The Origin of the Bible

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Hisalone said:
There is no limited priesthood. The office of priest is the same in the NT as it was in the OT. A priest is to reconcile or to bring God to the people and to bring the people to God. All believers have been given this office.
There are different offices other than priesthood.
Deacons, Presbyters or Elders, Bishop or Overseer.
All of which are not to be married to more than one wife.
No where in the bible does is there an office of Pope. Peter appears on many occasions to be the lead apostle. Yet Jesus says the greatest is the one who serves, Jesus instructed the apostles not to lord over their sheep as the gentiles do. What did the popes in the middles ages do? Lord over the sheep in a vulgar and vicious manner.
No where in scripture does it say any one individual would be infallible nor does it say that His people or His church would not err it only says that Satan would not prevail against His people.
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Actually the Priesthood in the OT was even more limited than in the NT. Only the tribe of Levi was allowed to have priests. Pope comes from the word “father”. And that was a title applied to all priests and Bishops.

You think just because the Pope is leader of the Church he does not serve? Do you think it is easy overseeing and entire Church that is as wide as the world. Not only do people continually look for spiritual guidance but you have to deal with politicians that do not respect human life and the sacrament of marriage, people who hate your Church, a planet that is in a constant state of crisis, write letters to the people, worry and worry some more about your wayward sheep and shepherds who wont listen to you, have all this hate concentrated to you and at the same time have Satan attack you especially because he knows that if you fall the rest will scatter. Have this and the burden of infallibility placed on you and my friend, you are in for some hard times. Some popes cracked under the pressure and went wayward, but many for the most part have guided their sheep well.

As for infallibility, if you look at Matthew 16:17-19 the only logical conclusion is infallibility. As the Catholic Encyclopedia states:

Matthew 16:18

“Thou art Peter (Kepha)”, said Christ, “and upon this rock (kepha) I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (Matthew 16:18). Various attempts have been made by opponents of the papal claims to get rid of the only obvious and natural meaning of these words, according to which Peter is to be the rock-foundation of the Church, and the source of its indefectibility against the gates of hell. It has been suggested, for example, that “this rock” is Christ Himself or that it is Peter’s faith (typifying the faith of future believers), not his person and office, on which the Church is to be built. But these and similar interpretations simply destroy the logical coherency of Christ’s statement and are excluded by the Greek and Latin texts, in which a kind of play upon the words Petros (Petrus) and petra is clearly intended, and still more forcibly by the original Aramaic which Christ spoke, and in which the same word Kêpha must have been used in both clauses. And granting, as the best modern non-Catholic commentators grant, that this text of St. Matthew contains the promise that St. Peter was to be the rock-foundation of the Church, it is impossible to deny that Peter’s successors in the primacy are heirs to this promise – unless, indeed, one is willing to admit the principle, which would be altogether subversive of the hierarchial system, that the authority bestowed by Christ on the Apostles was not intended to be transmitted to their successors, and to abide in the Church permanently. Peter’s headship was as much emphasized by Christ Himself, and was as clearly recognized in the infant Church, as was the enduring authority of the episcopal body; and it is a puzzle which the Catholic finds it hard to solve, how those who deny that the supreme authority of Peter’s successor is an essential factor in the constitution of the Church can consistently maintain the Divine authority of the episcopate. Now, as we have already seen, doctrinal indefectibility is certainly implied in Christ’s promise that the gates of hell shall not prevail against His Church, and cannot be effectively secured without doctrinal infallibility; so that if Christ’s promise means anything – if Peter’s successor is in any true sense the foundation and source of the Church’s indefectibility – he must by virtue of this office be also an organ of ecclesiastical infallibility. The metaphor used clearly implies that it was the rock-foundation which was to give stability to the superstructure, not the superstructure to the rock.
 
historyb said:
Yes Christ wrote the Bible, Christ is God and God inspired the Bible. God decided what would be in the Bible from the beginning and even when there was no single book all the books were in place and in circulation.
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Interesting opinion. But, I can’t believe it because it is not written in the bible.
 
CWBetts said:
MAtthew 16:18. Its pretty straightforward.
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It is pretty straightforward. The keys are promised but the promise is in the future tense. Peter doesn’t actually receive the keys in Matthew 16:18 does he?

The power to bind and loose was given to all the apostles and as best I remeber not to Peter alone.
 
SemperReformada said:
It is pretty straightforward. The keys are promised but the promise is in the future tense. Peter doesn’t actually receive the keys in Matthew 16:18 does he?

The power to bind and loose was given to all the apostles and as best I remeber not to Peter alone.
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Peter alone in Matthew, the other Apostles after the ressurection. THe point is this power is what amounts to the teaching authourity of the Church. It was this conferring of power that gave the CHurch the authority to compile the Scriptures. It was tis authority that gives Sacred Tradition weight. Without the power to “bind and loose” the Church would have no power to give us the Scriptures, or to make moral pronouncements, or declare Dogmas. But the Church was given this authority, but not to the membership at large. It was given to the Apsotles and their successors, the Bishops.
 
TheQuestioner said:
hmmm, although you are right in saying that Trent shut the door on any debate (I am mature enough to admit that) that is not to say that Councils of Carthage and Hippo were not authoritative. The regional councils are superseded by ecumenical councils, but they still hold some authority. In fact since the Canon of those councils were approved by Rome it would follow that those councils held authority until Trent. If Trent presented a different list than the ones of Carthage and Hippo we all would have to default to Trent. This just didn’t happen to be the case. Also the problem with Luther was that he questioned not only the OT but the NT, so either way you receive your NT from the Church because we put a stamp on that canon. Also the list of OT canonical books made up in Carthage was actually sent to and approved by the Roman Partriarch (the Pope) so either way it was IMO basically set and stated that although more books could have been added to the OT Canon, none of them could be taken away. That list at least was approved.

By the way there was no debate what so ever about the OT Canon at Trent. It was quickly (and extremely quickly for a council) settled at Trent and then they moved on to the next topic. There was little or no question about the Canon. newadvent.org/cathen/03267a.htm
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Well said.
 
=TheQuestioner;5537316]hmmm, although you are right in saying that Trent shut the door on any debate (I am mature enough to admit that) that is not to say that Councils of Carthage and Hippo were not authoritative. The regional councils are superseded by ecumenical councils, but they still hold some authority. In fact since the Canon of those councils were approved by Rome it would follow that those councils held authority until Trent. If Trent presented a different list than the ones of Carthage and Hippo we all would have to default to Trent. This just didn’t happen to be the case. Also the problem with Luther was that he questioned not only the OT but the NT, so either way you receive your NT from the Church because we put a stamp on that canon. Also the list of OT canonical books made up in Carthage was actually sent to and approved by the Roman Partriarch (the Pope) so either way it was IMO basically set and stated that although more books could have been added to the OT Canon, none of them could be taken away. That list at least was approved.
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There were questions about the NT books before Luther, as well. Luther was a theologian. This is what theologians did, and do.
Somewhere between “Catholics added books”, and “Luther was a heretic for even questioning” is the fact that a long-standing debate about certain books, including the d-c’s and a few NT books took place. Up until Trent it wasn’t heresy to do so, unless we want to say Cardinal Cajetan was a heretic because he questioned the canonicity of the d-c’s *before *Trent.
By the way there was no debate what so ever about the OT Canon at Trent. It was quickly (and extremely quickly for a council) settled at Trent and then they moved on to the next topic. There was little or no question about the Canon. newadvent.org/cathen/03267a.htm
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Check post #104. I guess what “quick debate” is is in the eye of the beholder. That there was any debate indicates that this wasn’t a cut and dried issue. Even at Trent there was a difference of opinion.

Jon
 
SemperReformada said:
Go to www.newadvent.org (the old Catholic Encyclopedia) and read their article on the canon of the OT. You will find pretty much the same thing.

Trent was the first infallible declaration of the OT canon. The OT canon was certainly not settled before Trent.
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The NewAdvent article Canon of the Ot states That in the first half of the fifth century “the position of deutecrocanonical literrature is no longer as secure as in the primitve age.” "The doubts which arose should be attributed largely to a reaction against the apocryphal or pseudo-Biblical writings with which the East especially had been flooded by heretical and other writers.

"St. Jerome cast his weighty suffrage on the side unfavourable to the disputed books. In appreciating his attitude we must remember that Jerome lived long in Palestine, in an environment where everything outside the Jewish Canon was suspect, and that, moreover, he had an excessive veneration for the Hebrew text, the Hebraica veritas as he called it. In his famous “Prologus Galeatus”, or Preface to his translation of Samuel and Kings, he declares that everything not Hebrew should be classed with the apocrypha, and explicitly says that Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Tobias, and Judith are not on the Canon. These books, he adds, are read in the churches for the edification of the people, and not for the confirmation of revealed doctrine. An analysis of Jerome’s expressions on the deuterocanonicals, in various letters and prefaces, yields the following results: first, he strongly doubted their inspiration; secondly, the fact that he occasionally quotes them, and translated some of them as a concession to ecclesiastical tradition, is an involuntary testimony on his part to the high standing these writings enjoyed in the Church at large, and to the strength of the practical tradition which prescribed their readings in public worship. Obviously, the inferior rank to which the deuteros were relegated by authorities like Origen, Athanasius, and Jerome, was due to too rigid a conception of canonicity, one demanding that a book, to be entitled to this supreme dignity, must be received by all, must have the sanction of Jewish antiquity, and must moreover be adapted not only to edification, but also to the “confirmation of the doctrine of the Church”, to borrow Jerome’s phrase.

But while eminent scholars and theorists were thus depreciating the additional writings, the **official attitude of the Latin Church, always favourable **to them, kept the majestic tenor of its way. Two documents of capital importance in the history of the canon constitute the first formal utterance of papal authority on the subject. The first is the so-called “Decretal of Gelasius”, de recipiendis et non recipiendis libris, the essential part of which is now generally attributed to a synod convoked by Pope Damasus in the year 382. The other is the Canon of Innocent I, sent in 405 to a Gallican bishop in answer to an inquiry. Both contain all the deuterocanonicals, without any distinction, and are identical with the catalogue of Trent." So far it sounds like there was debate on certain books of the OT in the Catholic Church but this debate was no open rebellion like that of Fr. Luther. I am going to study the article more but this is my thoughts for now.
newadvent.org/cathen/03267a.htm
 
Also the article states that “In the Latin Church, all through the Middle Ages we find evidence of hesitation about the character of the deuterocanonicals”. The cause of this phenomenon in the West is to be sought in the influence, direct and indirect, of St. Jerome’s depreciating Prologus. But “the countless manuscript copies of the Vulgate produced by these ages, with a slight, probably accidental, exception, uniformly embrace the complete Old Testament Ecclesiastical usage and Roman tradition held firmly to the canonical equality of all parts of the Old Testament. As to Roman authority, the catalogue of Innocent I appears in the collection of ecclesiastical canons sent by Pope Adrian I to Charlemagne, and adopted in 802 as the law of the Church in the Frankish Empire; Nicholas I, writing in 865 to the bishops of France, appeals to the same decree of Innocent as the ground on which all the sacred books are to be received.”
newadvent.org/cathen/03267a.htm
The Council of Trent was the first infallible declaration of the OT canon but, eventhough there was debate the OT canon sounds like it was certainly settled before the Council. The usage of the deuterocanonicals books were a part of the Catholic Church from the beginning.
 
Jedin also documents a group of excellent scholars that stood against “tradition” as being on the same level of authority as scripture:

“In his opposition to accepting the Florentine canon and the equalization of traditions with Holy Scripture, Seripando did not stand alone. In the particular congregation of March 23, the learned Dominican Bishop Bertano of Fano had already expressed the view that Holy Scripture possessed greater authority than the traditions because the Scriptures were unchangeable; that only offenders against the biblical canon should come under the anathema, not those who deny the principle of tradition; that it would be unfortunate if the Council limited itself to the apostolic canons, because the Protestants would say that the abrogation of some of these traditions was arbitrary and represented an abuse… Another determined opponent of putting traditions on a par with Holy Scripture, as well as the anathema, was the Dominican Nacchianti. The Servite general defended the view that all the evangelical truths were contained in the Bible, and he subscribed to the canon of St. Jerome, as did also Madruzzo and Fonseca on April 1. While Seripando abandoned his view as a lost cause, Madruzzo, the Carmelite general, and the Bishop of Agde stood for the limited canon, and the bishops of Castellamare and Caorle urged the related motion to place the books of Judith, Baruch, and Machabees in the “canon ecclesiae.” From all this it is evident that Seripando was by no means alone in his views. In his battle for the canon of St. Jerome and against the anathema and the parity of traditions with Holy Scripture, he was aligned with the leaders of a minority that was outstanding for its theological scholarship.”

Source: Hubert Jedin, Papal Legate At The Council Of Trent (St Louis: B. Herder Book Co., 1947), 281-282.
I think the quote “leaders of a minority” is an important point in the quote my Hubert Jedin.
 
Hisalone said:
In Christ we are one. We cannot be one with those that insist that all submit to man made traditions and doctrines.
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Correct! The Luther canon of scripture is man made. The Luther doctrine of sola scriptura is man made. The Luther doctrine of sola fide is man made. No, Christ’s Church teaches us to stick to a complete set of scripture, Paul’s Apostolic tradition and the Magisterium (Apostolic teaching authority) that Jesus both exemplified and gave to His Church. True Catholics are obedient, denying themselves, taking up their crosses daily, and only then following Christ.
 
Tuttle01 said:
No I’m not kidding, thank you
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The problem with AiG it that they tend to draw conclusions, and then find evidence to support it, calling anything that goes aginst their conclusions as “anomolies”
 
So let me guess Tuttle01 is just another identity of one of the other posters already on here?
 
po18guy said:
Correct! The Luther canon of scripture is man made.
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The Luther canon? I’m not sure he ever had one. As I said earlier, even the Lutheran Church has never technically closed the canon that I know of. He must not have been really set on it, though, because he translated all the books of the western Bible of his time, and included them all. That’s a lot of work to do if they weren’t important to him.

Jon
 
Hisalone said:
There is no limited priesthood. The office of priest is the same in the NT as it was in the OT. A priest is to reconcile or to bring God to the people and to bring the people to God. All believers have been given this office.
There are different offices other than priesthood.
Deacons, Presbyters or Elders, Bishop or Overseer.
All of which are not to be married to more than one wife.
No where in the bible does is there an office of Pope. Peter appears on many occasions to be the lead apostle. Yet Jesus says the greatest is the one who serves, Jesus instructed the apostles not to lord over their sheep as the gentiles do. What did the popes in the middles ages do? Lord over the sheep in a vulgar and vicious manner.
No where in scripture does it say any one individual would be infallible nor does it say that His people or His church would not err it only says that Satan would not prevail against His people.
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If the office of Priest is the same, then yes indeed there is a limited priesthood. According to the book od Exodus, all Jews were priests in alimited sense, but then there was also the ordained, Levitical Priesthood.
 
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