Should we watch Michael Voris?

[Limoncello4021]

To answer the original question I have come to see that people like Michael Voris and Patrick Coffin have a necessary role to play. They are hard hitters in a world where everyone wants compromise and “nice.” Many may not like their style, but given a wimpy, compromised clergy member over them, I’ll take them.

 

[MagdalenaRita]

The argument for the Protestant OT canon is based on much, MUCH more than “a couple of scripture passages.” If those are the only arguments you “heard,” then I’m afraid that Protestant defense lacked a LOT of the arguments used in this book.

You know what, they probably did lack the arguments but that was mostly because they were too busy arguing over what each scripture passage meant. I worked in an area with a lot of different denominations and I went from denomination to denomination and none agreed with the other. Over 12 years of trying to find my place in the protestant world and 12 years of protestant Bible studies, I finally cried out to God and said, this is crazy, all these people believe something different. He led me home. I was the prodigal daughter.

In one of the Appendixes of the book, it lists about 300 of these terms

IMHO, I believe you are the author. I’m pretty sure. If you are not, are you truly willing to follow someone you “don’t know”.? Nothing personal, but I am not.

So, as you can see, the defense for the Protestant OT is “not” based on just a “couple of passages” from Scripture, but HUNDREDS of NT verses.

All these NT verses are being privately interpreted. Just the same as every other scripture verse a protestant tries to put meaning to. Since the Catholic church was the one inspired to put the books in the Bible, the Catholic church is the one to lead us and guide us in understanding the Bible.

I don’t believe the Catholic church is the true Church based on what books are in the OT Canon. I believe because of all the chaos I saw in private interpretation of scripture by protestants and because the Church has been attacked over and over but continues like a great ship in the ocean being protected by a great deity. I believe it because of all the miraculous events associated with it. I believe it because of all the Eucharistic miracles. I believe it because historically early Christians pointed to it. I believe it because it was obvious that protestants were misinterpreting scripture passages. I believe it because of the Blessed Mother and how she has worked so much love in my life and brought me so much closer to our Lord. Not to mention, every single Catholic saint the Lord has brought in to my life has been an absolute perfect match for me as a prayer partner. Some barely known by people but God knows what we need and brought them into my life. I could go on and on.
No where in the Bible does Jesus say He is leaving a book nor does He say this book will be your guide, interpret it how you see fit.

is one of the ways I know it isn’t the “Church” Jesus said He was going to build.

A lot of your responses are not consistent. You said you are reformed Catholic, not protestant but here you say the Catholic church isn’t the Church. If you are Catholic you know the Catholic Church is Christ’s Church. If protestant, I pray God leads you home and all your family.

 

[RaisedCatholic]

I worked in an area with a lot of different denominations and I went from denomination to denomination and none agreed with the other. Over 12 years of trying to find my place in the protestant world and 12 years of protestant Bible studies, I finally cried out to God and said, this is crazy, all these people believe something different.

I understand this. But just because they didn’t all agree on the hermeneutics of particular passages, that has nothing to do with the canon of Scripture itself, which they ALL agree on. When you read the early Doctors of the Church & other ECFS, even they didn’t agree on the meaning of Scripture, including the canon itself. Today, there are 271 different “Rites” within Catholicism, and many - if not all - of them disagree on aspects of Catholicism, including some allowing priests to be married, while others (like the Latin Rite) do not. The Ecumenical Council of Constance disagreed with the Lateran Council around the Reformation over whether a pope is above a council. And, again, even ecumenical councils disagreed with each other on the canon of Scripture, as did Popes, Cardinals, & other Catholics leaders. So, if you’re going to reject Protestantism because they didn’t agree on everything, then to be consistent, you should also reject Catholicism for the same reason.

are you truly willing to follow someone you “don’t know”.? Nothing personal, but I am not.

No offense taken. That is why I bought the book. So far what I’ve read, his arguments are pretty consistent. In the first chapter, he lays out a New Testament defense for the Protestant OT canon, based on the authority of Jesus, St. Paul, & the disciples. The rest of the book focuses on the Septuagint, the Vulgate, various councils, early church fathers, the Douay-Rheims, the Eastern Orthodox Bible, etc in order to show that they didn’t all have the same books in their OT canon. And the final chapter is about why we can trust the NT canon to tell us about the boundaries of the OT canon. I haven’t read that far, but I’m basing all this from what I’ve read, as well as from the Table of Contents which details not only the titles of each chapter, but what’s covered in each subsection within each chapter.

All these NT verses are being privately interpreted. Just the same as every other scripture verse a protestant tries to put meaning to.

Even the Catholic Church agrees that when certain terms are used in the NT, like the ones I mentioned, it refers to an OT book. So, it doesn’t have anything to do with “private interpretation,” but when a specific term is used it ALWAYS refers to an OT book.

[cont]

 

[RaisedCatholic]

[cont]

I don’t believe the Catholic church is the true Church based on what books are in the OT Canon. I believe because of all the chaos I saw in private interpretation of scripture by protestants

But since the Catholic Church does not possess the complete OT canon, then “how” can they be the Church Jesus built? Jesus would not have built & given authority to an ecclesiastical hierarchy that included books in their canon that were not God-breathed, no-more than He would a “church” that were “missing” inspired books. And since Jesus explicitly acknowledged the OT canon of the Pharisees, which is the same as Protestants, then from the authority of Jesus Himself, the Catholic Church cannot be that “Church” Jesus was talking about.

No where in the Bible does Jesus say He is leaving a book nor does He say this book will be your guide

In the book of Revelation, Jesus commanded St. John to “write down” everything he saw & heard. St. Peter stated ALL of St. Paul’s epistles were Scripture, which St. Paul states ALL Scripture is God-breathed, which refers to the OT canon. St. Paul also stated “I AM” (present tense) a Pharisee AFTER he converted to Christianity. As a Pharisee, his OT canon would be the same as Protestants today - excluding the Deuteros. And St. Paul used the exact same expression Jesus used to describe the OT canon - “the Law & the Prophets” (Romans 3:21; Luke 16:14). As a Pharisee, “the Law & the Prophets” would have excluded the Deuteros, but included only those books in Protestant OTs.

A lot of your responses are not consistent. You said you are reformed Catholic, not protestant but here you say the Catholic church isn’t the Church.

What I said is that I believe Jesus said He was going to build a church, because that’s what He said in the NT. I just don’t believe the CATHOLIC Church is that same church Jesus was talking about. I also believe Jesus affirmed the OT canon of the Pharisees, which is ALSO based on the NT (Luke 16:14,29). So, my responses are quite consistent. By “Reformed Catholic,” that simply means I consider myself to be a “catholic” in the sense St. Ignatius used it in his early 2nd century epistle to simply mean “universal,” but not the later “Catholic” church (with a capital “C”).

 

[RaisedCatholic]

are you truly willing to follow someone you “don’t know”.? Nothing personal, but I am not.

And yet, you’re entire argument is that you are basing your “belief” that the OT canon of the Catholic Church is the OT canon Jesus affirmed, when in reality, the NT explicitly records the very words of Jesus Who acknowledged the “smaller” Pharisee canon. Essentially, this is your argument:

1. You believe the Catholic Church is the “Church” Jesus built.
2. You believe this, because Jesus said in the NT that He would built His Church.
3. You believe the OT canon is the Catholic OT, because the Catholic Church “defined” the OT canon at the Council of Trent in 1546.

But what you still aren’t seeing is that you are using the NT to defend your belief that the Catholic Church “is” that Church Jesus built. But then you are using the Catholic Church at the Council of Trent to define the OT canon parameters. That is a circular argument. You can’t use “A” to defend “B” to defend “A,” which is what you’re doing!

You can’t objectively say what the Church is without having an already established canon, so you need this canon established to define the Church. Otherwise, you argue in circles. That is why we must look to the NEW Testament to define what the OLD Testament is. Otherwise, we are simply trusting in an religious institution that is using this same circular argument to convince us they are that church, despite them not having the OT canon Jesus Himself espoused to in the NT.

Since the Catholic church was the one inspired to put the books in the Bible, the Catholic church is the one to lead us and guide us in understanding the Bible.

But you’re still not answering my question of how did a believing Jew know what the OT canon was since Jesus held them accountable for knowing what it was? Attributing the canon to the Catholic Church doesn’t help, since it was not “built” yet prior to & contemporary with the time of Christ. IOW, BEFORE the time of Christ & BEFORE the Church was built, how did Jews know what the OT canon was since Jesus held them accountable for knowing what it was, since He DID hold them accountable for knowing it?

THIS is what I’m asking you, which I am still waiting on a pre-Church era reply.

 

[MagdalenaRita]

THIS is what I’m asking you, which I am still waiting on a pre-Church era reply.

So, we could go back and forth debating scripture verses but I am really not a fan of doing that. I may not be clear in my answer. I may not understand your questions or your answers, so I am going to leave the answer for you in the hands of those who have already given detailed answers and are more intelligent than I. These are very good Catholic apologetics:

Steve Ray - ex-protestant - Catholic convert

The Council That Wasn't | Catholic Answers Magazine

Mark Shea - ex-protestant - Catholic convert

5 Myths about 7 Books

Scott Hahn - ex-protestant - Catholic convert

Thoughts on the Church’s Old Testament Canon – St. Paul Center

New Advent - Catholic encyclopedia - Canon of the OT

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03267a.htm

 

[RaisedCatholic]

I may not be clear in my answer. I may not understand your questions or your answers, so I am going to leave the answer for you in the hands of those who have already given detailed answers and are more intelligent than I. These are very good Catholic apologetics:

As a former Catholic, I am well-aware of Steve Ray, Scott Hahn, & NewAdvent.org. I have also read these articles before too. The problem is that they either bring up strawman arguments (like the fallacious “Council of Jamnia”) which no serious Protestant apologist uses, nor even an argument made in the book (or at least what I have read so far in it), or they don’t really deal with the arguments made in the book. Unfortunately, these articles are outdated & don’t really address more updated & fresh arguments in the favor of the Protestant OT canon.

To make it simple, what I’m asking is: if you believe the Catholic Church has the authority to define the Christian canon, because the Christian canon states the Church is the “pillar & shield of the truth,” then how do you which religious “church” has the authority to define the canon? Remember, if the “Church” defines the canon, that means the canon that defines what the Church is hadn’t been “defined” yet. Which came first, the Church or the canon? If you say the Church, then how do you know that unless an established canon was already formed prior to the existence of the Church?

The other simple question is:

1. Jesus held the Jews accountable for knowing what the OT canon was.
2. This means the OT canon was already formed prior to the existence of Jesus.
3. The Church wasn’t “built” until after the death & resurrection of Jesus.
4. This means the Church couldn’t have defined the OT canon, since it was built after the time of Jesus.

So, “what” was the OT canon prior to the time of Jesus (Who preceded the Church), which Jesus held the Jews accountable for knowing what it was? Those articles you posted don’t explicitly answer this question. The best they can do is address various Catholic OT lists, but this was AFTER the time of Christ, not BEFORE. And, again, they didn’t all agree on the exact same OT canon.

 

[MagdalenaRita]

So, “what” was the OT canon prior to the time of Jesus

Post moved to Why Protestant Bibles are smaller

 

[JimG]

The Catholic Church preceded the New Testament, obviously. The Church used readings from the writings of what is now the new testament as well as the old testament writings in the liturgy of the Mass. One reason it defined the Canon was to standardize which documents could be used in the liturgy. It did not put everything together into one book because books did not exist at the time. Christ established the Church and commisioned it to preach to the whole world decades before the writings of the NT were written or completed.

 

[RaisedCatholic]

The Catholic Church preceded the New Testament, obviously.

JimG:

Christ established the Church and commisioned it to preach to the whole world decades before the writings of the NT were written or completed.

Without using the NT as already recognized inspired Scripture, how can you objectively know for certain that that Catholic Church “preceded” the NT? And how can you know Christ even “established the Church” & “commissioned it to preach” without using the NT as a source?

Yes, the Church did indeed exist before a single word of the NT was penned. No one is disputing this. However, if you use the Church to define the canon, before the canon is established which defines the Church, I’m afraid you are using circular reasoning (using “A” to define “B” to define "A’).

 

[choose_to_love]

" . . . if you use the Church to define the canon . . . circular reasoning" Not necessarily. One uses the books of the NT in a non-canonical way, i.e., as history, to establish the beginnings of the Church; deciding which books are inspired is a separate action taken later by the Church. It’s a subtle but reasonable distinction.

 

[MagdalenaRita]

Without using the NT as already recognized inspired Scripture, how can you objectively know for certain that that Catholic Church “preceded” the NT? And how can you know Christ even “established the Church” & “commissioned it to preach” without using the NT as a source?

Tradition. Handed down from the apostles and early Christian disciples. The many, many writings from the early Christians and Church Fathers and most importantly, Jesus told the apostles He would lead them into all truth, with the aid of the Holy Spirit.

Protestant churches are not one. There is much disagreement on the majority of the Scripture meanings. That is not being led into all truth because there can only be one truth and they do not hold to just one truth. They are all over the place.

Jesus gave the authority to bind and loose to the Apostles. They alone had the authority to choose OT Canon because it was given to them by Christ. Not to us.

 

[Crusader13]

To make it simple, what I’m asking is: if you believe the Catholic Church has the authority to define the Christian canon, because the Christian canon states the Church is the “pillar & shield of the truth,” then how do you which religious “church” has the authority to define the canon? Remember, if the “Church” defines the canon, that means the canon that defines what the Church is hadn’t been “defined” yet. Which came first, the Church or the canon? If you say the Church, then how do you know that unless an established canon was already formed prior to the existence of the Church?

The answer lies in your question. We don’t believe that the Church is the pillar and foundation, merely because the Bible says it is. The Bible affirms and supports the Church, the church doesn’t owe its existence to the Bible.

For example, one can say that the Bible didn’t come down from heaven in any form, therefore it was written by fallible men, who formed fallible churches, who wrote the fallible book, to give themselves infallibility.

Yet, as a Christian you know this isn’t the case and as a believer, you probably know how to answer this question and yet you ask it of Catholics as if it’s unique to our Church alone.

So the question you should ask yourself is this:
Do you believe in the Bible as the inerrant, God breathed book that it is or do you merely believe in the Bible, because the Bible itself says that it is the inerrant God breathed book that it is?

The Bible can’t authenticate itself, so there must be another Holy Spirit guided entity to affirm that what we have, is in fact the Holy Word of God.

The Protestant answer is to acknowledge that the early church was that Church, but it fell under corruption and pagan influence, usually around the time of Constantine, and the RCC rose to power and as you say, added books to the original canon. Luther simply brought back the original early church canon and tried to restore the church to its roots.

The problem is that there is no irrefutable evidence that such a thing ever occurred. Because now we are left trying to decide what happened to the early Church and who should we look to as the pillar and foundation of truth? As you asked above, which Church?

I know of only one that still insists and supports that they are that Church and has existed for over 2000 years and can trace its origins back to that same early Church.

 

[Bataar]

I think it comes down to the crisis in the church and whether or not you recognize it. Michael Voris does a great job in detailing and exposing the current crisis. From corrupt clergy to false teaching being excepted, etc. For people who don’t see the crisis, they will not like Michael Voris as he points out some very uncomfortable things. But fro what I’ve seen, he’s completely accurate.

 

[RaisedCatholic]

The Bible affirms and supports the Church, the church doesn’t owe its existence to the Bible.

Okay. Then if the Bible affirms & supports the Church, then wouldn’t that mean the church owes its existence to the Bible? I’m not saying it does. Your comment was a bit confusing. If it doesn’t, then how can you know objectively, without depending on the Bible, the Catholic church “is” that church? Not questioning the belief. Just trying to understand without employing circular reasoning.

So the question you should ask yourself is this:
Do you believe in the Bible as the inerrant, God breathed book that it is or do you merely believe in the Bible, because the Bible itself says that it is the inerrant God breathed book that it is?

It’s not merely that the Bible “itself” claims to be an inerrant God-breathed book. It’s that it can stand on it’s own merit. IOW, the Bible can support it’s own claims. Only the Bible, and not any other religious or secular text, has the godly attributes to back up its claims to be God-breathed, not just because it “says-so.”

The Bible can’t authenticate itself

I humbly disagree.

the early church was that Church, but it fell under corruption and pagan influence, usually around the time of Constantine.

The problem is that there is no irrefutable evidence that such a thing ever occurred. Because now we are left trying to decide what happened to the early Church

Can’t speak for all non-Catholics, but I don’t think that’s what most Protestants believe. To believe something “happened” to the early church implies that the gates of Hades prevailed against the church, which according to Jesus would not happen. As you know, the church is the universal body of believers called out by God from the world. Even “if” a hierarchical ecclesiastical structure - as you said “fell under corruption & pagan influence,” there would still be genuine believers who believed the same things the first century church believed, which would be the church, which Hades would not have prevailed against.

the RCC rose to power and as you say, added books to the original canon

Didn’t say the RCC “rose” power in that way. As far as adding books to the original canon, here is an article on CAF that is now closed which addresses this subject:

Why Protestant Bibles Are Smaller