Is Prayer/Veneration/Worship to Mary Biblical?

self | 12-14-14 | ealgeone

[ealgeone]

The reason for this article is to determine if the worship/veneration given to Mary by the catholic church is justified from a Biblical perspective. This will be evaluated using the Biblical standard and not man’s standard.

[af_vet_1981]

Luther is an unforced error which renders the spiritual and doctrinal succession illegitimate, No thanks. I don't rely upon Luther for either of those two things. Now will you answer the question, and/or deal with what else I have brought over a span of a few comments here, where I provided links which firmly establish my contentions --- or will you continue revert to attempting to drown all of that out? First things, first. Deal with it, or get lost. An unclosed link to the modern-day RC apologist Jimmy Akin rather mindlessly asserting "Septuagint" as basis for canon is weak, man... weak. If that's all you've got, it would be better to just stay home. (just stay on the porch...as that saying goes)

1. Then I accept your word that you do not look to Luther and all his doctrinal teaching concerning Sola Fide, Sola Scriptura, etc.
2. I think the crux of your argument is that you believe the holy catholic apostolic Church erred by including the so called deuterocanonical books in the canon of scripture, and not whether some Catholic saints had doubts about some or all of those books.
3. The problem with that argument, as (Doctor/Brother/Master/Mr) Akin points out is it follows the canon of scripture of those Jews who had an opportunity to hear the Messiah and rejected Him. The apostolic Jews that believed on Messiah used the Septuagint, which included those books. It seems to me a simple choice.
4. Genuine Christians, whether anchoring in the holy catholic apostolic Church or wandering the seas looking for a port in any storm, look to Paul's second epistle to Timothy, in the Catholic chapter called three, and the Catholic turned Protestant verses called ten through seventeen, But thou hast fully known my doctrine, manner of life, purpose, faith, longsuffering, charity, patience, Persecutions, afflictions, which came unto me at Antioch, at Iconium, at Lystra; what persecutions I endured: but out of them all the Lord delivered me. Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived. But continue thou in the things which thou hast learned and hast been assured of, knowing of whom thou hast learned them; And that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works.
5. Whence Timothy ? A Hellenistic Jew with a Greek father and Jewish mother living in the Diaspora; Which scriptures ? The Septuagint quoted in two thirds of the so called Old Testament references in books of the New Testament. How proven ? As Akin demonstrates:
6. The Apostles & the Deuteros
   
   The Christian acceptance of the deuterocanonical books was logical because the deuterocanonicals were also included in the Septuagint, the Greek edition of the Old Testament which the apostles used to evangelize the world. Two thirds of the Old Testament quotations in the New are from the Septuagint. Yet the apostles nowhere told their converts to avoid seven books of it. Like the Jews all over the world who used the Septuagint, the early Christians accepted the books they found in it. They knew that the apostles would not mislead them and endanger their souls by putting false scriptures in their hands—especially without warning them against them.
   
   But the apostles did not merely place the deuterocanonicals in the hands of their converts as part of the Septuagint. They regularly referred to the deuterocanonicals in their writings. For example, Hebrews 11 encourages us to emulate the heroes of the Old Testament and in the Old Testament "Women received their dead by resurrection. Some were tortured, refusing to accept release, that they might rise again to a better life" (Heb. 11:35).
   
   There are a couple of examples of women receiving back their dead by resurrection in the Protestant Old Testament. You can find Elijah raising the son of the widow of Zarepheth in 1 Kings 17, and you can find his successor Elisha raising the son of the Shunammite woman in 2 Kings 4, but one thing you can never find—anywhere in the Protestant Old Testament, from front to back, from Genesis to Malachi—is someone being tortured and refusing to accept release for the sake of a better resurrection. If you want to find that, you have to look in the Catholic Old Testament—in the deuterocanonical books Martin Luther cut out of his Bible.
   
   The story is found in 2 Maccabees 7, where we read that during the Maccabean persecution, "It happened also that seven brothers and their mother were arrested and were being compelled by the king, under torture with whips and cords, to partake of unlawful swine's flesh. . . . [B]ut the brothers and their mother encouraged one another to die nobly, saying, 'The Lord God is watching over us and in truth has compassion on us . . . ' After the first brother had died . . . they brought forward the second for their sport. . . . he in turn underwent tortures as the first brother had done. And when he was at his last breath, he said, 'You accursed wretch, you dismiss us from this present life, but the King of the universe will raise us up to an everlasting renewal of life'" (2 Macc. 7:1, 5-9).
   
   One by one the sons die, proclaiming that they will be vindicated in the resurrection.
   
   "The mother was especially admirable and worthy of honorable memory. Though she saw her seven sons perish within a single day, she bore it with good courage because of her hope in the Lord. She encouraged each of them . . . [saying], 'I do not know how you came into being in my womb. It was not I who gave you life and breath, nor I who set in order the elements within each of you. Therefore the Creator of the world, who shaped the beginning of man and devised the origin of all things, will in his mercy give life and breath back to you again, since you now forget yourselves for the sake of his laws,'" telling the last one, "Do not fear this butcher, but prove worthy of your brothers. Accept death, so that in God's mercy I may get you back again with your brothers" (2 Macc. 7:20-23, 29). This is but one example of the New Testaments' references to the deuterocanonicals.
   
   The early Christians were thus fully justified in recognizing these books as Scripture, for the apostles not only set them in their hands as part of the Bible they used to evangelize the world, but also referred to them in the New Testament itself, citing the things they record as examples to be emulated.
   
   
7. What was that dog reference about ? I don't recognize it.

[annalex]

"Did not alter the original texts" here you mixed with "whatever happened to the canon".

Those are two different issues, but which you are mixing or conflating as to being the same

That is actually my point. The canon was established by early 5c. The books are unchanged since the Apocalypse was written sometime in the 1c.

Trent merely asserted the same canon of the Old Testament the Church always had since 4c. Opinions whether the Deuterocanon should be canonical does not alter the canon. They are opinions.

I repeat: when I said "the Catholic Bible is the same for 2000 years" I was fully aware that the canon took centuries to develop. Trust me, when I post something I do so deliberately. The concern expressed to me was done by a noisy and unthinking poster not deserving an answer at length. But the concern was not about canons developing but about the fact that the Church also teaches outside of the Scripture, -- such as the teaching on the veneration of saints. The concern was expressed in the form that by doing so the Church "adds to the scripture". Hence my answer:

the Catholic Bible is the same for 2000 years

[annalex]

About "mixing the two together" re-read my posts, and, if you can stand them, also re-read your own. You are the one who brought up the development of the canons.

What sources are you copying those from, huh?

Why, the original text of the Bible is available on line widely.

I used https://unbound.biola.edu/.

[annalex]

The OT canon was already in existence

No. Some wanted to include the entire Septuagint and some did not. For 4 centuries there was no OT canon in the Church, and for about 3 centuries there was no NT canon either.

You are confusing the developments in Judaism, of no interest to me or you.

[annalex]

the only outlier is Jerome's Vulgate

Correct. Note also that it was probably a deliberate decision. The sperm (seed) cannot crush anything, but a heel, -- the woman's heel, spoken about in the same verse -- can. Therefore either Jerome himself or someone upstream from him probably assumed that the male gender is in error and "corrected".

[annalex]

Yeah, you made some point about churches in Asia. Since your point is not clear to me, I did not comment. What is it you want to know?

[BlueDragon]

Very good, thank you for the assistance.

You explained things quite well, including how some things were right enough, but even as that was held up -- the actual underlying subject was being obscured.

The upshot is that in one sense, annalex is right, if one leaves out the Vulgate, which he did.

Yes, that was the problem...and I could determine that the small snippets of Hebrew and Greek were most likely taken from Genesis 3 (yet which Greek copy? which Hebrew copy?) but the real change, the one which I was discussing occurred within the Vulgate. To be provided in reply that which we (or I) were given, came across to me as form of smokescreen and distraction.

Leaving my own reactions to that other "reply" aside... you provided link towards establishing, if it was "copy error" which introduced the change from ipsum to ipsa, none can blame Jerome, for there are old, extant copies of Latin Vulgate (somewhere, I take it) that do not have the error, but which comport with Hebrew usages of gender sense.

By which I mean that Jerome did not introduce that particular error, as far as I have been told anyway, and as you so kindly provided link for Schaff explaining translation history if you will, that as you said shows the convoluted nature of what I will call the whole 'fiddling around with' protoevangalium textual elements.

Since that be so, and the use of ipsa instead of ipsum at the junctures under examination was not introduced by Jerome, then Nova Vulgata might not be "new" in the narrow regard of Genesis 3:15, but a return to the older, more original translation.

How long will it take for the USCCB to set aside their own introduction and usage of the words "they" and "their" in the text? Will they ever...or not before the Messiah returns?

Just the existence of that particular treatment of Gen 3:15 is one of those 'smoking guns', so to speak...where margin notes and wishful thinking, Marionist devotional opinions long ago crept in to the text itself, with the USCCB textual version being a splitting of the difference by combining the two opposites.

As you said;

As for whose Scripture is it, there was no distinctly Roman Catholic church until near the beginning of the third Century, so it's tough to make the argument that the Scriptures circulating among believers before that time belonged to anybody but generic Christians, as they do even to this day.

...bears repeating.

[BlueDragon]

Just can't it go huh?

Even after that has been proved incorrect in more ways than one...

[imardmd1]

“Does your doggie bite?” delivered with a French accent (Inspector Closeau) has been a family line for years—no response needed. < smile >

[af_vet_1981]

Felix Manalo is said to be the restorer of the church of Christ, and "God's last messenger.." INC says that Manalo is the "angel from the east", mentioned in Revelation 7:1–3 who started the INC at the same time that World War I broke out. ..Felix Manalo is from the Philippines, which they say is in the ‘center’ of the Far East.[50] The ‘four winds’ in Revelation 7:1-3, they say refers to World War I and the four angels are the four leaders known as the big four (Woodrow Wilson, Lloyd George, Georges Clemenceau, and Vittorio Orlando) who they say worked on the prevention of the war.

As the one who established the INC, Manalo was the chief administrator, chief theologian and spiritual leader of the church.[11] As such, he was the ultimate authority in all aspects of the church, and effectively "the foremost Biblical authority for all humanity and the divinely designated leader of a reestablished church of Christ in the modern world."

Thus we have a pope, not a real Protestant/evangelical.

Actually I found he was another of those Catholics trying to scratch away the itch of his baptism, becoming another Protestant/Evangelical sect or cult in a futile attempt to restart an authentic apostolic faith.

In his teenage years, Manalo became dissatisfied with Roman Catholic theology. According to the National Historical Commission of the Philippines, the establishment of the Philippine Independent Church or the Aglipayan Church was his major turning point but Manalo remained uninterested since its doctrines were mainly Catholic. In 1904, he joined the Methodist Episcopal Church,[5] entered the Methodist seminary, and became a pastor for a while.[6] He also sought through various denominations, including the Presbyterian Church, Christian Mission, and finally Seventh-day Adventist Church in 1911. Manalo left the Adventist church in 1913, and associated himself with atheist and agnostic peers.[7][8]

On November 1913, Manalo secluded himself with religious literature and unused notebooks in a friend's house in Pasay, instructing everyone in the house not to disturb him. He emerged from seclusion three days later with his new-found doctrines.[7]

Manalo, together with his wife, went to Punta, Santa Ana, Manila on November 1913, and started preaching. He left the congregation in the care of his first ordained minister, and returned to Taguig to evangelize. In Taguig he was ridiculed and stoned in his meetings with locals. He was later able to baptize a few converts, including some of his persecutors. He later registered his new-found religion as the Iglesia ni Kristo (English: Church of Christ; Spanish: Iglesia de Cristo) on July 27, 1914 one day before the start of World War 1 at the Bureau of Commerce as a corporation sole with himself as the first executive minister.[7][5][8] Expansion followed as INC started building congregations in the provinces in 1916.[9] The first three ministers were ordained in 1919.

[BlueDragon]

You are the one who brought up the development of the canons.

No sir. You yourself did, in a previous reply to Elsie, as I have already documented.

Yet the issue of canon (for the umpteenth time!) unavoidably becomes a consideration when one is speaking "Bibles" and if those "have changed".

I had asked what copies (what versions) of Greek and Hebrew texts you were saying were quote-unquote "original" pointing out that the world does lack original autographs for any book of Bible.

Why, the original text of the Bible is available on line widely.

I used https://unbound.biola.edu/.

Yet another non-answer answer which pretends to be answer...for that link does not answer which Greek text you were using.

In the drop-down windows (of which there are many, at that web page) which Greek version are you pointing at while saying "original"? Byzantine Majority, perhaps? That conglomerated representative text conveys generally acceptable originality...yet even there varies in slight degree (for the most part) from yet older Uncial texts.

I could bring up such things as the Pericope adulterae [see image of Papyrus 66] and Comma Johanneum in order to show there are variants --- which my knowing existed was part of the reason I asked you which texts were you referring to as "original". Your word usage there was a bit vague...

What of the Hebrew text? Which one of those were you using? At the link you provided there are more than a few to chose from

But do you know "what"?

It doesn't much matter in this context, unless we desire to go thru a series a rabbit holes in order to re-invent the wheel.

One issue which I raised, and you seemed to provide some deflection towards was the changes seen in "Catholic Bible" versions, at Genesis 3:15.

That is a "wobbly wheel", showing there have been changes there, just as I have previously asserted...

See comment #5615 for a wheel of sorts, with straight and true rim by which others can be compared -- and seen to wobble.

[BlueDragon]

alex, you said;

Therefore either Jerome himself or someone upstream from him probably assumed that the male gender is in error and "corrected".

Actually --- no.

From the link S.R. supplied for Schaff's Creeds of Christendom, with a History and Critical notes. Volume I. The History of Creeds contains this;

Even some MSS. of the Vulgate read ipse for ipsa, and Jerome himself, the author of the Vulgate, in his 'Hebrew Questions,' and Pope Leo I., condemn the translation ipsa.

though one needs to scroll down towards the bottom of the page, near bottom of the highlighted portion to see that, along with further exposition as for the various players and factors which led to the change of gender assignment from how Jerome himself had originally conveyed it in his own work of translation.

It is interesting to note again (as S.R. did here, thank you very much S.R.);

This error has been corrected in the Vatican-approved Nova Vulgata (new Vulgate):

ipsum conteret caput tuum

regardless if he had included just previous, mention of;

ipsa conteret caput tuum

referring to that being the way it was in "original Vulgate", for that original is where the change later took place...most apparently, not by Jerome's hand.

There is "original" and then there is older and more original which apparently does vary.

[BlueDragon]

As you remarked;

"I wonder if this is the spring from which the catholic detesting [of the declarative sola's] sola scripture and sola fide come forth."

...if you can excuse my bracketed addition to your words, what you said there does seem to be part of "the spring" from which it bubbled up from.

It was all part of the Sola Ecclesia concept -- which had to be clung to at all costs. There was a great deal on the line. It was most assuredly about earthly influence, power and wealth too.

Some of the same can be said for some of those in the "Reform" camp also -- or perhaps more precisely could be said of some of those who were themselves fighting for freedom, and found they rather unavoidably were themselves fighting for political control and "power" over others, those persons taking up portions of "Reform" principles to oppose the political systems of governance (including taxation -- who was taxed, who collected the taxes, who received "share" of the taxes, those being split among various ranks of royalty & privilege, and the RCC papacy as personified by it's bishops, along the pope's Vatican too -- each of them getting some divy or another which came from the people) as much as(?) strictly theological issues.

Sound familiar?

Time for tea...

Paul McCartney - Uncle Albert/admiral Halsey

Though as wiki notes (and I do see the point);

Although some fans praise it as "one of his most playful and inventive songs" others criticize it for being "exactly the kind of cute self-indulgence that they find so annoying about his post-Beatles career." [13] Mason himself considers it "churlish" to be annoyed by the song, given that song isn't intended to be completely serious, and praises the "Hands across the water" section as being "lovably giddy."

[daniel1212]

Actually I found he was another of those Catholics trying to scratch away the itch of his baptism, becoming another Protestant/Evangelical sect or cult in a futile attempt to restart an authentic apostolic faith.

Which is absurd, as "another Protestant/Evangelical sect or cult," are fundamentally two different things, as a historically Prot. Evangelical church does not,

Hold that it alone is the one true church - which both Rome and cults do;

Hold that its head is infallible, whether formally stated or implicitly conveyed, which excludes dissent - which both Rome and cults do (evangelicals must rest the weight of the veracity of their truth claims upon Scriptural substantiation);

Hold another source of Divine revelation as being equal to Scripture - which both Rome and cults do.

Thus it is cults that are closest to Rome, and which INC is.

[daniel1212]

The INC doctrine is so far out in left field, I am not even sure we can call it a form of Godliness.

At least the form (buildings) are beautiful on the outside. So can we more than within.

[Elsie]

Since your point is not clear to me, I did not comment.

I've 'made the point' over twenty times in the last weeks.

Do you REALLY think that I (or others) believe you have NO clue as to the point?

[Elsie]

Someone seems to think that playing dumb will work forever!

[boatbums]

Yet it is not "me" that has done anything, really. I'm just the messenger, and at that -- only one of many. I did not need rely upon my own arguments -- and neither did Webster. All he had to do was bring out the information form ECF's, and that did all the work, though Webster (and others) did assemble it into cognitive form, and did provide extensive footnotes for his work, all along the way. He should get credit for that.

You get credit for taking the time to yet again present the facts. Sometimes when Webster or others have been used to demolish the RC arguments for "their" canon - and they certainly DO, their defense was to attack Webster and the others as "former Catholics", "poorly catechized", "bitter anti-Catholics", etc., etc.. Instead of addressing the arguments proffered, they try to kill the messengers of the messengers. Doesn't seem to ever change.

I've been wondering why RC "apologetes" get the FRoman's full faith and credit which they then ape as if the battle has been already won without any contentions, when these RC defenders prove just as inadequate to counter the truthful arguments. When we are directed to go to a link for the proof that will convince us we are wrong, we find the SAME bogus and lame arguments that just got defeated! Do they not even read?

I think what is really going on is some have made a stand that their church is never in error, therefore, if "they" say the Apocryphal books belong in the "Bible", then they just do and we have to accept it and stop trying to fight against the church Jesus "instituted". It doesn't matter that there wasn't any unanimous consent of the fathers concerning these books or even that up until Trent there was no official, no-more-discussion-you-guys ruling that was binding upon all to be believed, ALL that matters now is the magesterium has decreed it and you can't question it anymore. A pitiful defense, I know. I have a sneaking suspicion that they included knowingly uninspired and errant books in with the universally recognized ones in order to place the Catholic church ABOVE the word of God

So, that is what we are up against all these times we enter the fray over what is the Bible. I don't think it should be a reason for us NOT to continue to defend the real Bible - some people will be reasonable and able to reason and what we do is give them the facts to make up their own minds. Some people can learn.

[af_vet_1981]

Which is absurd, as "another Protestant/Evangelical sect or cult," are fundamentally two different things, as a historically Prot. Evangelical church does not, Hold that it alone is the one true church - which both Rome and cults do; Hold that its head is infallible, whether formally stated or implicitly conveyed, which excludes dissent - which both Rome and cults do (evangelicals must rest the weight of the veracity of their truth claims upon Scriptural substantiation); Hold another source of Divine revelation as being equal to Scripture - which both Rome and cults do. Thus it is cults that are closest to Rome, and which INC is.

You may be entitled to your own opinion but not your own facts. He left the Catholic Church to become a Protestant/Evangelist.
1. He left the Catholic Church as a teen.
2. He joined the Methodist Episcopal Church.
3. He attended a Methodist seminary and became a pastor.
4. He then became a pastor at a Presbyterian Church.
5. He then became an evangelist for the Christian Missionary Alliance, which is known in the US as Disciples of Christ.
6. He then became an evangelist for the Seventh Day Adventists.

Which of these Protestant/Evangelical denominations, sects, or cults do you consider not really Protestant or Evangelical ?

[Mark17]

At least the form (buildings) are beautiful on the outside.

Yes they are beautiful on the outside. As we travel around, we see their ornate buildings, which stand out from everything around them. They remind me of white sepulchers, beautiful on the outside, but full of dead men's bones. My opinion, is that it is a huge extorsion racket, for making money. Yes, they have many differences from the Catholic Church, but their plan of salvation is the same, in that they both say in order to be saved, people must be baptized, lead a good life and be a member of their "one true church." I got a fact sheet on them once, from the Christian Research Institute, called the Iglesia Ni Cristo, an angel and his church. There is another pernicious cult, by Apollo C Quiboloy. Another extorsion racket. This guy says Davao City is the New Jerusalem. I got news for him. It ain't