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To: SMEDLEYBUTLER; RnMomof7; fortheDeclaration
These are just some examples of Scripture that refute Luther along with his own words: "We are obliged to yield many things to the Papists - that they possess the Word of God which we received from them, otherwise we should have known nothing at all about it." Commentary on St. John, Chapter 16.

This is just ignorant.

Scholars widely acknowledge that all the books in the New Testament were in common usage among ancient Christians at the time the canon was established. Moreover, the Orthodox church had preserved the Byzantize stream of manuscripts. I think that you can probably grasp that Luther's remarks about the "Papists" applies to Rome, not to the eastern Orthodox. Luther himself used a Textus Receptus in his translation work as did all the English, Spanish, French and Italian bibles produced in the Reformation era. So Luther's remarks in this instance prove very little. But I suppose such ahistorical notions provide comfort to those who like to pretend that Rome is the mistress of Christianity.

What the aborning Roman church did do was to stamp out heretical and corrupted manuscripts and to guard the canon. For that, Rome may be given some credit. However, in the course of stamping out other heresies, Rome perpetrated a great many massacres and allotted to her popes the right to overrule plainly written scripture and to add the Apocrypha to the canon at the Council of Trent after it had been rejected by the Council of Hippo which established the original canon. Obviously, something had changed over all those centuries. So you aren't left guessing, what changed was that Rome departed completely from scriptural practices. Rome established a religion of Papa (the pope) and the Protestants and their kind established a religion based on the Word.

I don't envy your manmade religion. Nor do I find its claims credible.

Frankly, I doubt that Luther actually believed that God's Word could have been destroyed had the church of Rome failed to become the state religion of the Roman Empire.

God preserves His Word. Regardless of what you or I or Luther think about it. God preserves it to this day against the attempts of heretics and apostate churches to destroy or alter His Word.
22 posted on 12/30/2001 10:40:00 AM PST by George W. Bush
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To: George W. Bush
This is just ignorant.

Scholars widely acknowledge that all the books in the New Testament were in common usage among ancient Christians at the time the canon was established. Moreover, the Orthodox church had preserved the Byzantize stream of manuscripts. I think that you can probably grasp that Luther's remarks about the "Papists" applies to Rome, not to the eastern Orthodox. Luther himself used a Textus Receptus in his translation work as did all the English, Spanish, French and Italian bibles produced in the Reformation era. So Luther's remarks in this instance prove very little. But I suppose such ahistorical notions provide comfort to those who like to pretend that Rome is the mistress of Christianity.

What this is is denial. The word of God is sharper than any two edged sword. if you can tell yourself that the "evil" Luther is the one that changed the word of God you can defend some very unscripitual beliefs.

Today ,other than the non canonical books the bibles that Catholics and Protestants read are the same...so this argument holds no water.

25 posted on 12/30/2001 11:34:03 AM PST by RnMomof7
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