Posted on 08/21/2007 5:01:42 PM PDT by NYer
BIN-GO!!!!!! Yes, the CHURCHES were able to tell.
Those that didn't fell for fraudulent apocryphals, substitutes, secondary documents, and oral claims that led them astray.
Yes again. The Gnostics, etc.
BUT....how do WE know which church was in which camp???
John 21:20 Peter turning about, saw that disciple whom Jesus loved following, who also leaned on his breast at supper and said: Lord, who is he that shall betray thee?
21 Peter seeing him saith to Jesus, Lord, and what shall this man do?
22 Jesus saith to him: If I will that he tarry till I come, what is it to thee? Follow thou me.
Did you ever notice that some of the last words of Jesus to Peter were “mind your own business”? By the way, what were you two guys looking at? It looks like a NASA anomaly.
In years of infacing with Catholics, I have never received any answer to this question that you have posed here ... other than ...
"That John ... why he was just jealous of Peter !!!"
Oh? Peter didn't write his Epistle from Rome?
And anyway, anyone who says that George Bush is the President is departing from Scripture. This reductionism of "it ain't in Scripture so it can't be true" is a bald absurdity.
Never got this ‘mystery’ thing. It must have a meaning that has not been explained sufficiently to me, and I have asked.
Yawn, so you’re going to heaven because your’s is the true church? Frankly, I’ll take the blood of Christ, because nothing else will save me ...
“Its a Mystery” usually explains everything. lol.
Who asked you? lol.
What you guys been up to?
First of all, no Catholic is guaranteed heaven. Read Dante's Divine Comedy...most of those folks populating hell were Catholic, and some of them were bishops and Popes.
Second of all, we also are adamant that it is Christ that saves. We just differ on the how.
Thanks, Becky. I’d like to point out a couple of things, though.
Going back to sociological studies of literacy:
The literacy rate of the area around Jerusalem was about 3%, and limited mostly to the upper class. Christians were mostly recruited from the lower class and therefore the literate Christian was very rare.
Also, with the production rate of labourious copying out any of the writings (some of which were later declared Scripture, and others not) by the very few Christian literate, it is very unlikely that Bibles were available. Remember that the Bible wasn’t put together for nearly 4 centuries. And what would the unlettered do with them once they had them? This is why the icons were developed in the first place.
The literacy rate didn’t improve for many centuries - even 16th Century England had about a 20% literacy rate for men, and 5% for women. If you consider that the upper class and merchant class constituted about 15% of the population, it still doesn’t indicate the requirement of mass quantities of Bibles. Not until Gutenberg got going and mass production of Bibles stirred the interest and therefore literacy in general, were Bibles available to the general public that was able to read them.
Hi Becky. I assume you were not among those flooded out. How are you and the old guy?
Not much, Mack is working some, I'm still riding horses, and playing with grandbabies:).
Who asked you?
No one really, but when did that ever stop me:). I've been thinking of all of the NES people lately...we need a reunion thread:) to catch all of us up on each other. I was thinking of resurrecting the old article that got us all started way back when and see what kind of discussion it would generate today:)
Becky
I think it's a bit more than maybe. He says he's at Babylon, and Rev 17 shows that Babylon was identified by John as Rome. I think the best way to approach this Scripturally is to assume Peter means Rome unless and until contrary evidence is found.
And you're right, he doesn't say anything about primacy in his epistle. We get that from other texts.
Is it meaningless to you that I never claimed "it ain't in Scripture so it can't be true"? Please make a good faith effort to stick to the facts.
It is not meaningless at all...I thought you were implying that if Peter in Rome was not Scriptural, then I had no basis for saying it. My apologies that I misrepresented your position.
Wow, it’s nice to hear from you all again:)
No we were not flooded. Never comes close here at the house.
Mack and I are fine, same ole, same ole:)
How are you?
Becky
I should have been a bit more clear. When I was speaking of people having access to the bible, and there being one or at least some of it in each household, I was thinking more of the Jews.
Of course the early gentile Christians probably didn’t have one. But I still believe there was a lot more written copies of scripture then we give credit for. JMO tho, I have no proof, other then how much people were admonished to study scripture, which would have been the OT. Why would the bible tell them too, if they couldn’t??? Doesn’t make sense. And then think of Paul praising Timothy’s mother and grandmother for teaching him scripture....
Becky
The Orthodox already have a”chairman of the board,” and look how they treat him.
The early Christians would have “read” Scripture the way the Jews did, which was to have it read to them. In those times, in any case, people seldom read silently to themselves. Outside of assembles or in schools, there were few books available even to the literate, but as you say, in Roman times books were more readily available than we might think. Someone like Cicero could make a nice living from his writings.
Each Jewish Temple had Scripture - labouriously handwritten and preserved. The Torah couldn’t even be touched directly without a gloved hand - maybe somebody could confirm it, but that was partly so that they would not be worn out as quickly.
The Christians may have had some copies of the Torah, but to think that the NT writings would have been widely distributed even after they were first written down doesn’t really seem likely.
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