Protestant claims about the origins of the Bible

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MooCowSteph

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I’m trying to learn more about where we got the Bible. It’s an area of our faith in that my knowledge is really lacking. As I am currently discussing these matters with a protestant, I am trying to get ahead of her and learn by finding the answers to the questions she’s most likely to ask. I found this site. What do you make of some of its claims?

bible.ca/catholic-questions.htm
 
MooCowSteph said:
I’m trying to learn more about where we got the Bible. It’s an area of our faith in that my knowledge is really lacking. As I am currently discussing these matters with a protestant, I am trying to get ahead of her and learn by finding the answers to the questions she’s most likely to ask. I found this site. What do you make of some of its claims?

bible.ca/catholic-questions.htm
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The site is complete crapola.
 
bible.ca is a church of Christ website, they were founded in the USA by Alexander Campbell in the 1800’s and are quite sore sports about their own history. My husband grew up in this group and has only one word to describe them: cult.
 
MooCowSteph said:
I’m trying to learn more about where we got the Bible. It’s an area of our faith in that my knowledge is really lacking. As I am currently discussing these matters with a protestant, I am trying to get ahead of her and learn by finding the answers to the questions she’s most likely to ask. I found this site. What do you make of some of its claims?

bible.ca/catholic-questions.htm
Click to expand...
Hi.

The web site is a prime visual example where Protestants that challenge Catholics will pepper them with a hailstorm of questions.

Many of these questions are “straw man” questions: The question creates a false premise and then the answer destroys the false premise, rather than the actual question itself. One such example here can be found on this thread’s question on which pope was right in condemning or canonizing St. Joan of Arc. The answer was neither: the pope had nothing to do with Joan of Arc’s demise. The question itself defines a false premise, sort of like the trick question: “Have you stopped beating your wife yet?” Questions 3, 4 and 5 (among many) on that web site are straw man premises because their premises are not factual.

The best way in responding charitably to any question is to take only one question at a time. Don’t feel rushed to answer it on the spot. If someone does try to do so, ask them to immediately answer, “Where in the Bible does it say that everything about Christianity has to be in the Bible?”

When they beg off on answering that question right away, you can excuse yourself in sourcing your answers.

Remember a good apologist maxim: If you don’t know the proper answer, don’t guess. Say, “I don’t know, but I will find out and tell you later.” Then do so.

Your best defenses in answering questions will rely on knowing Catholic history, but also in reading at Scripture in the “Big Picture.” Many Protestants tend to take one or a couple of verses and form an entire theology around it–when in fact, the verses are simply smaller parts of a larger message.

Here’s an example of that: A poster asked about the true meaning of a verse from Matthew 24, where a Protestant minister went to great lengths to interpret this single verse. In fact, the verse is part of a larger message from Christ that had nothing to do with what this Protestant had contrived. Don’t let a Protestant use “soundbite” Scripture. This is also done a lot with St. Paul’s many letters. Like any letter, taking one or two sentences out of context will distort or destroy the message.

I hope that’s a help to get you started! Don’t forget that Catholic.com’s store has many books to help you as a budding apologist.
 
MooCowSteph said:
I’m trying to learn more about where we got the Bible. It’s an area of our faith in that my knowledge is really lacking. As I am currently discussing these matters with a protestant, I am trying to get ahead of her and learn by finding the answers to the questions she’s most likely to ask. I found this site. What do you make of some of its claims?

bible.ca/catholic-questions.htm
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catholiccompany.com/catholic-gifts/3330331/Where-We-Got-Bible-Our-Debt-to-Catholic-Church/?category=1451&aid=583

This book is very good. I own it and learned a lot from it. It should answer all your questions.
 
beeliner said:
The site is complete crapola.
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Oh I had no doubt. But everything this woman has thrown at me has been crapola. She doesn’t “give a cr*p” about the fathers, but wants me to read Mary Ann Collins. I’m probably torturing myself by continuing to converse with her, but I can’t help myself 😃
 
MooCowSteph said:
Oh I had no doubt. But everything this woman has thrown at me has been crapola. She doesn’t “give a cr*p” about the fathers, but wants me to read Mary Ann Collins. I’m probably torturing myself by continuing to converse with her, but I can’t help myself 😃
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Well, I’ve never heard of Mary Ann Collins, but I have Biblical discussions with non-Catholics frequently and they are rarely acrimonious.

Maybe she’s otherwise a nice lady, and you should just agree to disagree and confine your discussions to less controversial topics, politics for instance.
 
beeliner said:
Well, I’ve never heard of Mary Ann Collins…
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Correction, I have heard of her, it’s been a long time and I’d forgotten.

Firstly and most outrageously, she claims to have been a nun, she was a novice, never even close to becoming a nun.

Secondly, she didn’t flee the convent, she was expelled as being unsuited to the life of a nun.

This is in itself certainly nothing shameful, it happens all the time, it’s a hard life, MEANT to be hard, and not for everyone.

She is, I think, a perfect example of ‘hell having no fury like a woman scorned’, in this case not by a man but, in her mind, by the Church.

“Throw me out, will you, I’ll get even spending the rest of my life slandering the Church.”

Sad.
 
beeliner said:
Correction, I have heard of her, it’s been a long time and I’d forgotten.

Firstly and most outrageously, she claims to have been a nun, she was a novice, never even close to becoming a nun.

Secondly, she didn’t flee the convent, she was expelled as being unsuited to the life of a nun.

This is in itself certainly nothing shameful, it happens all the time, it’s a hard life, MEANT to be hard, and not for everyone.

She is, I think, a perfect example of ‘hell having no fury like a woman scorned’, in this case not by a man but, in her mind, by the Church.

“Throw me out, will you, I’ll get even spending the rest of my life slandering the Church.”

Sad.
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Actually there isn’t even any hard evidence that she was ever in convent. No one has been able to find any nuns who were in the convent with her, and locate the convent.
 
MooCowSteph said:
Actually there isn’t even any hard evidence that she was ever in convent. No one has been able to find any nuns who were in the convent with her, and locate the convent.
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Once again, it’s been a while since I encountered her claims, I seem to remember that she was in fact a novice, nor does the Church dispute that, but I’m not entirely sure.

You may be confusing her with the infamous Maria Monk of long ago, who was a prostitute and agreed to portray herself as an ‘escaped’ nun for money. She was exposed by being asked to describe the interior of the convent in which she claimed to have lived, which of course she could not do.
 
beeliner said:
Once again, it’s been a while since I encountered her claims, I seem to remember that she was in fact a novice, nor does the Church dispute that, but I’m not entirely sure.

You may be confusing her with the infamous Maria Monk of long ago, who was a prostitute and agreed to portray herself as an ‘escaped’ nun for money. She was exposed by being asked to describe the interior of the convent in which she claimed to have lived, which of course she could not do.
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I don’t know that the church has really said anything about her one way or the other. I just know that she’s been inconsistent with her biography depending on who she’s talking to, and journalists/church historians/whoever else have researched her a little, and come up blank. Not that it really matters. She’s in the same boat as Chick, Hunt, Boettner, etc. Just wild claims back up by nothing but others’ wild claims. Yet I’m supposed to accept her view over Ignatius.
 
MooCowSteph said:
I don’t know that the church has really said anything about her one way or the other. I just know that she’s been inconsistent with her biography depending on who she’s talking to, and journalists/church historians/whoever else have researched her a little, and come up blank. Not that it really matters. She’s in the same boat as Chick, Hunt, Boettner, etc. Just wild claims back up by nothing but others’ wild claims. Yet I’m supposed to accept her view over Ignatius.
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She also, as I recall, misstates certain Church teachings quite badly, but what the heck, the BBC does that all the time.
 
beeliner said:
She also, as I recall, misstates certain Church teachings quite badly, but what the heck, the BBC does that all the time.
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ooooh yeah…the pope curses people, priests regularly become satanists, etc.
 
If I may interject, there’s one thing in that webpage which made me laugh:
If the ability to read is an essential pre-condition to sola Scriptura, then how do illiterate Catholic and Orthodox pew-dwellers know the Catholic and Orthodox Catechisms? Would not the same logic apply to illiterates in the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches? If Catholic and Orthodox laity can “know the truth” by hearing the catechism read to them, then why not illiterate Christians when they hear the Bible read?
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This reminds me of the reason why at times, anti-Catholics can at certain occasions paint scenarios at which even we would think, “Wouldn’t it be good if it were true”? :rolleyes:

Firstly, I doubt that each and every “illiterate Catholic and Orthodox pew-dwellers” that exists or existed knew, or know, all the doctrines of their Churches. That is unfortunate of course, but such is the case in some areas back then and today: catechesis was unfortunately given little regard. Even in areas which do have catechesis, I think that there are maybe a few out there which suffers from inadequacy: people look for solid meats and all they get there is baby-food.
 
MooCowSteph said:
I’m trying to learn more about where we got the Bible. It’s an area of our faith in that my knowledge is really lacking. As I am currently discussing these matters with a protestant, I am trying to get ahead of her and learn by finding the answers to the questions she’s most likely to ask. I found this site. What do you make of some of its claims?

bible.ca/catholic-questions.htm
Click to expand...
Hello,
Here are some recommendations
P.R. Ackroyd & C.F. Evans, eds., Cambridge History of the Bible, 3 vol. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1963-1970) paperback. Dated, but valuable articles.

Paul M. Blowers, The Bible in Greek Christian Antiquity (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1997).

Harry Y. Gamble, Books and Readers in the Early Church: A History of Early Christian Texts (New Haven: Yale, 1995) paperback, $25. A superb and original study of how early books were made, collected, and used.

Christine Helmer and Christof Landmesser, eds., One Scripture or Many?: Canon from Biblical, Theological, and Philosophical Perspectives (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004) hardcover, $95.

Larry W. Hurtado, The Earliest Christian Artifacts: Manuscripts and Christian Origins (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2006) paperback, $20

James L. Kugel & Rowan A. Greer, Early Biblical Interpretation, Library of Early Christianity 3 (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1986).

Joseph T. Lienhard, The Bible, the Church, and Authority: the Canon of the Christian Bible in History and Theology (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1995) paperback, $18.

Bruce Metzger, The Canon of the New Testament: Its Origin, Development, and Significance (New York: Clarendon / Oxford University Press, 1987) paperback, $20.

Bruce Metzger, The Early Versions of the New Testament: Their Origins, Transmission, and Limitations (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1977) hardcover, $45

happy reading.
I will give you a link to a great bibligraphy put together by a Catholic priest at Creighton University that is nicely divided under different subject matter. It has been extremely helpful in my studies.
John
 
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