Biblical hero Joseph 'was really a Muslim'-Palestinians make astonishing claim

WorldNetDaily ^ | February 14, 2008 | Aaron Klein

[SJackson]

Biblical hero Joseph 'was really a Muslim' Palestinians make astonishing claim, deny they'll help restore burned tomb

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Building at Joseph's Tomb site after Palestinian Authority took control in 2000 .

In the wake of an attempt by Palestinians to burn down Joseph's Tomb – Judaism's third holiest site – Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah faction issued a statement denying it will help restore the shrine, referring to both the shrine and the biblical patriarch as "Muslim."

"Pay no attention to the rumors that we will work with Israel to restore the burial site of the holy Muslim Joseph," said the statement, issued from Nablus, the biblical city of Shechem. "We are going to guard this holy Muslim site."

Joseph's Tomb is the believed burial place of the son of Jacob who was sold by his brothers into slavery and later became viceroy of Egypt.

[Mamzelle]

Are you serious? Artists portray what is familiar. A Western artist paints what is beautiful--and comfortably familiar--to himself. Human nature. So do Asian and African artists.

Also Hollywood. Blue eyes do dazzle in film. That's why they call it blu-ray...

[Zack Attack]

Very nicely done and informative post. I can appreciate the balance you strike and agree with you on the consistency of Torah in its’ revelation.

[John Leland 1789]

And what Biblical difference does all that make? None.

[John Leland 1789]

” . . . was not in Rome when Epistles speak of the Church in Rome having been founded by Peter and Paul?”

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Book? Chapter? Verse?

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“The Chief Priest in Rome i.e. the Pope? if you were to read a bit you’d read that the term pope stands for Pontifex Max, the Chief Priest in Rome — and you have Popes in other Apostolic Churches — ever heard of His Holiness, Pope Shenouda of the Coptic Church?”

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All these other un-Biblical nonsense words from a religious system — the terminology not meaning anything Biblical.

Don’t need a “priest in Rome,” or any other city on earth, since we have the High Priest sitting at the Father’s Right Hand, to whom we can go directly. Those who are regenerated by the Holy Spirit (Titus 3:5), and have the Spirit of Christ indwelling have 24/7 access to the throne of grace without any human sinner posing as “necessary” intermediary.

“His Holiness” is Jesus Christ, alone, and any sinner on earth using such a title is spiritually a criminal usurper.

[John Leland 1789]

“The Chief Priest in Rome i.e. the Pope? if you were to read a bit you’d read that the term pope stands for Pontifex Max, the Chief Priest in Rome — and you have Popes in other Apostolic Churches — ever heard of His Holiness, Pope Shenouda of the Coptic Church?”

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WAS PETER EVER AT ROME?

As to the question whether Peter was ever at Rome, the Roman (“Romish” – my word, I claim the prerogative) claim is that he suffered martyrdom there with Paul, after a “Pontificate” (I mean, if they can say words like “pontiff” and “pontificate,” I can certainly say “Romish.”) of twenty-five years. This would be from A.D. 41 to 66. But note: —

1. In 44 Peter was imprisoned in Jerusalem (Acts 12).
2. 2. In 52 Peter was at the Council of Jerusalem (Acts 15).
3. In 53 Paul joined Peter at Antioch (Galatians 2).
4. In 58 Paul wrote to the Romans (Roman saints – it doesn’t say to a Roman ‘church’), but does not mention Peter (strange if he was the “pontiff” there). In Romans 1:11, Paul wants to impart special gifts; and in 1:15 he is ready to preach again there. He sends greetings to twenty-seven persons, but NONE to Peter!
5. In 61 Paul is conveyed a prisoner to Rome, and certain brethren go to meet him, but NOT Peter!
6. At Rome, he writes to the Galatians, and mentions Peter, but NOT as being in Rome, nor as having been “Pontiff” there for twenty-seven some odd years. And in Galatians we read of Paul having earlier REBUKED “pope Peter.” Peter was never a “pope.”
7. The Epistles to the Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, Philemon, were all written by Paul from Rome; but while others are mentioned as sending messages, or as being associated with Paul, Peter is NEVER once mentioned.
8. From Rome also Paul’s last letter is written (2 Timothy), he says, “At my first answer no man stood with me, but all men forsook me” (2 Timothy 4:16). So that if Peter were “Bishop of Rome” he enjoyed an immunity which was not accorded to Paul; and is guilty of having forsaken the Great Apostle.
9. And finally, in this very Epistle, written from Rome immediately before his martyrdom, Paul says, “ONLY LUKE is with me” (2 Timothy 4:11). This is conclusive.

So that Paul had written to Rome; he had been in Rome; and at the end he writes from Rome: and not only never once mentions Peter, but emphatically, at the last moments, declares, “only Luke is with me.”

Peter, therefore, was never “Bishop of Rome.”

[Cronos]

Yes, Peter was in Rome -- you have a number of his contempories, near-contempories and Church fathers who wrote so:



Tertullian, in The Demurrer Against the Heretics (A.D. 200), noted of Rome, “How happy is that church . . . where Peter endured a passion like that of the Lord, where Paul was crowned in a death like John’s [referring to John the Baptist, both he and Paul being beheaded].” Fundamentalists admit Paul died in Rome, so the implication from Tertullian is that Peter also must have been there. It was commonly accepted, from the very first, that both Peter and Paul were martyred at Rome, probably in the Neronian persecution in the 60s.

In the same book, Tertullian wrote that “this is the way in which the apostolic churches transmit their lists: like the church of the Smyrnaeans, which records that Polycarp was placed there by John; like the church of the Romans, where Clement was ordained by Peter.” This Clement, known as Clement of Rome, later would be the fourth pope. (Note that Tertullian didn’t say Peter consecrated Clement as pope, which would have been impossible since a pope doesn’t consecrate his own successor; he merely ordained Clement as priest.) Clement wrote his Letter to the Corinthians perhaps before the year 70, just a few years after Peter and Paul were killed; in it he made reference to Peter ending his life where Paul ended his.

In his Letter to the Romans (A.D. 110), Ignatius of Antioch remarked that he could not command the Roman Christians the way Peter and Paul once did, such a comment making sense only if Peter had been a leader, if not the leader, of the church in Rome.

Irenaeus, in Against Heresies (A.D. 190), said that Matthew wrote his Gospel “while Peter and Paul were evangelizing in Rome and laying the foundation of the Church.” A few lines later he notes that Linus was named as Peter’s successor, that is, the second pope, and that next in line were Anacletus (also known as Cletus), and then Clement of Rome.

Clement of Alexandria wrote at the turn of the third century. A fragment of his work Sketches is preserved in Eusebius of Caesarea’s Ecclesiastical History, the first history of the Church. Clement wrote, “When Peter preached the word publicly at Rome, and declared the gospel by the Spirit, many who were present requested that Mark, who had been for a long time his follower and who remembered his sayings, should write down what had been proclaimed.”

Lactantius, in a treatise called The Death of the Persecutors, written around 318, noted that “When Nero was already reigning (Nero reigned from 54–68), Peter came to Rome, where, in virtue of the performance of certain miracles which he worked by that power of God which had been given to him, he converted many to righteousness and established a firm and steadfast temple to God.”

These citations could be multiplied. (Refer to Jurgens’ books or to the Catholic Answers tract Peter’s Roman Residency.) No ancient writer claimed Peter ended his life anywhere other than in Rome. On the question of Peter’s whereabouts they are in agreement, and their cumulative testimony carries enormous weight.

[John Leland 1789]

Typical Religion of man.

Throw away the perfect Words of God for the imperfect histories of man.

Our final authority is the Bible itself - the Words of God.
Not man’s histories.

Peter was among three who struck hands with Paul and Barnabas (Galatians 2:7-9) that Peter, James and John would go to the circumcision (Jews) and Paul and Barnabas would go to the uncircumcision (Gentiles). They even had separate gospels (that is the news preached to the the two groupings of people had some different elements with regard to their responsibility to God through the period of the Acts.)

Peter was not a minister to the Gentiles, with the exception of one household at Caesarea (Acts 10), prior to the agreement recorded in Galatians ch. 2 (corresponding with Acts 15) while still preaching the imminent return of Christ as King, upon the condition of Israel’s repentance.

Since the Bible trumps the histories of man, we may easily conclude that the documents you cite underwent some serious tampering through the years in favor of your religious system. Romish religious leaders have been known to do that, as well as tamper with the Bible itself in favor of Romish theologies.

Paul’s words (Roams through Philemon) would easily trump those of Tertullian. And Peter never mentions Rome in his epistles.

But, Tertullian is an interesting fellow, and we’ve read enough about him to know that he certainly would not have been in agreement with the apostate sacraments and teachings of the WCC (RCC). And so, I would sooner believe that someone tampered with Tertullian’s writings, or created entirely fraudulent documents and attached his name.

[Cronos]

let's look at your points 1 by 1:

You say Peter was not a minister to the Gentiles, but to the Jews -- do you discount the fact that there were Jews in Rome and indeed throughout the Roman Empire?

Since the Bible trumps the histories of man, we may easily conclude that the documents you cite underwent some serious tampering through the years in favor of your religious system.

Really? And the Bible comes to your little cult/group/sub-sect through The Church, so you mean to say that you think the Bible underwent tampering??

[John Leland 1789]

“You say Peter was not a minister to the Gentiles, but to the Jews — do you discount the fact that there were Jews in Rome and indeed throughout the Roman Empire?”

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Correct, we know that there were Jews in Rome, as well as throughout the Empire. But Peter being a minister to them with a gospel specifically to them would preclude him being the head of a predominantly Gentile church. A great difference is made between the ministry to the circumcision and the ministry to the uncircumcision when the agreement of Galatians chapter 2 was made.

If either Peter or Paul were to be the bishop of Rome, it would have been, therefore, Paul, by the very description of their distinct ministries. But neither one was ever a “bishop of Rome.”

The New Testament that the WCC (RCC) uses, or rather the text-type, came about through Alexandria, Egypt (Origen), and then through Rome when Constantine ordered 50 copies from Alexandria, and Eusebius complied with the order. It was certainly corrupted by Origen and others in Alexandria, and by the Latin scholars of the WCC (RCC) like Jerome, and others. It is (in the Greek NT) the Minority Text (also called the Western Text), representing a minority of the MSS.

Of course, you would claim that YOUR church was the only proper channel for giving the world the Bible. It is just as you would claim that YOUR priests are the only ones authorized to baptize or offer the Lord’s Supper (which you all describe by other unnecessary and unbiblical terms). Just as YOUR church is, in your minds, the only channel of salvation.

We claim nothing of the sort for any of our churches. We don’t believe that salvation is in or through ours or ANY earthly organized church, or though any sacrament of any church, but through Jesus Christ alone. We don’t believe any person must be affiliated with us in any way to be saved or have the blessings of God including eternal life. We don’t believe our pastors/bishops are priests. We are not the ones who believe that a sinner can absolve the sins of another sinner. We don’t believe our baptism is exclusively valid and effectual. In fact, we don’t believe there is any salvation in water to begin with.

You like to throw around the word “cult,” and we understand it, because according to your doctrine, anything outside of the authority of your system qualifies, in your minds, as coldish and heretical. And if this were 500 AD to 1600 AD in Europe, the adherents to your system would have me before an inquisition, and you would be applauding my drowning or burning at a stake.

So, which is the real “cult?”

There were Christians, ones who were never affiliated with anything that became the WCC (RCC), who were copying and using the Scriptures all over Asia Minor and Eastern Europe, and translating them into other European languages as early as 160 AD, and the MSS extant of those that never went through Alexandria or Rome (they principally went through Antioch of Syria and Byzantium and then north and west), are the Majority Text, that is, they represent the majority of the Greek NT MSS, whole and fragmented copies.

I know, I know, you are convinced that there weren’t any Christians or Christian churches in existence apart from the WCC (RCC) until the Reformers (1450 to 1600). You would like us all to believe that there were NO non-Catholic churches before the Reformation. Or if there were any, they were all necessarily heretical, because they wouldn’t bend or bow to papal authority.

Sorry, but the world did NOT get the Bible through YOUR WCC (RCC), which you mean to be THE CHURCH. The WCC (RCC) is not THE CHURCH. It is one of many organized bodies of local churches, just held in one grip under your papa (pope) in the Vatican.

God the Holy Spirit, Himself, has Superintended the preservation of His Words through history to the present, and he has used believers in the process, guiding them and the work they did. But God didn’t have to use the WCC (RCC), and He didn’t. He used individual Christians. Many of them never darkened the door of a WCC (RCC) church, but many of them that God used were tortured and/or murdered with the blessings of the “Bishop of Rome.”

And many a historical document has been altered for use to prop up your system. In the past 24 hours, I’ve done a little reading up on Tertullian myself, for example. If he were alive today, and conducting a ministry, the WCC (RCC) wouldn’t claim him, for sure.

[Cronos]

If either Peter or Paul were to be the bishop of Rome, it would have been, therefore, Paul, by the very description of their distinct ministries. But neither one was ever a “bishop of Rome.”

Paul was not the bishop of Rome. Peter was.

YOUR church

My Church happens to be the Church of Christ through His apostles, continued through 2000 years. Which cult do you belong to? A Cult that uses the doctrine of the Church (namely the Bible which was handed down through The Church) and then says the Bible underwent serious tampering through the years???

which is the real "cult"?

well, namely your little interpretation of the Bible fits the definition pretty well considering that is not orthodox and the groups are dependent on personalities -- your "pastors" -- namely, the groups splitting from each other based on personalities or who eats eggs sunny side up, in short silly, non-Biblical, childish cults.

There were Christians, ones who were never affiliated with anything that became the WCC (RCC), who were copying and using the Scriptures all over Asia Minor and Eastern Europe, and translating them into other European languages as early as 160 AD, and the MSS extant of those that never went through Alexandria or Rome (they principally went through Antioch of Syria and Byzantium and then north and west), are the Majority Text, that is, they represent the majority of the Greek NT MSS, whole and fragmented copies

You know how silly that is? The Bible codex was finalised in orthodox Constantinople, the Bible which you disparage comes to you through catholic-orthodox sources. These other "groups" you refer to were Arians, a little group that said Christ wasn't God. Now if you subscribe to that non-Trinitarian belief, then good, call yourself Arian, not Christian.

Your silly statement I know, I know, you are convinced that there weren’t any Christians or Christian churches in existence apart from the WCC (RCC) until the Reformers (1450 to 1600). You would like us all to believe that there were NO non-Catholic churches before the Reformation. Or if there were any, they were all necessarily heretical, because they wouldn’t bend or bow to papal authority shows that you didn't read any of my posts -- have you ever heard of the Ethiopian Church or the Coptic or the Assyrian? Have you ever heard of Eastern Orthodox CHurches? Have you ever heard of EAstern CAtholic Churches like the Syro-Malabar? They were not part of the Western Church reporting to the Pope, but all are Apostolic and were / are in Communion with us. We are all part of the One, Holy, Apostolic Church. Other groupings like the Jehovah's witnesses, your personal group etc. aren't part of Christ' Apostolic Church for the same reason -- you mal-interpret the Bible, you light on ONE passage and close your eyes to everything else, you misinterpret and lead to errors and with the thought "every man, no matter how ill-informed is a pastor", you lead others down wrong paths. That is the problem, just like it was with Arius, just like it was with Mohammed, you glorify an individual sinful man's interpretation instead of God and God's Church.

You say And many a historical document has been altered for use to prop up your system, sheesh, so everything that doesn't agree with your personal interpretation of scripture was, according to you, altered? Paranoid, aren't you? On the one hand, you say Tertullian was false, then you find out that his teachings weren't completely Kosher and you then agree with him? The brainwashing has been well done by your "pastors", leading you away from Christ's Church.

God the Holy Spirit, Himself, has Superintended the preservation of His Words through history to the present, and he has used believers in the process, guiding them and the work they did. Yup == and they were done through The Church. No johnny come lately could come around 600 years later and realise that Christ actually wasn't crucified but laughed all the way to heaven, no johnny come lately could come around 1800 years later and discover the book of Moroni to have the same level as The Bible, and no Johnny come lately could come around 2000 years later and say, oh, the Bible underwent some serious tampering through the years in favor of The Church.

[Cronos]

Let's recap -- post 58 I said There was no "Roman" Catholic term until the Protesters used that to distinguish themselves from the Western Christian Church in the 1500s. Pre-Protestants, there was only 1 Church. and that is true -- the Church was defined as orthodoxy and it consisted of All Apostolic Churchs. Even the groups that split away like the Assyrian Church were Apostolic in Origin and in thought. Post the Protestants, there were many groups (not the first groups who maintained Apostolic thoughts, but the splinter groups and the sub-sub-sub-splinter groups) that had individual human interpretations and were not Apostolic in origin and hence were NOT The Church.

You then say that no, there were other Churches besides the orthodox and who taught things like Christ being just a prophet etc. -- those groupings like Islam, Arianism etc. existed/exist, yes, but they were NOT the Church.

Then, in post 227, you use slurs

Then, in post 235, you question the meaning of the term Apostolic -- well that means Churchs that are of Christ, founded by one of His Apostles. And yes, the organised Churches are the Churches of the Apostles of Our Lord


Then, you make the silly statement that Peter was never in Rome, and, when confronted with proof from various sources that he WAS in Rome, you say "well, it wasn't mentioned in the Bible, so it didn't happen" -- does the Bible mention that Jude Thaddeus would have gone to Iran? Does it mention that Thomas went to Southern india? Does it mention that the moon revolves around the earth and the earth revolves around the sun? No, but there are proofs that they did. The Bible speaks the truth, but it's not an encyclopedia listing every historical event.

After you see this proof, then you say, "oh no, that was revisionist and distorted".

[arthurus]

Moslems have aways claimed that the Patriarchs of the Torah were Moslems. They just didn’t know it yet, not having heard Mohammed. The Jews perverted the True Islam and the Christians lied about Jesus. Other than those quibbles they accept the Judeao Christian Bible as partly true.

[ThanhPhero]

The explosion of artwork depicting Jesus(and Mary and the rest, for that matter) was accomplished by Europeans in the Renaissance who set our view of their apparent ethnicity. Look at the icons from the east, however. Mary doesn’t look like an English girl in the Eastern artwork.

[Cronos]

AN UNBROKEN HISTORY

Jesus said his Church would be "the light of the world." He then noted that "a city set on a hill cannot be hid" (Matt. 5:14). This means his Church is a visible organization. It must have characteristics that clearly identify it and that distinguish it from other churches. Jesus promised, "I will build my Church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it" (Matt. 16:18). This means that His Church will never be destroyed and will never fall away from Him. His Church will survive until his return.

Among the Christian churches, only the Catholic Church has existed since the time of Jesus. Every other Christian church is an offshoot of the Catholic Church. The Protestant churches were established during the Reformation, which began in 1517. (Most of today’s Protestant churches are actually offshoots of the original Protestant offshoots or completely new religions like the Jehovah's witnesses or Mormons)

Only the Catholic Church existed in the tenth century, in the fifth century, and in the first century, faithfully teaching the doctrines given by Christ to the apostles, omitting nothing. The line of popes can be traced back, in unbroken succession, to Peter himself. This is unequaled by any institution in history.

Even the oldest government is new compared to the papacy, and the churches that send out door-to-door missionaries are young compared to the Catholic Church. Many of these churches began as recently as the nineteenth or twentieth centuries. Some even began during your own lifetime. None of them can claim to be the Church Jesus established.

The Catholic Church has existed for nearly 2,000 years, despite constant opposition from the world. This is testimony to the Church’s divine origin. It must be more than a merely human organization, especially considering that its human members— even some of its leaders—have been unwise, corrupt, or prone to heresy.

Any merely human organization with such members would have collapsed early on. The Catholic Church is today the most vigorous church in the world (and the largest, with a billion members: one sixth of the human race), and that is testimony not to the cleverness of the Church’s leaders, but to the protection of the Holy Spirit.

If we wish to locate the Church founded by Jesus, we need to locate the one that has the four chief marks or qualities of his Church. The Church we seek must be one, holy, catholic, and apostolic.

The Church Is One (Rom. 12:5, 1 Cor. 10:17, 12:13, CCC 813–822)

Jesus established only one Church, not a collection of differing churches (Lutheran, Baptist, Anglican, and so on). The Bible says the Church is the bride of Christ (Eph. 5:23–32). Jesus can have but one spouse, and his spouse is the Catholic Church.

His Church also teaches just one set of doctrines, which must be the same as those taught by the apostles (Jude 3). This is the unity of belief to which Scripture calls us (Phil. 1:27, 2:2).

Although some Catholics dissent from officially-taught doctrines, the Church’s official teachers—the pope and the bishops united with him—have never changed any doctrine. Over the centuries, as doctrines are examined more fully, the Church comes to understand them more deeply (John 16:12–13), but it never understands them to mean the opposite of what they once meant

The Church Is Holy (Eph. 5:25–27, Rev. 19:7–8, CCC 823–829)

By his grace Jesus makes the Church holy, just as he is holy. This doesn’t mean that each member is always holy. Jesus said there would be both good and bad members in the Church (John 6:70), and not all the members would go to heaven (Matt. 7:21–23).

But the Church itself is holy because it is the source of holiness and is the guardian of the special means of grace Jesus established, the sacraments (cf. Eph. 5:26).

The Church Is Catholic (Matt. 28:19–20, Rev. 5:9–10, CCC 830–856)

Jesus’ Church is called catholic ("universal" in Greek) because it is his gift to all people. He told his apostles to go throughout the world and make disciples of "all nations" (Matt. 28:19–20).

The Church Jesus established was known by its most common title, "the Catholic Church," at least as early as the year 107, when Ignatius of Antioch used that title to describe the one Church Jesus founded. The title apparently was old in Ignatius’s time, which means it probably went all the way back to the time of the apostles.

The Church Is Apostolic (Eph. 2:19–20, CCC 857–865)

The Church Jesus founded is apostolic because he appointed the apostles to be the first leaders of the Church, and their successors were to be its future leaders. The apostles were the first bishops, and, since the first century, there has been an unbroken line of Catholic bishops faithfully handing on what the apostles taught the first Christians in Scripture and oral Tradition (2 Tim. 2:2).

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Man’s ingenuity cannot account for this. The Church has remained one, holy, catholic, and apostolic—not through man’s effort, but because God preserves the Church he established (Matt. 16:18, 28:20).

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Many groupings like your own consists of a multitude of churches, each pastor following his own interpretation of his denomination's confession of faith. I can't see God as the author of confusion (1 Cor. 14:33)

[Cronos]

Other than those quibbles they accept the Judeao Christian Bible as partly true

Yes, like the tale they tell about Abraham about to sacrific Ishmael, not Isaac.

[John Leland 1789]

Why were the priests and bishops of the WCC (RCC) so intertested in burning piles of well-translated Bibles and desirous to do away with their translators and publishers and distributors in Europe, say, from 1300 to 1600 AD ? One example would be Brother Wycliffe.

The CHURCH of Jesus Christ is a spiritual Body made up of Jew and Gentile baptized by the Holy Spirit into Christ and made one in Him (1 Corinthians 12:12, 13; Colossians 2:11, 12; etc.) So THE CHURCH (Many of God’s children), who were never a part of the WCC (RCC) were involved in the copying of thousands of copies of the Scriptures, which became the Majority Text; the Textus Receptus. Everything being used by the RCC today is from an Alexandrian type text. Many Orthodox Catholics (Greek Orth.; etc.) still use a Majority Text derivative Greek Bible. But not the RCC.

There are some fine folks at Ex-Orthodox for Christ who can explain the history of textual evidence to you.

exorthodoxforchrist.com

[Cronos]

You still haven't admitted the base point of your entire argument (Peter wasn't in Rome because the Bible doesn't say so) is wrong as proved in post 251. The problem is that you misinterpret the Bible, you say Peter wasn't in Rome because the Bible doesn't explicitly say so. You would by extension say that Japan never existed / exists because the Bible doesn't say so -- it's ridiculous. Then, you say that you think the Bible underwent tampering because it came to you through The Church.

Your own personal misinterpretations would also lead you to deny the Trinity (as unitarians do) as that specific word isn't there in the Bible. your own personal misinterpretation would lead to errors like that of Arius or Mohammed (the latter probably intentional) where you would state that Christ was not God.

The Bible as given through The Church (btw The Church consists of the Latin, Maronite, Eastern Orthodox etc. Churches -- all branches of The One Holy, Catholic and Aspotolic Church) Bible as shared by Roman Catholics and other Churchs in communion with Rome is the same as the Eastern Orthodox Bible.

[Cronos]

The problem is that many groupings like your own erroneously come to the laughable idea that the Catholic Church did not come into being until the fourth century. when Emperor Constantine legitimized Christianity in the Roman Empire. They believe that somehow, Christianity was a pure religion until A.D. 325 when Constantine converted to Christianity. At this point, he "Romanized" it and somehow corrupted the faith of all of the believers. This same theory teaches that the Christian faith was brought back to purity through the Protestant Reformers when Martin Luther posted his 95 Theses on the door of the church in Wittenburg in the sixteenth century and started the Protestant Reformation. A similar theory is taught by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (the Mormons). The Mormons believe that the Church became corrupt directly after the deaths of the Apostles and was "restored" by Joseph Smith in the early 1800s. Once examined, these theories fall apart. First of all, if the Faith were impure from 325 (or some earlier date) until the early 1500s, what happened to all of the Christians who lived between those dates? How could they have come to know God if the Faith had been corrupted? The answer is that the Faith has NEVER been corrupted. Remember, Christ told His disciples in the Gospel of St. Matthew (verses quoted two paragraphs below) that the gates of Hell would never defeat His Church. If God allowed Constantine (or anyone, for that matter) to corrupt the Faith for almost twelve centuries (or any other length of time), then Jesus would have lied when He made that statement. Of course, those of us who are Christians know that Christ never would have lied about anything. Therefore, those theories must be wrong.

you talk about how the "true Christians" hid from the "corrupted Church" for hundreds of years until the Protestant Reformation. This was taught in order to make it seem like a small fraction of the original Church must have survived despite the "corrupted Church." The problem is, history does not support this claim. The only groups that hid from the Church were groups of heretics, many of whom believed things inimical not only to Catholicism, but even also to Protestantism. These "heretics", as we Catholics call them, definitely did not believe all of the same things as the early Church. Many of them did not believe in the Divinity of Christ, or the Holy Trinity, or believed various other pernicious errors. Also, none of these groups ever survived for very long. Eventually their causes died because they could not gain enough support to last for more than a few hundred years, at the very most. In actuality, Christianity was made legal in the Roman Empire in the year 313. Twelve years later, the first Ecumenical Council (a council where the bishops of the world are gathered together) was held in Nicaea. This Council made several beliefs of the Church into dogmas. Dogmas are beliefs which members of the Catholic Church must believe without reservation if they are to remain members of the Church. Several of these dogmas included the Divinity of Christ and the Godhood of the Holy Trinity as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit: three Persons, one God. Did Constantine corrupt the Church? Well, he was at the Council of Nicaea, but only to give support and to announce his decision to make Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire. At the same time, he outlawed the cult of the Emperor and the old Roman religion (Jupiter, Venus, Mars, etc.).

the Catholic Church is called catholic (and not Lutheran, Calvinist, Baptist, etc.). The word catholic comes from the Greek word kaqolikoV (katholikos), which means "universal." To say that the Church is catholic means that it does (or should) exist in all times and places, throughout the world. For this reason, the Catholic Church is not a denomination: denomination means "of a name" (i.e., the Lutherans are of Luther, the Calvinists are of Calvin, etc.). The Catholic Church is also not a sect: sects are divisions within a religion not necessarily named after their founders, and Catholicism is the epitome of unity, not division; that is to say, Catholicism is the original Christianity! All forms of non-Catholic Christian groups are sects, and some are denominations. Even those who call themselves "non-denominational" are in reality a small sect. Thusly, the reason that I interchange "Catholic" and "Christian" when writing of these early times, is that at this time ALL Christians were Catholic! With the exception of a few heretical sects such as the Gnostics, no group used the name Christian except those in the Catholic Church.

In the early years of Christianity, the word "Scripture" referred only to what we call the Old Testament. The Old Testament was origianlly written in Hebrew and Aramaic, but was translated into Greek before the time of Christ. The books that were written after the resurrection of Christ (which we came to call the New Testament) were not considered Scripture as soon as they were written. The Bible as we know it, Old Testament and New, first took shape in the fourth century. St. Jerome, a multilingual scholar, translated the Bible (which he called Divina Bibliotheca, or Divine Library) into Latin. This Latin translation, known as the Vulgate, is considered by many scholars (even modern ones) as being the most accurate translation of the Bible ever made. St. Jerome knew at least four languages fluently: Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic. This fact made him the perfect choice for translation of the Bible into Latin, since it was written in the other three languages. As a side note, many Protestants believe that the Catholic Church would not let the Bible be translated into the vernacular languages, but Latin WAS a vernacular language throughout Europe until around A.D. 1000, and remained so in Italy until the fifteenth century when Dante's The Divine Comedy became popular. St. Jerome spoke and wrote those four languages fluently, NEAR IN TIME TO WHEN THE NEW TESTAMENT WAS WRITTEN! This is important, because words in living languages can change meaning over periods of time. Consider how much English has changed over the last two hundred years! When scholars today translate Greek and Hebrew from two thousand or more years ago, the meaning can be approximated, but not exactly known.

Latin is, for all practical purposes, a dead language, and has been so for almost a thousand years. While many people still read Latin (and a few speak and write it), only literally a couple of words are added to Latin every year, and the existing words do not change meaning. Understand this: the Catholic Church determined the Canon of the Bible! There have been two "versions" (for lack of a better word) of the Old Testament, throughout history: the Alexandrian Canon, used by Greek-speaking Jews, and the Palestinian Canon, used by Hebrew-speaking Jews. The Alexandrian Canon was completed by either 70 or 72 Greek scholars between 250 and 125 B.C. This canon was also known as the Septuagint, which comes from the Greek word for seventy (the number of translators). At this time, Hebrew was a dying language, and most Jews in Palestine spoke Aramaic and Greek. Since Greek was the primary language of the entire Mediterranean region at the time of Christ, the Jews of that era (including the authors of the New Testament and Christ Himself) used the Alexandrian Canon of the Old Testament.

[John Leland 1789]

I gave you a list of reasons from internal evidence in the Scriptures why it is not reasonable to believe that Peter was ever a Bishop in Rome.

Men are capable of writing true histories, as you suggest. But when any external evidences contradict the internal evidences in the Book of God, it’s always best to junk what the historians have said.

And it is foolish to believe that a system as huge and defensive as the WCC (RCC) would not write or manipulate historical accounts to prop up the system. The WCC (RCC) had conquered a huge part of Europe, and the Conqueror gets to write the histories about it.

So I look at the internal evidences in the Scriptures, and if what men have written besides (including many men who are of my general heritage) rub against the the Scriptures themselves, I cut it loose like a ripped sail, and stick with the Bible.

That the Godhead is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit — Three in One — One God, manifesting Himself in Three distinguishable but coequal Persons (hence man has a body, a soul, and a spirit) is provable from dozens of passages in the Bible, and the Triune Godhead would be the truth from INTERNAL evidences, even if the word Trinity had never been used to describe Him.

[John Leland 1789]

“The problem is that many groupings like your own erroneously come to the laughable idea that the Catholic Church did not come into being until the fourth century. when Emperor Constantine legitimized Christianity in the Roman Empire. . . . &c.”

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I’m just enjoying the thought of all the people who are reading this.

Why do you need to use the word, “Universal” (”Catholic”)? Why do you try to equate it with anything in the Scriptures?