To: Iscool
"Are you suggesting the Catholic Bible was divinely inspired?"
Yes, I am insisting that Sacred Scripture is divinely inspired. But, I'm sure you know, the table of contents didn't drop from the sky. It was compiled by Church councils - Catholic Church councils, that is.
"If you make it to heaven, I can't wait to see the look on your face when you realize there are millions of non-Catholics already there..."
Won't be surprising at all.
To: djrakowski
Yes, I am insisting that Sacred Scripture is divinely inspired. But, I'm sure you know, the table of contents didn't drop from the sky. It was compiled by Church councils - Catholic Church councils, that is.
Actually, the canon merely confirmed the scriptures already in common use in churches throughout the empire. Mark was the most common but the Gospels were widely circulated. The epistles were not held in nearly as many hands. And some books were candidates but failed the test (one by Irenaeus is an example). The established canon did squash the many corruptions being circulated, often under false names, by heretics. So in that way, God used the early Church to limit the spread of heretical texts and preserve the proper texts in much the same way as the Nicene creed helped prevent the spread of heresy.
This is also why Protestants and, more recently, Baptists and evangelicals still reject the Apocrypha from the inspired canon. Rome only added them to the canon after the Council of Trent (1546).
I'm sure you RCs find it comforting to claim the Bible as an exclusive property. But it does make you look miserly with God's gift of the Gospel of Christ. Now, I understand the other reasons why you feel it's intrinsic. Yet, I think it is disadvantageous overall to make such claims of exclusivity over scripture. Just my thinking.
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson