The Church gave the world the Bible. It makes sense.
“No, it does not make sense to me. The sense given by your reference is not the sense of its interpretation, IMHO. Here is how mankind was given The Word:
God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds; ... “ (Heb. 1:1-2)...
There was then no universal visible Church. There were only local, independent, nondenominastional, Christ-serving autonomous churches; visible representations of His Body, to whom portions of His Word were sent and duplicated, and interchanged. God and His Holy men gave these churches the Bible. The peripatetic missionary evangelists helped move them to 17th John unity.”...
~ ~ ~
Well yes, the Apostles first preached, then, they wrote down much of Christ’s teachings but not everything. You have to accept both, the oral too not just the written Word.
You keep saying there was no visible or “universal visible
Church.” Yes there was, Christianity spread like wild fire
around the world and to this day. That’s why St. Ignatius used the word Catholic, it means universal. There was a hierarchy, St. Ignatius is the 3rd Bishop of Antioch. The Church is Sacramental, “break bread” or “breaking of the bread” is the earliest Church reference to the most Holy Eucharist. Eucharist means giving thanks. Paul says it.
“Paul uses a Greek form of the word eucharistia in 1 Cor 11:24 when he describes how the Lord’s Supper was celebrated:
And when he had given thanks (Greek: eucharistésas or “eucharisted”), he broke it, and said, “This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me” (1 Cor 11:24).”
And a few verses later, 1 Cor 11:29 Paul states, if you
do not discern it is the “body” of Our Lord, you bring
judgment on yourself.
Somebody had to decide which of the original writings were divinely inspired, Pope Damasus did, He had the God given authority. The Bible didn’t drop complete from Heaven.
Our Lord wants you and all Christians to believe in the
Holy Eucharist. You can change, you’re so smart.
I like your style of writing imardmd1, a couple of words you’ve used I had to look up their meaning (stupida). Be happy, you have the gift to write.
Start reading the footnotes in the Douay-Rheims, they will
help you. http://www.drbo.org I can’t speak Latin, a wonderful thing that we have the English translation of the first Bible, the Latin Vulgate. My dear mother could speak Latin. She never had difficulty with spelling, this was before spell check.
stpio
You keep saying there was no visible or “universal visible Church.” Yes there was, Christianity spread like wild fire around the world ...
Because Koine was the common language everywhere in the reach of Alexander's empire -- and the first evangelists and churches were Spirit-blessed in s sin-sated world.
and to this day. That’s why St. Ignatius used the word Catholic, it means universal.
Ignatius did not use the word Catholic as you do. He used the word catholic because he was caught up in Plato's system of pantheistic unification and sought to establish a control structure superseding the autonomy of the local churches, supposedly to suppress false doctrine. Many small churches bridled at the unscripturality. They were not heretics, but held to the principle that each localized assembly was a Body of The Christ. Given more power, the seekers of hegemony coveted a wider authority and persecuted the truth-keepers to death, to establish their inflexibility.
This is where the religious worldlings as angels of light started winnowing out the Biblical baptizing immersionists from the statist-paedobaptists to stamp them out. That is what has continued throughout the history of Christendom. Still here, even though the really true believers are holding the door open, not viciously striking back. The God will judge.
There was a hierarchy, St. Ignatius is the 3rd Bishop of Antioch.
Of course. He is one of the authors of the overarching rule of Nikolaitanism -- the establishment of a clerical class ruling (nikaw=subdue) the ordinary "unordained" "lay" people (laioi) by influence and carnal means. Ignatius is no more saint than the least of any other precious one of Christ (all regenerated believers accepted by The Christ are saints=hagioi), and perhaps much less so if the examination of his heart by The Lord proves him to be unregenerate, as his theology suggests.
The Church is Sacramental, ...
The Roman Church including all its spinoffs of Orthodoxen, Copts, and Protestant-reformers are Sacramental-resacrificers. The truly persistent followers of The Christ had all their sacrifices finished at the Cross, where lawful necessity of sin-payment in the body of flesh was offered ephapax=once-for-all-time-and-eternity and finished -- "Tetelestai!" --the product, the Blood in which is The Absolute Life, lain upon the real Mercyseat=hilasterion of the Holiest by our Eternal High Priest, to obtain reconciliation with The Father, for all those whose child-like trust resides in submission to the Anointed but Crucified One, appointed from the foundation of the kosmos to be executed, with prejudice, for them. This is what The Remembrance is about, you people!. The Incorruptible coin of Heaven, the everbright bearer of Absolute Life, Our Redeemers Incomparable Riches, His Blood, will never move, not a smidgin, from the Majestic, Radiant Splendor of the Immediate Presence of The Eternal God and Father of Jesus Christ, the Lord of us.
This happened once and was, to The God, so perfect and completely accomplished throughout His vented fiercely violent and satiated Wrath, that it never need be repeated, ever.
"Then said he, Lo, I come to do Thy Will, O God. He taketh away the first (will=testament referent), that He may establish the second (Will). By the which Will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once_for_all (=ephapax).
And every priest standeth daily ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins: But this Man, after He had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God; From henceforth expecting till His enemies be made His footstool" (Heb. 10:9-14)
The New Covenant and Restored Relationship established! The Old Unrealizable Covenant with sinners) banished! Done! And a new Way to the Feet of The Father made clear! We have a Man in The Heaven!
"Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the Blood of Jesus, By a new and living way, which He hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, His flesh;
And having High Priest over the house of God; Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water.
Let us hold fast the confession(=homologia) of our Faith without wavering; (for He is faithful that promised;) And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works: Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching.
"... the “break bread” or “breaking of the bread” is the earliest Church reference to the most Holy Eucharist. Eucharist means giving thanks. Paul says it.
“Paul uses a Greek form of the word eucharistia in 1 Cor 11:24 when he describes how the Lord’s Supper was celebrated: And when he had given thanks (Greek: eucharistésas or “eucharisted”), he broke it, and said,"<.i>
"...he took bread, and giving-thanks (=eucharisting, aorist active participle) broke (aorist active indicative, 3rd singular), and uttered:"
“This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me” (1 Cor 11:24).”
"...This do for the commemoration of me" (DRB). A simpler, easier, literal equivalency concept:
" ...This do to remind you of me." (Let's not get way too holy here. It is a moment of remembrance of all that he as done for us. And I suspect the tearing of the leavened bread (Galileans celebrated Passover one day before the orthodox Jews, thus bread baken and with leaven) is a preview of the tearing, ripping, cutting, piercing, bruising, abrading by men and burning by The God.
And a few verses later, 1 Cor 11:29 Paul states, if you do not discern it is the “body” of Our Lord, you bring judgment on yourself.
And here is where I think a very great misinterpretation is made by many. In these verses, examining oneself before The God for any last tinge of unconfessed sin (Jn. 1:9) else one is reentering guiltiness of the presence of sin for which The God's wrath was wreaked on the sin already borne in His body on the Tree and paid for . Thus the partaker is unworthily faking a repentant sorrow.
But there is a deeper and more terrifying factor -- of not discerning--not the tokens of His Passion--but the assembled visible local Body of The Christ-King, the congregated assembly of regenerated believer-disciple-priests, tainted by one's unconfessed and abandoned sin, so the unity and acceptability of the whole church is recognized by The Vengeful God and rejected.
Have you not heard of Achan, whose unconfessed sin tainted the whole Church of Israel after Jericho? (Jud. 7:1-26, 22:20)
This is not of the nature of a "victimless crime" -- unconfessed sin brings judgment and wrath upon the whole church! But what is the expiation? for not trusting the sinbearing capability of The Crucified One? The perpetrateor may be condemned. Remember Ananias and Sapphira.
So, the deep spiritual significance to which Paul refers is not the question of "the Real Presence" in the Eucharist -- it is the spiritual defiance of the obstinate sinner in the presence of the Lord's Body, the Assembly, the Called-out Ones!
It might be quite instructive, if one could bring themselves to it, to observe the breaking of The Bread as commonly practiced, every Lord's Day, by a faithful assembly (typically Plymouth/Darby-leaning) of immersionist brethren assembled as in the beginning New Testament Jerusalem church fashion. There will be found a Spirit-led, heart-breaking review of the purpose for The Remembering, a detailed recollection of the submission of the Son of the Man in humble reverence -- a witness of subservience to The Master.
(Respectfully, but not yet humbly enough, I guess --)
Begging your pardon, but the Vulgate is not the first Bible. By Jerome, it is a reasonably fair translation of the Hebrew/Aramaic Tanach and Koine Greek NT into Roman. The DRB is a translation into English, a second-hand warmed-over massage of the Latin, brought into being as a response to the extremely popular and ubiquitous success of an Anglican version from copies of the autographs, by the Crown of England.
This is what it took to get the super-resistant minions of the Bishop of Rome to answer the needs to communicate The Word in English culture's vernacular.
Just a minor but significant correction --
William Tyndall paid his life for translating the first complete printed English New Testament, as well as much of the Old Testament -- a precursor of the KJV/AV (about 85% of its NT, and about 75$ of the OT). The KJV, always before my eyes, is a translation of the first water. But it is far closer to the DRB than, say, the NIV or TEV.
Tyndall's NT and those of the Geneva, the Bishop's, and the AV Bibles, were largely based on the Greek compilation of MSS by Desiderius Erasmus, a great Catholic scholar rejected by his Church, for which content the term "Textus Receptus" (Received Text) was coined. His Romanist body found a home in Basel's Protestant cemetery. He was a remarkable warrior for both religious tolerance and doctrinal accuracy
I would also point out to you to a companion to the KJV, A Precise Translation -- The Gospels freely available from The Happy Heralds, Inc. It is a very good application of Greek grammar in center-column-noted syntax features, and has both a Translation Glossary of grammatical terms, as well as a Chronological Harmony of the Gospels.
The perigrinations of Jesus in his ministry is very detailed, and leads any time span from Gospel to Gospel, with almost minute-by-minute progress in His last hours before final Ascension.
Did you know that Peter's denials were in two separate time intervals, in groups of three each, for six denials? That is the detail to which the author's precision conforms. The Chronology is embedded throughout the pages, with every page dated in the heading.
"A Precise Translation" is slated to come out as a full New Testament in the near future. The translation is completed, but the issue format for printing is still in process.
So long for now --