I have no problem giving due’s where deserved, and I have said so in post past. From all I have read, the church in Rome did begin the collection of ancient manuscripts and became the receptacle of most early Christian writings, and since they considered themselves the church that Christ said he would establish here on earth, it is a given that they were the ones who felt the need to be in control of all writings, and through the Holy Spirit's guidance, made the final decision on the canon.
God had a job to get done, and you just happened to be the ones who had most of the writings, but remember, you had nothing to do with writing them, you simply collected them, and if you hadn't, God would have found someone else that would have.
I'll ask you a question, do you think the Catholic Church ever had any intentions of mass producing them in an everyday language, then distributing them to the world?
If it hadn't been for the reformation they would still be in Latin, and only your clergy would be allowed to own them.
By the time the Bible was canonized, and was beginning to be read by some, you had already established most of your doctrine, and there sure was no turning around then. Isn’t that ironical, the ones that God gave the honor of sifting through all the manuscripts and preserving the word for the whole Christian world, should be the ones who now reject it as final authority, and do as the Jews did, put tradition and human authority over the written word.
Mk 7:13 Making the word of God of none effect through your tradition, which ye have delivered: and many such like things do ye.
Agreed. Interesting that the Holy Spirit used the Catholics to do that though if they were not part of the body (not a claim I think you are making, but certainly one we have heard here).
you had nothing to do with writing them, you simply collected them,
If by that you mean the same thing as the Jews who finally closed their Scripture didn't write it themselves, sure. If you mean that Christians authored the Bible and Catholics aint part of them...no.
I'll ask you a question, do you think the Catholic Church ever had any intentions of mass producing them in an everyday language, then distributing them to the world?
If it hadn't been for the reformation they would still be in Latin, and only your clergy would be allowed to own them.
They absolutely would have! The only reason the Latin was the translation of the day was the same reason that the Bible of Jesus' day was in Greek. That was the language used by the largest number of literate people around the world. There almost certainly was a sinful desire on many church leaders to keep the club as small as possible, but there is a larger desire to maintain the integrity of the Scriptures. He who controls the translation of a text can change doctrine (look at Benjamin Franklin). It is in all of our interests to avoid willy-nilly translating of Scripture. Mass distribution was of course more closely related to cost and reliablity of copying. For the first several hundred years of the church, copies of Scripture were more valuable than the churches that held them. In some cases more than whole towns. They represented the faitful efforts of many thousands of man-hours of labor
Interestingly, this was hardly a Catholic failing alone. Did you know that the first English translation of the Scriptures printed in America was after the revolutionary war (Side note - It was printed by the U.S. Congress for "the use of our schools" kind of defeats that old notion that the founding fathers didn't want prayer in schools hmmm?). The Church of England controled who could translate the scriptures and it was against the law.
Another interesting example deals with the Deuterocanonical (or apocryphal) books of the OT. Did you know that it wasn't until the 1700s that the Puritans succeeded in getting copies of the KJV that did not include the Apocrypha? That's right, for over a hundred years the KJV included those "Catholic" books. I know it's true, I actually have a copy.
Isn’t that ironical, the ones that God gave the honor of sifting through all the manuscripts and preserving the word for the whole Christian world, should be the ones who now reject it as final authority, and do as the Jews did, put tradition and human authority over the written word.
I would love to see a source for that. The Church most certainly does NOT place tradition & human authority over Scripture. At their very "worst", they would place tradition, apostolic authority and Scripture as equals (with Scripture being "first among equals" in most understanding). "Apostolic authority" would recognize that God did not cease giving man revalation after the closing of Scripture (something non-Catholics can't agree on so I'm not sure which side of the fence you fall on). My example on abortion a few posts ago is a possible example.