"there are first-century tombstones bearing prayers and commitments to atonement for the dead"
Just because they were doing it in the first century doesn't make it right. There were a lot of things being done wrong by Christians and Paul addressed some of them but I don't think it would have been possible for him to have addressed them all.
"Just because they were doing it in the first century doesn't make it right. There were a lot of things being done wrong by Christians and Paul addressed some of them but I don't think it would have been possible for him to have addressed them all."
The point is that such beliefs are NOT, as is laughably claimed, inventions of the 15th or 5th century church, but rather how the church INITIALLY understood the teachings of the apostles EVEN WHILE the apostles were still around to correct them.
Consider the sequence of events:
1. From its inception, the church believed in concepts such as atonement, prayers for the dead, and an intermediate, temporal place between Heaven and Hell.
2. The church assembles the bible, using as the primary criteria for what constitutes the bible that which corresponds to its traditions.
3. Martin Luther preaches against such doctrines as contrary to HIS understanding of the mercy of Christ.
4. Martin Luther is shown explicit passages from the bible which very plainly disprove his theories, and concedes that those passages irrefutable prove the correctness of the doctrines that he hates.
5. Martin Luther removes from the bible 14 books, including Revelations, James, 1-2-3 Peter, Hebrews, Maccabees and Wisdom, arguing that they couldn't POSSIBLY be authentic scripture, because their teachings are inconsistent with HIS interpretation of the remaining scripture.
6. This is the truly hysterical part: After having REMOVED parts of the bible which he disagrees with, Martin Luther THEN claims that any doctrine not found in what remains of the bible must be a false doctrine.
7. Unfortunately for Luther's plans, the Catholic Church finds plenty in the remaining scripture to establish the truthfulness of the doctrines which Luther so hated.
8. Luther's followers then claim that the Catholic Church is MISINTERPRETING scripture, claiming that the early church did not understand the bible to say what the post-reformation church proclaims it to say.
9. Archaeological and textual evidence prove that the Catholic Church's doctrines were, roughly, practiced since the time of the apostles.
10. Those unwilling to heed what the church founded by Jesus proclaims now assert that it doesn't matter first-century Christians did; just because they did doesn't make it right.
The bible proclaims it to be true. History proclaims it has always been held as true. The Protestant bible, despite efforts to purge it of testimony that it is true, still proclaims it to be true. But RoadTest knows it to be false?