Replies

While I appreciate your reply, your answers for the most part are an attempt to ignore the meaning of God’s Truth and misrepresent history. You keep on saying the same old same old protestant versions and misrepresent God’s Truth. To me your version is not truthful and just made up to fit the protestant doctrine.

Today’s Gospel is especially appropriate:
“Because knowledge of the mysteries of the Kingdom of heaven
has been granted to you, but to them it has not been granted.
To anyone who has, more will be given and he will grow rich;
from anyone who has not, even what he has will be taken away.
This is why I speak to them in parables, because
they look but do not see and hear but do not listen or understand.
Isaiah’s prophecy is fulfilled in them, (Matt 13:10-17)

Sola Scriptura and SolaFides doctrines are not biblical.

While your comment that the Catholic Church recognizes baptized Protestants as christian and members of Christ Body, many (catholics included) may still be in mortal sin which destroys the relationship with God and risking their salvation unless they repent and confess. Again the Church is not the judge of a person’s soul but wants to help all reach eternal life with God.

The Catechism (once again quoting Lumen Gentium) summarizes all this as follows:

Basing itself on Scripture and Tradition, the Council teaches that the Church, a pilgrim now on earth, is necessary for salvation: the one Christ is the mediator and the way of salvation; he is present to us in his body which is the Church. He himself explicitly asserted the necessity of faith and baptism, and thereby affirmed at the same time the necessity of the Church which men enter through baptism as through a door. Hence they could not be saved who, knowing that the Catholic Church was founded as necessary by God through Christ, would refuse either to enter it or to remain in it. (CCC 846)

Concerning the books of the Bible:
In Jesus’ time, the Samaritans and Sadducees accepted the law but rejected the prophets and writings. The Pharisees accepted all three. Other Jews used a Greek version (the Septuagint) that included the seven disputed books, known as the deuterocanonicals. Still other Jews used a version of the canon that is reflected in the Septuagint and included versions of the seven books in question in their original Hebrew or Aramaic.

Early Christians read the Greek translation of the Old Testament, the Septuagint. It included the seven deuterocanonical books. For this reason, the Protestant historian J.N.D. Kelly writes, “It should be observed that the Old Testament thus admitted as authoritative in the Church was somewhat bulkier and more comprehensive [than the Protestant Bible]. . . . It always included, though with varying degrees of recognition, the so-called apocrypha or deuterocanonical books.” The authors of the New Testament quoted freely from the Septuagint—over 300 times.

https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/how-to-defend-the-deuterocanonicals

The Catholic faith key tenets include Peter as the Pope And the Eucharist as the Real Presence of Jesus Christ Are expected to be believed by all Catholics and not subject to debate.

A baptized Catholic that rejects the Catholic faith, rejects Jesus. (Luke 10:16) They always have the opportunity to repent and confess and do penance.

I do not know why you left the Catholic faith, nor do I understand why protestant doctrine appeals to many Catholics that have rejected the Catholic Church. Perhaps not being required to go to weekly Mass or annual confession or able to accept an alternate false version of God’s Truth or the promise of their word only once that they are guaranteed salvation?

There is a hatred of the Catholic Church and not accepting that Jesus established His Church- The Catholic Church. The Catholic Church followed Jesus command over the centuries to preach and baptize all nations, while the protestant versions were founded by men about 500 years ago.

I do believe that many Catholics are betting their salvation on the false word of men or their own false beliefs instead of faith in God’s Truth.

Rather, it is I who provided abundant substantiation for Truth claims but which you overall ignore, while not even quoting what you are referring to from me, and insist on basically just parroting refuted prevaricating polemics and vain argument by assertion. You need to realize that your arguments are not new, and have been refuted extensively time and again, and only a few RC's are left who do not seem to know better by now than to try your craft.

Sola Scriptura and SolaFides doctrines are not biblical.

More mere assertions, and most likely you hold to an erroneous idea of both, and thus (to save typing) see Step-by-Step Refutation of Dave Armstrong vs. Sola Scriptura and here , by the grace of God.

Concerning the books of the Bible: In Jesus’ time, the Samaritans and Sadducees accepted the law but rejected the prophets and writings. The Pharisees accepted all three. Other Jews used a Greek version (the Septuagint) that included the seven disputed books, known as the deuterocanonicals. Still other Jews used a version of the canon that is reflected in the Septuagint and included versions of the seven books in question in their original Hebrew or Aramaic.

So goes the typical RC version, which means at beast that you are poorly informed, since for there was not only no standard version of the the Septuagint, but evidence does not support the assertion that the Septuagint of the 1 Century included the seven disputed books, and not that those who sat in the seat of Moses held them to be Scripture.

Here is just an excerpt (read it all) from the testimony against your Romanized history.

"In all likelihood Josephus' twenty-two-book canon was the Pharisaic canon, but it is to be doubted that it was also the canon of all Jews in the way that he has intended." (Timothy H. Lim: The Formation of the Jewish Canon; Yale University Press, Oct 22, 2013. P. 49) By the first century, it is clear that the Pharisees held to the twenty-two or twenty-four book canon, and it was this canon that eventually became the canon of Rabbinic Judaism because the majority of those who founded the Jewish faith after the destruction of Jerusalem were Pharisees. The Jewish canon was not directed from above but developed from the "bottom-up." (Timothy H. Lim, University of Edinburgh: Understanding the Emergence of the Jewish Canon, ANCIENT JEW REVIEW, December 2, 2015)

Knowledgeable [if liberal] New Testament scholar Bart Ehrman also finds,

Most scholars agree that by the time of the destruction of the second Temple in 70 C.E. most Jews accepted the final three-part canon of the Torah, Nevi'im, and Kethuvim.... This was a twenty-four-book canon that came to be attested widely in Jewish writings of the time; eventually the canon was reconceptualized and renumbered an that it became the thirty-nine books of the Christian Old Testament. But they are the same books, all part of the canon of Scripture. (Ehrman, The Bible, 377)

Philo of Alexandria (1st c A.D.) states that only the Torah (the first 5 books of the O.T.) was commissioned to be translated, leaving the rest of the O.T. following in later centuries, and in an order that is not altogether clear, nor do all LXX manuscripts have the same apocryphal books and names.

For many reasons (and see note on Jamnia) it is held that the Septuagint is of dubious support for the apocrypha.

For while Catholics argue that since Christ and the NT quotes from the LXX then we must accept the books we call the apocrypha. However, this presumes that the Septuagint was a uniform body of texts in the time of Christ and which contained all the apocryphal books at that time, but for which there is no historical evidence. The earliest existing Greek manuscripts which contain some of them date from the 4th Century and are understood to have been placed therein by Christians.

Furthermore, if quoting from some of the Septuagint means the whole is sanctioned, then since the Psalms of Solomon, which is not part of any scriptural canon, is found in copies of the Septuagint as is Psalm 151, and 3 and 4 Maccabees (Vaticanus [early 4th century] does not include any of the Maccabean books, while Sinaiticus [early 4th century] includes 1 and 4 Maccabees and Alexandrinus [early 5th century] includes 1, 2, 3, and 4 Maccabees and the Psalms of Solomon), then we would be bound to accept them as well.

Addressing the theory that the first century Septuagint contained the the apocryphal books, we have such scholarly testimony as the below:

The Septuagint is a pre-Christian Jewish translation, and the larger manuscripts of it include various of the Apocrypha. Grabe's edition of the Septuagint, where the theory was first propounded, was based upon the fifth-century Codex Alexandrinus.

However, as we now know, manuscripts of anything like the capacity of Codex Alexandrinus were not used in the first centuries of the Christian era," and since, in the second century C.E., the Jews seem largely to have discarded the Septuagint in favour of revisions or translations more usable in their controversy with the church (notably Aquila's translation), there can be no real doubt that the comprehensive codices of the Septuagint, which start appearing in the fourth century, are all of Christian origin.

An indication of this is that in many Septuagint manuscripts the Psalms are followed by a collection of Odes or liturgical canticles, including Christian ones from the NT. Also, the order of the books in the great fourth and fifth-century Septuagint codices is Christian, not adhering to the three divisions of the Hebrew canon; nor is there agreement between the codices which of the Apocrypha to include. Codex Vaticanus, Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Alexandrinus all include Tobit, Judith, Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus, and integrate them into the body of the or rather than appending them at the end; but Codex Vaticanus, unlike the other two, totally excludes the Books of Maccabees.

Moreover, all three codices, according to Kenyon, were produced in Egypt," yet the contemporary Christian lists of the biblical books drawn up in Egypt by Athanasius and (very likely) pseudo-Athanasius are much more critical, ex-cluding all apocryphal books from the canon, and putting them in a separate appendix. Mulder, M. J. (1988). (Mikra: text, translation, reading, and interpretation of the Hebrew Bible in ancient Judaism and early Christianity. Phil.: Van Gorcum. p. 81 )

Edward Earle Ellis writes, “No two Septuagint codices contain the same apocrypha, and no uniform Septuagint ‘Bible’ was ever the subject of discussion in the patristic church. In view of these facts the Septuagint codices appear to have been originally intended more as service books than as a defined and normative canon of Scripture,” (E. E. Ellis, The Old Testament in Early Christianity [Baker 1992], 34-35.

British scholar R. T. Beckwith states, Philo of Alexandria's writings show it to have been the same as the Palestinian. He refers to the three familiar sections, and he ascribes inspiration to many books in all three, but never to any of the Apocrypha....The Apocrypha were known in the church from the start, but the further back one goes, the more rarely are they treated as inspired. (Roger T. Beckwith, "The Canon of the Old Testament" in Phillip Comfort, The Origin of the Bible [Wheaton: Tyndale House, 2003] pp. 57-64)

Manuscripts of anything like the capacity of Codex Alexandrinus were not used in the first centuries of the Christian era, and since in the second century AD the Jews seem largely to have discarded the Septuagint…there can be no real doubt that the comprehensive codices of the Septuagint, which start appearing in the fourth century AD, are all of Christian origin.

Nor is there agreement between the codices which the Apocrypha include...Moreover, all three codices [Vaticanus, Sinaiticus and Alexandrinus], according to Kenyon, were produced in Egypt, yet the contemporary Christian lists of the biblical books drawn up in Egypt by Athanasius and (very likely) pseudo-Athanasius are much more critical, excluding all apocryphal books from the canon, and putting them in a separate appendix. (Roger Beckwith, [Anglican priest, Oxford BD and Lambeth DD], The Old Testament Canon of the New Testament Church [Eerdmans 1986], p. 382, 383; http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2008/01/legendary-alexandrian-canon.html)

Likewise Gleason Archer affirms,

Even in the case of the Septuagint, the apocryphal books maintain a rather uncertain existence. The Codex Vaticanus (B) lacks [besides 3 and 4] 1 and 2 Maccabees (canonical, according to Rome), but includes 1 Esdras (non-canonical, according to Rome). The Sinaiticus (Aleph) omits Baruch (canonical, according to Rome), but includes 4 Maccabees (non-canonical, according to Rome)... Thus it turns out that even the three earliest MSS or the LXX show considerable uncertainty as to which books constitute the list of the Apocrypha.. (Archer, Gleason L., Jr., "A Survey of Old Testament Introduction", Moody Press, Chicago, IL, Rev. 1974, p. 75; http://www.provethebible.net/T2-Integ/B-1101.htm)

The German historian Martin Hengel writes, “Sinaiticus contains Barnabas and Hermas, Alexandrinus 1 and 2 Clement.” “Codex Alexandrinus...includes the LXX as we know it in Rahlfs’ edition, with all four books of Maccabees and the fourteen Odes appended to Psalms.” “...the Odes (sometimes varied in number), attested from the fifth century in all Greek Psalm manuscripts, contain three New Testament ‘psalms’: the Magnificat, the Benedictus, the Nunc Dimittis from Luke’s birth narrative, and the conclusion of the hymn that begins with the ‘Gloria in Excelsis.’ This underlines the fact that the LXX, although, itself consisting of a collection of Jewish documents, wishes to be a Christian book.” (Martin Hengel, The Septuagint as Christian Scripture [Baker 2004], pp. 57-59)

Also,

The Targums did not include these books, nor the earliest versions of the Peshitta, and the apocryphal books are seen to have been later additions, and later versions of the LXX varied in regard to which books of the apocrypha they contained. “Nor is there agreement between the codices which of the Apocrypha include. (Eerdmans 1986), 382. The two most complete targums (translations of the Hebrew Bible into Aramaic which date from the first century to the Middel Ages) contain all the books of the Hebrew Bible except Ezra, Nehemiah and Daniel.

And Cyril of Jerusalem, whose list rejected the apocrypha (except for Baruch) exhorts his readers to “read the Divine Scriptures, the twenty-two books of the Old Testament, these that have been translated by the Seventy-two Interpreters,” the latter referring to the Septuagint but not as including the apocrypha. (http://www.bible-researcher.com/cyril.html)

You are missing the point, which is that Catholics interpret V2 differently, including the many here who reject at least parts of it, and even the present pope, while Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus as proclimed in Unam Sanctam and other popes requires submission to him. Meanwhile to take Jn. 6:53 literally is to reject Lumen Gentium.

The Catholic faith key tenets include Peter as the Pope And the Eucharist as the Real Presence of Jesus Christ Are expected to be believed by all Catholics and not subject to debate.

Another mere vain assertion, while the papacy is not of Scripture, but as documented (even with Cath sources) and ignored, it was a later development.Likewise the Eucharist as the Real Presence (apparently a borrowed Anglican term) which as provided already, is refuted by the only wholly God-inspired and faithful substantive word of God, as understood by the NT church.

A baptized Catholic that rejects the Catholic faith, rejects Jesus. (Luke 10:16)

Another rote reply, but that is not up to you to judge, but your church, beginning with the local ordinary who states who is excommed, and as said and ignored, Rome manifestly considers even proabortion prohomosexual public figures to be members in life and in death. And if you think those RCs who reject the pope or who call him a heretic are guilty of departing from the Catholic faith, then you could try to tell them.

I do not know why you left the Catholic faith,

But you proceed to postulate:

Perhaps not being required to go to weekly Mass

That attempt is a utter fail, since I was a never-miss weekly and holy day Mass-going RC when I prayerfully left and which resulted in my going to even more services, and in fact to leaving all to serve the Lord, by the grace of God..

or able to accept an alternate false version of God’s Truth

Rather as shown, it is Rome that preaches an alternate false version of God’s Truth.

or the promise of their word only once that they are guaranteed salvation? There is a hatred of the Catholic Church and not accepting that Jesus established His Church

Why not just accept that instead it was a willingness to go where Scripture leads, which includes conditional security vs. OSAS, and finding Rome to be spiritually deficient? Which is the main reason most Cath converts to evang faith testify to:

71% of converts from Catholicism to Protestant faith said that their spiritual needs were not being met in Catholicism, with 78% of Evangelical Protestants in particular concurring, versus 43% of those now unaffiliated.

Only 23% (20% now evangelical) of all Protestants converts from Catholicism said they were unhappy about Catholicism's teachings on abortion/homosexuality (versus 46% of those now unaffiliated); 23% also expressed disagreement with teaching on divorce/remarriage; 16% (12% now evangelical) were dissatisfied with teachings on birth control, 70% said they found a religion they liked more in Protestantism.

55% of evangelical converts from Catholicism cited dissatisfaction with Catholic teachings about the Bible was a reason for leaving Catholicism, with 46% saying the Catholic Church did not view the Bible literally enough.

The Catholic Church followed Jesus command over the centuries to preach and baptize all nations, while the protestant versions were founded by men about 500 years ago.

Rather, the Catholic Church is the most manifest historical deformation of the NT church, which deformation was progressive, and which finally reached the point which required the Reformation, which itself was and is not perfect nor the “work of one day or two.

I do believe that many Catholics are betting their salvation on the false word of men or their own false beliefs instead of faith in God’s Truth.

As are those who believe the false gospel of Rome masquerading as God’s pure Truth.

Overall, your "argumentation is basically engaging that of a type of soliloquy, parroting claims that may give Cath comfort and perhaps due under the fantasy that they gain one an indulgence. May God peradventure grant you "repentance to the acknowledging of the truth." (2 Timothy 2:25)