Posted on 10/27/2013 5:25:55 AM PDT by NYer
There are 38 questions + a few bonus questions. I have split them into two separate posts of 20 and 18 + bonus questions. In case you missed it, here is the link to Part 1. Are you ready?
21. Who in the Church had the authority to determine which books belonged in the New Testament canon and to make this decision binding on all Christians? If nobody has this authority, then can I remove or add books to the canon on my own authority?
22. Why do Protestant scholars recognize the early Church councils at Hippo and Carthage as the first instances in which the New Testament canon was officially ratified, but ignore the fact that those same councils ratified the Old Testament canon used by the Catholic Church today but abandoned by Protestants at the Reformation?
23. Why do Protestants follow postapostolic Jewish decisions on the boundaries of the Old Testament canon, rather than the decision of the Church founded by Jesus Christ?
24. How were the bishops at Hippo and Carthage able to determine the correct canon of Scripture, in spite of the fact that they believed all the distinctively Catholic doctrines such as the apostolic succession of bishops, the sacrifice of the Mass, Christ’s Real Presence in the Eucharist, baptismal regeneration, etc?
25. If Christianity is a “book religion,” how did it flourish during the first 1500 years of Church history when the vast majority of people were illiterate?
26. How could the Apostle Thomas establish the church in India that survives to this day (and is now in communion with the Catholic Church) without leaving them with one word of New Testament Scripture?
27. If sola Scriptura is so solid and biblically based, why has there never been a full treatise written in its defense since the phrase was coined in the Reformation?
28. If Jesus intended for Christianity to be exclusively a “religion of the book,” why did He wait 1400 years before showing somebody how to build a printing press?
29. If the early Church believed in sola Scriptura, why do the creeds of the early Church always say “we believe in the Holy Catholic Church,” and not “we believe in Holy Scripture”?
30. If the Bible is as clear as Martin Luther claimed, why was he the first one to interpret it the way he did and why was he frustrated at the end of his life that “there are now as many doctrines as there are heads”?
31. The time interval between the Resurrection and the establishment of the New Testament canon in AD 382 is roughly the same as the interval between the arrival of the Mayflower in America and the present day. Therefore, since the early Christians had no defined New Testament for almost four hundred years, how did they practice sola Scriptura?
32. If the Bible is the only foundation and basis of Christian truth, why does the Bible itself say that the Church is the pillar and foundation of truth (1 Tim. 3:15)?
33. Jesus said that the unity of Christians would be objective evidence to the world that He had been sent by God (John 17:20-23). How can the world see an invisible "unity" that exists only in the hearts of believers?
34. If the unity of Christians was meant to convince the world that Jesus was sent by God, what does the ever-increasing fragmentation of Protestantism say to the world?
35. Hebrews 13:17 says, "Obey your leaders and submit to their authority. They keep watch over you as men who must give an account. Obey them so that their work will be a joy, not a burden, for that would be of no advantage to you." What is the expiration date of this verse? When did it become okay not only to disobey the Church's leaders, but to rebel against them and set up rival churches?
36. The Koran explicitly claims divine inspiration, but the New Testament books do not. How do you know that the New Testament books are nevertheless inspired, but the Koran is not?
37. How does a Protestant know for sure what God thinks about moral issues such as abortion, masturbation, contraceptives, eugenics, euthanasia, etc.?
38. What is one to believe when one Protestant says infants should be baptized (e.g., Luther and Calvin) and another says it is wrong and unbiblical (e.g., Baptists and Evangelicals)?
Where does the Bible . . .
. . . say God created the world/universe out of nothing?
. . . say salvation is attainable through faith alone?
. . . tell us how we know that the revelation of Jesus Christ ended with the death of the last Apostle?
. . . provide a list of the canonical books of the Old Testament?
. . . provide a list of the canonical books of the New Testament?
. . . explain the doctrine of the Trinity, or even use the word “Trinity”?
. . . tell us the name of the “beloved disciple”?
. . . inform us of the names of the authors of the Gospel of Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John?
. . . who wrote the Book of Acts?
. . . tell us the Holy Spirit is one of the three Persons of the Trinity?
. . . .tell us Jesus Christ was both fully God and fully man from the moment of conception (e.g. how do we know His Divinity wasn't infused later in His life?) and/or tells us Jesus Christ is One Person with two complete natures, human and Divine and not some other combination of the two natures (i.e., one or both being less than complete)?
. . . that the church should, or someday would be divided into competing and disagreeing denominations?
. . . that Protestants can have an invisible unity when Jesus expected a visible unity to be seen by the world (see John 17)?
. . . tell us Jesus Christ is of the same substance of Divinity as God the Father?
Alas, that is on the Deluxe Tour, and the upgrade cost is rather high.
Dr. Gary meet editor-surveyor, editor-surveyor meet Dr. Gary. You are brothers in Christ and I think are talking past each other IMO.
>> “You are brothers in Christ and I think are talking past each other IMO.” <<
.
Almost true.
We are just having a dispute over getting out of Babylon.
Its just a bit more difficult for some than others. It’ll all work out in the end.
I spent 8.5 years in a seminary picking up little juicy tidbits like that. You will find the most comprehensive work on the subject in The Writings of Arminius.
Babylon has many seminaries; Yeshua has none.
(”For they have the ways of the Nicolaitanos that I hate”)
Idiom? One needs to be extremely careful, when handling Scripture. How many Bible translations have you worked on as a Christian?
Oh! And so you think the disciples spent three years in Jesus little accredited seminary for no reason?
Listen very, very carefully, "“Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates."
The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. (2001). (Dt 6:4–9). Wheaton: Standard Bible Society.
Let us create man in our image.
Let us create man in our image.
The disciples spent exactly 70 weeks in Yeshua’s little seminary to learn that they were following Babylon to the hilt by listening to the Pharisees.
The 3.5 years was Eusebius’ lie to justify the ‘pope.’
“The Lord” is not his name, it is Yehova. That is how he has demanded that we address him. You shall love Yehova Elohim with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.
The power in is his name, not in a British nobility title.
The Whore and her daughters have conspired to hide his holy name, and the power thereof. That is what seminaries are good for.
Perhaps your source can tell you why Yeshua tarried on his way to raise Lazarus - Because the reason for that is what proves 'three days and three nights'.
LOL!
Trying to reverse engineer those documents and claim that God is so inept that He was unable to thwart man’s effort to hide the truth of the gospel in the New Testament is Satan’s way of planting doubt in people’s minds of God’s word to us today.
You are never going to convince me that we are to use the Hebrew name, when God choose Greek. Please take your self righteous attacks elsewhere.
>> “It was the Holy Spirit Who inspired the New Testament in Greek” <<
.
Truly nonsense!
There is adequate evidence in almost all of the new testiment books to prove that the Greek versions are translations, and clumsy ones at that.
It matters not to me whether you are willing to make an effort to find the obvious evidence and understand what it means.
Copies of the original Hebrew of Matthew are now in circulation, and that is clearly the work of the Holy Spirit to make the true words of Yeshua available now at this most critical time, but other books will be exposed soon.
For an easy example, look at John 1:41 for a glaring proof that John was written in Hebrew, and later translated to Greek, and that the Greek translation was NOT done by its author.
Yeshua was not called by any name but his own at any time in his life, and was not called “Jesus” until the trickery of the KJV translators. Even in Greek translations the name is correctly translated as Joshua when referring to Joshua of the OT, but not when referring to our savior for some reason. I’ll let you figure that out.
Yehova definitely did “thwart man’s effort to hide the truth of the gospel in the New Testament” by preserving 28 copies of the Original Hebrew text of Matthew, and showing the obvious clues to the fact that other books were translations.
Yeshua came only for those that the Father gave him, and they will be edified by his recent revelations.
Others, probably not.
Prove it.
Please send me a source for this. Thanks.
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