Posted on 04/03/2013 3:43:07 PM PDT by NYer
Q: Okay, so what is the Christian account of how revelation occurred?
As Elmer Fudd might say, “Vewy, vewy swowly.” Divine revelation didn’t happen in a blinding flash—such as God dropping the Summa Theologiae on top of a mountain and waiting for people to invent the Latin language so they could read it. (Though He could have given them magical spectacles that would translate it for them….) It seems that God preferred to slowly unfold His personality and His will for us through the course of tangled, messy human history. We might wonder why, and call up the divine customer service line to ask why in heck human nature arrived in the mail without the instructions. I don’t pretend to know what He was thinking here, but I find it aesthetically fitting that our knowledge of God evolved in much the way that animal species did, over a long time and by fits and starts, with sudden leaps whenever God saw fit, until finally the world was ready to receive the final product: in creation, man, in revelation, the Son of Man. God seems to prefer planting seeds to winding up robots.
So we start with traces of a primitive monotheism among some scattered peoples of the world—which might have been long-faded memories of what Adam told his children about the whole “apple incident,” combined with crude deductions that boil down to “Nothing comes from nothing.” But mankind pretty much wandered around with no more than that for quite some time, and this was when he employed the inductive method to discover the hemorrhoid god.
The first incident in Jewish-Christian scriptures that suggests God revealed Himself to us after that is the rather discouraging narrative of Noah. According to the story, the human race went so wrong so fast that God decided to backspace over most of it, leaving only a single righteous family, trapped on a stinky boat with way too many pets. When they landed, they had no more idea of what to do with themselves than the cast of Gilligan’s Island, so God gave them instructions: We call this the Covenant of Noah. The Jews believe that these are the only commandments God gave to the Gentiles—7 of them, instead of 613—and that the rest of us can please God just by keeping them. That’s the reason that Jews don’t generally try to make converts. (Who are we to run around making things harder for people? Feh!) The Jewish Talmud enumerates the 7 laws of Noah as follows:
Most of this sounds fairly obvious and commonsensical—though we might wonder why it was necessary to tell people to stop pulling off pieces of live animals and eating them. They must have gotten into some pretty bad habits while they were still stuck on that ark.
Q: That ark must have been the size of Alabama…
I know, I know.
Q. …to fit all those elephants, hippos, rhinos, tree sloths, polar bears, gorillas, lions and moose…
Okay, smart guy.
Q. …not to mention breeding pairs of more than 1,000,000 species of insects. Sure they’re mostly small, but those creepy-crawlies add up.
Spoken like a true-believing member of Campus Crusade for Cthulu, complete with a bad case of acne and involuntary celibacy. Maybe you should focus on Onan instead of Noah.
Look, there’s a reason why Catholics don’t read the bible in an exclusively literal sense, and haven’t since the time of Origen (+253). The Church looks at the books of scripture according to the genres in which they were written (history, allegory, wisdom, prophecy, and so on). And this story, clearly, was intended as allegory—which means that on top of some historical content (and there’s flotsam from flood-narratives in the basement of most ancient cultures) the writer piled up details to make a point. Unlike liberal Protestants, we don’t use this principle to explain away Jesus’ miracles and the moral law. Nor are we fundamentalists who take everything in the bible literally—except for “This is my body,” (Luke 22: 19) “Thou art Peter,” (Matthew 16: 18) and “No, your pastor can’t get divorced.” (Cleopatra 7: 14) The Church responded to biblical criticism with appropriate skepticism at first, and accepted the useful parts (like reading original languages and looking for ancient manuscripts), without throwing out the traditional mode of reading the bible in light of how the Church Fathers traditionally understood it.
Q. Why should the Church be the interpreter of the bible?
In the case of the New Testament, the Church had transcribed the books; shouldn’t we own the copyright to our own memoirs? When the list of accepted gospels and epistles was drawn up, there were more surplus candidates milling around than in downtown Manchester, New Hampshire, before a primary—some of them inspirational but probably inauthentic, like the Protoevangelium that tells the story of Mary’s childhood; others creepily gnostic, like the “Gospel of Thomas,” which has Jesus using His “superpowers” to wreak revenge on His schoolmates. (That gospel is always popular, since it shows Jesus doing exactly what each of us would really do in His place.) The decision on which books were divinely inspired was based largely on the evidence of the liturgy: which books had been used in churches for services in the most places for the longest. As I like to tell Jehovah’s Witnesses who come to my door: that bible you’re waving at me was codified by a council of Catholic bishops who prayed to Mary and the saints, baptized infants, and venerated the Eucharist. So you could say that as the original, earthly author and editor, the Church has a better claim of knowing how to read it than the reporters at National Geographic—who every Christmas or Easter discover some new and tantalizing scrap of papyrus containing gnostic sex magic tips or Judas’ “To-do” list.
In the case of the Old Testament, the Church draws heavily on how Jews traditionally read their own scriptures—but with one important and obvious difference. We are the descendants of the faction of Jews who accepted Christ as the Messiah and evangelized the gentiles, all the while considering themselves the “faithful remnant” who’d remained true to the faith of Abraham. So we see throughout the Old Testament foreshadowings of Christ, for instance in Abraham’s sacrifice, and Isaiah’s references to the “suffering servant.” The Jews who were skeptical of Jesus believed that they were heroically resisting a blasphemous false prophet who’d tempted them to idolatry. As the Church spread and gained political clout, and Christians began to shamefully mistreat the people from whom they’d gotten monotheism in the first place, there surely was genuine heroism entailed in standing firm. I often wonder how many Jews would be drawn to Jesus if they could separate Him from the sins committed against their great-grandparents in His name….
The version of the Old Testament that Catholics and Orthodox use is different from what Jews use today. Our version, based on the Septuagint translation into Greek, is somewhat longer, and includes some later documents that Jews accepted right up to the time Saint Paul converted—books that illustrate a lot of the mature developments in Judaism which led up to the coming of Christ. The very fact that Christian apostles were using these books may have led the rabbis to eventually reject them. (Since the biblical references to Purgatory can be found in these books, Martin Luther and the Anglicans also excluded them.) Ironically, the Book of Maccabees exists in Catholic bibles but not Jewish ones, and right up until Vatican II we had a Feast of the Maccabees—which means that you could call Chanukah a Catholic holiday. But don’t tell the judges in New York City, or they’ll pull all the menorahs out of the schools.
This is taken out of context, and like the often stated fallacy that Luther was a maverick in rejecting books from a suppsedly indisputable canon, is superficial at best: . http://beggarsallreformation.blogspot.com/2011/10/did-jerome-change-his-mind-on-apocrypha.html
Jerome also wondered why one would sanction the version of a heretic and judaizer, and it is clear that other weighty Catholic authorities followed Jerome in excluding or doubting apocryphal books, as well substantiated here and see post 137 .
The Catholic Encyclopedia states,
In the Latin Church, all through the Middle Ages [5th century to the 15th century] we find evidence of hesitation about the character of the deuterocanonicals. There is a current friendly to them, another one distinctly unfavourable to their authority and sacredness, while wavering between the two are a number of writers whose veneration for these books is tempered by some perplexity as to their exact standing, and among those we note St. Thomas Aquinas. Few are found to unequivocally acknowledge their canonicity. The prevailing attitude of Western medieval authors is substantially that of the Greek Fathers. The chief cause of this phenomenon in the West is to be sought in the influence, direct and indirect, of St. Jerome's depreciating Prologus.
"..the inferior rank to which the deuteros were relegated by authorities like Origen, Athanasius, and Jerome, was due to too rigid a conception of canonicity, one demanding that a book, to be entitled to this supreme dignity, must be received by all, must have the sanction of Jewish antiquity, and must moreover be adapted not only to edification, but also to the "confirmation of the doctrine of the Church", to borrow Jerome's phrase." (Catholic Encyclopedia, Canon of the Old Testament; http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03267a.htm) (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03267a.htm)
And and as regards the Decretum Gelasianum, while even if it accurately evidences early papal sanction of the books at issue, it was neither an ecumenical authority (and the statements at issue are not found in Denzinger) nor does that negate the reality that an disagreement an doubt continued into Trent, while its authority is disputed, based upon evidence that it was pseudepigraphical, being a sixth century compilation put together in northern Italy or southern France at the beginning of the 6th cent. More In addition, the Council of Rome found many opponents in Africa
The Decree of Gelasius (Decretum Gelasianum), which contains a list of canonical books, was so called because it was formerly ascribed to Pope Gelasius (in office from 492 to 496). Various recensions of the same decree were also ascribed to the earlier Pope Demasus (366-384) and the later Hormisdas (514-523), or to councils over which they presided. But for the past century most scholars have agreed with Ernst von Dobschütz's conclusion that all the various forms of the decree derive from the independent work of an anonymous Italian churchman in the sixth century. 1 - http://www.bible-researcher.com/gelasius.html; Ernst von Dobschütz, Das Decretum Gelasianum de libris recipiendis et non recipiendis in kritischem Text herausgegeben und untersucht von Ernst von Dobschütz (Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs, 1912)
"The Decretum Gelasianum was falsely thought to be a papal documents and accepted by such by Theodulf. ( Studia Patristica. Vol. XLIII - Augustine, Other Latin Writers, M. Edwards P Parvis, Hubert Young)
So your argument is that the writers of Holy Writ possessed assuredly infallibility whenever they spoke universally on faith and morals, as per Rome's criteria, and that the supreme magisterium of Rome is speaking as per Divine inspiration on the level of the inspired writers?
Jesus answered, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.”
1 John 3:21-24
Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God and receive from him anything we ask, because we keep his commands and do what pleases him. And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us. The one who keeps God’s commands lives in him, and he in them. And this is how we know that he lives in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us.
Documentation please of the "numerous times in his later writings that he did consider them to be Scripture," and that the directive of his Pope to include them excluded Jerome's notes which excluded them or even some as Scripture (he also included the Epistle to the Laodiceans ), and that the Council of Rome excluded further debate, contrary to what CE and Catholic scholars state.
Why you continue to post polemics that have been refuted ? however, there were various and variant copies of the Vulgate, while containing is not necessarily the same as being canonical.
“At the end of the fourth century Pope Damasus commissioned Jerome, the most learned biblical scholar of his day, to prepare a standard Latin version of the Scriptures (the Latin Vulgate). In the Old Testament Jerome followed the Hebrew canon and by means of prefaces called the reader's attention to the separate category of the apocryphal books. Subsequent copyists of the Latin Bible, however, were not always careful to transmit Jerome's prefaces, and during the medieval period the Western Church generally regarded these books as part of the holy Scriptures.” — Introductory material to the appendix of the Vulgata Clementina , text in Latin
The 8th cent. Vulgate Codex Amiatinus contains the "Prologus Galeatus" of Jerome to the Books of the Kings and other prefaces (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04081a.htm; http://www.bible-researcher.com/jerome.html), which reminds us of the distinction between Scripture and the apocryphal books
Vulgate manuscripts included prologues that clearly identified certain books of the Vulgate Old Testament as apocryphal or non-canonical (Prologues of Saint Jerome , Latin text )
"...other Vulgate manuscripts included prologues that clearly identified certain books of the Vulgate Old Testament as apocryphal or non-canonical" - http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/bible/prologi.shtml
The Vulgate is understood to be a compound text that is not entirely the work of Jerome, (Grammar of the Vulgate, W.E. Plater and H.J. White, Oxford at the Clarendon Press, 1926)
One curious feature of many manuscripts of the Latin Vulgate is the inclusion of the apocryphal Epistola ad Laodicenses. - http://www.bible-researcher.com/laodiceans.html
In several ancient Latin manuscripts the spurious Epistle to the Laodiceans is found among the canonical letters, and, in a few instances, the apocryphal III Corinthians. - http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03274a.htm
Moreover, while Trent did establish the Vulgate as the official Bible for that time, it did not specify which edition, nor elevate it above the original language manuscripts (though some disagree). The lack of uniformity among Vulgate editions and problems with that translation resulted in the embarrassing Sistine Vulgate . (Nor is the Douay-Challoner version a pure translation of the Vulgate.)
Correction of its many errors resulted in the first edition of the Clementine Vulgate (official version till 1979) which was presented as a Sixtine edition (with a preface in which Bellarmine charitably attributed the problem of the previous version to being that of copyist errors, rather than being the fault of Sixtus). In 1592, Pope Clement VIII published this revised edition of the Vulgate, referred to as the Sixto-Clementine Vulgate. He moved three books, 3 and 4 Esdras and the Prayer of Manasses (commonly found in medieval MSS of the Vulgate, immediately after 2Chronicles, and not found in the canon of the Council of Trent) from the Old Testament into an appendix "lest they utterly perish" (ne prorsus interirent). — (http://sacredbible.org/vulgate1861/scans/817-Apocrypha.jpg)
Also of interest,
In the spring of 1907 the public press announced that Pius X had determined to begin preparations for a critical revision of the Latin Bible... In spite of the care which during forty years had been bestowed upon the text of the present authentic edition issued by Clement VIII, in 1592, it had been recognized from the first that the text would have to be revised some day, and that in some ways this Clementine revision was inferior to the Sixtine version of 1590, which it had hastily superseded. — Catholic Encyclopedia>Revision of Vulgate; http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15515b.htm
There is also no known 1st century LXX manuscripts with the apocrypha, and what we do have varies much and evidences to be of Christian compilation.
Which is hardly tenable. Cardinal Cajetan himself was actually an adversary of Luther, and who was sent by the Pope in 1545 to Trent as a papal theologian, had reservations about the apocrypha as well as certain N.T. books based upon questionable apostolic authorship.
The Catholic Encyclopedia states, "It has been significantly said of Cajetan that his positive teaching was regarded as a guide for others and his silence as an implicit censure. His rectitude, candour, and moderation were praised even by his enemies. Always obedient, and submitting his works to ecclesiastical authority, he presented a striking contrast to the leaders of heresy and revolt, whom he strove to save from their folly." And that "It was the common opinion of his contemporaries that had he lived, he would have succeeded Clement VII on the papal throne.” — Catholic Encyclopedia>Tommaso de Vio Gaetani Cajetan
Again, you continue to confirm rather than refute my position.
You say the Jews hold your position. However are there any LXX manuscripts that confirm the booklist that you use? No. Not a single one.
The oldest manuscript copies of the LXX, again are Codex Vaticanus (which has them), and Sinaiticus (which also has them). They also have varient NT canons, prior to standardization.
We don’t have a complete LXX manuscript older than Vaticanus. All the extant evidence confirms that these books are canonical.
“at the level of”, no.
The Gospel authors are PART of the MAGISTERIUM already, and so they possess the traits of the Magisterium.
There are no first century LXX Manuscripts, period.
Arguing “there are none that are x”, implies that there exists some that do have x, when this is just not so.
The extant evidence we do possess, Sinaiticus and Vaticanus, confirms that the apocrypha was considered to be canonical.
Some of the better informed among them keep bringing attitudes there is no excuse for. The distortions of the record infuriate me.
When the apologetics of Rome get it so wrong on this same which they claim to own, which is scripture itself, and more particularly those portions that have transpired within their own walls as it were (their own reactions and dealings towards scripture) which they incontestably DO own...it doesn't lend much confidence towards much of the rest of the oft repeated self/church reverential claims (which themselves don't much stand under closer critical examinations, as often than not).
What a mess. The bed has lumps, but such is denied while they run around sitting here and there trying to squash the lumps down... and the rug has more lumps (many things being constantly swept under it).
They keep confirming my worst suspicions...
“:So your argument is that the writers of Holy Writ possessed assuredly infallibility whenever they spoke universally on faith and morals, as per Rome’s criteria, and that the supreme magisterium of Rome is speaking as per Divine inspiration on the level of the inspired writers? “
No. I believe that God’s chosen men were used as vessels to speak with the inspiration of the Holy Spirit to write God’s actual Word as it appears to us in the Bible.
I believe the Rome’s Magisterium is but fallible men and that they have occasionally veered way out of line when it comes to what the Bible teaches.
Thus I am not a Roman Catholic; because I hold to the Bible as the ultimate guide as to our faith and practice, not to the Magisterium’s teaching as the ultimate guide to our faith and practice. This is, in my opinion, the giant divide between Catholics and Protestants - all other doctrinal divisions flow from it.
” You, rather, base your answer on reason, history, and guidance of the Holy Spirit in “us”. “
I’d like to say I base my answer on Scripture. I admit that reason, roughly defined, is part of every thought and communication. I use reason, in a sense of the word, to write this sentence. The Bible is reasonable. It uses language, syntax, grammar - arguments are built and defended, etc. So if that is reason, so be it.
And yes, Scripture is historical. It is the history of the creation of this world, and its redemption. It occurred in time.
And finally, how can I deny the work of the Holy Spirit? Again the Bible tells us that He indeed convicts us of the truth of Scripture.
” These things we also speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. “ (1st Cor 2 13-14)
It is obviously very much the work of the Holy Spirit as to whether you recognize the word of God or not.
So you might say I use reason and history and guidance of the Holy Spirit, and there would be truth in that, but I see these things as subservient to God’s revealed word in the Scripture.
For example, if I “reasoned” that it was ok to commit adultery, I’d have to reject that reasoning, as it is not in line with the Bible. Or if “history” taught me that might makes right, I’d have to reject that, as it is not in line with the Bible. As for the work of the Holy Spirit, that is personal to Him, so I won’t speculate or give examples about that. God being triune, the Father, the Word, the Holy Spirit, inextricably linked, I would not even try to parse out a separation.
“Further you answer is spoken from a group: you couch it in plural form and you yourself hardly could have compared every thought in 1 Timothy with every thought in other scripture (2); you personally could not have seen St. Paul convert and preach and your reliance of the Book of Acts is indeed circular (3); you use plural form in (4) and justly so as the Holy Spirit, reasonably, indwells not in you alone; you refer to history which you could not yourself witness in (5); and in (6) you could not personally be informed of every such objection and decide in favor of Timothy 1.”
No, I have not personally compared every verse. After 40 years of sermons, Bible studies, and personal Bible reading, I have compared a whole lot of them! Also chain reference Bibles are abundantly available, easily read, we can see that astounding synchronicity of Scripture. This of course is scholarship of others, but it is a common misunderstanding of RC’s that Protestants are total lone rangers, subject to no authority or influence of other believers. Not usually so. I respect the authority and government of my church, submit to it in the Lord, and rely quite often on the scholarship of those who have gone before me! I just don’t elevate all that to the point of infallible, that’s all.
Oh no, I have not personally witnessed a historical thing in the world, from creation to the ordination of St. Paul - it is of faith. That is what faith is, is it not?
“Jesus said to him, “Thomas, because you have seen Me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” John 20:29
I don’t know about using plural form, perhaps I should say I I I, I am trying to communicate here, and I assumed you knew along with me about Paul’s apostleship.
As for not knowing of every objection to 2 Timothy, of course not, however, it is of no consequence, my point is that no sustained creditable objection is known. God preserves His word, supernaturally:
“The grass withers, the flower fades, But the word of our God stands forever.” Isaiah 40:8
We can trust Him on that; He is trustworthy; the Bible has a purpose, and it is preserved, despite the best efforts of our greatest enemy.
It’s a pleasure for me to defend it. I love the Lord. I love His Word. I am eternally grateful for it. We can rest upon the truth of Scripture.
Since Pope John XIII's opening speech to the Council of Vatican Two, our popes and Prelates have refused to discharge their duties to Teach, Rule, and Sanctify for reasons having to do with collegiality and ecumenism.
Dear XZINS. I acknowledge you have free will to apprehend or reject any specific point of Biblical contention and I suspect you will understand that I can in no way concede any point made by a protestant about the Bible because the plain and simple fact is that if a protestant understood the New Testament, he would be constrained to convert to the Catholic Church Jesus established and because he does not convert but remains a protestant, by his actions that protestant is confessing he does not either understand or believe in the New Testament.
Ping for later
I don't intend to post a treatise on the subject in this setting, but I would be willing to bet that a google search of Apocrypha will provide significantly different results and authors than a search of deuterocanonical. That exercise will only prove that unbiased research in the context of sectarian disputes is a very rare commodity (your site included).
It should be noted that St. Jerome's belief was that only the original version of any Scripture was inerrant and in this context he pursued the Hebrew Old Testament as the most authentic. He did not contend, like Luther later did, that the lack of extant copies invalidated the deutercanonical books.
I am not at home so I don't have access to my personal library but I do have "numerous" citations, both directly from St. Jerome (Eusebius Hieronymus) and indirect by those referring to him. I am sure that your penchant for research will enable you to locate them if you have a desire to pursue unbiased research.
Peace be with you
Actually, you have been refuted even before this thread, and my position is that, contrary to your position, Luther was not a maverick in rejecting apocryphal books, as dissent continued right into Trent, regardless of what you believe Vaticanus and Sinaiticus prove, and Trent was the first infallible and indisputable list of the canon.
However are there any LXX manuscripts that confirm the booklist that you use? No. Not a single one
The LXX simply does reflect what Jews held as canonical, being so varied, as Jerome understood, stating, in the 4th century stated (in his prologue to Ezra), “the variety of the texts of which shows them torn and perverted.” -http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/jerome_preface_ezra_e.htm; http://www.bombaxo.com/prologues.html
Jerome is far weightier an authority than you, as is the CE which states, “the protocanonical books of the Old Testament correspond with those of the Bible of the Hebrews, and the Old Testament as received by Protestants.” “...the Hebrew Bible, which became the Old Testament of Protestantism.” (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03267a.htm)
And “manuscripts of anything like the capacity of Codex Alexandrinus were not used in the first centuries of the Christian era, and since in the second century AD the Jews seem largely to have discarded the Septuagint…there can be no real doubt that the comprehensive codices of the Septuagint, which start appearing in the fourth century AD, are all of Christian origin.” (Roger Beckwith, The Old Testament Canon of the New Testament Church)
Later Septuagint which contain books which no early manuscripts of the Septuagint are known to have, and Josephus (with his 22 book tripartite canon] and others evidence they did not. The first occurrence of some apocryphal books is first seen in 4th century manuscripts, but not all apocryphal books are contained, nor are the manuscripts all uniform or the same as that of Trent, and contain books she rejects. And while you invoke Vaticanus dated palaeographically to the 4th century, and Sinaiticus found by a Protestant purportedly in a rubbish basket) for support of Trent, neither is identical to Trent's canon.
Codex Vaticanus (B) lacks 1 and 2 Maccabees (canonical, according to Rome), but includes 1 Esdras (non-canonical, according to Rome). The Sinaiticus (Aleph) omits Baruch (canonical, according to Rome), but includes 4 Maccabees (non-canonical, according to Rome)... Thus it turns out that even the three earliest MSS or the LXX show considerable uncertainty as to which books constitute the list of the Apocrypha.. (Archer, Gleason L., Jr., "A Survey of Old Testament Introduction", Moody Press, Chicago, IL, Rev. 1974, p. 75; http://www.provethebible.net/T2-Integ/B-1101.htm)
The Targums did not include these books, nor the earliest versions of the Peshitta, and the apocryphal books are seen to have been later additions, and later versions of the LXX varied in regard to which books of the apocrypha they contained. Nor is there agreement between the codices which of the Apocrypha include. (Eerdmans 1986), 382.
Thus if these support Rome they also can support other canons (but which does not seem to be much of an issue as long as they are Catholic), while earlier testimony indicates an exclusion of the apocrypha.
The earliest Greek manuscripts date to the time of Augustine, whose influence is reflected in the codex manuscripts. In addition, none of the Greek Manuscripts contain all the Apocryphal books. No Greek manuscript has the exact list of Apocryphal books accepted by the Council of Trent (1545-63)
All LXX manuscripts are Christian and not Jewish origin. With a 500 years difference between translation and existing manuscripts. Enough time for Apocryphal books to slip in.
The manuscripts at the Dead Sea evidence no canonical book of the OT was written later than the Persian period. . More .
In summation, even if the issue was evidence for the inclusion of the apocryphal books, versus ongoing dissent the was only resolved over Luther's dead body, for many reasons (though Jamnia is uncertain) the Septuagint is of dubious support for the apocrypha.
By that measure all of Scripture can be said to be part of the Magisterium, as they are all equally inspired of God, but (we are told) require an infallible magisterium to assuredly correctly understand them.
Which is simply an assertion which is argued under the premise that an assuredly infallible magisterium is necessary to establish writings as Scripture and preserve truth, dissent from which necessarily makes one a renegade. Which is not what Scripture teaches.
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