompt them to ask about the Gospel.

93 posted on 04/07/2004 3:57:45 PM PDT by Buggman (President Bush sends his regards.)
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To: Aquinasfan
So what did I say that contradicted that?
103 posted on 04/07/2004 4:44:40 PM PDT by ZULU (God Bless Senator Joe McCarthy!!!)
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To: Aquinasfan
Which 7 Books did Martin Luther remove from the Bible?
105 posted on 04/07/2004 4:57:30 PM PDT by Ann Archy (Abortion: The Human Sacrifice to the god of Convenience.)
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