C
commenter
Guest
Ok, you got me there. The ending isn’t PC. But I think the gospel is PC in what it omits.
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cactusxplant
Guest
how do I get started with this forum?
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JRKH
Guest
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PRmerger
Guest
Rather than a movement to include some books, there is an effort among those who have rejected the authority of the CC to reject some books, namely, the epistles of St. Paul.
There are those who, guided by the HS in their estimation, believe the writings of St. Paul to be satanic.
lasttrumpet.org/paul_false_apostle.htm
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PRmerger
Guest
Isn’t that circular reasoning? “I reject this text because it contains things which are not Scriptural” and “It contains things that are not Scriptural, therefore I reject this text.”
Rather, shouldn’t it be: if it’s the inspired Word of God, then we must submit to whatever it claims.
Right?
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dronald
Guest
That’s not exactly what we’re talking about. And yes, I agree with you.
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PRmerger
Guest
Okey-dokey, then.
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nmgauss
Guest
It is interesting to examine the results of archeological research regarding the book of Joshua.
There is no archeological evidence that Joshua caused the walls of Jericho to come tumbling down. Evidence of a catastrophic earthquake 100 years before Joshua is said to have laid siege to Jericho has been found. Earthquakes in that area are common, since a major earthquake fault occurs in the Jordan Valley.
There is also no archeological evidence that the Canaanites were slaughtered. Evidence has revealed that Israelites were already living in Canaan when Joshua arrived on the scene. Also, Canaan was Egyptian territory in those days, and Egypt was supposed to have had a substantial army on the scene to oppose any attack by Joshua.
Joshua was supposed to have worshipped Yahweh before the resident Israelites had even heard of Yahweh. So, the native Israelites who were living among the Canaanites became influenced by the cult of Yahweh, and thus adopted a new religion opposed to the paganism of the Canaanites.
So why was the story of Joshua written as it appears? Scholars have inferred that there was likely an effort on the part of the scribes to enhance the reputation of Yahweh and Joshua so that it would be more readily adopted by the resident Israelites.
Sola Scriptura may cause people to rely on fictitious scripture.
There is no archeological evidence that Joshua caused the walls of Jericho to come tumbling down. Evidence of a catastrophic earthquake 100 years before Joshua is said to have laid siege to Jericho has been found. Earthquakes in that area are common, since a major earthquake fault occurs in the Jordan Valley.
There is also no archeological evidence that the Canaanites were slaughtered. Evidence has revealed that Israelites were already living in Canaan when Joshua arrived on the scene. Also, Canaan was Egyptian territory in those days, and Egypt was supposed to have had a substantial army on the scene to oppose any attack by Joshua.
Joshua was supposed to have worshipped Yahweh before the resident Israelites had even heard of Yahweh. So, the native Israelites who were living among the Canaanites became influenced by the cult of Yahweh, and thus adopted a new religion opposed to the paganism of the Canaanites.
So why was the story of Joshua written as it appears? Scholars have inferred that there was likely an effort on the part of the scribes to enhance the reputation of Yahweh and Joshua so that it would be more readily adopted by the resident Israelites.
Sola Scriptura may cause people to rely on fictitious scripture.
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PRmerger
Guest
Or, at least, when Scripture is interpreted outside the lens of the Church it can lead people to believe fictitious ideas.
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spina1953
Guest
Concerning Sola Scriptura. there is a vast difference between what the Bible says and what the Bible means. To read is to interprete, and many individuals have tried to interprete the Bible in a way contrary to what the Church taught. I think that with few exceptions, the authors of the Old and New Testaments did not think of themselves as pofessional writers They were members of a communiity which felt itself to be espercially chosen as the bearer of God’s promise. Their writing was the expression of the community in action; it was the result of theprocess of listening to God’s word in history and in the religious experience of thenation, of reflecting on that word, of telling the story, and of handing on the message to later generations of the community.
There are two different types of what is called Apocrypha, 1) jewish and2) Chrsitian. Those books Catholic’s call Deutrocanonical are called by Protestants apocrypha. There are books that are either Gnostic in nature and those that were written asstories About Jesus or the Apostles due to there not being a lot of bio’s on them. They were fictional just like many books today about Jesus or one of the Apostles as in for example Tim La Haye books about St. John the Apostle or Mark the diciple of St. Peter. In the first and second century beside all the gnostic teachings concerning Jesus, many of the people of the times wanted to know more about Jesus and or of the Apostles and writers of the day tried to accomodate them. The Catholic Church at some point needed to decide what books were inspired and reflected what Jesus and the Apostles taught and those that did not. Without he Catholic Church deciding what books were inspired or not, it would be rather difficult to know just what was and what was and what was not to be taught.
There are two different types of what is called Apocrypha, 1) jewish and2) Chrsitian. Those books Catholic’s call Deutrocanonical are called by Protestants apocrypha. There are books that are either Gnostic in nature and those that were written asstories About Jesus or the Apostles due to there not being a lot of bio’s on them. They were fictional just like many books today about Jesus or one of the Apostles as in for example Tim La Haye books about St. John the Apostle or Mark the diciple of St. Peter. In the first and second century beside all the gnostic teachings concerning Jesus, many of the people of the times wanted to know more about Jesus and or of the Apostles and writers of the day tried to accomodate them. The Catholic Church at some point needed to decide what books were inspired and reflected what Jesus and the Apostles taught and those that did not. Without he Catholic Church deciding what books were inspired or not, it would be rather difficult to know just what was and what was and what was not to be taught.
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commenter
Guest
We don’t know who wrote the gospels of Thomas and Phillip.
Very little of Arius’ writings have survived, and I am not aware of any movement to add his books to the canon. Among gnostic writings, a few are gaining slight acceptance, most not, at least not yet.
On a small scale, there is an effort among some liberal, or mainline Protestants, to ease certain books into the canon gradually. For instance, A New New Testament includes some Protestant bishops and denominational leaders. They recommend bringing in one reading from the Gospel of Thomas or Gospel of Mary for a church service, but let the other reading be from the familiar 27, or the OT. After awhile, people will be familiar with them, and more comfortable with those books.
This is still on a very small scale, only among a very few mainline Protestants, not evangelicals - yet. But I think it will grow. Adding books to the canon was unthinkable 20 years ago, now still controversial but will quietly spread. Once you treat one book as “scripture” it gets lots easier to add others. This movement is spreading under the radar, so to speak.
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spina1953
Guest
Hi commenter: You are correct in saying that no one knows who wrote the gospels of Thomas or Philip. These gospels are Gnostic in nature. The New testament’s later books show that the Church, from the beginning, struggled against aberrant doctrine. Araising in the Apostles time lifetime was the "docetic heresy, which claimed that Jesus only seemed to be human, to suffer and die; according to the docetists, the Savior was really a pure spirit, a ghost in the machine of the human body Such misunderstandings, willful and othewise, became more pronounced as the Church expanded outward. To believe in the Jesus was the Gnostic’s, to believe in a false doctrines obsecured and distorted the all-important facts and so offered a vastly different person in the place of Jesus. It was determened early on then that the preaching and teachings of what the Gnostic’s were teaching and preaching was very much different than what they the Apostles had taught and were teaching during their lifetimes and the Church Fathers who had learned from the Apostles also taught. Had not the early Church starting with the Apostles and the early Church fathers not responed to these false teachings, how in the world would we know what Jesus actually taught? This is why we do not have uninspired books that are contrary to the teachings of Jesus through the Apostles that have been passed down to us through the Catholic Church.
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bogeydogg
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Not that I know of. And certainly my diocese does not teach that any of the Catholic Epistles or Revelation are anything other than Canon. In fact we just finished our study of the Catholic Epistles in Wednesday night Bible study right before Advent, in fact our Bishop encourages the reading of the “Apocryphal” Books of the Catholic Bible. And you are correct that there was some controversy, but in the lists of accepted texts that we have from great antiquity the four Gospels, the Pauline Epistles and most of the Catholic letters were included. And at Nicea the Bishops voted overwhelmingly to include Revelation and Hebrews into the Canon. So what I was saying is that the notion that there was no agreed upon Canon prior to Nicea and that the Canon only came to be because of Imperial edict and that there was serious discussion for inclusion of books such as the “gospels” of Thomas and Judas is just not true. There was no such controversy.
In fact the chief controversy at Nicea was Arius and his teachings about which Augustine wrote quite extensively in the City of God less than 100 years later. Even going so far as to call the saving of the Church from the Arian heresy “Divine Intervention” as most of the Bishops there were held under sway by Arius. But when Athanasius had presented his case they had to vote with him as teaching the Catholic Faith and denounced Arius. But they were so unhappy about it that Athanasius was still banished in spite of the fact that his arguments had carried the day.
It is also worth remembering that the Arian heresy was still hot and heavy in the late fourth century resulting in Ambrose locking his Church doors in Milan against the threat of death by the Roman Procurator who was Arian and desired to install a Bishop into the Milanese See to replace Ambrose. Troops were at the door prepared to break it down and slaughter those inside (including St Monica who was St Augustine’s mother) before the procurate backed down seeing the determination of Ambrose and his followers.
God Bless
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bogeydogg
Guest
The problem with Gnostic texts, and the reason why they should never be included in an Christian setting is that the Gnostics fundamentally denied the true nature of Christ. They denied He ever had a true human body because they believe all matter (that is everything physical) was corrupt and most taught that the OT God was not the God made incarnate by Christ, after all according to them there was no incarnation, but the OT God was a wicked God whose reign Christ had come to overthrow.
1 John deals very specifically with this sort of thinking when it says, "1 That which was from the beginning,*** which we have heard***, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and*** have touched with our hands***, concerning the word of life-- 2 the life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us-
John is plainly saying anyone who claims Christ did not have a real physical body is not teaching the Christ who is One with the Father from the beginning.
Furthermore the Gnostics argued that salvation was spiritual this flesh that clothed us did not really matter and so whether we became ascetics or epicureans did not matter since we would only be saved in spirit and so sins of flesh did not really count. To this John says, “8 If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 10 If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.”
Now you have said “mainline but not evangelical” protestants have sought to bring in Gnostic readings, and why not. They most likely deny the resurrection anyway and reject the Apostolic witness and think the Bible is full of errors etc, etc so why not read heretical books since the they think the Christian Faith is probably a bunch of malarkey anyway?
And here you see the crux of the problem. This is why Luther demanded the Bible be the center of the Christian Faith and Rome demands the Majesterium be the center because both recognize that if you allow people to wander off without a Canon, a standard, to hold them, then all manner of Satanic lies will fill the itching ears of those in the Churches and soon people will invent gods of prosperity and licence and who knows what ever and wrap it the scent of orthodoxy and claim they too are Christian and so belong in the big tent.
But they are not and God willing will never be given a seat at the table until they repent.
One more thing, if you want to know whatever happened to the teachings of Arius they are alive and well in Christologies of the Jehovah’s Witnesses and the LDS groups that also like pretend that they too are Christian.
God Bless
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spina1953
Guest
You have hit the nail on the head with your information on gnostic’s and their teachings. I think that most people today do not really understand what the gnostic’s were really teaching and preaching. And to think that some would want to add to the Bible is pure heresy in my humble opinion.
C
commenter
Guest
Actually Rome is not based on the Magisterium alone, for Catholicism revelation is a balance of Scripture, Sacred Tradition, and the Magisterium. Each one helps shape the others.
What Catholics, Evangelicals, and Lutherans have in common is far more important than anything that divides us.
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spina1953
Guest
Commenter: You made an excellent point. There is the Scripture, Tradition, and the Teaching Church all bound together into one like a three legged stool, break one and the rest can not stand. This is the major problem with Protestant denominations, especially those who think that the Bible alone is the only authority; the final authority if you will concerning what one is to believe and how we are to believe. Since no one person can understand all of Scripture, it is pure folly to think one can just pick up the Bible and read it and get everything out of it as to what was said and what it means. it takes more then just reading it to understand it and besides bibilcal scholars have a difficult time interpreting and understanding the meaning and what Scripture is saying. If it were true that anyone can just pick up Scripture and read it and understand everything that is in it then there would not be the confusion that there now is, especially since the Holy Spirit is not the author of chaos.
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bogeydogg
Guest
Yes I know, but used the Magisterium as a catch all because the Church’s teaching about Scripture and tradition can be found under the heading of “Magisterium” since it is not one book but rather a collection of Catholic teaching and thought.
However I am still not making myself clear on what the Lutheran Church at least as I know it, teaches concerning the Bible. The Bible is not a self teaching book, it must be read under the instruction of other who understand it better. That is why Luther called what we would term “charismatics” he called “ecstatics” because they used their feelings about Scripture to guide them to what they thought it said with no regard for the long teaching history of the Church. That is why the Lutheran Church roundly disregards the teaching of the dispensationalists, the charismatics, the pre-mil/post-mil/ pre-trib/ mid-trib/ post-trib bunch because all of the teachings have either been denounced as heretical with sound reason in the past or because they are new teachings unknown to the previous 2000 years of Church history.
So what did Luther teach about the Bible?
Well you have to remember that at the core of the “Sola Scriptura” debate was the question of how we are saved. Luther read Romans differently from the Church of his day and different;y from Jerome, because he felt Augustine (who was a peer of Jerome) had also read it differently and alongside Augustine were Athanasius, Cyprian, Chrysostom, etc and he was calling on Rome to examine his claims about Scripture itself. Rome was answering him by using the writings of modern day scholars and what they had said about Luther’s claim and Luther was complaining that Rome was not actually answering him on Scriptural basis. And so he said that in matter of conflict (and please remember that is the important point) if different people within the Church cannot agree about the nature of a Biblical text, then instead of piling up huge volumes of this person or that said arguments (which is the fallacy of appealing to authority by the way) Luther reasoned that since the Church confesses that only Scripture was every received under direct inspiration and therefore could not err, therefore conflict must be settled by plain Scripture if the Scripture has been plain. Since after all of all sources only the Scripture could not err.
That is what Sola Scriptura means. It does not mean that anyone can open their Bible and pullout a verse and build a Church because the only authority they need is a Bible verse. It means that in matters of dispute, where Scripture has spoken, Scripture is to be believed, because only Scripture is infallible.
So it actually had a very narrow definition which has been parsed, played with, mutilated and now forgotten, but a great many people pounding their pulpits and talking about Scripture alone Luther would call heretics. In fact he did call Zwingli a heretic and Calvin, who had a more expansive understanding of Scripture Alone, called Luther and his followers heretics.
Which makes it really ironic that Calvinists trace their departure from Rome to Luther and try to separate themselves from the Radical Reformers and Wesley and those who came later. As if the question that divided the Church was election and not salvation.
God Bless
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nmgauss
Guest
It would be reassuring to have the original words from which today’s Scripture have arisen. Much of Scripture is based on oral tradition or appears in today’s Bible after several generations of scribes and story tellers have had a chance to monkey with it. Today’s Scripture cannot be regarded as infallible the same way that neither the Pope nor the Magisterium nor Tradition can be regarded as infallible. After centuries of research on Biblical text, new conclusions have arisen that were not available to Luther. He had to regard something as infallible, and Scripture seemed to him more infallible than anything being taught by the Catholic Church.
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John_Jerpe
Guest
Every time I hear someone say, in effect, that “it’s all in this book, I get the distinct impression that without either realizing or admitting it, they think God is a book. If God was a book, I think He would just drop off a few thousand copies and then step back and wait to see who reads it. There would be no need for an Incarnation or anything else. We would simply “read His book” and be “saved”!!! Regarding “books”, Jesus apparently said “…it is written…” on a number of occasions, but He also said “…pray always’’’” (I wish I did). If He said '…pray always…” I think I have to infer that the “…written…” part is insufficient, or at least it won’t stand alone. Isn’t that what Jesus meant by “…pray always…”? Just my naive effort at keeping things simple.
John Jerpe
John Jerpe
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