Posted on 08/30/2009 2:03:16 PM PDT by NYer
That’s all quite fascinating, but, while factual (I don’t know that ANYONE has ever questioned the prerogative of a translator to include prefaces), does NOTHING to support your claim that Luther didn’t remove any books from the Bible.
In fact, the quoted passage specifically states that Luther removed seven books from his translation of Scripture, sticking them in the back and deprecating them as non-Scripture.
“...unless those traditions align with scripture”
A rather important caveat...
Using scripture for authority is extremely well taught in scripture. Jesus on the road to Emmaus, Paul and the Bereans, the writer of 2 Peter...the NT writers quote the OT nearly 300 times as authoritative.
Yet you claim it is made up?
In fact, he did no such thing. Every edition had the entire NT.
He did downplay the Apocrypha, for good reason - as Jerome would have acknowledged.
I believe that First and Second Esdras were removed entirely.
He didn’t “downplay” the Deuterocanonicals, he said they are not Scripture.
That removes them from Scripture.
Why does he want them hidden?
A rather important caveat...
The fact that they might not align with YOUR interpretation of Scripture DOES NOT mean that they don't align with Scripture.
Well, I’m giving the benefit of the doubt.
I don’t tend to spend much time reading altered, redacted Bibles.
No, he downplayed James, Hebrews and the Apocalypse. He declared that the Apocrypha wasn't actually Scripture and (as far as I know) didn't bother to print 1st and 2nd Esdras.
How about the fact that a vast majority of Catholics, both in the world at large and here at FR, are inordinately loud-mouthed evolutionists who are continually shooting off their bazoos about how their church, unlike "Billy Bob's Glory Barn," understands that the souls of scientists and intellectuals are far superior to the souls of simple people so that if someone is going to be alienated from the "universal religion" it is going to be the latter and not the former? And of course it doesn't help when the few inerrantist Catholics left in the world (I'm willing to grant that the other ancient churches were never inerrantist because their religion is purely mythological and symbolic and they have never canonized a Bible in the first place) never demonstrate any disagreement or discomfort with said loud-mouthed brethren?
And btw, you seem to misunderstand my objection to evolution. There are plenty of anti-evolutionists who interpret Genesis allegorically. I object to evolution because it conflicts with the Biblical narrative and because there is no ancient immemorial tradition that agrees with it.
Fine. SHOW me WHY my interpretation is wrong.
But when someone takes a verse in Luke and fixates on the past perfect participle in Greek to suggest scripture teaches Mary was sinless, or uses 1 Corinthians 3 to teach Purgatory (which even the NAB commentators admit wasn’t the purpose), or pulls indulgences out of thin air - then I reserve my personal right to adhere to the plain teaching of scripture.
Because they are not scripture? Because Jesus and the Apostles don’t quote them, save one illustration in Jude, vs nearly 300 quotes for the OT?
So claims Luther. That's why he deleted them.
You are not adhering to the plain teaching of Scripture. You are adhering to your own personal interpretation of an incomplete version of Scripture.
I haven’t worked out my own stance on Creation to my satisfaction
There is no need to understand the workings of creation, which only G-d can do. The problem is with dismissing historical events described by G-d (ie, the creation narrative in Genesis) as didactic mythology or fables because "stuff like that just doesn't happen." Of course stuff like that doesn't happen!!! It doesn't happen because the universe now exists! But before it existed it was created in the manner described in Genesis. Where is the difficulty? Science has nothing to say about creation whatsoever. Cosmogony is not a scientific field at all. It is theological and historical, not "scientific."
Some time back I had a very heated argument with a very fanatical Darwinist Catholic who, ironically, described the situation far more perfectly than I ever had. He distinguished between the creation of the universe (the instantaneous "big bang") and its formation (millions and millions of years of purely natural processes with no Divine "interference" whatsoever). I insist that the universe's formation is part and parcel of its creation--that the formation of the universe until the creation of Adam and Eve was the creation factually described in the first two chapters of Genesis. Ironically, the fact that Genesis begins in the construct state, often taken by higher critics and evolutionists as falling out on their side of the argument, seems to me to actually be teaching exactly what I have just said--that the creation and formation are one and the same. There was a "beginning" to the creation process, and it didn't "end" until Adam and Eve had been created. All this constitutes the "creation of the universe," and Genesis narrates the history of these events just as it narrates the events of Joseph's life in Egypt.
I realize you must regard me as a simpleton, but I honestly do not see the difficulty with accepting Genesis literally.
The philosophical underpinnings are there I think. Besides, Augustine postulated just such a process at work with flies and other creatures which he thought were created potentially and not actually during the hexamaeron.
So now you're going to fall back on an actual erroneous belief, biogenesis, in order to defend evolution? Smart move.
As I understand it, Augustine did not teach that things "evolve" but that everything was created at once in the first instant. This constituted the problem with the six days in his eyes.
mark
There you folks go again.
I do not believe in sola scriptura, but what is the difference between Protestants rejecting the real presence and you folks rejecting everything else?
Why? I'm not even telling you not to use YOPIOS. If you're satisfied with it, that's great.
It may have escaped your notice that Catholics basically never go onto Protestant threads on FR that have nothing to do with Catholicism and condemn Protestant beliefs or force them to justify them.
The scripture is useful, and so the tradition is useful. Together they produce the perfect, thoroughly equipped man of God (a priest? a monk?). This is what that passage says, in context.
You are correct that not all tradition is of apostolic origin. The lives of Mary, of early saints, the beliefs and practices of the early Church are, by definition. Some are medieval in formulation. Transubstantiation would not make sense without the philosophical apparatus of scholasticism; but the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist is something we read about in the scripture itself and in the early texts such as Ignatius of Antioch or Didache. So transubstantiation, while a late doctrine, is not a new doctrin out of nothing, but it is a refinement of the existing apostolic doctrine.
Incidentally, re-read the appearance of Christ on the road to Emmaus episode and tell me it does not suggest transubstantiation. A stranger — a fellow pilgrim — explains the scripture. The disciples ask him to stay with them longer, and instead he offers them bread, and then they see Jesus. This is a figure of the Eucharist.
We saw that there is enough in the scripture to at least contemplate an intermediate state of the soul on her way to heaven. And sure enough, you can find similar beliefs in Origen and in St. Gregory of Nyssa. The doctrine of purgatory is another refinement.
There are traditions that are regional and for that reason do not rise to the level of dogma. For example, in the East leavened bread is used for the Eucharist, and in the West — unleavened bread. Some are quite late, like for example, the use of musical instruments in worship.
The point remains that 2 Timothy 3 does not say that scripture alone is sufficient for the formation of clergy, or anyone else. given the context, it says just the opposite.
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