pong
Is it true that the smoke from a fish's heart, when burned, drives away evil spirits? Of course not. Such a superstitious teaching has no place in the word of God.
The response is, is it true that water and a blessing can wash away the sins committed by a man? That sounds like magic, too, if you go by this guy's logic.
“the Son of man has power on earth to forgive sins”
There are lots of apparent contradictions in many books of the Bible; atheists and skeptics have been pointing those out for years. Actually, those are the sorts of things that Bible scholars write entire books about.
So as we Christians debate about the number of angels dancing on the head of pins, radical Islam is spreading their vile theology around the world. Please let us unite.
God bless
The early Church fathers included these books at the same time as they included the rest of the Old Testament. They stayed there until Luther decided that they did not fit his world view and he excluded them. He went back to a set of OT scriptures established in I think about 400 AD. So he relied on a bunch of Jewish scholars instead of the men who were basically the grandchildren of the apostles.
Did I miss something? Is there some band of evil Catholics somewhere that is trying to force the writer to accept these parts of the Catholic Bible?
Look, if you Westerners not in communion with Rome, whether you call yourselves Protestants, “Biblical Christians” or whatever, want to debate the status of the books occurring in the LXX but not the Masorete amongst yourselves on the basis of the hypothesis that the Scriptures are a Christian Qu’ran (that’s what “inerrancy” with the strong notion of divine inspiration popular among advocates of the “inerrancy of the Bible” amounts to) that’s fine and well for you. But, stop with the rubbish about “officially accepted by the Roman Catholic Church in 1546 as being inspired.”
The Latins at Trent merely reiterated the content of the Canon of Scripture that they, in common with us Orthodox Christians, had held from long before their schism from the Church (commonly dated to 1054, though one can argue for 1009, or, as an Antiochian Orthodox Christian, I could argue for 1098 when the Crusaders forcibly replaced the Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch who had still been in communion with Rome, the unpleasantness between Rome and Constantinople.)
The books you and the article object to are in the list of the Canon of Scripture given by the Council of Carthage in 397, which was given ecumenical force by the disciplinary session of the Sixth Ecumenical Council (which the Latins call the “Trullan Synod” or “Quinsext Council”) in 692. (The Latins regard the Council of Carthage as having fixed the Canon on the basis of their ecclesiological theory that an assent by the Pope of Rome gives a council universal force.) The were always in the canon of Scripture, which when bound together in a codex is called The Bible. The fragmentary Old Testament in the Codex Sinaiticus, which manuscript contains the oldest extant complete New Testament, dating to the mid-fourth century (before the Council of Carthage!), includes fragments of most of them.
How do you know? Have you tried it? Does it make a difference if an emissary of the Great God YHWH tells you so?
“...officially accepted by the Roman Catholic Church in 1546 as being inspired.”
This is such a common blunder. That’s how we get proclamations that the Pope invented the dogma of the Immaculate Conception in 1854, or the dogma of the Assumption in 1950. Or that the Church invented “transubstantiation” in the 16th Century. Etc.
It makes about as much sense as finding a copy of the Catechism of the Catholic Church printed in 1992, and proclaiming that all the teachings in it were invented by the Catholic Church in 1992.
Parts of Tobit sound as if this book may have inspired Joseph Smith to write one of his own.
It seems perfectly reasonable. Who is more likely than a good angel to know what a fallen angel would dislike?
BTW: Genesis Chapter 1 Genesis Chapter 2 give two totally incompatible accounts of Creation. I guess Genesis isn't part of Scripture, either.
The Holy Spirit, incapable of defending His Word from error, not only allowed the Septuagint to include error in the first place, but allowed that error to remain a part of Scripture until Luther came along and accepted the authority of anti-Christ Rabbis as being superior to Christ, the Apostles, and all Christians prior to himself.
Clearly, the Holy Spirit is imperfect and both could not and did not protect His Holy Word from error.
Therefore, being imperfect, the Holy Trinity cannot be part of the Holy Trinity, meaning there is no Holy Trinity.
Gotcha, Muzlims are right and there is no Trinity.
Condones the use of magic: See where Jesus made a paste out of mud to heal the man’s blindness. Neither is magic.
Forgiveness by human effort: Man’s participation in his own atonement is insufficient; Catholics agree. But the notion that Man can do nothing to participate in atonement is counterscriptural. Indeed, we are commanded to “pick up our own cross and follow” in the way of Jesus. The passage that is referred to in Maccabees is the Dedication of the Temple. Jesus visited the Temple annually for the yearly festival. Yes, he identified himself as the Temple... and the ante-Nicene fathers celebrated the dedication of the Temple as his birthday (25 December).
Judith 1: It’s a parable. Thus, this is deliberate, not an error. Come on, what Jewish scholar would make such an error, or fail to recognize it? Judith (the name means, “Jewess,” for goodness’s sake!) is deliberately self-declaring itself non-historical, in a way similar to Esther and Job, so that no-one could confuse its literary genre with the historical books.
Baruch 6 (Letter of Jeremiah): Actually, it wasn’t even 70. Depending on what event you use to mark the start of the exile, it was 58, 48 or 43 years. There are varying theories as to why Baruch 6 says seven generations (which can alternately mean anywhere from 140 to 280 years). Some have pointed out that in the Matthean Geneaology, it’s seven generations from the exile to the dedication of the Temple.
sure it is, and always has been...none other has the credentials!
I did some research on this months ago. I did not see anything that says they should be included in the Bible. There were way too many errors.
The year Martin Luther died?
You mean well..
If You Love Spurgeon.... You will like the Early Church Fathers.. They all wrote about the Eucharist. The Only Covenant of the New Testament. Every Book Chosen was chosen based on a contribution to The Liturgy of the Eucharist.
It confounds me How Protestant can Over Look Jesus Christ own words in John 6. He lost most of his followers because they wouldn’t accept the Real Presence in the Eucharist.
If You don’t like the Catholic Catechism. Try reading the DIDACHE.. The original one that the Apostles compiled..
Read the Early Church Fathers They ALL talk about the Real Presence of the Body Blood Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ.
some traveled with Peter another recruited by John the Apostle.
Did you know the 1st 32 POPES were Martyered? Do you think they did it in Vain? The Early Catholics couldn’t proselytize
Like we do because they would be KILLED. Thats why they met at the Cemeteries the Catacombs . They used to rescue the abandoned the Babies from the rivers and Underneath Bridges at Night where they were left to die by being eaten by ANIMals.
Pagans watched how they lived a truely Christian life and witnessed their Love of their neighbors. That was the magnet to evangelization. You can learn this and more of the Growing Pains of the Catholic Church.Read the early Church Fathers they were there!
Between 70-90 AD The Old Testament was the Greek Version.
This was part of the time of Transition to Catholicism from Judaism. The New Testament shows those Pains... Circumcision was the defining Moment of defining a families Faith as Jewish when performed on males. Christ however Introduced Baptism to replace that ritual where Men and women YOUNG and OLD got Baptized to mark their acceptance of Christ.
Read about the transition through the people who lived it and wrote about it!
It is like the rower seated next to George Washington writing about what happened before during and after crossing the Delaware.
Embrace the Church Fathers the Bible will come alive....You will appreciate the writings of JOHN in their TRUE Splendor!
To err is human.
To "error" takes a blogger.
Are you saying that you know better than the Holy Spirit who inspired all Scripture? Hmmmm