Mormons: When did the Great Apostasy occur?

[RedDawgMCM]

No offense, Parker, but I think you’re playing games with semantics to justify your rejection of the Sacrament of Confession. I choose to believe Jesus when He gives His Apostles the power to forgive sins and tells them that He is sending them just as the Father sent Him. There is nothing in any of those pertinent passages to indicate that Jesus was talking about Church membership or worthiness of membership. Although I do appreciate your clarification of the Mormon position on this. Obviously (and especially given my personal experiences with this awesome Sacrament) I cannot agree with your interpretation - and given the fact that Mormon “priests” and/or “apostles” do not have the Apostolic Authority to forgive sins I understand how they are not worthy to do so.

Have a great day!

I agree with you on this one Jay. Reminds me of Rev Kevin a little

 

[Peter_John]

Reading these responses, Parker, what I am seeing in them is essentially Protestantism…the foundation is to protest the obvious.

There is no way to truly argue points of the Bible without the history of its people.

The Word of God just doesn’t sit out there in space as a grab bag. It is not meant to be used for personal interpretation…especially using today to understand how the Church was set up 2,000 years ago.

There are flaws just in the text of the King James Version…

So to understand Sacred Scripture without its people, is akin to saying 1+1=3, 4, etc. … How much time do we spend conjecturing…?..we all do that…It is better to stay with the faith and practice the Lord gave us, to seek unity in one faith and one baptism.

You are so right. Understanding the historical context of the books, and the perspectives of the authors, are central to perceiveing the scriptures. When you do it all makes sense. The problem LDS members have doing that is tw-fold. First, they believe that even the oldest scripture has been altered from its original form, and that the" valid" New Testament teachings, and many teachings of the Book of Mormon, Doctirne and Covenants, and Pearl of Great Price were part of the Old and New Testament. They do not just beleive that some records were selected for inclusion in scripture, but that the content of the books included was intentionally altered.

Because of this when a knowledgeable LDS student of Scripture tries to apply historical and literary exegesis to the Bible it doesn’t really work. It is very hard for a Mormon to set aside everything they have been taught the Old Testament is supposed to mean, and consider it without reference to their other scripture or the exclusions they believe exist. To the most devoted even considering such an examination constitutes the start of apostasy.

The other problem is that the Book of Mormon does not survive the test of historical and literary exegesis, to the degree such test is possible. It has no available records in the original language. Which, if any, of the known ancient American socieities it supposedly comes from, and in what specific regions, never gets specified.

There are some things remaining to examine. As it starts in Jerusalem in 600 B.C., it should reflect the culture of 600 B.C., but it does not. The Isaiah excerpts should equate closer to the earliest available records than to the King James Version, and it does not. They take this as evidence of KJV accuracy, interesting since the Book of Mormon includes in its Isaiah excerpts a typo, “seraphims”, known in a particular edition of the KJV contemporary with Joseph Smith. These are the quick examples.

Mormons do not see scripture as the product of an onging growth of huimanity in a continuing unfolding of the reality of God. They see it the Bible as the incomplete and altered remains of a series of complete revelations of God, each in turn lost through Apostasy. Only moder revelation can truly teach us, they believe, what it means. This includes restoring things that have been lost, and instituting new ordinances just for our time. Hence, what the Bible actually says is immaterial.

Philosophy is more useful than the Bible in discussing LDS theology, as it includes many internal inconsistencies.

 

[catholic-rcia]

Reading these responses, Parker, what I am seeing in them is essentially Protestantism…the foundation is to protest the obvious.

There is no way to truly argue points of the Bible without the history of its people.

The Word of God just doesn’t sit out there in space as a grab bag. It is not meant to be used for personal interpretation…especially using today to understand how the Church was set up 2,000 years ago.

There are flaws just in the text of the King James Version…

So to understand Sacred Scripture without its people, is akin to saying 1+1=3, 4, etc.

Repeating Deacon Cummings again, ‘All texts have contexts so that to ignore or be unaware of the context is to fail to interpret adequately the text. Or, more punchily put in an oft-quoted 20th century Catholic philosopher and theologian, Jesuit Father Bernard Lonergan, “All ideas have dates.” Knowing the context of a text, knowing its date and its originating circumstances are required to grasp the intention of the text and the author.’…

So if your religion is indoctrinating you that 1800 years of Christianity is false, you will also likewise refuse to want to study its history,…don’t want any of the dust to fluff off on you…it is understandable…

But there is a date, and it is the evening of the Resurrection of the Lord, Sunday evening, when He appeared to the Apostles and gave them the power to forgive sin, to loosen and bind…The wording is very clear. Then you take the next step…to see how the church was developed and grew, what was the norm of worship and belief.

I shared with you St. Justin the Martyr’s description of the Mass how it was said in Rome around 155 AD, and you rejected it. But you will believe much of the conjecturing of Mormonism that doesn’t have dates, archeological remains, or recognize that Jesus is the Light, that revelation ended with Him, not Joseph Smith, whose stories are so far outside the realm of Judeo Christian history.

I do not mean to be critical, but there is no context to Mormonism within salvation history. It rejects it. Mormonism rejects the fruit of Jesus Christ, The Word of God, which is His Church.

That being your construct, making us all apostate, also denies Christ and His mission.

It is better to be progressive as Christ is calling us to become. We are to be a Light in the world…not secretive and not reactionary to other Christians…

The foundation of Protestantism is to protest…and to not forgive those in the Church who did wrong. Christ already has forgiven those in the Church who sincerely sought Christ’s forgiveness.

The Lord said to do penance lest we likewise perish. Alot of times saying, “I’m sorry” can be very superficial. To make up for a wrong doing, a person needs to do more than just say a few words…actions do make up wrongs to those injured. Many times the damage we do to ourselves or to another that is sinful also impacts many others we are connect to.

How much time do we spend conjecturing…?..we all do that…It is better to stay with the faith and practice the Lord gave us, to seek unity in one faith and one baptism.

Well said Kathleen.
In Christ
Rich

Parker you are reading truth. I can see a Cross for you. its big!
Pick it up my freind. After all the struggles and difficulties that you would be carrying it would become as light as a feather. You could help so many. It is my prayer that you choose two pick it up and carry it.

www.utahmission.com

 

[jediliz]

Jesus said the words (translated into English) “lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world” (Matthew 28:20), speaking to the “eleven disciples” or eleven apostles. His promise was that He would be with them always, although He would soon be ascending into heaven. He was always with them through His guiding influence and gentle love being with them and through the Holy Ghost being with them. No doubt they felt His love with them.

John gave the added promise from Christ that “Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him and will sup with him, and he with me.” (Revelation 3:20) Christ’s offer to be the Good Shepherd for everyone who sincerely seeks Him, is as valid today as it was when He first spoke of being the Good Shepherd, and any time anyone does not seek Him or turns away from Him it is they who have moved and not Him.

Jesus would NEVER abandon his church. The Church was NEVER and has NEVER BEEN in Apostasy!

 

[Peter_John]

Well at least now I have finally understood where the words “in persona Christi” come from in you’all’s beliefs.

Just wanted to point out correct spelling is “y’all” and plural is “all y’all” while “y’all” is singular, though often misused by those not properly schooled in the delicate intricacies of acceptable grammar in southern slang.
:tiphat:Just thought a moment of levity in order.

 

[zaffiroborant]

Just wanted to point out correct spelling is “y’all” and plural is “all y’all” while “y’all” is singular, though often misused by those not properly schooled in the delicate intricacies of acceptable grammar in southern slang.
:tiphat:Just thought a moment of levity in order.

I thought “y’all” was like “yoos guys”.

 

[sing4joy]

No, I am saying just the opposite. I am saying that they specifically disobeyed God’s command not to eat of the Tree. In the last paragraph I was simply stating what I believe to be the Mormon position, that being that Adam and Eve really did nothing wrong, they were just seeking knowledge. You need to re-read my post. Sorry if I was unclear. You’re a little to quick to laugh.

The Mormon Church does NOT believe in original sin. They also believe “Heavenly Father” has a body of bones because he was once a man. When a Mormon uses the word “scripture” it is not necessarily a synonym for “the Bible”. Mormon scripture consists of The Book of Mormon, The Pearl of Great Price, The Doctrine and Covenants and fourth, the Bible. A lot of what they believe about Adam and Eve comes from The Pearl of Great Price which Joseph Smith claimed to have translated from a papyrus. That papyrus happens to be about preparing the dead. I was Mormon for seven years. They don’t believe in The Triune God, nor that Jesus is the Incarnate Second Person of the Trinity, therefore God. They use the same words a lot, but the words have different definitions. I know. I even went through the Temple. It’s actually pretty much a sham.

 

[sing4joy]

Mormons aren’t Protestants. Give the Protestants some credit—THEY believe the Nicene creed. If you were baptized in a Protestant Church, you don’t need to be re-baptized to join the Catholic Church. My husband was only baptized in the Mormon church, so he had to be baptized when he became Catholic.

Don’t misunderstand me. I’ve known a lot of wonderful people who are Mormons and they have good fruit. [My best friend is a devout Mormon and each of us would give our lives for the other] It’s the LDS Church that I believe is wrong. Very wrong. It was after we had lived in Utah that I left the LDS Church and joyfully re-swam the Tiber.

Attend a Mormon Sacrament Meeting on the first Sunday of the month, Fast and Testimony Sunday. You’ll hear: “I know this Church is true” and “I know Joseph Smith is/was a prophet.” Don’t expect to hear the Name of Jesus. It’s just on the building.

 

[Peter_John]

Mormons aren’t Protestants. Give the Protestants some credit—THEY believe the Nicene creed. If you were baptized in a Protestant Church, you don’t need to be re-baptized to join the Catholic Church. My husband was only baptized in the Mormon church, so he had to be baptized when he became Catholic.

Don’t misunderstand me. I’ve known a lot of wonderful people who are Mormons and they have good fruit. [My best friend is a devout Mormon and each of us would give our lives for the other] It’s the LDS Church that I believe is wrong. Very wrong. It was after we had lived in Utah that I left the LDS Church and joyfully re-swam the Tiber.

Attend a Mormon Sacrament Meeting on the first Sunday of the month, Fast and Testimony Sunday. You’ll hear: “I know this Church is true” and “I know Joseph Smith is/was a prophet.” Don’t expect to hear the Name of Jesus. It’s just on the building.

What’s interesting is that this happens more in the Western US than in the East. LDS in the West also do not recognize that they do this.

So when did your husband convert? My conversion to Catholicism was the most unexpected and ultimately welcome thing that ever happened to me. For awhile I regretted my mission, but I got over it. I can’t describe how good it felt at my first confession to a Catholic priest, before my baptism, and I knew my sins were absolved. How much more the baptism, even though it wasn’t by immersion.

 

[KathleenGee]

Yes, the Protestants do believe essentially in the same Christ and Creed…but what I am referring to is the foundation of Protestantism itself…protest…in the fact of facts and clear actions and teachings by Christ Himself with His apostles.

But yes, it looks like a different concept of Christ other than God as we see Him…because He cannot fail, go against His word, contradict Himself.

May be there should be another thread on Christology vs Mormonism.

 

[flyonthewall]

Parable and Real Presence: Part 4-John 6 Literal

The real question is do you have the Sacrament Jesus established? Can you as you practice it and in what you believe about it?
Consider how strongly his disciples took Christ’s affirmation of the coming Eucharist as literal, not symbolic. He adds something even harder to conceive, another literal event, raising the terms a notch further.
He emphasizes believing these literal manifestations as more an evidence of the Father having called them, with no reference to understanding them as metaphor evidencing this, in the manner that method selects disciples from the multitude.:

And the idea that they will someday have to eat his flesh and drink his blood is too much to bear, and the idea that he will visibly ascend into heaven is too much to believe.
Peter still does not understand this strange doctrine, but he knows Jesus is the Christ.

Your sacrament is not the Mass. You neither consider Sacrament as your most sacred ordinance nor your greatest miracle, as Catholics consider the Eucharist. You do it first in meetings, and only offer it weekly, We prefer having it every day, and some of us do not know how to get by without it every day. You hide your most sacred ordinances away wher ethose who do not understand can’t mock them and perhaps unwittingly commit sacrilege. Our most sacred ordinance is out in the open because how can the Holy Spirit select those to perceive the miracle from among the nultitude if they are not exposed to it?

Substituting water for the wine(which even your Book of Mormon decrees) was among the earliest Christian heresies dispensed with, before the end of the First Century as I recall. Most heresies emerging then had to wait until the persecutions were over. The Apostolic Fathers and Early Church Fathers kind of had their hands full. I do find it interesting that your faith emphasizes symbolisn, and most anyone can tell you what bread and water symbolizes.

That is quite the response.
I will show you what Jesus meant by what He said:

29Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent.

35And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that **cometh to me **shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst.

47Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me hath everlasting life.

63It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.

Now read Ezekiel 3.

 

[KathleenGee]

Fly…

Only God can judge the human heart and I truly believe that people who draw on the life of Christ, in His true essence, can draw on His virtues, His life.

We call that Spiritual Communion.

In lieu of the difficulties of Mormonism…and Yes, I have also discerned by just watching the Mormon channel that there is more emphasis given to Joseph Smith than Christ with the attachment to exclusive Mormon hierarchical pronouncements, that these practices take away from faith founded on Jesus Christ as True God and True Man, True Light…

The nature of Christ is to take away the darkness, the obscurity, the false values we as human beings always project onto the world around us. Christ is victorious over death, sin, darkness.

Christ is the Truth, The Light, The Way. There can be no other partner or prophet.

I believe in faith that the Mormons can and do draw on Christ, but it is a mystery to me what the parameters are because of the invalidation of Christianity and Sacred Scriptures long in use. (St. Jerome was not infallible; Scripture translation always is imperfect…but this is where the Holy Spirit leads in guiding the Church with the communion of saints to interpret Scripture in every generation and age…the fruit to make us dependent on the Spirit of God Himself and to make us one.)

Also, it is significant that when people have true faith, they wish to express it outwardly through artifacts…and the Holy Spirit of God has protected them. In Jerusalem there is those members of the Waqf who doing all that they can to destroy any Jewish artifact to claim Jerusalem for Islam.

The Holy Spirit is not protecting any supposed artifacts of an ancient Jewish presence in America. There is nothing in the memory of the Jewish people that suggests to them that members of their people left Israel, considering their great ties of community and mission.

True faith of the Lord incarnates in the world around them. What I mean by that, is that faith is not kept under a bushel but to be a light to the world. Secrets kept under bushels, are being exclusive contradict the new freedom and proclamation that are marks of the Holy Spirit.

I continue to pray for the Mormon people that they become part of the fold, that the Truth of Christ will illuminate them and free them.

My prayer is the same prayer as Christ, what we pray every day for every day…that we may be One in the Lord.

 

[KathleenGee]

The other that I have noticed surfing the internet…I put a search in for something Catholic…and then bring up all these terrible sites denouncing and labelling our Catholic Church…most of them American based.

When I see their writings and claims, it looks to me truly the work of the Devil.

We have a terrible problem within Christian United States of America with the propagation of such bigotry, disinformation, and keeping people away from the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Jesus Christ.

These anti-Catholic ‘christian’ sites are just as much anti-Christ as the big one.

 

[Peter_John]

That is quite the response.
I will show you what Jesus meant by what He said:

Now read Ezekiel 3.

Your approach takes these scattered verses out of context. Most often when God has placed related scattered references in the Bible they are Messianic prophecies. For example, when Isaiah made prophesied that a maiden would conceive, he made it specifically part of a warning to a sovereign over pursuing a certain course of action. After Christ’s advent the additional meaning became clear, as well as God’s omnipotence and omniscience emphasized by such a wonder. This additional meaning did not alter the original intent. Instead, its original fulfillment helped validate Isaiah as a major prophet, and preserved his work to shed light on Christ’s mission later.

Your verses require consideration in context – and that involves that extensive discourse on the literal nature of his prophesy of eating his flesh and blood. His association of that with another literal prophesy, of his ascending into heaven emphasizes the literal intention. If you reduce the flesh and blood to symbols, you must also reinterpret the ascension prophecy as figurative.

To paraphrase, he said, if you won’t believe you have to eat my flesh and drink my blood, what if you see me ascend into heaven? And a lot of them left and never came back – it was just too crazy. But it was not figurative: The disciples saw Him ascend through the clouds into heaven. Then remembering his words:

John 6:62 KJV
62What and if ye shall see the Son of man ascend up where he was before?

… shed light on a passage they already knew, and they found an ancient prophesy of the Ascension:

Daniel 7:13-14 KJV
13I saw in the night visions, and, behold, one like the aSon of man came with the bclouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, and they brought him near before him.
14And there was given him adominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages, should serve him: his dominion is an ceverlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed.
Daniel 7

Of course, believing there was a Great Apostasy means this has yet to happen, since in that belief his kingdom was destroyed shortly after His ascension. Itcan’t be the Ascension. It means the Ancient of days must be someone besides the Eternal Father, you believe Adam, and this becomes a prophesy of Jesus’ return, so as one in the multitude seeing you see not, hearing you hear not.

So, just from believing in an Apostasy, this passage turns in LDS interpretation from an ascension prophecy to a prophesy that Jesus needs something from Adam to obtain an everlasting dominion. Since (as I well know) you believe these are Adam’s priesthood keys in the patriarchal order, which Jesus needs to justly take the head of humanity, that means that Adam limits the Priesthood of our only High Priest, through whom all believers get their authority. This makes a liar of St. Paul. It denies the place of Christ in Heaven and on Earth:It subordinates Jesus to Adam because of Jesus’ humanity. It makes the Priesthood a higher principle than Jesus’ Deity.

That is terribly complicated, just from having to reject an ascension prophesy because of a preconceived notion of Apostasy. See how two verses out of context can alter the interpretation of the entire Bible?

That is not how it is done. The cross-reference can enhance understanding of something, but it can’t counter or eliminate its original meaning, or it makes a liar of God. The new understanding must be true along with the meaning in context. It is not a question of “What does it really mean?” but, “What else might it mean at the same time?”

 

[KathleenGee]

Peter John,

Very astute analysis…Context…it is always about Context…real people, places, time…

If we were to depend on symbolism, Christianity would have fragmented and imploded at its inception.

The Lord has given us concrete…faith salvation is in the concrete…just as the Eucharist is concrete, not reduced to symbolism…and subsequent reinterpretations and divisions and disputes.

 

[catholic-rcia]

Do you believe in the traditional Christ?
Mormon Prophet Hinckley”

“No, I don’t. The traditional Christ of whom they speak is not the Christ of whom I speak”
(LDS Church News Week ending June 20, 1998, p. 7).

Flyonthewall,
This in its context means exactly what it appears to mean. No maneuvering around this will work on me. No that I am that smart. I just know this as truth. Again Hincley was being homest here.

This is honesty flyonthewall. My own grandmother told me the same 40 years ago. You should be able to speak about your beliefs out in the open, freely without restraint. Most of the older Mormons here in Logan Utah will tell you that “No of course we do not believe in the same Jesus as the Christians do” Why is this? What has changed?

Answer “The Internet”

As more Mormons learn about the Traditional Christ through the internet they have two choices.

1: Pick up the cross and Follow Him

2: Hide the Mormon version of Christ in order to maintain good family relations. Also to retain members and still convert new members by covering up the true Mormon beliefs, while making the Jesus they have come to know look more traditional.

The biggest problem which is the best problem is that a lot of LDS members are learning about Christianity, its history and its fullest meaning. That it’s all about Jesus. Not about progression….rather surrender to Him!

 

[ParkerD]

…

Parker you are reading truth…

Rich,

I was reading that which you believe to be true, and KathleenGee believes to be true, but it is not what the Bible teaches is true, nor is the “traditional Christ” (in descriptive words about Who He is) He whom the Bible teaches is the living, resurrected Messiah who is the Light of the world and the Good Shepherd, Jehovah, God with us, the Only Begotten Son. The “traditional Christ”, as has been pointed out by someone earlier, is the “Nicene Creed” Christ, which Protestantism accepted from Catholicism and which Latter-day Saints know is not the correct description of the relationship between God the Father and His Beloved Son.

Just as the earlier conversation showed, there is a distraction from a one-to-one relationship by various teachings that don’t teach a direct, one-to-one relationship with the living Christ, the Anointed One. He is my Savior and yours, but you describe Him differently than I do, and I don’t need to confess Christ through someone else who takes one verse of Paul and makes it into a whole doctrine focused away from the doctrines He and the apostles so plainly taught.

By the way, I do take up my cross daily, as He taught to do. I also feel the sweet, easy yoke whereby He teaches by example and by encouraging shepherding, how to do better in following Him and learning from Him.

It’s OK that you have the truths you desire, and by free will choice we have desired different things. His yoke is easy, and His burden is light, and His voice of assurance surpasses the things the two of you write about.

 

[Peter_John]

Rich,

I was reading that which you believe to be true, and KathleenGee believes to be true, but it is not what the Bible teaches is true, nor is the “traditional Christ” (in descriptive words about Who He is) He whom the Bible teaches is the living, resurrected Messiah who is the Light of the world and the Good Shepherd, Jehovah, God with us, the Only Begotten Son. The “traditional Christ”, as has been pointed out by someone earlier, is the “Nicene Creed” Christ, which Protestantism accepted from Catholicism and which Latter-day Saints know is not the correct description of the relationship between God the Father and His Beloved Son.

Just as the earlier conversation showed, there is a distraction from a one-to-one relationship by various teachings that don’t teach a direct, one-to-one relationship with the living Christ, the Anointed One. He is my Savior and yours, but you describe Him differently than I do, and I don’t need to confess Christ through someone else who takes one verse of Paul and makes it into a whole doctrine focused away from the doctrines He and the apostles so plainly taught.

By the way, I do take up my cross daily, as He taught to do. I also feel the sweet, easy yoke whereby He teaches by example and by encouraging shepherding, how to do better in following Him and learning from Him.

It’s OK that you have the truths you desire, and by free will choice we have desired different things. His yoke is easy, and His burden is light, and His voice of assurance surpasses the things the two of you write about.

First off, I will repeat what I have said before: You have no grounds to call upon the Bible as a authority, as you profess it is not accurate as we have it. Therefore you do not believe it.

I CONCEDE THAT JOSEPH SMITH, JR. WAS COMPLETELY ACCURATE THAT THE BIBLE HE RECEIVED WAS CORRUPTED THROUGH INTENTIONAL DELETION AND TRANSLATION ERROR. The Bible handed down to Joseph Smith was a) incomplete, as Martin Luther could not sustain his arguments without deleting the Greek Old Testamentl b) biased in translation, as being translated specifically for the head of the Church of England, it had to emphasize divine right of kings to have value; and, c) the specific edition he knew had at least one typo “seraphims” instead of seraphim (seraphim is plural of seraph), as duplicated in the specifc place in the Biblical excerpts in the Book of Mormon.

I will further question your ffirmation that you believe in a one-to-one realtionship with Christ lacking an intermediary. If someone in your congregation commits adultery, is it fine for them to resolve it just by talking with Jesus or with heavenly Father privately in Prayer? If they do not confess to an appropriate Church authority, are the sacraments they receive considered valid? Can a person in your faith receive the highest blessing of eternity without going to the temple? Can they go to the temple just by talking to God in prayer, and get a recommend?

 

[ParkerD]

First off, I will repeat what I have said before: You have no grounds to call upon the Bible as a authority, as you profess it is not accurate as we have it. Therefore you do not believe it…

Peter John,

I have repeated and will repeat again that I and the Latter-day Saints through our doctrine believe the Bible is authoritative and far more accurate in its specific words than any other religion. Just because we acknowledge that it would be even more accurate as the revealed word of God if it had not been slightly mistranslated or mis-copied in some cases and is misunderstood and therefore mis-taught by some teachers and leaders, does not mean we don’t take it as the word of God and as authoritative.

It does not stand on its own as a sole authority, and was never intended in that way by God as clearly taught in both the Old Testament and the New Testament.

In no case you can point to will you be able to show that the Latter-day Saints depart from the doctrine presented in the Bible when taken as a total teaching rather than taking one or two verses and building a doctrine from a verse or two, with no corroborating cross references that consistently teach the same doctrine and reinforce it.

If you would like to try, go ahead, but please make it into only one post as I don’t look at a whole string of posts from the same person.

 

[KathleenGee]

All the books of the Bible were fallible in part because they were written by men…but nevertheless, the Spirit of God spoke through them…

At Pentecost, there was no Bible. There were books. It was St. Jerome who assembled all the books, an expert of various languages, and translated them in faith and fidelity to God. And St. Jerome set himself before the authority of the church. His assembling survived the devil’s advocate because he was known to have a terrible temper and say unkind things. Being honest, transparent here.

Your concept of God, Parker, does not connect with His Omnipotence, His constant care for us. The Holy Spirit never left Christianity. To say that Christianity is corrupt, there was nothing but scattered sheep of whom we have no records or documents is conjecturing, and at worst, condemning a whole civilization of people of faith.

The Catholic faith draws on the faith tradition and practices held by the Jewish people, where God continued to speak to them through men. Our entire set of books carry on that tradition and wholeness of faith, God speaking not to one individual – eccentric I may add – but to a public, transparent gathering of people within society.

Thus the God we believe in Who is revealed to us resounds that He comes for all, and through public means that calls a prophet or cleric to accountability, whether sooner or later. That is wholesome, good, and true…and that the message always carries on from the latter, continuity of faith.

Indeed, as Peter John has pointed out to you, the version of the Bible you have is corrupt, and its contents tampered or removed by one man, Martin Luther who had no one to challenge him, the same as Joseph Smith. It is also an embarrassment where Martin Luther was and what he was doing in the meantime when he decided to do what he did. He even states an angel of God appeared to him warning him not to go through what he was about to do. Martin Luther also wrote the worst Christian statements against the Jewish people. He was known for being very angry, no patience, obsessive and highly scrupulous…the latter, the first step of insanity.