They've all read this book:
Posted on 10/28/2011 6:59:29 AM PDT by markomalley
October 31 is only three days away. For Protestants, it is Reformation Day, the date in 1517 on which Martin Luther nailed his Ninety-Five Theses to that famous door in Wittenberg, Germany. Since I returned to the Catholic Church in April 2007, each year the commemoration has become a time of reflection about my own journey and the puzzles that led me back to the Church of my youth.
One of those puzzles was the relationship between the Church, Tradition, and the canon of Scripture. As a Protestant, I claimed to reject the normative role that Tradition plays in the development of Christian doctrine. But at times I seemed to rely on it. For example, on the content of the biblical canon – whether the Old Testament includes the deuterocanonical books (or “Apocrypha”), as the Catholic Church holds and Protestantism rejects. I would appeal to the exclusion of these books as canonical by the Jewish Council of Jamnia (A.D. 90-100) as well as doubts about those books raised by St. Jerome, translator of the Latin Vulgate, and a few other Church Fathers.
My reasoning, however, was extra-biblical. For it appealed to an authoritative leadership that has the power to recognize and certify books as canonical that were subsequently recognized as such by certain Fathers embedded in a tradition that, as a Protestant, I thought more authoritative than the tradition that certified what has come to be known as the Catholic canon. This latter tradition, rejected by Protestants, includes St. Augustine as well as the Council of Hippo (A.D. 393), the Third Council of Carthage (A.D. 397), the Fourth Council of Carthage (A.D. 419), and the Council of Florence (A.D. 1441).
But if, according to my Protestant self, a Jewish council and a few Church Fathers are the grounds on which I am justified in saying what is the proper scope of the Old Testament canon, then what of New Testament canonicity? So, ironically, given my Protestant understanding of ecclesiology, then the sort of authority and tradition that apparently provided me warrant to exclude the deuterocanonical books from Scripture – binding magisterial authority with historical continuity – is missing from the Church during the development of New Testament canonicity.
The Catholic Church, on the other hand, maintains that this magisterial authority was in fact present in the early Church and thus gave its leadership the power to recognize and fix the New Testament canon. So, ironically, the Protestant case for a deuterocanonical-absent Old Testament canon depends on Catholic intuitions about a tradition of magisterial authority.
This led to two other tensions. First, in defense of the Protestant Old Testament canon, I argued, as noted above, that although some of the Church’s leading theologians and several regional councils accepted what is known today as the Catholic canon, others disagreed and embraced what is known today as the Protestant canon. It soon became clear to me that this did not help my case, since by employing this argumentative strategy, I conceded the central point of Catholicism: the Church is logically prior to the Scriptures. That is, if the Church, until the Council of Florence’s ecumenical declaration in 1441, can live with a certain degree of ambiguity about the content of the Old Testament canon, that means that sola scriptura was never a fundamental principle of authentic Christianity.
After all, if Scripture alone applies to the Bible as a whole, then we cannot know to which particular collection of books this principle applies until the Bible’s content is settled. Thus, to concede an officially unsettled canon for Christianity’s first fifteen centuries seems to make the Catholic argument that sola scriptura was a sixteenth-century invention and, therefore, not an essential Christian doctrine.
Second, because the list of canonical books is itself not found in Scripture – as one can find the Ten Commandments or the names of Christ’s apostles – any such list, whether Protestant or Catholic, would be an item of extra-biblical theological knowledge. Take, for example, a portion of the revised and expanded Evangelical Theological Society statement of faith suggested (and eventually rejected by the membership) by two ETS members following my return to the Catholic Church. It states that, “this written word of God consists of the sixty-six books of the Old and New Testaments and is the supreme authority in all matters of belief and behavior.”
But the belief that the Bible consists only of sixty-six books is not a claim of Scripture, since one cannot find the list in it, but a claim about Scripture as a whole. That is, the whole has a property – i.e., “consisting of sixty-six books,” – that is not found in any of the parts. In other words, if the sixty-six books are the supreme authority on matters of belief, and the number of books is a belief, and one cannot find that belief in any of the books, then the belief that Scripture consists of sixty-six particular books is an extra-biblical belief, an item of theological knowledge that is prima facie non-biblical.
For the Catholic, this is not a problem, since the Bible is the book of the Church, and thus there is an organic unity between the fixing of the canon and the development of doctrine and Christian practice.
Although I am forever indebted to my Evangelical brethren for instilling and nurturing in me a deep love of Scripture, it was that love that eventually led me to the Church that had the authority to distinguish Scripture from other things.
Prove it.
I didn't know that you are a rap star.
Every bit as much as I am, if not more so.
They've all read this book:
She was made sinless at the moment of conception. And no she did not have any children. If you look up the original Hebrew, the word “brother” was an error in translation, the hebrew word meant close family member or possibly cousin. It is believed that Joseph had children from another marriage.
MB: Neither Scripture nor Tradition identify it.
John 19: 16-22 16 So he delivered him over to them to be crucified. So they took Jesus, 17and he went out, bearing his own cross, to the place called The Place of a Skull, which in Aramaic is called Golgotha. 18 There they crucified him, and with him two others, one on either side, and Jesus between them. 19Pilate also wrote an inscription and put it on the cross. It read, "Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews." 20Many of the Jews read this inscription, for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city, and it was written in Aramaic, in Latin, and in Greek. 21So the chief priests of the Jews said to Pilate, "Do not write, 'The King of the Jews,' but rather, 'This man said, I am King of the Jews.'" 22Pilate answered, "What I have written I have written."
Even those in the Catholic Faith believe that Jesus Christ atoned for our sins. However, you are mistaken about the “Catholic” thing. When the Creed was formulated, there WAS one, universal and CATHOLIC faith. Not Roman, not Greek, but simply the CHURCH. Capital C.
Baptism is not an option. It is commanded by the Savior, but Godparents commit the child, and adults commit themselves.
It IS a sacrament. It is a Holy Mystery, and when the child or adult is baptized, the Holy Spirit is conferred.
I cannot condemn many things about Southern Baptist. I received one of the best scriptural educations EVER there.
However, since they reject most things Catholic by nature, they do not recite the Creed. (most dont even know it exists) nor do they have the fullness of the faith. In 1617 when the Baptist Church was founded, they were basically an offshoot of Anababtists.
Not based on our recent conversation.
None of which is supported by Scripture.
On the contrary,....
Romans 3:21-26 21But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— 22the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: 23for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. 26It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.
1 John 1:8-10 8 If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 10If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.
Tell me, WHY did Mary remain a virgin or need to remain a virgin after the birth of Jesus? Prophecy had already been fulfilled. What was the point?
Why ids it unreasonable to think that Jesus had half brothers and half sisters through Mary?
The Greek clearly uses the word *adelphos* meaning brother and *adelphé* meaning sister.
http://concordances.org/greek/80.htm
adelphos
Word Origin: from alpha (as a cop. prefix) and delphus (womb)
Definition: a brother
And sister.....
http://concordances.org/greek/79.htm
adelphé
Word Origin: fem. from adelphos
Definition: sister
From the womb..... Imagine that......
No hell for me either.
More Protestant self declaration of personal salvation. Do you wait to tell Christ this face to face, or have you emailed Him with your decision?
Ok..
Lesson One. The Setup of the Ancient Church
The first Bishop of the Church was James, “Brother” of our Lord. The first Church Council was held in Jerusalem.
The early Church consisted of five Archbishoprics, or Patriarchates. Jerusalem, Antioch, Rome, Alexandria, Constantinople. The Bishops of these Churches had areas of authority, and did NOT have jurisdiction over the other areas.
No one Bishop had universal authority. Because the Imperial City was Rome, The Pope was given the Title: Primus Interpares, or first among equals. He was the tie-breaker so to speak. He sometimes called together Ecumenical Councils, but the Emperor did also. He did not have authority over the other bishops. Doctrine could NOT be formulated except by a Holy Ecumenical Council.
I recommend it to everyone who wishes to understand antiCatholicism and the antiChristian attitude of the Reformation.
Absolutely agree. It sheds much light on the Reformation.
Hello!! Nobody ever said anything but that.
You guys claim that all the time.
You wish.
Your posts are very conclusive.
Go to the Hebrew. not the greek.
She was made sinless to be the vessel that held God. Jesus could not be born in a vessel corrupted by sin.
Metmom: with all due respect. we cannot discuss further if you insist on verification by scripture alone. This was not the way of the Ancient Church. This was a purely Protestant variation. The Catholic Church both East and West held Holy Tradition to be at the same level. Not every oral teaching of the Apostles was included in the Canon.
The Reformation was started by three of them. For 10 points, can you name them?
In other words, we wrote and interpreted and selected Scripture. You, on the other hand reserve the right to not only pick and choose your selection of Scripture, but to interpret it your own way and derive your own doctrines and beliefs while blaming the Holy Spirit for whatever it is that you wind up with, right?
John says there were three languages used. John, Matthew and Luke each quote a slightly different version of what is written which tells me what each of those inscriptions says. It’s either that or the whole of scripture is untrustworthy. No outside knowledge or information needed.
You told me that Matthew wrote the inscription in Hebrew (unlikely), then you left Mark as unknown, then you claimed Luke wrote it in Greek, and finally John in Latin (also unlikely). You got one right, only because we know that the NT was written entirely in Greek. What is your claim for the others based upon? In other words, without any historical or Church Father claim, you simply made this up.
Prove it.
The burdon of proof is upon you; either that or admit that you make stuff up.
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