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.

[daniel1212]

Here is a family movie. If you do not find joy as well as some tears then... Letters To God (2010)

[Mark17]

the Catholic church has plenty of money

LOL, here we go again. I guess I am living rent free in your head. 😄 I left the RCC many years ago, when I came to the realization that many of the doctrines of the RCC are false. The most important, being the plan of salvation. I think you believe in salvation by baptism, good works and church membership. I don't, so I skedaddled. You may not like it, but deal with it. I have mentioned to you many times, that we will have to agree to disagree. So be it. To be fair, I will at least give the RCC credit, when I went to 12 years of catholic school, that they told me about the Trinity and told me Jesus' name. Beyond that, not much truth. I don't watch TV evangelists either, and more than likely, I also will not tune in to EWTN anytime soon. I told you before, that just the fact that you run into tons of opposition here, should make you at least investigate why. Even a well known, noted scholar like you, might learn something new. 😄😃😀😊

[annalex]

When Tyndale was convicted, by the way, England was already Protestant, so thank your own co-religionists for his conviction.

First reputable translation of the Bible into English was Catholic Douay Rheims (NT: 1582, OT: 1609-1610). King James translatuion was completed in 1611.

Yes, history is important. Those who know it, tend to be Catholic.

[annalex]

No contradiction. Not taught in the Bible, perhaps, but there is no contradiction. You can re-read my posts on this thread for that. You can start at 1255 when I answered (in part, initially) your 1026 which was identical to your recent post.

[annalex]

salvation by hoping your good works outweigh your bad works

.. is not Catholic teaching. We are saved by grace of God alone.

[annalex]

Paraphrasing 2 Timothy 3:15.

[boatbums]

You don't have anything to offer by way of evidence of your assertions other than they might make sense to you? I used to teach five and six year old children to read and it didn't take them much time at all compared to an illiterate adult trying to learn from scratch. Children are trained early to read and write and they were in ancient days as well. If Jesus' disciples were mostly fisherman - hardly the "educationally gifted" class - could read and write, then it is silly to presume 95% of the people couldn't. Those massive libraries existed for a reason. Where's your common sense?

I visited Portugal a few times for work and marveled at how difficult a language Portuguese seemed to learn. "Oh, no!", one student said, "Even our little children know it!". It is how one is brought up that makes the difference. Would it surprise you to know that writing is a fairly new invention? The reason we don't have written documents going back even 5,000 years ago is because most languages didn't have a written alphabet. It explains why going back any further than that we rely upon an oral history. Many ancient writings were in pictures like symbols, cuneiform or like the Egyptian hieroglyphics. The earliest known alphabetic inscriptions, at Serabit el-Khadim were c. 1500 BC. Our own English language didn't even exist until the sixteenth century!

When children are taught to read there are two main techniques: "phonetically" or "sight read". Phonetics, in my experience, was the best method because it first taught the letters of the alphabet, then their sounds, then how they blended with other letters to make words. Through frequent drills, kids could start learning to read in as little as a few months and they gradually got better, of course, as they began to recognize and remember whole words and reading flowed from that. I don't think humanity's capacity for learning is necessarily better today than it was thousands of years ago. So, unless you have some real statistics and factual evidence to back up your claim of illiterate masses of people who would have had no need for "books", it will remain your own uneducated guess.

[ealgeone]

Oh good grief.

[terycarl]

We talked about some of their beliefs and he knew more about them than I did and he was probably in his 20’s or 30’s. It was odd in a way because when I asked him, he said no way, that he was a Christian. God bless.

Catholics get very little theological instruction from 25 year old garage door repairmen...we tend to rely on a Carpenters kid from a couple thousand years ago...much more qualified!

[Mark17]

salvation by hoping your good works outweigh your bad works

.. is not Catholic teaching. We are saved by grace of God alone.

By the grace of God alone? Then, I am sure your definition of the grace of God and mine are vastly different. So, let me see if I have it right. When I went to catholic school, grades 1 through 12. The many priests and nuns told me that because Jesus died and rose again, that He provided a lot of salvation, but not all of it, and together with baptism, and membership in the RCC, praying to the holy saints and Mary, and all the sacraments, except "holy orders" because I liked females too much, and I wasn't about to give that up. But, together with all those things, plus if I led a good enough life, I might make it to Heaven. That is what those priest and nuns told me. Were they simply mistaken? All of them, for that length of time? All of them? Or were they as deceived as I was? Praise God I am not deceived anymore, and my transformed life showed it. I learned that EVERY sin is mortal, even my own smallest little mistake, is enough to send the entire world to Hell. I just changed my residence from Hell to Heaven. I am eternally grateful for that.

:-)

[MamaB]

Well, I actually thought I was speaking to my townhouse owner when I heard someone walk in from the sunroom. Y’all do not care too much about Jesus since y’all care more about traditions and what men say. Men can be wrong but the Bible and Jesus never are. In fact, until I came across these threads I knew nothing about Catholics. I did not grow up with many and the kids I knew were grades above me. I do not know what happened to the 3 families I knew from way back then. What I have learned seems to be more cult like than born again Christians. I am so blessed that I had a wonderful Christian upbringing. The one thing I have noticed on FB from kids I knew from then are living Christian, productive lives. I do not think any of them ever got into trouble but it was a different era and we knew not to. Kids today do not know that lifestyle. The only thing kids back then got into trouble over was smoking. I learned the hard way not to do that. When I was about 6, I found some cigarettes which I thought were my brother’s. I got behind the house and tried to smoke one. I had never gotten so sick. Did not take another time for me to learn to leave those things alone.

[Mark17]

Oh good grief.

LOL, I see what you mean bro.

[MamaB]

Jesus does make a difference. God bless.

[verga]

I have learned so much from them.

The problem isn't what you (all) have learned, it is what you (all) have learned wrong. Which is basically anything that an anti-Catholic has told you.

[MamaB]

Thank you very much but I do know how to do research. Have been doing it for years. I also know how to find things in the Bible to see if what people say is the truth. I do not go by traditions. Men make mistakes but God does not. I was wondering about some Protestant ministers on tv and a friend told me about a site called deceptioninthechurch. From that and other sites I learned a lot. I knew my instincts had been right. Genealogy taught me not to believe what one site says. I checked out many plus census data, etc. I even found a church’s minutes online from 1810. My great grandparents attended it. Boy, were they strict but I could see their point. I love history and that is what genealogy is.

[boatbums]

Thank you. I appreciate your many valuable contributions to these threads.

What I find ludicrous in this argument over the "uselessness" of books to a so-called "illiterate" world is that there were numerous other uses for writing and reading than just books. There were, of course, personal letters, missives, instructions, receipts, bills of sale, philosophy, plays, songs, decrees, reports, histories, lists, records of births, marriages, contracts...I could go on. That some think since Bibles were so prohibitively expensive that no one could have had one to read even if they COULD have read it leaves out the very real events of people making their OWN written copies of books or passages. I'm sure even today having a handwritten on extravagant paper, fancily decorated with pretty painted pictures in it would STILL be expensive. A plain printed copy on thin paper is so cheap they give them away!

If God did not intend for mankind to know His sacred word in written form, then why did He order His prophets to write down what He revealed to them? Why did Jesus dispute all the devil's temptations with "It is written."? Why did He rebuke his own followers for not knowing the Scriptures? Why did He criticize the religious leaders for their ignorance of Scripture in not recognizing the long awaited Messiah in their midst? If the intent is to discredit the written Word of God, then they have failed miserably in doing so. Facts are NOT on their side.

[Springfield Reformer]

Nothing sinister, counselor; it was a reference to the posted link where someone tried to counter the argument that every person mentioned in Hebrews Roll Call of Faith is somewhere in the (Catholic) Bible. I suppose any humor is at risk these days, but no insult intended. I simply was not persuaded by that person's counter argument to the strong evidence for Maccabbees. Nonetheless it was a fair treatment of the issue. I just considered the argument unrefined and still standing.

Fair enough.  And yes, humor is a bit challenging under the circumstances, but always welcome when in good taste. No harm no foul. :)

As for the state of the argument about admitting Maccabees under your proposed special pleadings, let each be persuaded in his own mind (Romans 14:5).

What body ? If the body is invisible in history I think there is a problem with having a visible and historical Canon. Nonetheless I do not invent my own rules nor promulgate my own Canon. I recognize the canon of scripture as held by the visible and historical holt catholic apostolic church. It was a German antiSemite who promulgated a reduced and different version of the Bible. It is reckless to trust his judgment.

What other body is there but the body of Christ?  You identify it with one human organization.  But that organization did not exist until close to the end of the Second Century.  Rome was populated with a loose network of house churches with no one visible organization governing all.  The papal lists have not been verifiable.  But the "table of contents" of accepted Scripture has been in play since at least the time of Polycarp, give or take a few outliers, like Revelation, which took a little longer to settle into the informal canon.

Here's the thing.  The word of God is self-authenticating. God Himself has guaranteed it's success in accomplishing His purposes. It doesn't contain errors. It leads to the same place doctrinally and spiritually as all accepted Scripture has always led.  The Lord leads His body, even when that body is hard for carnal man to identify.  It's visible enough to God.  And it has no spiritual dependency whatsoever on any one mortal, let alone an ex-communicated German priest.  The genetic argument fails here spectacularly, because it fails to recognize the spiritual nature of the Ecclesia that Jesus is building.  

Now, don't misunderstand what I'm going to say here, but this whole "you belong to Luther and Luther was a bad person" argument reminds me of the Alinsky model of "pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it." I'm not saying anybody is doing this intentionally, but it just turns out that it seems to map real well to the Luther strategy.  But it's ridiculous because the Reformation was far more complex than one rebel priest tacking statements on a door.  I don't trace my Reformed lineage through Luther, and I didn't get the 22/27 canon from him.  So you can flail away all day long on that one, and I'm just going to feel sorry for you that you're wasting so much effort boxing shadows, when we could be discussing matters of substance.

Peace,

SR

[Springfield Reformer]

When Tyndale was convicted, by the way, England was already Protestant, so thank your own co-religionists for his conviction.

Well, under an oversimple view that all dissidents from Rome are Protestant, that might be true.  But Henry didn't break with Rome over justification by faith, and the arrangement for Tyndale's death no doubt had more to do with Tyndale recapitulating the role of John the Baptist in accusing Henry in the divorce of Catherine.  But in any event Henry was a Defender of the Faith as so named by the pope, as he had so ably argued for the Catholic understanding of the seven sacraments.  The Church he created was Catholicism sans pope, aka Anglicanism, and at that time was not in substance a Protestant body, certainly not in the Lutheran or Calvinist sense.  And IIRC, the "heresy" of Tyndale was justification by faith, a hallmark of the true reform movement.  So it becomes very awkward to say he was condemned by the reformed for believing what the reformed believed. More reasonable to say he was condemned by Henry for agreeing with the Catholics on divorce and agreeing with the Reformers on justification.  In short, those who killed Tyndale I would not count among my co-religionists nor would any evangelical here.  Preposterous.

First reputable translation of the Bible into English was Catholic Douay Rheims (NT: 1582, OT: 1609-1610). King James translatuion was completed in 1611.

Well, "reputable" is one of those subjective terms, isn't it.  Odd too how such "disreputable" works as Tyndale's were actually the base translation underneath the hood of the D-R:

Elsewhere, however, the English wording of the Rheims New Testament follows more or less closely the Protestant version first produced by William Tyndale in 1525, though the base text for the Rheims translators appears to be the revision of Tyndale found in an English and Latin diglot New Testament, published by Miles Coverdale in Paris in 1538. Furthermore, the translators are especially accurate in their rendition of the definite article from Greek to English, and in their recognition of subtle distinctions of the Greek past tense, neither of which are capable of being represented in Latin. Consequently, the Rheims New Testament is much less of a new version, and owes rather more to the original languages, than the translators admit in their preface. Where the Rheims translators depart from the Coverdale text, they frequently adopt readings found in the Wycliff bible, as this version had been translated from the Vulgate, and had been widely used by English Catholic churchmen unaware of its Lollard origins.

Available here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douay%E2%80%93Rheims_Bible

Yes, history is important. Those who know it, tend to be Catholic.

Wishful thinking.

Peace,

SR

[boatbums]

This also came to mind WRT RC mystics, prophets, "Saints":

Then the LORD said to me, The prophets prophesy lies in my name: I sent them not, neither have I commanded them, neither spoke to them: they prophesy to you a false vision and divination, and a thing of nothing, and the deceit of their heart. (Jeremiah 14:14)

[boatbums]

Do you know when the Catechism of the Roman Catholic church came into existence? Has there ALWAYS been such a document for Catholics?