In reply to #159, you wrote: "IT'S NOT THAT DIFFICULT TO UNDERSTAND THE BIBLE! But I guess it might be a greater challenge for catholics since they were forbidden to read the Bible until 1952, when the church of Rome decided the unwashed hordes could actually follow the text on their own."
We will need to further clarify *whose bible* they are permitted to read. Is it the one inspired by the Holy Father in heaven or the *other* holy father whose seat is in Italy? Here is clarification:
"It is an oft-repeated charge against the Roman Catholic Church that she added to the Bible the seven deuterocanonical books of the apocrypha at the Council of Trent in the 16th century. To Protestants, this has always been held forth as a clear violation of Revelation 22:18, "For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book."
A Roman apologetics ministry, Catholic Answers, founded by Karl Keating, has answered this criticism in the form of a tract which begins by asking the question: "Is it true that at Trent the Church added the seven deuterocanonical books (Judith, Tobit, 1 & 2 Maccabees, Wisdom, Baruch, and Ecclesiasticus) to the Bible?"
The tract responds in the negative, which is not surprising, but the explanation is: "The Council of Trent (1545-1564) infallibly reiterated what the Church had long taught regarding the canons of the Old and New Testaments.
Pope Damasus promulgated the Catholic canons at the Synod of Rome in A.D. 382, and later, at the regional councils of Hippo (393) and Carthage (397, 419), the Church again defined the same list of books as inspired.
The canons of the Old and New Testaments, as defined by Pope Damasus and the Councils of Hippo and Carthage, were later ratified (though the books were not enumerated individually) by the later Ecumenical councils of II Nicaea (787) and Florence (1438-1445)."
To this explanation, Catholic Answers adds the further charge that it was the Protestant Reformers, and not the Roman Church, who committed the gross violation of Revelation 22, and that not of verse 18, but of 19, which commands that we not remove anything from the Scriptures.
From the Catholic Answers tract: "Although the Council of Trent, in response to the Protestant violation of the Bible by deleting the seven Deuterocanonical books plus portions of Daniel and Esther, was the first infallible conciliar listing of each individual book, it certainly did not add those books to the canon."
According to Catholic Answers and its staff, the Council of Trent was indeed the first Ecumenical Council to list infallibly the whole canon of the Bible. This means that the first time Rome ever compiled an infallible listing of the Scriptures which included the Apocrypha was a full 1500 years after the crucifixion.
Their argument for canonicity of the Apocrypha makes little of the fact that the many ante-Tridentine councils which looked favorably on the Deuterocanon were merely regional (not ecumenical) councils and did not in fact represent the mind of the whole Church.
On this issue Keating writes, "the Reformers dropped from the Bible books that had been in common use for centuries."(Keating, Catholicism and Fundamentalism, pg. 46, emphasis added.)
While "common use" is not the equivalent of "infallible conciliar decree of canonicity," Keating acts as if it were; he even goes so far as to say that "the Church"--albeit without an infallible decree--"had long taught" that the deuterocanon was Scripture.
Let us grant to Keating his liberal use of terms and see if it accomplishes for him what he hopes it will. Passing off "common use" as "canonicity," and asserting that the conclusions of the early regional councils were "what the Church had long taught" is an easy way to sidestep the charge of adding to the Scriptures, but as we shall see, it gets Keating in trouble when applied generally as it is here in the particular.
Karl Keating's book, Catholicism and Fundamentalism: The Attack on 'Romanism' by 'Bible Christians' begins immediately with an attempt to dismantle the scholarship of Dr. Loraine Boettner, author of the exposé of Roman doctrine and practice, Roman Catholicism.
Boettner's book is called by Keating, "the Anti-Catholic Sourcebook," and "the Bible of Anti-Catholics." One of Keating's charges against Boettner, remarkably, is that he attributes to the whole Catholic Church what was promulgated by a merely regional council. In Roman Catholicism, Boettner charged that in 1229, the "Bible [was] forbidden to laymen, [and] placed on the Index of Forbidden Books." (see "Catholic Corner," this issue)
And though Boettner erred in the name of the council which took place in that year, he was absolutely correct as to the date and the object of prohibition.
Keating, though critical of Boettner here, instead of disproving Boettner's allegations, actually concedes that in fact the Council of Toulouse (and not Valencia, as Boettner asserted) in 1229 forbade laymen to have access to the Bible, and then begins to defend that prohibition. Says Keating, "But the Albigensians were twisting the Bible to support an immoral moral system. So the bishops at Toulouse restricted the use of the Bible until the heresy was ended. ...Their action was a local one, and when the Albigensian problem disappeared, so did the force of their order, which never affected more than southern France. This is hardly the across-the-board prohibition of the Bible that Boettner ...would like to see but that never existed."(Keating, pp. 45-6, emphasis added).
We note how quickly Keating retreats for cover by pointing out the limited authority held by the Council at Toulouse. Though a Catholic council prohibited the Bible to laymen, Keating asserts, it was a regional council, and not an ecumenical one, so the action of the council cannot be attributed to the whole Church.
Before we discuss Keating's selective application of decrees from regional councils, let us consider the degree to which the Bible actually was prohibited in Europe by Catholic councils which were not ecumenical:
A Manual of Councils of the Holy Catholic Church, by Landon, informs us on the Synod of Toulouse: "Canon 14: Forbids the laity to have in their possession any copy of the books of the Old and New Testament (except the Psalter, and such portions of them as are contained in the Breviary, or the Hours of the Blessed Virgin), most strictly forbids these works in the vulgar tongue." (A Manual of Councils of the Holy Catholic Church, (Rev. Edward Landon. M.A., 1909, Edinburgh, v2, pp. 171-2))
The Catholic Encyclopedia confirms this and adds two more synods: "During the Middle Ages prohibitions of books were far more numerous than in ancient times. ...In this period, also, the first decrees about the reading of the translations of the Bible were called forth by the abuses of the Waldenses and Albigenses. What these decrees (e.g. of the synods of Toulouse in 1229, Tarragona in 1234, Oxford in 1408) aimed at was the restriction of Bible reading in the vernacular. A general prohibition was never in existence."(The Catholic Encyclopedia, (v3, pg. 520))
A History of the Inquistion of the Middle Ages states, "Allusion has already been made to the burning of Romance versions of the Scriptures by Jayme I of Aragon and to the commands of the Council of Narbonne, in 1229, against the possession of any portion of Holy Writ by laymen." (Henry Lea, (v1, pg. 554))
Since Boettner only addressed the decree of one council in Roman Catholicism, Keating only deals with that one, but we can easily guess his position on these other councils. Had Boettner dealt with these other conciliar prohibitions, no doubt Keating's response would be similar to that described above.
Following Keating's logic regarding Toulouse, we extrapolate his position thusly: "But the people of (Spain/England/France) were twisting the Bible to support an error. So the bishops at (Tarragona/Oxford/Narbonne) restricted the use of the Bible until the heresy was ended. ...Their action was a local one, and when the heresy disappeared, so did the force of their order, which never affected more than (Spain/England/France). This is hardly the across-the-board prohibition of the Bible that Boettner ...would like to see but that never existed."
We agree with the Catholic Encyclopedia when it states that "a general prohibition [against the Scriptures] was never in existence." However, we also note that a general proclamation of the canonicity of the Apocrypha was never in existence either, at least until the mid-16th century.
This brings us back to Catholic Answers' surprising defense of the Apocrypha. We note with interest that Catholic Answers marshalls the meager support of regional councils (Rome, Hippo & Carthage) in order to prove the Catholic Church's historical support of the Apocrypha, but when Boettner cites regional councils to demonstrate that Rome officially withheld Scriptures from the people, Keating lambasts him for such naïvté and poor scholarship! We say that Rome cannot have it both ways.
We also say with David that the only cure to spiritual ignorance is the Word itself: "The law of the LORD [is] perfect, converting the soul: the testimony of the LORD [is] sure, making wise the simple. The statutes of the LORD [are] right, rejoicing the heart: the commandment of the LORD [is] pure, enlightening the eyes." (Psalms 19:7-8) What a shame that Keating openly defends the prohibition of Scripture and the restricted "use of the Bible until the heresy was ended," when the Scriptures clearly teach that the food for the simple is the Word of God that by reading it, they may become wise.
We say, as Keating ought to concede as well, "The Councils of (Rome/Hippo/Carthage) supported the canonicity of the Apocrypha, but their action was a local one which never affected more than (Italy/Northern Africa). This is hardly the across-the-board recognition of Apocryphal canonicity that Keating would like to see but that never existed."
Source: Conciliar Conundrum by Timothy F. Kauffman
http://www.cwrc-rz.org/newsletters/3q96kaufti.htm
Another FACT:
In A.D. 367 the Thirty-ninth Paschal Letter of Athanasius contained an exact list of the twenty-seven New Testament books we have today.
This was the list of books accepted by the churches in the eastern part of the Mediterranean world. Thirty years later, in A.D. 397, the Council of Carthage, representing the churches in the western part of the Mediterranean world, agreed with the eastern churches on the same list. These are the earliest final lists of our canon of Scripture.