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To: trebb
"...I switched to a nondenominational church that uses the Bible as it's basis for the teachings that go on."



Did you know that the Catholic Church decided which books would form the New Testament that you use today? You can thank the Catholic Church for the Bible you use today. Are you not relying on the authority of the Church every time you pick up your Bible?


EXCERPT from Rev. Henry Graham's "Where We Got the Bible":
Now we know that the Gospels and Epistles of the New Testament were read aloud to the congregations of Christians that met on the first day of the week for Holy Mass (just as they are still among ourselves), one Gospel here, another there; one Epistle of St Paul in one place, another in another; all scattered about in various parts of the world where there were bodies of Christians. And the next question that naturally occurs to us is, when were these separate works gathered together so as to form a volume and added to the Old Testament to make up what we now call the Bible? Well, they were not collected for the best part of three hundred years. So that here again I am afraid is a hard nut for Protestants to crack, viz. — That though we admit that the separate works composing the New Testament were now in existence, yet they were for centuries not to be found altogether in one volume, were not obtainable by multitudes of Christians, and even were altogether unknown to many in different parts of the world. How then, could they possibly form a guide to Heaven and the chart of salvation for those who had never seen or read or known about them? It is a fact of history that the Council of Carthage, which was held in 397 A.D., mainly through the influence of St Augustine, settled the Canon or Collection of New Testament Scriptures as Catholics have them now and decreed that its decision should be sent on to Rome for confirmation. No Council (that is, no gathering of the Bishops of the Catholic Church for the settlement of some point of doctrine) was ever considered to be authoritative or binding unless it was approved and confirmed by the Roman Pontiff, while the decisions of every General Council that has received the approval of Rome are binding on the consciences of all Catholics. The Council of Carthage, then, is the first known to us in which we find a clear and undisputed catalogue of all the New Testament books as we have them in Bibles now.

http://catholicity.elcore.net/GrahamOnNewTestamentCanon.html
33 posted on 01/30/2006 9:37:48 AM PST by Deo volente
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To: Deo volente
Are you not relying on the authority of the Church every time you pick up your Bible?

Divine inspiration comes in many forms and is not limited to members of the Catholic Church. If a baker becomes divinely inspired and does great deeds that are useful to God, it doesn't necessarily follow that we need to go the bakers for our spiritual guidance.

I am not all about attacking the Catholic Church (follow the rest of my posts prior to this one), but I do like to see people think their way through as they concentrate on their beliefs and argue them. I merely point out that the fact that an argument sounds good, doesn't make it definitive.

God Bless you and those that compiled the New Testament.

38 posted on 01/30/2006 9:59:55 AM PST by trebb ("I am the way... no one comes to the Father, but by me..." - Jesus in John 14:6 (RSV))
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