Bible-Burners (build it yourself bibles)

Tales continue to circulate about how the Catholic Church opposed translating the Bible into the vernacular. But the Church has never opposed that. After all, the Vulgate was originally translated by St. Jerome to make the Bible available in the vernacular of the day, Latin, which continued to be the lingua franca of educated Europe up to the late 18th century and beyond. Nor were the Reformers the first to translate the Bible into more modern European languages. The Catholic Church approved of Gutenberg's German Bible in 1455. The first printed Flemish edition came out in 1477. Two Italian versions of the Bible were printed in 1471, and a Catalan version came out in 1478. A Polish Bible was translated in 1516, and the earliest English version was published in 1525. Most of these were editions of the entire Bible. Individual books had appeared in the vernacular centuries earlier. The first English-language Gospel of John, for example, was translated by the Venerable Bede into Anglo-Saxon in the year 735.

The Church didn't object to William Tyndale's translating the Bible into English. Rather, she objected to the Protestant notes and Protestant bias that accompanied the translation. Tyndale's translation came complete with prologue and footnotes condemning Church doctrines and teachings. Even King Henry VIII in 1531 condemned the Tyndale Bible as a corruption of Scripture. In the words of King Henry's advisors: "the translation of the Scripture corrupted by William Tyndale should be utterly expelled, rejected, and put away out of the hands of the people…."

Protestant Bishop Tunstall of London declared that there were upwards of 2,000 errors in Tyndale's Bible. Tyndale translated the term Baptism into "washing," Scripture into "writing," Holy Ghost into "Holy Wind," bishop into "overseer," priest into "elder," deacon into "minister," heresy into "choice," martyr into "witness," etc. In his footnotes, Tyndale referred to the occupant of the Chair of Peter as "that great idol, the whore of Babylon, the anti-Christ of Rome."

The Catholic response was not to burn the Bible, but to burn Tyndale's Bible. This was an age when making your own version of the Bible seemed to be all the rage. The Reformers cut out the Deuterocanonical Books, Luther wanted to get rid of the Epistle of James as well as Hebrews, Jude, and Revelation because they didn't agree with his theory of justification. The Reformers themselves fought about which version of the Bible was best. Zwingli said of Luther's German version of the Bible, "Thou corruptest the word of God, O Luther; thou art seen to be a manifest corrupter of the holy scripture; how much are we ashamed of thee…!" To which Luther politely answered, "Zwinglians are fools, asses and deceivers." At the same time Molinaeus, the French Reformed theologian, complained that Calvin "uses violence to the letter of the gospel, and besides this, adds to the text."

The Protestant Reformers may have been revolutionaries, but their revolution was extremist, not unlike that of the Taliban. This is exemplified by their zeal for destruction. Catholics burnt some Bibles, but the Protestants burned books on a scale that makes the Catholic fires look like the odd candle flame. In England, when the monasteries were suppressed, their libraries were most often destroyed as well. So the vast monastic libraries of religious texts encompassing many ancient, rare, and hand-copied Catholic Bibles were put to the flames. In 1544 in the Anglican controlled sections of Ireland, the Reformers put an immense number of ancient books, including Vulgate Bibles, onto the bonfires as they ransacked the monasteries and their libraries. In an effort to reduce the Catholic Irish to ignorance, King Henry VIII decreed that in Ireland the possession of a manuscript on any subject whatsoever (including sacred Scripture) should incur the death penalty.

King Henry VIII even burnt the Protestant Bibles of Tyndale, Coverdale, and Matthew, with the Catholic Latin Vulgate helping to feed the fires.

In 1582 The Rheims Catholic New Testament in English was issued. This Catholic version, with its accompanying notes, aroused the fiercest opposition in Protestant England. Queen Elizabeth ordered searches to seek out, confiscate, and destroy every copy. If a priest was found in possession of it, he was imprisoned. The Bible-burning wasn't limited to England. In 1522 Calvin had as many copies as could be found of the Servetus Bible burned, and later Calvin had Michael Servetus himself burned at the stake for being a Unitarian.

Sadly, the destruction was not limited to the burning of Bibles. Sixteenth-century England and Ireland witnessed the most monumental pillage of sacred property and destruction of Christian architecture, art, and craftwork the world has ever seen. In England between the winter of 1537 and spring 1540 over 318 monasteries and convents were destroyed. Parish churches were ransacked. Beautiful paintings and carvings were smashed. Sacred vestments and altar hangings with rich embroidery were confiscated and recycled into curtains and clothes. Vessels of the altar were stolen, melted down, and sold. The Protestants destroyed a religious heritage with the zeal and fury of terrorists, and what was left by the iconoclasts during the reign of Henry VIII was smashed further during the Puritan regime of Oliver Cromwell.

In France the Calvinists, in one year alone (1561), according to one of their own estimates, "murdered 4,000 priests, monks and nuns, expelled or maltreated 12,000 nuns, sacked 20,000 churches, and destroyed 2,000 monasteries" with their priceless libraries, Bibles, and works of art. The rare manuscript collection of the ancient monastery of Cluny was irreparably lost, along with many others.

Living in England, as I do, the legacy of this mindless destruction by anti-Catholic forces is present everywhere. A map of the countryside marks countless bare ruins of medieval monasteries, abbeys, and convents. Visit the medieval parish church in any village and you will notice the empty niches, the whitewashed walls, the side chapels turned into store-rooms, the stained-glass windows once riotous with pictures of the saints and stories from Scripture, now merely plain glass windows. The iconoclasm was followed by a campaign which, for three hundred years, continued to persecute Catholics relentlessly, while it concealed the destructive fury of the Protestant forces and continued to paint the Catholic Church as the incarnation of evil.

The final irony is that the very forces that pulled down and smashed the images of the saints in the medieval churches soon filled those same churches with carved memorial stones and statues of the rich and famous of their day. The figures of the Blessed Virgin Mary and all the saints and angels are now replaced by figures of English military heroes, prime ministers, and forgotten landed aristocrats. The church which exemplifies this most is Westminster Abbey. Any Catholic visitor to London will be amazed at how this once proud Benedictine Abbey has been turned into a museum of English civil heroes. At every turn one finds statues of statesmen, kings, and politicians, while the heroes of the Christian faith are relegated to the margins.

Time does not heal all wounds. Terrible and violent events cannot simply be forgotten. Telling ourselves that certain things never happened is a lie. Saying that they don't matter now after so many years is another form of the same lie. Terrible events need to be faced, acknowledged, repented of, and forgiven. The violent events and terrible persecution of both Catholics and Protestants can only be put right through repentance and mutual forgiveness.

Catholics must own up to their own faults and sins of the past. In the Jubilee Year, Pope John Paul II took an amazing step forward with his historic mea culpa for the sins of Catholics. On Ash Wednesday in the year 2000 he led the Catholic Church in a public act of repentance. However, this admission of guilt and act of repentance has been met here in England and throughout the Protestant world with stony silence. Not one Protestant leader has offered a similar corporate examination of the past. Isn't it time that the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Queen of England took the lead as international Protestant leaders, and offered their own reassessment of the past? If they did so, maybe others would follow and the process of healing could begin.

Apparently, Milleniarianism was never condemned at all; there's no mention of any ecclesiastical disapproval of it at all in the New Advent Encyclopedia article on it (although New Advent is a lousy source; it was written in 1911 and accepts as factual many false suppositions of American Protestantism.)

The RAPTURE, which suggests that virtuous Christians get a get-out-of-suffering-free card is probably condemned, since is nakedly antithetical to Christ's command that Christians all pick up their cross and follow him, and suggests that raptured Christians' righteousness gives them earthly benefits denied to the martyred apostles.

This passage is very relevant:

"The Middle Ages were never tainted with millenarianism; it was foreign both to the theology of that period and to the religious ideas of the people. The fantastic views of the apocalyptic writers (Joachim of Floris, the Franciscan-Spirituals, the Apostolici), referred only to a particular form of spiritual renovation of the Church, but did not include a second advent of Christ... an essential trait is again missing, the return of Christ and the connection of the blissful reign with the resurrection of the just."

This suggests the New Advent article is referring to what I have heard called "PREmillennialism*", the notion that there is a forthcoming rapture and BODILY return of Christ PRIOR to a cateclysmic war. This is NOT what Columbus believed in. His belief was that the resurrection of the just had already occurred in Heaven (Catholic belief is that the Saints are presently enjoying the beatific vision of eternal life with Christ), and that the reign of Christ is not one of the discrete being known as Jesus, but of the body of Christ, which is the church.

(Interestingly, if one defines the "reign" of the Catholic Church as the period between the fall of Rome and the Reformation, then there was a roughly 1,000 year reign. Columbus' error, then, would be the supposition that the subsequent battle against evil, described in the bible as simply lasting "for some time," would be a short battle, and not the five-century-long battle we are currently experiencing.)

(*And I'm sorry if my terminology is off; We Catholics don't study that sort of stuff. :^D)

I do believe that absent the surety of the one, true faith founded by Christ, Protestants must rely on the extra-ordinary graces of Christ.

Can you provide a Biblical basis for that? We are all sinners and all damned if we do not accept Jesus. How does a Protestant need "extra-ordinary graces"? If it is because he does not go through the Roman Catholic church for his salvation, I would like to remind you:

"For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all men—the testimony given in its proper time." 1 Timothy 2:5-6

One mediator. Not two, twenty, or twenty thousand. One.

Can you please restate which questions I have inadequately addressed?

Here they are:

Where do you get that Luther was a serial adulterer?
Where do you get that Luther preached that we should subscribe to whatever evil passions please us?
Can you cite Luther to defend your definition of sola scriptura (because, frankly, you are out and out wrong)?
What is the Biblical basis for papal inspiration? The pope is a man, like any other. He isn't even guaranteed inspiration by his office.
You never answered the list of contradictions between the Apocrypha and the Bible at: http://www.justforcatholics.org/a109.htm
You said: "Jerome strenuously denied that interpretation, considering it outrageous slander." Can you provide a source for this?

All in all, I start to wonder whether you read my entire post before answering. You seem to argue the least important pieces.

As to your scoffing at the person who said that the Prayer of Manasses was not accepted as Canonical by the Catholic church, allow me to quote from the Douay-Rheims Bible:

"The prayer of Manasses, vvith the third & fourth Bookes of Esdras, extant in most Latin and vulgare Bibles, are here placed after al the Canonical bookes, of the old Testament: because they are not receiued into the Canon of Diuine Scriptures by the Catholique Church."

You can find this book online at: http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/1581.

Here is another article taking issue with the Apocrypha's origins: http://www.apuritansmind.com/Apologetics/ApocryphaArticle4.htm
It makes some good points.

"Jerome says “Daniel, as it stand in the Hebrew, text, has neither the history of Susanna, nor the Hymn of the three children, nor the fables of Bel and the Dragon; which we, considering that they are now dispersed over the whole world, subjoined with an obelus prefixed, and as it were, striking them through, lest the ignorant think they had cut a great portion of the volume.”" (http://www.apuritansmind.com/Apologetics/ApocryphaArticle4.htm, point 9).

They adduce the fact that certain deutero books were quoted with veneration, and even in a few cases as Scriptures, by Palestinian or Babylonian doctors; but the private utterances of a few rabbis cannot outweigh the consistent Hebrew tradition of the canon, attested by Josephus--although he himself was inclined to Hellenism--and even by the Alexandrian-Jewish author of IV Esdras. We are therefore forced to admit that the leaders of Alexandrian Judaism showed a notable independence of Jerusalem tradition and authority in permitting the sacred boundaries of the Canon, which certainly had been fixed for the Prophets, to be broken by the insertion of an enlarged Daniel and the Epistle of Baruch. On the assumption that the limits of the Palestinian Hagiographa remained undefined until a relatively late date, there was less bold innovation in the addition of the other books, but the wiping out of the lines of the triple division reveals that the Hellenists were ready to extend the Hebrew Canon, if not establish a new official one of their own.

This comes from the Catholic Encyclopedia (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03267a.htm). The addition of the Apocrypha was done by the Hellenistic Jews and disputed by many (though not all, according to Josephus) Palestinian Jews. It was not uniformly regarded as Canon by the Jews up until the Council of Jamnia and then simply cut (as you seem to imply; which makes no sense anyway: if the books were acknowledged Canon up until that time, then why on earth didn't the Council consider them Canon?). It was a disputed matter up until then which the Council resolved.

For we have not an innumerable multitude of books among us, disagreeing from and contradicting one another, [as the Greeks have,] but only twenty-two books, (8) which contain the records of all the past times; which are justly believed to be divine; and of them five belong to Moses, which contain his laws and the traditions of the origin of mankind till his death. This interval of time was little short of three thousand years; but as to the time from the death of Moses till the reign of Artaxerxes king of Persia, who reigned after Xerxes, the prophets, who were after Moses, wrote down what was done in their times in thirteen books. The remaining four books contain hymns to God, and precepts for the conduct of human life. It is true, our history hath been written since Artaxerxes very particularly, but hath not been esteemed of the like authority with the former by our forefathers...

Josephus (Against Apion, I.8) acknowledges the existences of the books written after Artaxerxes (like the Apocrypha), but denies that they carry the same weight as, say, the Pentateuch. The works of Josephus (in translation, of course) can be found at: http://www.sacred-texts.com/jud/josephus/

The modern Lutheran church's understanding...

The majority of the "modern Lutheran" church doesn't have a clue as to what Luther taught and the liberal wings (which form the majority today and are present in every denomination) are heretical, denying the Jesus as the sole means by which man may find redemption. Luther would be disgusted with the "Lutheran" church of today.

I suppose as I know that you are a Catholic, it is only fair to tell you that I am not a Lutheran. I have theological disputes with every Protestant denomination. Issues that I would be willing to live with, in many cases, but that they are not. A Christian Protestant is, in fact, the most specific label I can lay claim to.

Meant to write more last night, but have been fairly busy!

You made that comment that Lutheran view on sanctification can lead to "Let us sin more so that Grace might increase!" For a poor taught person, perhaps. But the counter argument can be made that the Roman Catholic view on sanctification can lead to "I am saved by my works". Both extremes have been popularly held in many different traditions.

I have never really believed that sinning all you want is "OK" since you are forgiven in Christ. In fact, it was taught to me by my elders that works are a sign of love for Christ. If I say that I love Jesus, but then act like the devil himself six days a week... well at best I have a misunderstanding of what love is. Giving back to God and "doing good deeds" has always been a big part of Lutheran theology. The difference is we believe (as the Bible says and even the RCC agrees in part) that the works themselves do not save us. Faith does.

On the ground level, both systems are the same. That is why the JDF talks happened in the first place. The problem was that both sides focus on different things. Lutherans focus on faith and grace, Roman Catholics tend to focus on faith and works. In the end we agree that to be a Christians means we are called to live a radically different life than the culture and our own nature wants. We are called to serve, and to work for the glory of God. Something that has been lost in my generation of Lutherans is the Theology of the Cross.

Unlike the theology of Glory which is so popular in the US today, the Theology of the Cross means we acknowledge that life is going to be hard. God will place burdens on us to, and we will not be very popular. It means denying yourself of your own desires, and opening your heart to God. In short, it is the antithesis of the whole consumer driven materialism that is in the world today. Giving your life to Christ doesn't mean that you will be popular, successful in a worldly sense, or be raptured out of trouble. It means the opposite. You will be blessed beyond all measure, but not in ways that the world will see as good.

>> Can you provide a Biblical basis for that? <<

"Unless you eat of the flesh of the Son of Man, you shall have no life within you." (Most) Protestants don't believe in transubstantiation; hence they don't consume the flesh of the Son of Man.

>> ""For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all men—the testimony given in its proper time." 1 Timothy 2:5-g <<

"Those whose sins you forgive are forgiven; those whose sins you hold bound, are held bound." This authority was delegated by the apostles to the leaders of each Christian community. Yes, it Jesus who ultimately forgives each person, but a person accepts forgiveness by reconciling himself to the body of Christ, which is the church ("We are all one body, the body of Jesus the Christ" -- St. Paul)

>> What is the Biblical basis for papal inspiration? <<

"You are Rock (Cephas) and apon this Rock (Cephas), I will build my Church, and the gates of Hell shall not withstand it. To you shall be given the keys of kingdom of Heaven*. Whatever you declare bound on Earth shall be (/has been) bound in Heaven, and whatever you declare loosed on Earth shall be (/has been) loosed in Heaven."
(*This is signatory of a regent, an office which by its very nature must be handed down in the event of the regent's death.)

"I am the good shepherd... My Sheep hear me, and know my voice... [much later] Peter, shepherd my sheep."

How does the Pope receive such inspiration? The way the apostles did collectively, at Pentecost, Pentecost and the apostles received the gift of the Holy Spirit to become overseers (bishops) of the Church.

>> You never answered the list of contradictions between the Apocrypha and the Bible at: http://www.justforcatholics.org/a109.htm <<

You demand a bit much if you expect me to respond to each and every absurd assertion at that web site. Frankly, every skeptic and anti-Christian in history has pointed out what appears to be contradiction between various books within the Protestant canon.

But, I will demonstrate the folly of justforapostates by addressing the first objection:

" Let's take some examples, starting with the book of Sirach which teaches that almsgiving makes atonement for sin. “Whoso honoureth his father maketh an atonement for his sins...Water will quench a flaming fire; and alms maketh an atonement for sin” (Sirach 3:3, 30)... Now it is the constant teaching of the Law that atonement is made by a blood sacrifice. For example Leviticus 17:11 states: “For the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul.”"

The book of Sirach is foreshadowing baptism, whereas immersion in WATER frees people from eternal damnation. The blood required is offered once and for all by the Messiah, whose suffering Sirach alludes to several times.

>> Can you cite Luther to defend your definition of sola scriptura (because, frankly, you are out and out wrong)? <<

In this case, you may have misunderstood what I was driving at. Sola Sciptura is used incessantly to implicitly deny the authenticity of any doctrine not explicitly stated in the bible. You, yourself, have several times demanded that my support for a given doctrine come from the bible itself. So when I said, "as used," I meant as in contrast to "as explicitly defined."

>> Where do you get that Luther preached that we should subscribe to whatever evil passions please us? <<

I KNOW I have very thoroughly addressed this issue on this thread. Absurdly thoroughly. Please read posts 146, 149, and 152, with further related information in 159, 162, 168, and 172! And, for now, I'll leave what I've said in those posts to respond to the issue of Luther's adultery, while acknowledging that I've not completely answered that one question for now.

>> You said: "Jerome strenuously denied that interpretation, considering it outrageous slander." Can you provide a source for this? <<

"Against Rufinus", Book 2, chapters 25 to 35 (end).

This quote sums it up nicely:

"But when I repeat what the Jews say against the Story of Susanna and the Hymn of the Three Children, and the fables of Bel and the Dragon, which are not contained in the Hebrew Bible, the man who makes this a charge against me proves himself to be a fool and a slanderer; for I explained not what I thought but what they commonly say against us."
Available here: http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/27102.htm

>> As to your scoffing at the person who said that the Prayer of Manasses was not accepted as Canonical by the Catholic church, allow me to quote from the Douay-Rheims Bible: <<

As for the Prayer of Manasseh, on this issue I have made a grave error, assuming (with some measure of stupidity on my part, that you had refered to the Letter of Jeremiah, which often appeared in the Septuagint as a separate work, and was appended to the end of the book of Baruch. Further adding to my confusion, the Prayer of Manasseh is often believed to have been based on Baruch 1.15-3.8.

The prayer of Manasseh, I now see, is what I was referring to as "Psalm 151." It was an appendage to the Greek Odes, known to the West as the Psalms. It was understood in the ancient church not to be a part of the Psalms, but a beautiful and fitting pius addition to the Hebrew. In the Coptic church, it is inserted to its inspiration, the story of Manasseh in 2 Chronicles.

It is part of Orthodox liturgical texts, but is NOT included in the modern Greek bibles. It IS believed to be post-Christian and pseudoepigraphic.

>>the Catholic Encyclopedia <<

You must understand that the so-called "Catholic Encyclopedia" was written by journalists for the "Our Daily Sunday Visitor" in 1911. The journalists had meager educations into Catholicism, were from the predominantly Protestant mid-Western culture and the encyclopedia was not intended for apologetics. The fact that its outlook reflects the prevailing Protestant outlook should be made obvious by its use of the term "apocrypha"!

It is not authoritative. The imprimatur only signifies that the local bishop recognizes no heresy within it. So, while it is useful for a starting point on Catholic doctrine, it hardly establishes Catholicism's historical outlook.

That said, the encyclopedia is not wrong, as far as what was known in 1911. In fact, there was no known, pre-Christian canon among the Palestinian Jews at the time. But don't draw any false inferences: The Palestinian Jews at the time also didn't agree whether ANY of the books of the Prophets or books of the Scrolls (historical books) belonged in the bible!

The passage also plainly recognizes that Hellenic Jews DID include the deuterocanonicals. However, unknown to the modern world at the time, there DID exist a Palestinian canon, which was accepted by the Essene cult of Peter, Andrew, James, John the Evangelist and John the Baptist, and this canon was discovered in the Dead Sea Scrolls.

>> Josephus <<

Josephus was a Jew who explicitly rejected Christ and wrote AFTER the Council of Jamnia. He is cited by Christians because, in spite of anti-Christian intentions, he was actually a reasonably fair historian. But the fact that he rejected the deuterocanonicals is hardly surprising or relevant to the position of the Early Christian Church.

>>I am not Lutheran.<<

I discerned that a long time ago, which is why I refered to the doctrines which you appear to hold and which were invented (yes, invented) by Luther as "Lutherism" and not "Lutheranism."

There! Except for the issue of Luther's adultery, how's that for answering?

>> You made that comment that Lutheran view on sanctification can lead to "Let us sin more so that Grace might increase!" For a poor taught person, perhaps. But the counter argument can be made that the Roman Catholic view on sanctification can lead to "I am saved by my works". <<

Well, on paper they might seem equally likely. But there are three relevant differences:
1. The experience of shame/scandal tends to lock in a sinful behavior, and denial mechanisms.
2. A person who does good works in the vain hope of earning his salvation does evil merely through human incompetence and short-sightedness. Meanwhile, although Calvin would disupte this, his endeavors may have good effects, and may situate himself where grace may increase. (For instance, if he goes to mass to earn salvation, he still receives the grace of communion and the sacraments, even if his theology is distorted; and he may well hear the Church pound into his head the notion that it is heretical to earn salvation.); A person who does evil so that grace may increase, well, does evil; inflames evil intentions, and places himself in evil environments.
3. Some of the points raised in issue 2 demonstrate the real workings of prevening grace and invidious evil.

>> The difference is we believe (as the Bible says and even the RCC agrees in part) that the works themselves do not save us. Faith does. <<

In part? It seems like you are trying to cling to a misperception to justify maintaining your beliefs, even as you are coming to acknowledge its falseness. The Catholic Church does not believe that works themselves save us. The distinction is that the Catholic church neither believes that faith saves us, but that both are effects of the Love of Christ. "If I have all faith, but have not love, I have nothing at all." -- St. Paul.

>> Roman Catholics tend to focus on faith and works. <<

Not hardly. One hardly ever hears the word "works" used at all in any Catholic service or ministry I've ever attended. It is Luther who created the dichotomy, which is totally alien to Catholicism, except for trying to respond to Luther. In fact, the "greatest saint in modern times," the most widely read author in the world outside of scripture, beloved role model of a response to modernity, and doctor of the church of evangelization, is a nun who died very young and never left her cloister. And the "mother of the Church," (John 20: "Behold thy mother.") singular embodiment of the Church (Rev. 12, for instance), and sinless role model of obedience, the Blessed Virgin Mary, her singular work consisted of nothing more than saying, "let it be done unto me according to Thy will."

>> Something that has been lost in my generation of Lutherans is the Theology of the Cross. <<

I'm afraid it's a systemic weakness of Lutherism. Luther argued against using reason to discern the will of God. Combined with his notion that one should not fear sin, since the worst that could happen is that you increase your (saving) faith through the experience of forgiveness, this doctrine weakens spiritual resolve. Again, it's not a coincidence that terms like "zeitgeist" are German.

Unfortunately, most American Catholic's understanding of their faith is a characature of it presented to them by the formerly Lutherist mainstream. Ask Catholics in 1800 whether they can be saved through works and they'd look at you like you've got three heads, "Where did you ever get that bizarre notion?" Ask a modern-day Catholic, and they'd probably say "yes"! They BELIEVE that the Catholic church teaches that because they constantly are TOLD that the Catholic Church teaches that, failing to recognize that what they are told are secularist and Lutherist lies!

The reliance on feelings to discern God's will is a horribly destructive force in today's society. Surrounded by a Christian culture, as established by the Catholic church in Europe, such feelings are informed by the Christian environment, and adequately align with Christian reason. In a modern, secular world, they are thoroughly antithetical to Christian reason.

Hence, churches which are successful in modern society are those that isolate themselves from modern society, creating "bubbles" of a more Christian zeitgeist. However, extreme expressions of religiosity in such an environment tend to range from either insularity (such as 7th-Day Adventists) born of desperation of maintaining a pure environment, the neo-gnosticism of certain Pentecostalist movements, or the empty hype characteristic of many black and youth-oriented churches.

(The emerging Catholic response is Eucharistic Adoration and Contemplation, or as I like to call it: "Son-bathing." :^D We Catholics move slow [compare the RCC to Air Craft carriers, and non-denominational and new denominations to jet skis.] and even few of its authors understood that Vatican II constituted throwing away crutches so we would walk, but I think this response is very successful. It's nice to see a Vatican II author in the Vatican, to help "reform the 'reform'"!)

Yes, it Jesus who ultimately forgives each person, but a person accepts forgiveness by reconciling himself to the body of Christ, which is the church ("We are all one body, the body of Jesus the Christ" -- St. Paul)

And Protestants do reconcile themselves to the body of Christ--they just do it without the Catholic church. The Roman Catholic church is not really catholic. Furthermore, if you deny that Protestants partake of the body and blood of Christ, then you deny that they are a part of Christ's body at all. "Jesus said to them, "I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day." John 6:53-54

"Those whose sins you forgive are forgiven; those whose sins you hold bound, are held bound." This authority was delegated by the apostles to the leaders of each Christian community.

First of all, you make the assumption that it was delegated. Let us assume that you are right for a moment. Then the sins are unbound by the Christian leaders within the Protestant community. Why is the Catholic church needed? If you are thinking along the lines of confession, you are once again assuming that the sins must be forgiven by a human agent, but this is not so. For we have one high priest and he is in heaven.

" Be a sinner, and let your sins be strong, sin boldly, but let your trust in Christ be stronger, and rejoice in Christ who is the victor over sin, death, and the world. We will commit sins while we are here, for this life is not a place where justice resides. We, however, says Peter (2. Peter 3:13) are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth where justice will reign. "

I wondered if you were referring to this. I have heard your interpretation elsewhere and it is absolute hogwash. All Luther is saying here is that we can be forgiven for any sin (which is true), but he is not saying that we ought to sin.

The Catholic church held that both faith and works were signs of grace, and that they inherently led to each other. Luther rejected this.

Wrong. Did you read my quote from Luther earlier? If not, it was post #142. Luther did believe that good works would follow from salvation.

(Most) Protestants don't believe in transubstantiation; hence they don't consume the flesh of the Son of Man.

So the taking of the Lord's Supper does not count? Ironically, your greatest ally on this would be a Lutheran. Jesus was referring to the Lord's Supper, which is practiced by Protestants.

Your passages are frequently used to argue for papal authority and they do not even prove that.
Where in those verses do you see inspiration?

You demand a bit much if you expect me to respond to each and every absurd assertion at that web site.

Perhaps. But there are still contradictions between what the Apcrypha states and what we are told in the Bible. Sanctification is through faith and not through baptism. Baptism, like circumcision once was, is a sign of the covnenant, neither more nor less. If it were necessary for salvation, then how could the robber on the cross be saved to whom Jesus said "This day you will be with me in paradise"? It also still says that the giving of alms atones sins--a teaching agreeable to some Catholics, but quite contrary to the scriptures which state that forgiveness is in and only in the blood of Jesus.

Furthermore, I think you stretch when you try to connect those passages with baptism, but even if you grant that the passage reads: "Whoso honoureth his father maketh an atonement for his sins.", which preaches an atonement by works, not by faith.

That said, the encyclopedia is not wrong, as far as what was known in 1911. In fact, there was no known, pre-Christian canon among the Palestinian Jews at the time. But don't draw any false inferences: The Palestinian Jews at the time also didn't agree whether ANY of the books of the Prophets or books of the Scrolls (historical books) belonged in the bible!

Admitting that, how can you argue that the Apocrypha was accepted until the Council of Jamnia? And if it was, why did the Council throw them out? Your argument earlier was, essentially, that the books were regarded as canon by the Jews until Jamnia and by all Christians until Luther, which is false.

The passage also plainly recognizes that Hellenic Jews DID include the deuterocanonicals. However, unknown to the modern world at the time, there DID exist a Palestinian canon, which was accepted by the Essene cult of Peter, Andrew, James, John the Evangelist and John the Baptist, and this canon was discovered in the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Yes it does (and I think I said that), but it says that it was disputed by the Palestinian Jews. So the Apocrypha was not so widely accepted as you were contending. Where do you get that Peter, Andrew, James, John, and John the Baptist were Essenes? That is speculation at best, as the Essenes are not even mentioned in the Bible. It isn't usually a good idea to back up an assertion with speculation.

Sola scriptura is used to say that if a teaching contradicts the Bible (as many Catholic ones do), then it is false. A good formulation would be: "The Bible alone is authoritative", meaning you cannot absolutely rely upon other sources. It does NOT state that everything that appears elsewhere is false. A truly absurd, but quite workable, example of where your definition of Sola Scriptura would lead is to the disbelief that the sky is blue as it is not so stated anywhere in the Bible. Most known history would be false as it did not appear in the Bible.

While you may find someone who uses it as you have defined it, that is neither its definition in theory nor for most in practice.

It is not authoritative.

I hold to Sola Scriptura. Why on earth would I think a Catholic encyclopedia authoritative?

Josephus was a Jew who explicitly rejected Christ and wrote AFTER the Council of Jamnia. He is cited by Christians because, in spite of anti-Christian intentions, he was actually a reasonably fair historian. But the fact that he rejected the deuterocanonicals is hardly surprising or relevant to the position of the Early Christian Church.

All of this I know. My point was that acceptance of the Apocrypha was never so widely accepted as you claim.

This quote sums it up nicely:...

Chapter 25 of the same book has this passage in it: "But I was encouraged above all by the authoritative publications of the Evangelists and Apostles, in which we read much taken from the Old Testament which is not found in our manuscripts. For example,...[Bible quotes]...Being ignorant of all this many follow the ravings of the Apocrypha, and prefer to the inspired books the melancholy trash which comes to us from Spain. It is not for me to explain the causes of the error."

That is not exactly a commendation of the Apocrypha. Jerome refers to its content as "ravings" and "melencholy trash", a description I very much doubt he would have used to describe Leviticus, Lamentations, etc.

There! Except for the issue of Luther's adultery, how's that for answering?

Your answers were complete, if not correct.
Though you should bring forward evidence if you will accuse a godly man of so heinous a crime.

>. And Protestants do reconcile themselves to the body of Christ--they just do it without the Catholic church. <<

IOW, Protestants do reconcile themselves to the [Church], they just do it without the [Church]. Christ compared communion to a wedding banquet. "Shopping for a church" is like sleeping around until you find the right partner: it doesn't really help you know your partner more deeply, and it creates dulls the bond between you and your eventual partner.

When people leave a church, it is like a divorce.

The "church of all believers" is not grounded in scripture; scripture says the church is visible, not something to intuited by gnosticism (i.e., "my soul feels right with this church.") From the beginning, the church was those who were adhered to the apostles, and to the successors whom they annointed. Protestant, "Reformed," etc., are all names of disunity and rebellion.

>> Then the sins are unbound by the Christian leaders within the Protestant community. <<

Only if the apostles were to say so. They never unbound Protestants from unity, the sacraments, obedience, etc.

>> If you are thinking along the lines of confession, you are once again assuming that the sins must be forgiven by a human agent, but this is not so. For we have one high priest and he is in heaven. <<

No, that high priest, Christ, gave to his apostles the authority to forgive sins, or to refuse to give for sins, did he not?

>> Furthermore, if you deny that Protestants partake of the body and blood of Christ, then you deny that they are a part of Christ's body at all. <<

Protestants do receive the sacrament of Baptism, so they are part of the church, but impaired, like a limb that has been severed.

Christ can work through anyone, even if they are not part of the body of Christ. Through history, he has worked through both good, (such as Cyrus, whom his prophet Isaiah called a messiah!) or bad (such as the Pharoah.) But the covenant exists only between those who are in his church. If you believed that the bread and wine had become the body and blood, soul and divinity of Christ when transubstantiated through an apostolicly appointed presbyter, you would be welcome to Catholic communion.

>> "Sin boldly" <<
>> he is not saying that we ought to sin. <<

Luther does deny that there is an inherent value to sin. But he is stating that no-one should fear the consequence of sin, for the graver the sin, the greater the experience of forgiveness is. The problem is that, in truth, the more one sins, the more difficult it becomes to respond to the call of Holy Spirit to repentence; the soul becomes hardened and develops a taste for more and more perverse sins.

>> Ironically, your greatest ally on this would be a Lutheran. Jesus was referring to the Lord's Supper, which is practiced by Protestants. <<

In the sacrifice of the mass, the congregation offers up their hearts to the Lord. The sacrifice exists within the communion. (Many Catholics even call the Eucharist "communion.") No communion, no sacrifice; no sacrifice, no transubstantiation; no transubstantiation, and it's just bread and wine; the worshippers might as well use L'eggos and grape juice. Nonetheless, the Catholic Church does see Lutherans and Anglicans as the schisms most likely to be healed, precisely because there is doctrinal affinity.

>> Baptism, like circumcision once was, is a sign of the covnenant <<

Correct! No baptism, and you have no sign of a covenant. Yes, you CAN be redeemed without being baptized. But would you drive off in a car without having obtained the ownership documents, the sign of ownership? Further, would you trust a car salesman who tried to tell you that those papers weren't really necessary?

>> Where in those verses do you see inspiration? <<

Are you saying that they are not inspiration? Or are you being a gnostic, demanding to sense it within yourself to know it is real?

>> Jerome refers to its content as "ravings" and "melencholy trash", a description I very much doubt he would have used to describe Leviticus, Lamentations, etc. <<

Hello, McFly! That's why Catholics bitterly resent them being called "apocrypha"! The Apocrypha are books such as the gospel of Judas, or the Book of Enoch, not the deuterocanonicals. Or do you sincerely believe that Jerome was, himself, insane enough to contradict himself that boldly? Anyone who calls the deuterocanonical scriptures "apocrypha" is using inflammatory and derogitory language, whether the person knows it or not.

>> My point was that acceptance of the Apocrypha was never so widely accepted as you claim. <<

The deuterocanonicals were used in every church in the world for 1,000 years. The claim that Origen and Jerome did not accept them is positively scurrilous; both defended them vigorously. The fact that the people you trusted to teach you about faith have claimed otherwise should discredit them.

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