Missing gospels hidden in the Vatican

[udral]

ComradeAndrei:

Like you don’t?

Sure, but right now I don’t even have the information on which to form an opinion, and I would like to.

If you are a Catholic, why not accept what we’ve been saying-basically that the Inquisition wasn’t that bad, dare I say it was probably actually good. Why be all bent out of shape because some folks from First National Baptist still believe all that protestant propaganda? Do you think you could prove to them that the Inquisition wasn’t so bad? I doubt it, unless you just say that the Church was all wrong about everything, her enemies will ALWAYS find something to whine about.

I lived a good fraction of my life in the Soviet Union, and my parents lived back when the system there was really repressive, so I am not one to give any authority the benefit of the doubt. There are pretty horrible allegations about the Church’s role in the Inquisition, and I would like to know the truth.

 

[ComradeAndrei]

I lived a good fraction of my life in the Soviet Union, and my parents lived back when the system there was really repressive, so I am not one to give any authority the benefit of the doubt.

I would too distrust authority in your shoes, but there is a HUGE difference between the Soviet gov’t and the Catholic Church.

There are pretty horrible allegations about the Church’s role in the Inquisition, and I would like to know the truth.

What exactly do you want to know about the Inquisition that hasn’t already been discussed by authorities on the subject, and that could be known from whatever is in the Vatican? One thing you can be sure of is that folks who use the Inquisition to discredit the Church blow it way out of perportion. Folks that like to quote things like “The Catholic Church killed 90 million Bible-believers during the Inquisition…” will not likely believe even the original documents. The Church forged 'em, y’know…

IF all that stuff was available, I see no harm in reading it. However, don’t hold your breath on getting it all plastered on the internet. There are plenty of documents (of various eras of Church history) that aren’t even translated out of the original Latin and I’m pretty sure that such a involved project would take much more effort than you seem to think.

 

[rstegeman]

With regards to the material on the inquisition, even if all of the documents were freely available, I think you’d end up with a whole new level of frustration. Not only would you be overwhelmed by the amount of documentation, but to really find the truth you seek, you would have to disect each document, determine who the author was, when in history it was written, what biases he/she might have, who their intended audience was, etc. etc.

That’s why we rely on scholars to do this, and we in turn, take samples from various scholars, determine their particular agenda and then form our own opinion. For sholars, this is their life’s work and their own opinions may change over time with the more research they do. Unless you are willing to provide the time necessary to thoroughly investigate (not just read), you would most likely end up with an ill-informed opinion.

Just my thoughts.

 

[JimG]

You would also have to be able to read the various languages in which the archived documents are written.

(Even reading your native language is not easy when dealing with ancient documents. Try reading Chaucer from the original manuscripts.)

 

[jimmy]

People make the statement that the Church is hiding something because it does not give all its documents to the public. These are not the publics documents, they are documents of the Vatican. They have given permission for scholars to examine texs up to the twentieth century. No one has any right to complain if they do not have personal access because they are not their documents.

 

[JimG]

Some links of interest:

Inside the Vatican, the Secret Archives
news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2001/11/1118_vaticansecrets.html

Vatican not impressed with threat to sue over access to archives
catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/0500535.htm

Secret Archives accessible online
zenit.org/english/visualizza.phtml?sid=82559

History of Vatican Archival Holdings
umich.edu/~bhl/bhl/projects/vatican/history.htm

Wired News: no longer for scholars’ eyes only
wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,56410,00.html

 

[vern_humphrey]

udral:

Well, what if non-Catholics were going to provide the volunteers and foot the bill? What then?

You seem to be under the impression that these documents were printed, with nice, crisp clear characters – and in English, too.

Scanning a hand-written medieval document written in medieval Spanish or Latin would be an exercise in frustration.

However, if you can round up qualified people – that is people who speak the languages, can read the medeival scripts, and have the editorial and interpretative skills – go right ahead.

 

[Ignatius]

The Iambic Pen:

I was talking with one of my friends today, and he said there are secret books hidden in the Vatican which share the details of Christ’s life from the age of twelve until the start of his public ministry. He said that if the information in these books was known, it would basically shatter all our beliefs about Christianity. Now, I don’t believe this, of course, but does anyone here have any idea where he might be getting this idea? If I remember right, he said he hadn’t read The Davinci Code (whether the book addresses such things, I don’t know). I thought he might be referring to the Gnostic Gospels, but these are certainly hidden in the Vatican (and certainly not reliable sources for information on Jesus). Any thoughts?

The archives contain many ancient manuscripts. The only ones which are inspired are the ones

Holy Scripture was declared inerrant by and as a result of the Decree of Pope St. Damasus 1 at the Council of Rome in 382 A.D.

**Holy Scripture was declared inerrant by and as a result of the Decree of Pope St. Damasus 1 at the Council of Rome in 382 A.D.

***The Decree of Pope St. Damasus I, Council of Rome. 382 A.D…

ST. DAMASUS 1, POPE, THE DECREE OF DAMASUS:

It is…decreed: Now, indeed, we must treat of the divine Scriptures: what the universal Catholic Church accepts and what she must shun.

---

the list of the Scriptures of the New and Eternal Testament, which the holy and Catholic Church receives: of the Gospels, one book according to Matthew, one book according to Mark, one book according to Luke, one book according to John. The Epistles of the Apostle Paul, fourteen in number: one to the Romans, two to the Corinthians, one to the Ephesians, two to the Thessalonians, one to the Galatians, one to the Philippians, one to the Colossians, two to Timothy, one to Titus one to Philemon, one to the Hebrews. Likewise, one book of the Apocalypse of John. And the Acts of the Apostles, one book. Likewise, the canonical Epistles, seven in number: of the Apostle Peter, two Epistles; of the Apostle James, one Epistle; of the Apostle John, one Epistle; of the other John, a Presbyter, two Epistles; of the Apostle Jude the Zealot, one Epistle. Thus concludes the canon of the New Testament.
Likewise it is decreed: After the announcement of all of these prophetic and evangelic or as well as apostolic writings which we have listed above as Scriptures, on which, by the grace of God, the Catholic Church is founded, we have considered that it ought to be announced that although all the Catholic Churches spread abroad through the world comprise but one bridal chamber of Christ, nevertheless, the holy Roman Church has been placed at the forefront not by the conciliar decisions of other Churches, but has received the primacy by the evangelic voice of our Lord and Savior, who says: “You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My Church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it; and I will give to you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you shall have bound on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you shall have loosed on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”***

---

The Council of Hippo in 393 reaffirmed the canon put forth by Pope Damasus I in AD 393
**
*** The Third Council of Carthage** reaffirmed anew, the Canon put forth by Pope Damasus I inAD 397: *****

Yours in Christ.

 

[vern_humphrey]

Let’s see how many non-canonical “gospels” I can list off the top of my head, without any references:

The Gospel of Thomas
The Infancy Narrative (or Gospel) of Thomas
The Gospel of Mary (Magdalene)
The Gospel of Bartholomew
The Gospel of the Egyptians
The Gospel of the Hebrews
The Gospel of Truth
The Unknown Gospel

That doesn’t include things like the Protevangelon of James, or the Apocalypse of Peter.

There’s a whole library of non-cannonical writings – some may be some but edited for a heretical purpose, some are made up out of whole cloth.

And they’ve been known ever since the early days of the Church. But every now and then someone will “discover” them and come running in here with his hair on fire to tell us how the Church has “hidden” them.http://forums.catholic-questions.org/images/icons/icon10.gif

 

[MrS]

TNT:

Actually, your friend is right.

In those hidden archives is Jesus’ own autobiography.
Part of it he states that He “adored” his Mother, and that anything she ever asked of Him, He promised to, and did accomplish.
Then in another place He stated that she would be by His side forever.

Now, if all this would become known,“it would basically shatter all [THE] beliefs of [PROTESTANT] Christianity” !

http://smileys.smileycentral.com/cat/4/4_17_211.gif

 

[Daniel_Marsh]

The Iambic Pen:

I was talking with one of my friends today, and he said there are secret books hidden in the Vatican which share the details of Christ’s life from the age of twelve until the start of his public ministry. He said that if the information in these books was known, it would basically shatter all our beliefs about Christianity.

Hi, that same claims were made about the Dead Sea Scrolls until they all were released. Many cultist like Mormons and New Thought types, Theosphy made such claims.

Basically, act like a three year old and say, “prove it”, “how do you know?” and “why is that” Their claims, story breaks down real fast.

 

[The_Iambic_Pen]

Well, he didn’t really get deep into any kind of explanation. We were having a talk about Christianity (I can’t remember the exact topic), and he said something to the effect of, “You know about the lost Gospels, right? They’re hidden in the Vatican, and if they were discovered, it would shatter everything we know about Christianity.” When I said I doubted this, he said, “Well, that’s what I believe.” At one point, when I asked him where he had heard this, he said his uncle (I think) was a bishop, but he didn’t seem sure to what church his uncle belonged. At any rate, please pray for him. He says he is a Christian, as I said above, but he doesn’t seem to be very serious about it. I don’t want to presume to judge the state of anyone’s heart, but we could all use prayer, after all. Thanks!

 

[JimG]

Daniel Marsh:

Hi, that same claims were made about the Dead Sea Scrolls until they all were released. Many cultist like Mormons and New Thought types, Theosphy made such claims.

Basically, act like a three year old and say, “prove it”, “how do you know?” and “why is that” Their claims, story breaks down real fast.

You’re right. It took an inordinately long time for all the Dead Sea Scrolls to be released. Years. In the meantime, people were putting forward conspiracy theories. Now the material is out there, and nobody except scholars is particularly interested. Conspiracy is so much more exciting. Sometimes the gullibility of non-believers amazes me.

 

[Scott_Waddell]

It is fairly clear that our recently suspended advocate for a complete Vatican data-dump was a polemecist and not a historian. That is, even if the Vatican did the unthinkable and uploaded absolutely everything, my bet is that he would have taken no more than a cursory look at the stuff, seen how frightfully boring it all is and either move on to another stick to beat the Church with or engage in paranoia. “Where are the real documents on the Inquistion?” And so forth.