You know I can’t take you seriously, Claudius? You guarantee with 100 percent confidence something you’ve never seen.Sure, and next you’re going to tell me you’re over nineteen hundred years old.So then tell me, what’s the Greek word for purgatory and show me where that Greek word is used in Scripture.And yet, no one has ever been able to find this theoretical, “original,” Aramaic gospel account of Matthew. But you found it and read it fluently. No doubt you must be the greatest magician in the world as well as the greatest scholar. And of course you can guarantee me this one hundred percent.Brilliant deduction there, Claud.My people? Do you mean put Him back on the cross? He is risen, you know.No doubt.This makes “perfect” sense how? And of course you have original pictures of Jesus and the saints so your statues are made accurately, according to the "original."And you can guarantee me this one hundred percent? Right?Then it must be based on your impeccable reading of the original Hebrew. Can you show me where in your Hebrew Scriptures it talks about keeping a Sunday Sabbath and on that Sunday Sabbath you’re not suppose to “rest” but worship?In which original language did you read this?I didn’t know monks could excommunicate the Pope. Where is this in canon Law? Is it in Latin?And you can guarantee this one hundred percent because you not only read all the original languages fluently, you’re over 1900 years old, the world’s greatest scholar and have a copy of Matthew in Aramaic, but you can read Protestant minds as well.In which theology or history book was this first taught? Was it in Latin, Greek, Hebrew or Aramaic? Did you point out to him/her exactly where in the Bible giving up chocolate was mentioned? Did you show him/her where the word “Lent” was in the original Greek?
Most of this post is really just “WA WA WA, I am protestant and I am not going to listen to you Catholics because I believe that ALL CATHOLICS ARE GOING TO HELL”
It is also a fine example of the protestant mentality to completely ignore history and huge parts of the Bible whenever it proves them wrong, which it does on all issues where they differ with Catholicism.
However, I will respond briefly to just a hand full comments even though most are not worthy of a resonse.
The ORIGINAL Aramaic version of Matthew is part of the New Testament that is used by the Maronite Catholic Church, the Syrian Catholic Church, the Chaldean Catholic Church as well as their counterparts that are not in communion with Rome. This version of Matthew has been retained from ancient times and is believed by leading Biblical scholars and the Church itself as the original. In the West we still prefer to make translations from the Greek as it is also considered an original considering who it came about. Matthew would preach the Gospel, and he would preach it consitantly from day to day. He preached the Gospel in Aramaic. One of his students wrote down his words in Aramaic which means that it is probably very close to the actual words that Matthew used when he preached. The Greek came about by another of Matthew’s students listening to the Gospel in Aramaic but rendering it into Greek on the fly. As such, it to is an original in terms of documents but a translation considering that documents production.
The Latin word Purgere, is used to translate several different Greek word, the closest one to the theology of Purgatory being εσται. In English, these words should be translated as Clean, Cleansing, Cleaned. I hope you get the idea. I could also give you further solid scriptural evidence but you threw out the parts of the Bible that talk directly about Purgatory just so you could try to say we Catholics were wrong. On a side note, don’t you think it was wrong to throw out parts of the Bible? No Jesus on your Crosses, No Macabees in your Bibles, are you sure you are Christian? Being a Christian means accepting Church teachings because those teachings were given to her by Jesus. Being a Christian has Consequences. A lot of people have use this shortened version of the Bible to attack the divinity of Jesus which just isn’t possible with a Catholic Bible.
You can list as many different version of the Bible that you want but that does not make them the Originals. I admit that I first read the Bible in English but then I took the time and effort to learn the languages I needed to learn and I sat with the Bible years with my Grammars and Dictionaries at hand to work out what the bible really says. Not that I can carry on a conversation on Greek but I can certainly read the Bible in it. Considering what the Bible actually says in plane language and the way some of these translations render it, Yes I do consider myself a better Bible scholar then the people that are responsible for a bad translation.
The Worst translation of the Bible, KJV. If not for the numerous places where the translation is just WAY OFF, the really bad form of the English language (a langauge I already don’t love) the KJV is a bad translation of the Bible because its supporters hold it above the original languages. They would prefer to translate from the KJV instead of the original languages. Some of the supporters of KJV refuse to translate it and push it onto NON-English speaking populations who have no hope of ever understanding it. So what happens, these people worship the Book. They don’t worship God. They only worship the Book. At least I can point to the protestants and see that while they don’t worship God, they at least aren’t worshipping anything else. But when you push this KJV onto these Non-English speaking populations, you make an Idol out of the physical book and that must not be stood for.
