Posted on 01/29/2014 4:53:38 PM PST by NKP_Vet
This little book about the Bible grew out of lectures which the writer delivered on the subject to mixed audiences. The lectures were afterwards expanded, and appeared in a series of articles in the Catholic press 1908-9, and are now with slight alterations reprinted. Their origin will sufficiently account for the colloquial style employed throughout. There is, therefore, no pretense either of profound scholarship or of eloquent language; all that is attempted is a popular and, as far as possible, accurate exposition along familiar lines of the Catholic claim historically in regard to the Bible. It is candidly controversial without, however, let us hope, being uncharitable or unfair. Friends had more than once suggested the reissue of the articles; and it appeared to the writer that at last the proper moment for it had come when the Protestant world is jubilating over the Tercentenary of the Authorized Version. Amidst the flood of literature on the subject of the Bible, it seemed but right that some statement, however plain and simple, should be set forth from the Catholic side, with the object of bringing home to the average mind the debt that Britain, in common with the rest of Christendom, owes to the Catholic Church in this connection. Probably the motive of the present publication will be best understood by a perusal of the following letter from the writer which appeared in the Glasgow Herald, 18th of March, 1911:
(Excerpt) Read more at tanbooks.com ...
Absurd. Where did you get these assertions from? Or are you now discounting the early fathers as well?
Are you reading opposing posts with actual sources? Your statements lead me to believe you are not.
“So your admitting I did what Mr. Rogers did? Yep, he made a baseless assertion.”
He did not make a baseless assertion. He provided evidence for his claim.
“Explain to me why the Codex Amiatinus”
This codex contains Jerome’s Prologus Galeatus, who differentiated between the regular canon and those books, exactly as I said before. It’s also missing Baruch.
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04081a.htm
“And as usual, the rest of your post tells us nothing actually having to do with the issue”
The testimony of the ancient fathers has nothing to do with the issue?
“Clearly not - since the view of Florence was still very much in force a hundred years later on the canon.”
Evidently, what was “in force” was still very much not settled, hence the need for Trent and the objections of Cajetan and others:
From the New Catholic Encyclopedia:
“According to Catholic doctrine, the proximate criterion of the Biblical canon is the infallible decision of the Church. This decision was not given until rather late in the history of the Church (at the Council of Trent). Before that time there was some doubt about the canonicity of certain Biblical books, i.e., about their belonging to the canon. The Council of Trent definitively settled the matter of the Old Testament Canon. That this had not been done previously is apparent from the uncertainty that persisted up to the time of Trent” (The New Catholic Encyclopedia, The Canon).
“Doubts about the deuterocanonical books keep recurring in the history of the Church among those who are aware of the Jewish canon. Those who prefer the shorter canon or express some doubt about the full canonical status of the deuterocanonicals include Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory Nazianzen, Epiphanius, Rufinus, Gregory the Great, John Damascene, Hugh of St. Victor, Nicholas of Lyra, and Cardinal Cajetan.
As mentioned earlier, the Council of Trent accepted definitively the deuterocanonicals, and it did so directly in opposition to the Protestant preference for the Jewish canon. Although as Catholics we accept the statement of the Council as binding in faith, it is wise for us to know some of the difficulties that surround this statement. Even on the eve of the Council the Catholic view was not absolutely unified, as the mention of Cajetan in the preceding paragraph clearly indicates. Catholic editions of the Bible published in Germany and in France in 1527 and 1530 contained only the protocanonical books. The Fathers of the Council knew of the 4th century African councils that had accepted the deuterocanonical books, and they knew the position taken at Florence; but at the time of Trent, there were insufficient historical tools to reconstruct the real picture of the canon in the 1st century.” (The Jerome Biblical Commentary, pg 523)
“You might want to look up Council of Florence, Session 11—4 February 1442 [Bull of union with the Copts].”
By the way, the Catholic church has already broken that council. Note what Florence teaches on the salvation of non-Christians and non-Catholics, and what the RCC teaches today:
“The Holy Roman Church firmly believes, professes, and preaches that all those who are outside the Catholic Church — not only pagans but also Jews or heretics and schismatics — cannot share in eternal life, and will go into the everlasting fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels, unless they are joined to the Church before the end of their lives; [the Holy Roman Church firmly believes, professes, and preaches] that the unity of this ecclesiastical body is of such importance that only those who abide in it do the Church’s sacraments contribute to salvation and do fasts, almsgivings and other works of piety and practices of the Christian militia productive of eternal rewards; and [the Holy Roman Church firmly believes, professes, and preaches] that nobody can be saved, no matter how much he has given away in alms and even if he has shed blood in the name of Christ, unless he has persevered in the bosom and unity of the Catholic Church.”
(Ex cathedra solemn definition of Pope Eugene IV, Council of Florence (Ecumenical Council), “Cantate Domino,” 1441; Denzinger)
Compare:
CCC 841 The Church’s relationship with the Muslims. “The plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator, in the first place amongst whom are the Muslims; these profess to hold the faith of Abraham, and together with us they adore the one, merciful God, mankind’s judge on the last day.”
Not to mention this “fake” was heavily used by the Rome hated Dan Brown.
Yet they assert their history and the fact they still exist as a people and culture (although scattered) remains to this day. My point is, historical assertion is a poor premise to argue from to prove “we can’t be wrong.” It is a foundation of sand and not built on rock.
“He did not make a baseless assertion. He provided evidence for his claim.”
Actually, no.
“This codex contains Jerome’s Prologus Galeatus, who differentiated between the regular canon and those books, exactly as I said before. It’s also missing Baruch.”
It has multiple deuterocanonicals.
“The testimony of the ancient fathers has nothing to do with the issue?”
Yes - but not just the ones you favor. You forget the decisions of synods, regional councils, and Fathers who don’t agree with you.
“Evidently, what was “in force” was still very much not settled, hence the need for Trent and the objections of Cajetan and others”
False reasoning. Abortion is settled as an issue in the Catholic Church. Are there Catholics STILL objecting to the Church’s teaching on abortion? You bet.
“Yet they assert their history and the fact they still exist as a people and culture (although scattered) remains to this day.”
So?
“My point is, historical assertion is a poor premise to argue from to prove “we can’t be wrong.” It is a foundation of sand and not built on rock.”
Your point is bogus in regard to the Church, however. Jews have no moral right to make a claim about rightness on any issue in regard to Christianity. The Church does.
“Actually, no.”
Simple negation cannot delete his post or mine.
“Yes - but not just the ones you favor. You forget the decisions of synods, regional councils, and Fathers who don’t agree with you.”
Most of the fathers agree with me. Rufinus, and others, on the claims of tradition; Jerome, on the basis of scholarship. But even those who disagree with me still had their own reservations:
“Moreover, I do not seem to have correctly called prophetic the words in this passage: “Why is earth and ashes proud?” [Sirach 10:9] for the book in which this is read is not the work of one whom we can be certain that he should be called a prophet.” (Augustine, Retractions, Section 3 of the Retractions regarding On Genesis Against the Manicheans, p. 43, The Fathers of the Church, Volume 60, Sister M. Inez Bogan, R.S.M. translator.)
Augustine also rejected the idea that any “church with greater authority” could establish the canon, but valued the decision of the majority:
“But let us now go back to consider the third step here mentioned, for it is about it that I have set myself to speak and reason as the Lord shall grant me wisdom. The most skillful interpreter of the sacred writings, then, will be he who in the first place has read them all and retained them in his knowledge, if not yet with full understanding, still with such knowledge as reading gives,—those of them, at least, that arc called canonical. For he will read the others with greater safety when built up in the belief of the truth, so that they will not take first possession of a weak mind, nor, cheating it with dangerous falsehoods and delusions, fill it with prejudices adverse to a sound understanding. Now, in regard to the canonical Scriptures, he must follow the judgment of the greater number of catholic churches; and among these, of course, a high place must be given to such as have been thought worthy to be the seat of an apostle and to receive epistles. Accordingly, among the canonical Scriptures he will judge according to the following standard: to prefer those that are received by all the catholic churches to those which some do not receive. Among those, again, which are not received by all, he will prefer such as have the sanction of the greater number and those of greater authority, to such as are held by the smaller number and those of less authority. If, however, he shall find that some books are held by the greater number of churches, and others by the churches of greater authority (though this is not a very likely thing to happen), I think that in such a case the authority on the two sides is to be looked upon as equal.” (Augustine, NPNF1: Vol. II, On Christian Doctrine, Book II, Chapter 8. See also John E. Rotelle, O.S.A., ed., The Works of Saint Augustine, Part 1, Vol. 11, trans. Edmund Hill, O.P., De Doctrina Christiana, Book II, Chapter 8 (New York: New City Press, 1996), p. 134.)
“It has multiple deuterocanonicals.”
But not all of them, and you can’t remove Jerome out of it, which differentiates them all from the standard canon.
“False reasoning. Abortion is settled as an issue in the Catholic Church. Are there Catholics STILL objecting to the Church’s teaching on abortion? You bet.”
When the Papists have a council to authoritatively reassert it, then your argument will have weight. In the meantime, I’ll stick with the New Catholic encyclopedia and the Jerome Biblical commentary.
Fake? On the mind of some protestants.
http://thecatholicvoyager.blogspot.com/2012/09/the-canon-of-scripture-damasus-and.html
So say you!:)
They make the same assertions. If you choose to assert history proves the Roman Catholic church is the OTC, then its history should be infallible.
It’s harder to overcome the entirety of the findings:
” It had been Professor v. Dobschütz’s intention to publish the Damasine and Gelasian forms side by side (i. e. I, II, III and III, IV, V, c. III being common to both), but in the course of his investigation he came to very different conclusions. According to v. Dobschütz all five chapters belong to the same original work, which is no genuine decree or letter either of Damasus or Gelasius, but a pseudonymous literary production of the first half of the sixth century (between 519 and 553).
There can, I think, be little doubt that v. Dobschütz has made out his case. The really decisive point is that in I 3, in the part most directly associated with Damasus, there is a quotation of some length from Augustine in Joh. ix 7 (Migne, xxxv 146l).1 As Augustine was writing about 416, it is evident that the Title Incipit Concilium Vrbis Romae sub Damaso Papa de Explanatione Fidei is of no historical value.
The proof that the document is not a real Decretal of Gelasius or any other Pope is almost as decisive, if not quite so startling. In the first place v. Dobschütz makes it clear (p. 213) that the shorter form I-III implies the longer form,2 and therefore is derived from it. Further, the short form III-V, which was supposed to contain the genuine decree of Gelasius, turns out to be a recension of the whole work, in which the phrases which refer back to I and II have been carefully suppressed or altered (p. 214). This recension appears to |471 have been made in Gaul in the seventh century (p. 399) : that known as Hormisdas, containing II-V, is a Spanish recension, but the Spaniard Isidor used chap. I, in fact he is the earliest witness to the work. Had it been an official decree of Gelasius it would have been known and used by Dionysius Exiguus and Cassiodorus.
Thus these famous Lists represent no Papal ordinance, but are the production of an anonymous scholar of the sixth century. He must have been a fairly well-read man for that time and shews a good acquaintance with the writings of St Jerome, but v. Dobschütz does not believe that he had read, or even seen, most of. the ‘Apocryphal’ books which he condemns (pp. 333-334). For various reasons the work can hardly have been compiled in Africa or Spain, and Gaul is on the whole unlikely : ‘es bleibt für den Ursprung des Dokuments nur Italien übrig’ (p. 350). Certainly the description of the last book in the N. T. as Iudae Zelotis apostoli epistula una makes for N. Italy or Gaul, the only evidence for the apostle Judas Zelotes coming from those regions. In Matt. x 3, in the place of Thaddaeus, Judas Zelotes is found in a b g h q gatcorr mm, and the Mosaics of the great Baptistery at Ravenna (fifth century).3 So far as I know there is no evidence for this name from Africa, Spain, or the British Isles.
A word should be said in conclusion upon the amazing mass of detail collected by Prof. v. Dobschütz and the clearness with which he has presented it. He has used eighty-six manuscripts, besides six (class D’) which contain the text in a second recension. To make this vast quantity of material intelligible he has first printed the full original text with only the real variants of the ‘Gelasian’ recension at the foot of the page. This leaves room for a clear indication of Biblical references and for the incipits and explicits of the several recensions. After this he repeats the text line for line with full apparatus, excluding only the spelling of the Proper Names, which are given separately in alphabetical order. Praise is often bestowed on our German fellow-workers for industry and fault found with their style, but very few Frenchmen or Englishmen would have marshalled the vast and unwieldy army of authorities so skilfully as is done in this book. It is a work that should be studied by all editors of much-copied texts.”
http://www.tertullian.org/articles/burkitt_gelasianum.htm
Roosters sure are cocky, aren’t they? ;o)
Does the writer of those words actually understand how silly and irrational he sounds? DUH! Of course printed versions of the Bible couldn't happen until the printing press was invented, but he is delusional if he asserts nobody had copies of the books of the Bible both shortly after the death of Christ as well as WAY before then. What do you think SCRIBES' jobs were?
Honestly, some of the junk being said on threads like this sounds like a clumsy attempt to smear "Protestants" with all the mud that can be gathered OR invented! Is THIS the caliber of Religion Forum threads you Catholics support?
Why do you persist in promoting what you have many times been told is patently false? Luther removed NO books from his German translation of the Bible. In fact, if you had a copy of it the disputed books ARE in it. What will it take for y'all to discard this stupid lie? Also, the Deuterocanoncial/Apocryphal books were NOT considered "inspired". Not by the Jews, nor by Jerome, nor the early church fathers. In case you still don't believe me, read this link:
Better yet, here's section of it:
Even after Luther finished his translation, he never ceased revising it. Phillip Schaff has pointed out, “He never ceased to amend his translation. Besides correcting errors, he improved the uncouth and confused orthography, fixed the inflections, purged the vocabulary of obscure and ignoble words, and made the whole more symmetrical and melodious. He prepared five original editions, or recensions, of his whole Bible, the last in 1545, a year before his death. This is the proper basis of all critical editions.”[10] Great care and work went into Luther’s Bible. This means that every book in the Bible was given great concern and attention. No book of the Bible was left un-translated. As Catholic writer John Todd observed, “The work was done with great method…”[11] Todd then relates this famous description:
“Dr. M. Luther gathered his own Sanhedrin of the best persons available, which assembled weekly, several hours before supper in the doctor’s cloister, namely D. Johann Burgenhagen, D. Justus Jonas, D. Creuziger, M. Philippum, Mattheum Aurogallum; Magister Georg Roerer, the Korrektor was also present…M. Philipp brought the Greek text with him. D Creuziger a Chaldean Bible in addition to Hebrew. The professors had their rabbinical commentaries. D. Pommer also had the Latin text…The President submitted a text and permitted each to speak in turn and listened to what each had to say about the characteristics of the language or about the expositions of the doctors in earlier times.”[12]
Thus, Luther’s Bible is not simply the result of Martin Luther: “Especially in his work on the Old Testament, Luther considered himself to be only one of a consortium of scholars at work on the project. He was convinced a translator should not work alone, for as he said, ‘the correct and appropriate words do not always occur to one person alone.’”[13] Rather than Luther expressing authoritarian power over the translation or removing books from the Bible by fiat, the facts of history show Luther involved other capable scholars. They worked throughout their lives to translate every book of the Bible, and even those books which “are not held equal to the Scriptures, but are useful and good to read.”
Those who assert Luther took books out of the Bible sometimes wrongly use this sentiment interchangeably with “Luther removed books from the canon.” For an example of such confusion, see the claims of this Catholic apologist here. If indeed Luther took books out of the Bible, then one expects to open Luther’s Bible and find certain books missing. One does not. Catholic apologists that equivocate in such a way should either define their arguments more carefully, or account for the fact that Luther included all the books in his Bible.
“Simple negation cannot delete his post or mine.”
Simple negation was all that was needed. Deleting a post is unnecessary and not necessarily beneficial. It is more beneficial for your errors to stay visible.
“Most of the fathers agree with me.”
Really? On the Eucharist? On the importance of Tradition? On the office of Bishop? On what Baptism really is? On how we are saved? On prayers for the dead?
“But not all of them, and you can’t remove Jerome out of it, which differentiates them all from the standard canon.”
No. It doesn’t need all of them for very few Bibles contained all the books judged canonical even by Protestants standards simply because of the size of the book required.
“When the Papists have a council to authoritatively reassert it, then your argument will have weight. In the meantime, I’ll stick with the New Catholic encyclopedia and the Jerome Biblical commentary.”
No, I don’t think you will.
Now the whole canon of Scripture on which we say this judgment is to be exercised, is contained in the following books:—Five books of Moses, that is, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy; one book of Joshua the son of Nun; one of Judges; one short book called Ruth, which seems rather to belong to the beginning of Kings; next, four books of Kings, and two of Chronicles—these last not following one another, but running parallel, so to speak, and going over the same ground. The books now mentioned are history, which contains a connected narrative of the times, and follows the order of the events. There are other books which seem to follow no regular order, and are connected neither with the order of the preceding books nor with one another, such as Job, and Tobias, and Esther, and Judith, and the two books of Maccabees, and the two of Ezra, That is, Ezra and Nehemiah which last look more like a sequel to the continuous regular history which terminates with the books of Kings and Chronicles. Next are the Prophets, in which there is one book of the Psalms of David; and three books of Solomon, viz., Proverbs, Song of Songs, and Ecclesiastes. For two books, one called Wisdom and the other Ecclesiasticus, are ascribed to Solomon from a certain resemblance of style, but the most likely opinion is that they were written by Jesus the son of Sirach. Still they are to be reckoned among the prophetical books, since they have attained recognition as being authoritative. The remainder are the books which are strictly called the Prophets: twelve separate books of the prophets which are connected with one another, and having never been disjoined, are reckoned as one book; the names of these prophets are as follows:—Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi; then there are the four greater prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel, Ezekiel. The authority of the Old Testamentis contained within the limits of these forty-four books. (Augustine. “Christian Doctrine.” Edited by Philip Schaff. In A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church Series 1 Vol. II (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1993), 2.8.13.)
X
So you are admitting that the assumption of Mary is not something the apostles taught and that it’s part of “another gospel”! That’s a start.
Now as to your little straw list. Just how does comparing what you believe someone else does wrong make what the RCC teaches right? Are you saying you are content to follow an accursed gospel simply because you believe someone else does as well?
Catholicism ...
Proclaiming a false history
Preaching a false gospel
Producing false converts
Who in turn cling to a false hope
There, I said it ...
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