Is Prayer/Veneration/Worship to Mary Biblical?

No. It sounds to me like the Protestant/Evangelical story that there were no surviving apostolic churches after the first two centuries, and the world was effectively lost for at least thirteen hundred years

Rather, while Rome most manifestly largely did apostatize, in progressive deformation , the church of Matthew 16:18 is the body of Christ which alone consists 100% of believers, and is visible wherever it worships and works gather, and which has always continued as a relative remnant. While Rome grew in pretense and pomp, and much becoming as the gates of Hell for multitudes, yet enough of the truth was preserved so that the body of Christ continued, though often the remnant were more like those in the OT, who

were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword: they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins; being destitute, afflicted, tormented; (Of whom the world was not worthy:) they wandered in deserts, and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth. (Hebrews 11:37-38)

until a Catholic priest rebelled against the Catholic Church, ending up a notorious anti-Semite that re-formed the religion.

You keep trying the anti-Semite card only to be shown how much popes were like Rome in this attitude, to which they added actions. Do you want to see it again?

And then you have the church leading up to the Reformation.

.Part of the tragedy of the Reformation is that the Church before 1517 was unable to reform itself or to set in motion events or changes that would have led to a reform in the Church that would have satisfied its members and really affected change....

To...Boniface IX, goes the unenviable distinction of probably having begun the papal sale of offices...

..Sixtus IV was completely a worldling. He is best known perhaps for the chapel that he built which was later decorated by Michelangelo, the Sistine Chapel. His successor Innocent VIII had an illegitimate family. Alexander VI, who was Spanish, was perhaps the worst of them all. He had many illegitimate children, but he was a good political candidate. But his reign as pope did more to weaken the moral prestige of the papacy than almost anything imaginable...

And if we go to the clergy, to what we can call the lower clergy or the ordinary priests, we can say that one vice that many of them had was immorality. Many of them had women that they kept in their rectories by whom they had children, so they had families to support. — Maurice W. Sheehan, O.F.M. Cap., Lecture 2: Prelude-Causes, Attempts at Reform to 1537; International Catholic University http://home.comcast.net/~icuweb/c01802.htm

Referring to the schism of the 14th and 15th centuries, Cardinal Ratzinger observed,

"For nearly half a century, the Church was split into two or three obediences that excommunicated one another, so that every Catholic lived under excommunication by one pope or another, and, in the last analysis, no one could say with certainty which of the contenders had right on his side. The Church no longer offered certainty of salvation; she had become questionable in her whole objective form--the true Church, the true pledge of salvation, had to be sought outside the institution.

"It is against this background of a profoundly shaken ecclesial consciousness that we are to understand that Luther, in the conflict between his search for salvation and the tradition of the Church, ultimately came to experience the Church, not as the guarantor, but as the adversary of salvation. (Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, head of the Sacred Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith for the Church of Rome, “Principles of Catholic Theology,” trans. by Sister Mary Frances McCarthy, S.N.D. (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1989) p.196). http://www.whitehorseinn.org/blog/2012/06/13/whos-in-charge-here-the-illusions-of-church-infallibility/) More

If one assumes the Messiah did not leave a visible, historic, holy catholic apostolic Church on this earth against whom the gates of hell will not prevail. With that assumption none of the last eighteen centuries make much sense

But which presumes that perpetual magisterial infallibility is essential for this, such as to discern which writings are of God and preserve faith. And thus exclude the possibility of valid dissent in important cases.

It seems to me...

Tell us/show us why a perpetual infallible magisterial office is essential in the light of your list in order to provide and preserve Truth and faith.

Never mind; I found it.

Who Will Crush the Serpent’s Head?

St. Jerome himself quotes the Old Latin (pre-Vulgate) version of the text, in which the masculine pronoun ipse is used.
Elsewhere, he also translates it from the Hebrew with the masculine pronoun ipse.
Various manuscripts of the Vulgate also include ipse.
Therefore, it is improbable that Jerome used the feminine form of the pronoun (ipsa) in his original edition of the Vulgate.
Therefore, the use of the feminine form in some editions of the Vulgate is due to an early copyist’s error.

My hypothesis is still valid: whether upstream from Jerome (as I hypothesized) or downstream from him (as seems to be the case) the sheer improbability of seed crushing something lead some copyist to a false correction, which just seemed right to everyone.

"until a Catholic priest rebelled against the Catholic Church, ending up a notorious anti-Semite that re-formed the religion."

You keep trying the anti-Semite card only to be shown how much popes were like Rome in this attitude, to which they added actions. Do you want to see it again?

Exactly what do you mean "You keep trying the anti-Semite card ?" Do you have something to say ? Martin Luther, who wrote On the Jews and Their Lies, which had a seven point plan to destroy the Jews which the Nazi Party incorporated ? Is that the "anti-Semite card" you wish to argue ? Do you wish to defend Luther ? Go for it. Do you wish to defend Sola Fide that a man can viciously hate the Jewish people and plot against them until his dying day and go straight to heaven ? Go for it. DR. MARX: Apart from your weekly journal, and particularly after the Party came into power, were there any other publications in Germany which treated the Jewish question in an anti-Semitic way?

STREICHER: Anti-Semitic publications have existed in Germany for centuries. A book I had, written by Dr. Martin Luther, was, for instance, confiscated. Dr. Martin Luther would very probably sit in my place in the defendants' dock today, if this book had been taken into consideration by the Prosecution. In the book The Jews and Their Lies, Dr. Martin Luther writes that the Jews are a serpent's brood and one should burn down their synagogues and destroy them...

...

DR. MARX: Now I come to the picture books which appeared in Der Stuermer publishing house. You know that two picture books were published, one with the title, Trust No Fox in the Field, and the other one with the title, The Poisonous Toadstool. Do you assume responsibility for these picture books?

STREICHER: Yes. May I say, by way of summary, that I assume responsibility for everything which was written by my assistants or which came into my publishing house.

DR. MARX: Who was the author of these picture books?

STREICHER: The book Trust No Fox in the Field and No Jew Under His Oath was done and illustrated by a young woman artist, and she also wrote the text. The title which appears on the picture book is from Dr. Martin Luther.

First to set fire to their synagogues or schools and to bury and cover with dirt whatever will not burn, so that no man will ever again see a stone or cinder of them. This is to be done in honor of our Lord and of Christendom, so that God might see that we are Christians, and do not condone or knowingly tolerate such public lying, cursing, and blaspheming of his Son and of his Christians. For whatever we tolerated in the past unknowingly and I myself was unaware of it will be pardoned by God. But if we, now that we are informed, were to protect and shield such a house for the Jews, existing right before our very nose, in which they lie about, blaspheme, curse, vilify, and defame Christ and us (as was heard above), it would be the same as if we were doing all this and even worse ourselves, as we very well know.

Second, I advise that their houses also be razed and destroyed. For they pursue in them the same aims as in their synagogues. Instead they might be lodged under a roof or in a barn, like the gypsies. This will bring home to them that they are not masters in our country, as they boast, but that they are living in exile and in captivity, as they incessantly wail and lament about us before God.

Third, I advise that all their prayer books and Talmudic writings, in which such idolatry, lies, cursing and blasphemy are taught, be taken from them. (remainder omitted)

Fourth, I advise that their rabbis be forbidden to teach henceforth on pain of loss of life and limb. For they have justly forfeited the right to such an office by holding the poor Jews captive with the saying of Moses (Deuteronomy 17 [:10 ff.]) in which he commands them to obey their teachers on penalty of death, although Moses clearly adds: "what they teach you in accord with the law of the Lord." Those villains ignore that. They wantonly employ the poor people's obedience contrary to the law of the Lord and infuse them with this poison, cursing, and blasphemy. In the same way the pope also held us captive with the declaration in Matthew 16 {:18], "You are Peter," etc, inducing us to believe all the lies and deceptions that issued from his devilish mind. He did not teach in accord with the word of God, and therefore he forfeited the right to teach.

Fifth, I advise that safeconduct on the highways be abolished completely for the Jews. For they have no business in the countryside, since they are not lords, officials, tradesmen, or the like. Let they stay at home. (...remainder omitted).

Sixth, I advise that usury be prohibited to them, and that all cash and treasure of silver and gold be taken from them and put aside for safekeeping. The reason for such a measure is that, as said above, they have no other means of earning a livelihood than usury, and by it they have stolen and robbed from us all they possess. Such money should now be used in no other way than the following: Whenever a Jew is sincerely converted, he should be handed one hundred, two hundred, or three hundred florins, as personal circumstances may suggest. With this he could set himself up in some occupation for the support of his poor wife and children, and the maintenance of the old or feeble. For such evil gains are cursed if they are not put to use with God's blessing in a good and worthy cause.

Seventh, I commend putting a flail, an ax, a hoe, a spade, a distaff, or a spindle into the hands of young, strong Jews and Jewesses and letting them earn their bread in the sweat of their brow, as was imposed on the children of Adam (Gen 3[:19]}. For it is not fitting that they should let us accursed Goyim toil in the sweat of our faces while they, the holy people, idle away their time behind the stove, feasting and farting, and on top of all, boasting blasphemously of their lordship over the Christians by means of our sweat. No, one should toss out these lazy rogues by the seat of their pants.

* * *

But what will happen even if we do burn down the Jews' synagogues and forbid them publicly to praise God, to pray, to teach, to utter God's name? They will still keep doing it in secret. If we know that they are doing this in secret, it is the same as if they were doing it publicly. for our knowledge of their secret doings and our toleration of them implies that they are not secret after all and thus our conscience is encumbered with it before God.

* * *

Accordingly, it must and dare not be considered a trifling matter but a most serious one to seek counsel against this and to save our souls from the Jews, that is, from the devil and from eternal death. My advice, as I said earlier, is:

First, that their synagogues be burned down, and that all who are able toss in sulphur and pitch; it would be good if someone could also throw in some hellfire. That would demonstrate to God our serious resolve and be evidence to all the world that it was in ignorance that we tolerated such houses, in which the Jews have reviled God, our dear Creator and Father, and his Son most shamefully up till now but that we have now given them their due reward.

* * *

I wish and I ask that our rulers who have Jewish subjects exercise a sharp mercy toward these wretched people, as suggested above, to see whether this might not help (though it is doubtful). They must act like a good physician who, when gangrene has set in, proceeds without mercy to cut, saw, and burn flesh, veins, bone, and marrow. Such a procedure must also be followed in this instance. Burn down their synagogues, forbid all that I enumerated earlier, force them to work, and deal harshly with them, as Moses did in the wilderness, slaying three thousand lest the whole people perish. They surely do not know what they are doing; moreover, as people possessed, they do not wish to know it, hear it, or learn it. There it would be wrong to be merciful and confirm them in their conduct. If this does not help we must drive them out like mad dogs, so that we do not become partakers of their abominable blasphemy and all their other vices and thus merit God's wrath and be damned with them. I have done my duty. Now let everyone see to his. I am exonerated. "

But the grammatical gender of "heel" is of no relevance here

Actually, you're partly right. I didn't identify correctly where the masculine pronoun was coming from. "Heel" is masculine independently, as you suggest, just because of the history of the word. My bad. However, the root for "bruise" is appended with both the inflection for the "you shall" part and the "him/his" part. It's built into the complex package of endings (which as a student I found to be one of the most challenging aspects of Hebrew - we of the English persuasion don't pack all that pronoun info into individual words).

תְּשׁוּפֶ֥נּוּ

The morphology (derived from Logos) is

1. The verb root: [verb, qal, imperfect,]
2. The person performing the action: [second person, masculine, singular,]
3. The person receiving the action: [third person, masculine, singular, energic nun]

What this would look like then in English (oversimplified somewhat) is "bruise [you will] [his]" followed by "heel." This explains why the LXX supplied autou, which is the masculine genitive. They wanted to draw that out to show who owned the heel in question.

This, BTW, points us back to the Seed as both the crusher of the serpent's head and the owner of the bruised heel. This symmetrical inverse relationship between Seed and Serpent is the most natural way to understand the mutual exchange of damage. The woman is too remote from the pronoun in any event. One cannot make arbitrary attachments to remote nouns if a closer one is available that fills the bill, as Seed does. Proximity matters.

Peace,

SR

You are right, the ending nun indicates masculine object of action. But it is still heel, not the owner of the heel, — who can be either physiological gender. There is an anatomical joke in here somewhere...

However, I never claimed that the Vulgate translation is rooted in the Hebrew text. I still think it is corrupted simply because it is easier to think of the passage in terms of the woman and her heel because of the leading statement of enmity between the woman and the serpent.

Exactly what do you mean "You keep trying the anti-Semite card ?" Do you have something to say ?

Yes, as warned, your own popes had an attitude against Jews anbd advocated ill treatment.

Do you wish to defend Luther ? Go for it. Do you wish to defend Sola Fide that a man can viciously hate the Jewish people and plot against them until his dying day and go straight to heaven

That is not the argument at all, and resorting to try to make it that is a specious argument against Protestantism, and indicates desperation or a preoccupation with anti-antisemitism which you seem blind to in your own church.

Do you wish to defend Sola Fide that a man can viciously hate the Jewish people and plot against them until his dying day and go straight to heaven ?

Do you think Luther always had this bitterness, which developed as a result of continual rejection and hardened blasphemy that his RC contemporaries testified to. Moses was provoked by them to speak unadvisedly with his lips,(Ps. 106:33) but how much more Luther, and inexcusably so.

Do you think Luther even taught such a faith as salvific, and know that passionate Luther did not repent? "For it is impossible for him who believes in Christ, as a just Savior, not to love and to do good. If, however, he does not do good nor love, it is sure that faith is not present.." [Sermons of Martin Luther 1:40]

“For if your heart is in the state of faith that you know your God has revealed himself to you to be so good and merciful, without thy merit, and purely gratuitously, while you were still his enemy and a child of eternal wrath; if you believe this, you cannot refrain from showing yourself so to your neighbor; and do all out of love to God and for the welfare of your neighbor. Therefore, see to it that you make no distinction between friend and foe, the worthy and the unworthy; for you see that all who were here mentioned, have merited from us something different than that we should love and do them good. And the Lord also teaches this, when in Luke 6:35 he says: "But love your enemies, and do good unto them, and lend, never despairing; and your reward shall be great, and ye shall be sons of the Most High: for he is kind toward the unthankful and evil." [Sermons of Martin Luther 2.2:101]

Do you as a RC argue that the iniquities of a leader impugn all the beliefs of that church? Do you even think we follow Luther as a pope? Do you think the words and actions of popes did not also contribute to antisemitism in Germany and elsewhere? Do you think Rome is more pro-Israel than evangelicals, and not for eschatological reasons?

Just what is your problem that you seem to inevitably resort to the "Luther was an anti-Semite" screed to deal with the Reformation. Are you acting out of being a victim of anti-antisemitism that prevents you from dealing with this issue objectively and in context?

Do you wish to defend Sola Ecclesia as meaning men can require physical extermination of people even such as me as well as manifest hate of the Jewish people and work against them and end up in heaven without repentance?

• The crucifiers of Christ ought to be held in continual subjection.(Pope Innocent III, “Epistle to the Hierarchy of France,” July 15, 1205)

• It would be licit, according to custom, to hold the Jews in perpetual servitude because of their crime. (St. Thomas Aquinas, “De Regimine Judaeorum”)

More

In The Popes Against the Jews : The Vatican's Role in the Rise of Modern Anti-Semitism, historian David Kertzer notes,

“the legislation enacted in the 1930s by the Nazis in their Nuremberg Laws and by the Italian Fascists with their racial laws—which stripped the Jews of their rights as citizens—was modeled on measures that the [Roman Catholic] Church itself had enforced for as long as it was in a position to do so” (9).

In 1466,

in festivities sponsored by Pope Paul II, Jews were made to race naked through the streets of the city. A particularly evocative later account describes them: “Races were run on each of the eight days of the Carnival by horses, asses and buffaloes, old men, lads, children, and Jews. Before they were to run, the Jews were richly fed, so as to make the race more difficult for them, and at the same time, more amusing for the spectators. They ran from the Arch of Domitian to the Church of St. Mark at the end of the Corso at full tilt, amid Rome’s taunting shrieks of encouragement and peals of laughter, while the Holy Father stood upon a richly ornamented balcony and laughed heartily. Two centuries later, these practices, now deemed indecorous and unbefitting the dignity of the Holy City, were stopped by Clement IX. In their place the Pope assessed a heavy tax on the Jews to help pay the costs of the city’s Carnival celebrations.

But various other Carnival rites continued. For many years the rabbis of the ghetto were forced to wear clownish outfits and march through the streets to the jeers of the crow, pelted by a variety of missiles. Such rites were not peculiar to Rome. In Pisa in the eighteenth century, for example, it was customary each year, as part of Carnival, for students to chase after the fattest Jew in the city, capture him, weigh him, and then make him give them his weight in sugar-coated almonds.

In 1779, Pius VI resurrected some of the Carnival rites that had been neglected in recent years. Most prominent among them was the feudal rite of homage, in which ghetto officials, made to wear special clothes, stood before an unruly mob in a crowded piazza, making an offering to Rome’s governors.

It was this practice that occasioned the formal plea from the ghetto to Pope Gregory XVI in 1836. The Jews argued that such rites should be abandoned, and cited previous popes who had ordered them halted. They asked that, in his mercy, the Pope now do the same. On November 5, the Pope met with his secretary of state to discuss the plea. A note on the secretary of state’s copy of the petition, along with his signature, records the Pope’s decision: “It is not opportune to make any innovation.” The annual rites continued.

“When all is said and done, the [Roman Catholic] Church’s claim of lack of responsibility for the kind of anti-Semitism that made the Holocaust possible comes down to this: The Roman Catholic Church never called for, or sanctioned, the mass murder of the Jews. Yes, the Jews should be stripped of their rights as equal citizens. Yes, they should be kept from contact with the rest of society. But Christian Charity and Christian theology forbade good Christians to round them up and murder them.”

Canons of the 4th Lateran Council

Text. The more the Christians are restrained from the practice of usury, the more are they oppressed in this matter by the treachery of the Jews, so that in a short time they exhaust the resources of the Christians. -http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/lateran4.html

In 581 the Synod of Macon enacted in canon 14 that from Thursday in Holy Week until Easter Sunday, .Jews may not in accordance with a decision of King Childebert appear in the streets and in public places. Mansi, IX, 934; Hefele-Leclercq, 111, 204. In 1227 the Synod of Narbonne in canon 3 ruled: "That Jews may be distinguished from others, we decree and emphatically command that in the center of the breast (of their garments) they shall wear an oval badge, the measure of one finger in width and one half a palm in height. -Mansi, XXIII, 22; Hefele-Leclercq V 1453. - http://beggarsallreformation.blogspot.com/search/label/The%20Popes%20Against%20the%20Jews

See more in part 5 of a series (1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5, 6 .

6.Sola Fide and Sola Scriptura proponents cannot agree on who to baptize, when to baptize, and how to baptize.

HMMMmmm...

1 Corinthians 1:17
For Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel, and not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.

2.we do not have any of the original manuscripts

We DO have visions by three Portuguese children. Does THAT count?

All I have to do is [ahem] point to it.

And all Catholics do is continue to deny that fact.

What is it you find “bizarre”? that PURE Catholicism could NOT keep seven of it's early churches in Asia from teaching ERROR.

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

From wherever did you get a copy of that Real Bible.........Oh that's right, you got it from the Catholic Church.......say thanks!!

other sources claim Manalo as a former member of CMA, as they do some others who are rather embarrassing. Similarly, Manalo is listed as a former member of United Church of Christ in the Philippines

That Felix Manalo was a confused man, there is no doubt. Or is there? I have a family I am friendly with, who knew Manalo personally. They were on a first name basis with him. Their opinion is, and it is just their opinion, is that Manalo was not confused at all. He knew exactly what he was doing. They said his intent, was to get in on the ground floor of a new money making business, and he called it the INC. It appealed to Philippine nationalism. They were tired of Rome interfering with their lives, as they put it, and the people responded to it, because the "only true church" as they put it, was was started by one of their own. Manalo is not the first one to make merchandise of the people, and probably won't be the last, but most of these cult leaders live in luxury, while the people worry about where their next meal is coming from. The point being, the RCC is not the only church claiming to be the "only true church." The INC people I have met, are far more rabid in their claims to be the ONE, than the RCC. I got to a point, that I would not even discuss spiritual things with them anymore. No one can seem to tell them the truth. Now, to be fair, most of them are extremely nice people, as long as you don't talk about religion.

Catholics have been around since DAY ONE!

and protestants have been around since day 1,601 and haven't been right PERIOD

There are a whole bunch more that leave the catholic church, like me, and come to know the truth about Jesus Christ

talk about being misguided....you leave the true church of Jesus Christ, the one that He Himself founded on His Apostles, the one which encompasses the seven Sacraments that He instituted, the only one that has existed from the time of Christ, the only one that He promised to be with until the end of time, the only one which repeats on a daily basis the Eucharist which is one of His greatest gifts, and you say that you have "come to know the truth"....when you decide, on your own, what the truth is....it can be anything that you want it to be and can include all the unicorns that you need.

But neither is every non-Catholic a Protestant.

That is, of course true.....however, every Christian that is not a Catholic is, indeed, a protestant....that is the very definition of what a protestant is.....a non-Catholic Christian.

You mean how the church of Rome wandered from the NT church into a significantly different form ?

No they didn't....they, of course built buildings to meet in, libraries to hold their documents and hand copied Bibles, monasteries to train their followers and future leaders in, Cathedrals to establish local bishops who would oversee a group of parish churches and a normal method of growing a worldwide church....as Christ commanded....to better spread His word. Worked real good....churches in every country in the world and about 1.3 billion members....

talk about being misguided....you leave the true church of Jesus Christ, the one that He Himself founded on His Apostles, the one which encompasses the seven Sacraments that He instituted, the only one that has existed from the time of Christ, the only one that He promised to be with until the end of time, the only one which repeats on a daily basis the Eucharist which is one of His greatest gifts, and you say that you have "come to know the truth"....when you decide, on your own, what the truth is....it can be anything that you want it to be and can include all the unicorns that you need.

LOL, here we go again. Unicorns you say? Are you a fan of the Irish Rovers? That is the only time I have ever heard anyone say anything about unicorns. I did not decide on my own what the truth is. I got help from those EXTREMELY gifted and SUPER wonderful people with the NAVIGATORS. I love them and they helped me learn the truth, which is why I left the RCC. They never told me to do anything about a church, they let me discover it on my own, and yes, I am perfectly capable of figuring it out for myself, and I love to figure things out by myself, and I enjoy it. I went to mass about 3 more times after my conversion experience, like other former RCs have had, who will remain unnamed for now, but they know who they are. After that, I kept reading my DR Bible, I no longer felt comfortable in with them. Then I ditched my DR Bible for a KJV and never looked back. I am SUPER comfortable with that. Sorry you don't like it, but you will just have to learn to live with it. Thanks for your concern, but I am happy with my faith, which happened in 1970. I will pray for you too.

For you, as I know you love the Navigators too.

:-)

For nearly half a century, the Church was split into two or three obediences that excommunicated one another, so that every Catholic lived under excommunication by one pope or another, and, in the last analysis, no one could say with certainty which of the contenders had right on his side.

Half a century???I have 2 cars and a bedroom set older that that....and I myself exceed that by another quarter of a century....meaningless.