The Holy Bones of the First Holy Father

What sort of religion keeps dead people’s bones, puts them on display, and expects people to kiss them? Catholicism - and it's awesome.

What sort of religion keeps dead people’s bones, puts them on display, and expects people to kiss them? This weekend’s news reminds the world that the veneration of relics is still very much part of the Catholic faith. As a fitting climax to the Year of Faith, Pope Francis put on display for the first time the bones of St. Peter, the first Pope.

The news headlines focused on the sensational, and many journalists asked the obvious questions, often missing the point and skimming over the facts to report superficially. There are some excellent questions that arise from the reports of St. Peter’s bones being produced: What are relics and why are they important to Catholics? Why do Catholics kiss the bones of dead people? Are Catholics really so gullible as to believe in the authenticity of relics (we know they’re fake, right)? Could those bone fragments really be the remains of Peter the Apostle?

A relic is anything associated with a person who has been canonized as a saint or beatified as blessed. There are three categories of relics: a first class relic is some part of the person’s mortal remains. The relic could be a fragment of bone, hair, skin, or blood. The relic is taken when the body of the saint is exhumed as part of the canonization process.

A second class relic is some object or part of an object which was regularly used or worn by the saint during their earthly life. There are many second class relics. These might include the saint’s belongings, clothing, furniture or a part of these things. Second class relics of Pope John Paul II, for example, include.......

It is not Catholics but Protestants who question the reliability of the Bible as we have had it for 2000 years by their denying the reliability of the Septuagint canon. As you yourself have shown from your quote from Britannica, it was from the Septuagint that the early Christians received the OT. Nor am I doubting the reliability of the Bible by pointing out the historical questions that some early Christians had about some of the books. The Catholic Church has definitively accepted the canon that was listed by the North African councils and Pope Damasus I in the 4th cent. Rather I was illustrating the need for the church, and not individuals, to make this determination.

I certainly don't question the reliability of the Bible because I know that the books that are included in it - and which were recognized AS sacred Scripture from Moses on through to the Christian faith we have today - because I believe they were God-breathed, every word. I do not have that same assurance for these disputed books and neither should Catholics as they contain many errors that disqualify them as being of Divine origin - God doesn't mess up.

Now, we can discuss the Apocryphal/Deuterocanonical books whenever you'd like, but it is indisputable that it wasn't until the Council of Trent in the sixteenth century that the Roman Catholic Church "officially" defined and recognized those books as held in the same esteem as the undisputed ones we ALL accept. Need I remind you that there are many differences even between the "canons" constructed in the fourth century on through to Trent? If you'd like a resource that discusses this, please see http://peacebyjesus.witnesstoday.org/Ancients_on_Scripture.html#2. One of Free Republic's own, Daniel1212, took a lot of time to compile this and did an excellent job. I encourage you to read the whole topic.

Of particular interest to this topic from this is:

● The ancient 1st century Jewish historian Josephus only numbered 22 books of Scripture, which is seen to reflect the Jewish canon at the time of Jesus, and corresponding to the 39 book Protestant canon, which divides books the Jews referred to as single works.

Researchers also state,

[Josephus] also limits his books to those written between the time of Moses and Artaxerxes, thus eliminating some apocryphal books, observing that "(Jewish) history hath been written since Artaxerxes very particularly but hath not been esteemed of the like authority with the former by our forefathers, because there hath not been an exact succession of prophets since that time."

Also in support of the Jewish canon excluding the apocrypha we also have Philo, the Alexandrian Jewish philosopher (20 BC-AD 40) who never quoted from the Apocrypha as inspired, though he prolifically quoted the Old Testament and recognized the threefold division.

While other have different opinions, in the Tosfeta (supplement to the Mishnah) it states, "...the Holy Spirit departed after the death of Haggai, Zecharaiah, and Malachi. Thus Judaism defined the limits of the canon that was and still is accepted within the Jewish community." Once that limit was defined, there was little controversy. Some discussion was held over Ecclesiastes and Song of Songs, but the core and bulk of the OT was never disputed. (Tosfeta Sota 13.2, quoted by German theologian Leonhard Rost [1896-1979], Judaism Outside the Hebrew Canon. Nashville: Abingdon, 1971; http://www.tektonics.org/lp/otcanon.html)

● The available historical evidence indicates that in the Jewish mind a collection of books existed from at least 400 B.C. in three groups, two of them fluid, 22 (24 by another manner of counting) in number, which were considered by the Jews from among the many other existing books as the only ones for which they would die rather than add to or take away from them, books which they considered veritably from God...The Apocrypha are not included. (http://www.biblicalstudies.org.uk/pdf/rev-henry/11_apocrypha_young.pdf)

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