[Elsie]

You turn this into a theory which has been shown to be false, for scripture, like anything else, can be misread.

I 'turned' nothing; I mis-read nothing.

The onus is Rome's - it owns it.

There is no theory: just fact.

[RobbyS]

You assert that it is self-evidently clear, that it implies that the Marian doctrines are wrong. But the Reformers were wrong in thinking that the Marian cult was a product of the Middle Ages. It has been there since the beginning, and as part of the doctrine that Jesus is both man and God. Every text demands an interpreter. Indeed the most radical reformers put aside the Bible and claimed to be inspired directly by the Holy Spirit. Sola Scriptura, as Luther understood it, puts the Biblical scholar at the top of the church hierarchy. Radicals move beyond that and like Quakers, depend on something like the Inner Light.