Why doesn't the Bible say that Mary was sinless?

[kaycee]

The issue does not seem to be Mary’s sinlessness, but whether Scripture or Scripture and Sacred Tradition is the authoritative.
In Acts 15, there was a doctrinal problem and so a Council of the Church was called (sounding familian).
The Church founded by Christ did NOT depend on a proof text to decide the issue they depended on the holy Spirit and what seemed best to the leaders (bishops) of the Church.

Odd that one so against proof texting would misapply these passages as a proof text against sola scriptura.

This was certainly not the normative state of the church! The New Testament had not been written yet. The Apostles WERE infallible, and miraculous signs were being given by GOD to authenticate them! There was no Scripture yet to address Jewish believer behavior Post Messiah.

This proof text is irrelevant in regards to sola scriptura.

 

[Goth_Catholic]

Odd that one so against proof texting would misapply these passages as a proof text against sola scriptura.

This was certainly not the normative state of the church! The New Testament had not been written yet. The Apostles WERE infallible, and miraculous signs were being given by GOD to authenticate them! There was no Scripture yet to address Jewish believer behavior Post Messiah.

This proof text is an unfair and inappropriate slam against sola scriptura.

So you agree the apostles were infallible as long as the NT wasn’t written…

 

[CentralFLJames]

I want to know how someone whose soul is blackened by sin, can magnify the lord…

I think we have another scriptural basis here for Mary sinless. Congrats - good find.

Magnification is a concept Mary would have known about from her time of temple devotion. I’d imagine it could be done through musical instruments (including raising the human voice in song) that carry one’s breath or strumming in a resonant way or expressions of one’s very life by exceeding ones natural abilities. It’s like grace operating like light does through the eyes to illuminate the mind and the soul to fill the vessel of life (consistent with the arc imagery). It has all has imagery of purity and offering oneself in service to God as His instrument that returns to God His own grace with blessings added on after grace has achieved its objectives. The very same imagery of Mary being human, implanted through the incarnation with The Word into the arc and emerging 40 weeks later as a human-divine child to do God’s will; then The Word returning to God again 40 days after the resurrection to Glorify God with saved souls and more to comes as The Church takes root.

It works for me.

What is just unsettling for me is how vitriolic Protestants are in their determined opposition to Marian doctrine. They fail to see the special role of Mary and how she is prefigured all over the OT. She was no less than Jesus mother and the very FIRST Christian and our new spiritual Mother. If Protestants spend half as much time putting down the New Age, Muslim and other utterly heretical sects as they do on trying to contradict Mary’s role the world would be quite a different place. All I can say is that Protestants must really fear strong Jewish women and her ability to crush heresies. If I were them I’d not be trying to provoke her…

James

 

[Pixie_Dust]

Odd that one so against proof texting would misapply these passages as a proof text against sola scriptura.

This was certainly not the normative state of the church! The New Testament had not been written yet. The Apostles WERE infallible, and miraculous signs were being given by GOD to authenticate them! There was no Scripture yet to address Jewish believer behavior Post Messiah.

And there wasn’t going to be a complete, officially canonized NT until some 350 years later, so the first several generations of Christians couldn’t possibly have been “sola scriptura” believers, so why should we be? We are not a religion of the book, we’re a religion of faith.

 

[kaycee]

So you agree the apostles were infallible as long as the NT wasn’t written…

Offcourse.

 

[Goth_Catholic]

Offcourse.

And Pixie Dust basically said everything (and more) that I wanted to say…

 

[LilyM]

Offcourse.

Define the NT though!

Plenty of people in the early centuries of Christianity thought the Didache was scripture, or the Shepherd of Hermas, or Clement’s letters, and read them in their liturgies alongside (and at times instead of) Matthew, Revelation or Paul’s letters, which they didn’t necessarily consider to be inspired scripture …

… these extracanonical books, though, date from late 1st or even 2nd century.

So according to them infallibility, and NT writing, didn’t just extend to what came from the pens or tongues of the Apostles but also to succeeding generations!

For 350 years there wasn’t agreement on what was scripture - that’s WHY Councils had to be held to determine which books were scriptural and which weren’t. No-one KNEW for certain until then which were infallible.

But there was always a Christian Church sharing a fullness of truth in common - where do you suppose these early Christians got that truth from? It wasn’t the NT as we know it, of that you can be certain, most of them weren’t reading all of it nor accepting all of it as inspired.

 

[kaycee]

And there wasn’t going to be a complete, officially canonized NT until some 350 years later, so the first several generations of Christians couldn’t possibly have been “sola scriptura” believers, so why should we be? We are not a religion of the book, we’re a religion of faith.

The Church treated scripture as such right after the ink was dry.

The church had the scripture immediately, God did not need the council to formally identify it. That is absurd. The early church received the Word, it did not define it or originate it.

 

[sandusky]

Goth_Catholic:

I want to know how someone whose soul is blackened by sin, can magnify the lord…

That’s an appeal to emotion, which can be valid, except when it is meant to manipulate, which, IMO, it is; therefore, I’ll treat it as the logical fallacy that it is.

 

[LilyM]

The Church treated scripture as such right after the ink was dry.

The church had the scripture immediately, God did not need the council to formally identify it. That is absurd. The early church received the Word, it did not define it or originate it.

The Church did NOT - not universally. Like I said, not everyone accepted some of the Gospels or Revelation, some DID treat books like the Didache or Shepherd of Hermas as scripture which aren’t recognised as such today.

You need to do some study on the origins of the Bible.

 

[kaycee]

Define the NT though!

Plenty of people in the early centuries of Christianity thought the Didache was scripture, or the Shepherd of Hermas, or Clement’s letters, and read them in their liturgies alongside (and at times instead of) Matthew, Revelation or Paul’s letters, which they didn’t necessarily consider to be inspired scripture …

… these extracanonical books, though, date from late 1st or even 2nd century.

So according to them infallibility, and NT writing, didn’t just extend to what came from the pens or tongues of the Apostles but also to succeeding generations!

For 350 years there wasn’t agreement on what was scripture - that’s WHY Councils had to be held to determine which books were scriptural and which weren’t. No-one KNEW for certain until then which were infallible.

But there was always a Christian Church sharing a fullness of truth in common - where do you suppose these early Christians got that truth from? It wasn’t the NT as we know it, of that you can be certain, most of them weren’t reading all of it nor accepting all of it as inspired.

An almost complete list of NT books was known from very early on.

The extensive use of Scripture by the fathers of the early Church from the very beginning are seen in the following facts:

Irenaeus: He knew Polycarp who was a disciple of the apostle John. He lived from @ 130 to 202 A.D. He quotes from 24 of the 27 books of the New Testament. He makes over 1800 quotes from the New Testament alone.

Clement of Alexandria: He lived from 150 to 215 A.D. He cites all the New Testament books except Philemon, James and 2 Peter. He gives 2400 citations from the New Testament.

Tertullian: He lived from 160 to 220 A.D. He makes over 7200 New Testament citations.

Origen: He lived from 185 to 254 A.D. he succeeded Clement of Alexandria at the Catechetical school at Alexandria. he makes nearly 18,000 New Testament citations.

The first hundred years of the existence of the twenty-seven books of the New Testament reveal that virtually every one of them was quoted as authoritative and recognised as canonical by men who were themselves the younger contemporaries of the apostolic age" (Norman Geisler and William Nix, A General Introduction to the Bible (Chicago: Moody, 1980), p. 190).

B.F. Wescott comes to a similar conclusion: "With the exception of the Epistle to the Hebrews, the two shorter Epistles of St John, the second Epistle of St Peter, the Epistles of St James and St Jude, and the Apocalypse, all the other books of the New Testament are acknowledged as Apostolic and authoritative throughout the Church as the close of the second century.

Your assertion that there was much confusion about the canonicity in the early church is erroneous.

christiantruth.com/solascriptura.html

 

[guanophore]

Odd that one so against proof texting would misapply these passages as a proof text against sola scriptura.

This was certainly not the normative state of the church! The New Testament had not been written yet. The Apostles WERE infallible, and miraculous signs were being given by GOD to authenticate them! There was no Scripture yet to address Jewish believer behavior Post Messiah.

This proof text is irrelevant in regards to sola scriptura.

Oh! I thought from your use of the Bereans that you considered the OT to be Scripture. Well, when did “Sola Scriptura” start? Was it after the death of the last Apostle?

What is just unsettling for me is how vitriolic Protestants are in their determined opposition to Marian doctrine. They fail to see the special role of Mary and how she is prefigured all over the OT. She was no less than Jesus mother and the very FIRST Christian and our new spiritual Mother. If Protestants spend half as much time putting down the New Age, Muslim and other utterly heretical sects as they do on trying to contradict Mary’s role the world would be quite a different place. All I can say is that Protestants must really fear strong Jewish women and her ability to crush heresies. If I were them I’d not be trying to provoke her…

James

There are many Protestants (I would say most) who are not hostile toward Mary. I think it is really just a noisy few, usually those that have problems with their own mothers, or problems with authority figures. I agree with you that it is not a good practice, and I think a sword pierces her heart when she is disparaged, because it is at one and the same time disparaging her Divine Son, whose righteousness is what covers her.

 

[Goth_Catholic]

That’s an appeal to emotion, which can be valid, except when it is meant to manipulate, which, IMO, it is; therefore, I’ll treat it as the logical fallacy that it is.

Why can’t you just answer question?

 

[kaycee]

The Church did NOT - not universally. Like I said, not everyone accepted some of the Gospels or Revelation, some DID treat books like the Didache or Shepherd of Hermas as scripture which aren’t recognised as such today.

You need to do some study on the origins of the Bible.

Because a few churches read the Didache or Hermas, does not make the vast majority who recognized the voice of GOD confused as to what God said. The few books not yet recognized were of no doctrinal effect.

 

[LilyM]

An almost complete list of NT books was known from very early on.

The extensive use of Scripture by the fathers of the early Church from the very beginning are seen in the following facts:

Irenaeus: He knew Polycarp who was a disciple of the apostle John. He lived from @ 130 to 202 A.D. He quotes from 24 of the 27 books of the New Testament. He makes over 1800 quotes from the New Testament alone.

Clement of Alexandria: He lived from 150 to 215 A.D. He cites all the New Testament books except Philemon, James and 2 Peter. He gives 2400 citations from the New Testament.

Tertullian: He lived from 160 to 220 A.D. He makes over 7200 New Testament citations.

Origen: He lived from 185 to 254 A.D. he succeeded Clement of Alexandria at the Catechetical school at Alexandria. he makes nearly 18,000 New Testament citations.

The first hundred years of the existence of the twenty-seven books of the New Testament reveal that virtually every one of them was quoted as authoritative and recognised as canonical by men who were themselves the younger contemporaries of the apostolic age" (Norman Geisler and William Nix, A General Introduction to the Bible (Chicago: Moody, 1980), p. 190).

B.F. Wescott comes to a similar conclusion: "With the exception of the Epistle to the Hebrews, the two shorter Epistles of St John, the second Epistle of St Peter, the Epistles of St James and St Jude, and the Apocalypse, all the other books of the New Testament are acknowledged as Apostolic and authoritative throughout the Church as the close of the second century.

Your assertion that there was much confusion about the canonicity in the early church is erroneous.

christiantruth.com/solascriptura.html

Close of the second century? LARGELY complete canon? In other words it was only 120 years of uncertainty as opposed to 300 - that affects my premise (that the canon of scripture is tradition rather than self-evident direct revelation) HOW exactly?

And what about the books I’ve mentioned in my last two posts, which plenty of people ALSO treated as scripture (the voice of God) - as I said, reading them right out in church alongside Matthew, Mark, Luke and John??? Doesn’t the fact that folks thought the Holy Spirit inspired Clement’s letters in the same manner as He inspired Paul’s kinda blow the argument about a self-evident canon out of the water?

And what about all those pesky Old Testament books that we disagree about to this day? Shouldn’t the canon of the OT be just as self-evident as the NT by your logic? Why is there still not agreement as to which of the OT writings are ‘the voice of God’ and which not?

 

[sandusky]

Why can’t you just answer question?

I have; it’s just that it’s not the answer you wanted.

 

[guanophore]

(Norman Geisler and William Nix, A General Introduction to the Bible (Chicago: Moody, 1980), p. 190).

B.F. Wescott comes to a similar conclusion: "With the exception of the Epistle to the Hebrews, the two shorter Epistles of St John, the second Epistle of St Peter, the Epistles of St James and St Jude, and the Apocalypse, all the other books of the New Testament are acknowledged as Apostolic and authoritative throughout the Church as the close of the second century.

Your assertion that there was much confusion about the canonicity in the early church is erroneous.

Geisler and NIx, one of my first textbooks!

While all these things are true, it is also true that there was confusion and disagreement. I agree that the Church received the Scripture, but there was not agreement about which books should be included in the canon until the fourth century. The early churches most certainly did use books (considered by many to be inspired) to read during Mass along with books that were later included.

 

[kaycee]

Close of the second century? So it was only 120 years of uncertainty as opposed to 300 - that affects my premise (that the canon of scripture is tradition rather than self-evident direct revelation) HOW exactly?

Sorry, there was only very little uncertainty considering John knew Polycarp who knew Iraneus who quoted 24 out 27 books of the NT. I do understand why you want mass confusion however

And what about the books I’ve mentioned in my last two posts, which plenty of people ALSO treated as scriptural - as I said, reading them right out in church alongside Matthew, Mark, Luke and John??? Doesn’t the fact that they were treated as scriptural kinda blow the argument about a self-evident canon out of the water?

Can you find a rescource that tells of who and how many churches read these non scriptural books. Maybe someone who knows how massive this supposed problem was?

And what about all those pesky Old Testament books that we disagree about to this day? Shouldn’t the canon of the OT be just as self-evident as the NT? Or is the OT somehow less inspired and inerrant?

It never seemed to be much in doubt by the Jews, regardless of the red herring council of Jamnia.

 

[kaycee]

Geisler and NIx, one of my first textbooks!

While all these things are true, it is also true that there was confusion and disagreement. I agree that the Church received the Scripture, but there was not agreement about which books should be included in the canon until the fourth century. The early churches most certainly did use books (considered by many to be inspired) to read during Mass along with books that were later included.

Sure, there were about 5 books that were disputed, clearly not the mass confusion that most Catholic apologists would like to create.

Ah, yes, the second tier Canon, Good for reading, but not God Breathed.

 

[LilyM]

Sorry, there was only very little uncertainty considering John knew Polycarp who knew Iraneus who quoted 24 out 27 books of the NT. I do understand why you want mass confusion however

Can you find a rescource that tells of who and how many churches read these non scriptural books. Maybe someone who knows how massive this supposed problem was?

It never seemed to be much in doubt by the Jews, regardless of the red herring council of Jamnia.

Uh-huh. I don’t care what the Jews thought constituted the Old Testament, I’m talking about what WE think of the books that WE disagree about. You say ‘Macabees aren’t inspired’, I say ‘yes they are’. It’s not a small problem, it’s a significant chunk of the supposedly self-evident ‘voice of God’ you call the Bible that one or other of us is wrong about.

Catholics and Orthodox who form half of all Christians accept those extra books and have for 2,000 years, the other half don’t. Some self-evident and instantly recognisable ‘voice of God’ if we’re in such major disagreement on such a big thing.

Final question - HOW do you know (in other words who told you, because it can’t be self-evident to you if it wasn’t to the early or later Christians) that those five disputed books and the seven Deuteros AREN’T God-breathed, hmmm?