[verga]

We have ALL the New Testament books in Hebrew today as translations but there is no concrete evidence that they were originally written in that language. Jews in Palestine spoke Koine Greek because it was the common tongue (lingua franca) at that time. For two hundred years before Christ was born, the Old Testament had already been translated in Greek especially for that reason.

Congratulations on getting something right and engaging in fraternal correction.

[ronnietherocket3]

Congratulations on getting something right and engaging in fraternal correction.

I would not call boatbums' response to ES's "fraternal correction". ES is not a protestant. I am unsure what to classify him as, perhaps a Judaizer (some might call him a Messianic Jew). However, neither of those groups are Protestant. He goes around and preaches that observance of the Written Mosaic Law is necessary. Unlike protestants, he believes there are errors in the NT that we have. I find his position to be utterly devoid of reasonableness.

While I disagree with Protestants on the question of whether or not Tradition and the Magisterium can be considered equal to Scripture, their position does appear reasonable. Concerning Tradition, this requires that a chain of men (not God) can remember something well. E.g., how do we know that the essential rite of ordaining priests actually dates back to Christ and was not bungled somewhere along the route. The children's game of telephone is a good example of this problem. Concerning the Magisterium, how do we know that the Holy Spirit actually guided the councils and it was not the mistake of fallible men? The simple answer to both these questions is faith in the promise of Christ that the gates of hell will not prevail against his Church. However, we are presented with a problem. How do we identify which Church this is?

I think this is how we arrive at the delusion expressed by ES. The final question in challenging Tradition and the Magisterium is: "How do we know that the Bible at the time of the Reformation was the same Bible that the Apostles had? Could the Church have introduced errors?" (Note: I am avoiding the question of the Deuteros). As boatbums pointed out, we have a significant number of Manuscripts from the second century, which is before the foundation of the Catholic Church according to ES.