God did not write the Bible, in effect or not.
He inspired the writers of the Bible, both OT and NT, to write down the best that they could, and inspired the Catholic Church to choose the contents and order them.
Martin Luther, inspired Scriptural Vandal, chopped some out and was prepared to eliminate most of it, resurrecting the Marcionist heresies which still prevail to this day amongst many of the Protestants.
Christ had to go through death on the Cross and Resurrection, certainly. Why do you guys think that we minimize it? Remember that we’re the ones with the Crucifixes. We are reminded of it all the time.
God inspired the writers to do THE BEST THAT THEY COULD??? :) Oh my goodness. So God's standard for His all-time written revelation to His beloved children is: "the best that man can do". LOL! No wonder the Church's interpretation of the Bible bears little resemblance to the text. The text was simply man's best effort, riddled with errors. The men of the Church had to ride in on white horses and say what God REALLY meant. I'm almost speechless, Mark. :) Considering many, many comments on this thread I don't think I have ever seen the Bible itself take such a beating ...... BY CHRISTIANS! :)
Martin Luther, inspired Scriptural Vandal, chopped some out and was prepared to eliminate most of it, resurrecting the Marcionist heresies which still prevail to this day amongst many of the Protestants.
Luther was not inspired. No one on my side thinks that. His "chopping" consisted of moving the Apocrypha to an appendix. In response to that, the Church finally said that maybe they should get around to officially recognizing the Apocrypha as scripture, which they had refused to do for about 1100 years. And of course Luther was not the first by any means to disavow the Apocrypha as inspired, St. Jerome for example. There were others.
Christ had to go through death on the Cross and Resurrection, certainly. Why do you guys think that we minimize it? Remember that we’re the ones with the Crucifixes. We are reminded of it all the time.
I think Apostolics minimize Christ on the cross because not a single person ever entered Heaven just because Jesus gave His life for us. It certainly helped and made it possible, but it accomplished nothing in totality regarding completed salvation. For you guys, His death was necessary but not sufficient to enter Heaven.
The problem I have with the Crucifix is that it strongly reinforces the image we have of you all re-sacrificing Jesus over and over again during the Eucharist. Our cross is empty because He is risen.