Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Why does the Catholic church take credit for this?
When the canon of the NT was brought together, the church was one. It was the universal church....ie. catholic church. No splits had taken place yet. Protestantism didn't come into existence until centuries later in the early 16th century.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Content_Christian
If the scriptures are the inspired word of God then doesn't God get credit for this? After all, he can work through whoever He wants. By this, I mean God made sure the books went into the Bible that HE wanted in the Bible NOT the Catholic church or anyone else.
This is an interesting timeline showing the early church fathers' positions regarding the authority and inspiration of the NT books: Biblical Evidence for Catholicism
You're missing my point. That, to me, would be like any one of the writers who penned any book in the Bible taking credit for those inspired words. What's the difference? If God wanted us to have all of those books in one book, HE had to work through someone to see that it was done. That means HE gets the credit NOT the Catholic church or anyone else.
I'm willing to bet you didn't even look through the materials in those links I just posted, did you?
Okay, since you believe it was God that inspired every word of the Bible, how do you explain places in Paul's epistles in which He is speaking in reference to himself, declaring that it is he and not the Lord saying something? Even 2 Peter refers to Paul's writings as "difficult to understand".
Do you likewise believe that the only words Jesus spoke were the ones contained in the four gospels? Yet John tells us that Jesus did (and by logical extension, "said" and "taught" as well) so much that if it were all written down, not even the whole world could contain all the books. So how are we to know all that He said? Jesus Himself stated in John 14:26 [NIV] - "But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you." Are you going to conclude that the Holy Spirit didn't do that until nearly 1500 years later when only Martin Luther finally got it right?
I'm willing to bet you didn't even look through the materials in those links I just posted, did you?
Okay, since you believe it was God that inspired every word of the Bible, how do you explain places in Paul's epistles in which He is speaking in reference to himself, declaring that it is he and not the Lord saying something? Even 2 Peter refers to Paul's writings as "difficult to understand".
Do you likewise believe that the only words Jesus spoke were the ones contained in the four gospels? Yet John tells us that Jesus did (and by logical extension, "said" and "taught" as well) so much that if it were all written down, not even the whole world could contain all the books. So how are we to know all that He said? Jesus Himself stated in John 14:26 [NIV] - "But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you." Are you going to conclude that the Holy Spirit didn't do that until nearly 1500 years later when only Martin Luther finally got it right?
II Timothy 3:16. I don't need to explain that any further. If I don't believe it's all inspired just like this verse says, how do I know what parts to believe are inspired and what parts are not? How does anyone?
No, I did not look at your links yet. Don't assume that I won't just because I don't have time this very second.
Do you likewise believe that the only words Jesus spoke were the ones contained in the four gospels?
This statement is a bit silly, dontcha think? Seriously. I don't know anyone that actually believes that.
I'll look at your links later when I have more free time. I'm a former Catholic, though. Chances are what I read will just be a refresher of what I read years ago when God led me out of the Catholic church.
II Timothy 3:16. I don't need to explain that any further. If I don't believe it's all inspired just like this verse says, how do I know what parts to believe are inspired and what parts are not? How does anyone?
No, I did not look at your links yet. Don't assume that I won't just because I don't have time this very second.
Do you likewise believe that the only words Jesus spoke were the ones contained in the four gospels?
This statement is a bit silly, dontcha think? Seriously. I don't know anyone that actually believes that.
I'll look at your links later when I have more free time. I'm a former Catholic, though. Chances are what I read will just be a refresher of what I read years ago when God led me out of the Catholic church.
I imagine you probably didn't know the teachings of the Catholic Church as well as you think you did.
No, the statement isn't silly. Can you actually respond to it, or is that the best you can say? Seriously....since Jesus said the Holy Spirit was going to remind the apostles and the church of all He said and did, are we to conclude that such a thing didn't take place until the 1500s? Do you honestly think it was the PROTESTANT church that gave us the Bible? That's all I'm trying to say in this, but you apparently have a problem with it and can't handle the truth. If you don't know that it was the Catholic Church which gathered together the books that eventually came to be included in the New Testament, then you seriously need a lesson in church history. Martin Luther confessed that it was the Catholic Church that gave us the Bible. He even regretted that the results of his actions split the church.
I'm not going to respond any further until you read the material in those links. If you can soundly refute it, then I may consider reading more of what you post. But if you don't have the common courtesy of looking at the material first before you respond to me, then I'm wasting my time by carrying on a dialog with you.
Oh yeah......why don't you also explain to me how it's possible for there to be the thousands of different denominations and countless different interpretations found within Protestantism. They all supposedly claim it was the Holy Spirit upon which they base their particular flavor of truth, yet many of those Protestant denominations disagree with one another. How is that possible? As Paul stated, is Christ divided?
I imagine you probably didn't know the teachings of the Catholic Church as well as you think you did.
No, the statement isn't silly. Can you actually respond to it, or is that the best you can say? Seriously....since Jesus said the Holy Spirit was going to remind the apostles and the church of all He said and did, are we to conclude that such a thing didn't take place until the 1500s? Do you honestly think it was the PROTESTANT church that gave us the Bible? That's all I'm trying to say in this, but you apparently have a problem with it and can't handle the truth. If you don't know that it was the Catholic Church which gathered together the books that eventually came to be included in the New Testament, then you seriously need a lesson in church history. Martin Luther confessed that it was the Catholic Church that gave us the Bible. He even regretted that the results of his actions split the church.
I'm not going to respond any further until you read the material in those links. If you can soundly refute it, then I may consider reading more of what you post. But if you don't have the common courtesy of looking at the material first before you respond to me, then I'm wasting my time by carrying on a dialog with you.
Oh yeah......why don't you also explain to me how it's possible for there to be the thousands of different denominations and countless different interpretations found within Protestantism. They all supposedly claim it was the Holy Spirit upon which they base their particular flavor of truth, yet many of those Protestant denominations disagree with one another. How is that possible? As Paul stated, is Christ divided?
Hostile much?
The statement was silly. There IS nothing else to say because I don't know anyone that believes that; I certainly don't.
I'm not responding to this entire thing because you didn't even read what I wrote in my first response. Not ONCE did I say the Bible was given to us by the Protestant church. I'm not familiar with you so I don't know if putting words in other people's mouths is something you typically do or not. I said it was given to us BY GOD and that NO ONE should take credit for GOD working through who He chose to work through. It was a simple statement, and most people would find it easy to understand. Why are you finding it so difficult? It isn't even arguable by me. I understand you want to believe the Catholic church should get full credit for the scriptures. I'm sorry. I do not agree. Nothing posted on the Internet will change that. God will work through whoever He wants to work through. He did back then, and He does now. We may not be compiling holy books any more, but God is certainly still working through us. Every kind work I do, GOD gets credit for because He's working through ME. I see the Bible in that same way. There's nothing for me to refute. If I felt there were, I would certainly get on the ball because I like to win a "discussion" more than anyone. I'd MUCH rather you prove to me that God did NOT work through those who compiled the books of the Bible into one book. I'd be willing to bet you CAN'T prove that, can you? Because if you do then you'd have to admit that the Catholic church was solely responsible and God was not involved.
Am I an expert on the Catholic faith? No, I'm not. I was raised Catholic and went to Catholic school for 12 years. My aunts and uncles were nuns, priests, and brothers in the Catholic church. I DO know it pretty well, and when God led me out of the Catholic church I spent a long time studying, reading my Bible, and praying because I desperately wanted God to show me that the Catholic church was the true church because I KNEW if I had to leave it would upset my family. God led me out, though.
I attend a Baptist church, but I don't like denominational labels. It was never meant to be that way, but that's a man thing not a God thing. Yes, there are "splits" in a way in the Catholic church because most Catholic do NOT agree with Catholic teachings 100%, but they choose to stay because I guess they believe in enough Catholic teachings to stick around and keep quiet about it. I really don't see what the difference is. In the Protestant church the denomination is just a name that's given to a group that believes something differently. There are PLENTY of these people within the Catholic church, more so than not from what I've seen. They just don't have a different name or a different place to go. In their hearts they're obviously not 100% Catholic because if they were they'd agree with the CC's teachings 100%.
I still haven't looked at your links, but I will. I was working last night and couldn't. Had I known you were going to throw different websites my way instead of just posting your own thoughts I wouldn't have replied in the first place. I just don't have time to keep up with a conversation that way. Those links take extra time I don't have. You come across very hostile, which makes me uncomfortable. I try to stay away from people on messages boards like that because it DOES bother me more than I'd like to admit.
There's nothing else for me to add to anything you say because you're refusing to see what I've written, which is very hypocritical of you. You want to turn this into a battle where I need to refute something, but if you read and comprehend my statement there's nothing to refute. If I give God the credit for something, what IS there to refute? This isn't a battle between Protestants giving us the Bible versus Catholics giving us the Bible like you're trying to make it. MY PERSONAL BELIEF is that God gave us the Bible by WORKING THROUGH other people. It DOES NOT MATTER who those people were. God got the job done, and I'm thankful to Him for that.
There. I'm done arguing. I don't come to message boards to argue with other Christians, so I'm ending it here NOT because I can't "refute" what you want me to refute because, as I said, there's nothing for me to refute in regard to what I said in my initial post that you didn't read. I just don't want to argue with another Christian. It's not my thang!
So enlighten us. What is the truth you're referring to? It's been said before, and probably bears repeating, but......the New Testament didn't exist for the first several centuries of the early church. It was the Catholic Church that defined the NT as you see it today.
Obviously, you do not understand the truth I referred to as you do not know what the in-dwelling work of the HOLY SPIRIT does to a believer for him to understand the WORD OF GOD. I can boldly say this because you are so ignorant to claim that the Catholics DEFINED the New testament. If they defined it, how come they do not even understand it? I have gone to various parts of the world where Catholics are predominant, and a greater majority of them do not even read the HOLY BIBLE !!!
What the Catholics created was NOT the New Testament, which was inspired by the HOLY SPIRIT, but the 14 books of Deuterocanonicals which were added to the New Testament. Even the Catholics whom I have talked to know that ANY ADDITION IS EXPRESSLY FORBIDDEN BY GOD iN THE HOLY BIBLE iTSELF.
I give credit to Pope Alexander II, Pope Gregory VII, Pope Urban II, and many more geriatric popes, for being so naive to be rub elbows with the non-Catholic Eastern warlords and meddle into Asia Minor and Asia Major affairs. These so-called "infallible" popes gave their papal blessings and led the Catholics for making it big in history to make various trips to the Middle East to kill millions of people, both of Muslims and Jews, during the Crusades. The gruesome practices of mass execution, torture, mutilation and cannibalism were later simply copied by Adolf Hitler. In spite of these inhuman excesses, the Catholic Church issued an official edict : "He who kills will go straight to heaven when he dies". THE MASS EXECUTION OF GOD'S CHOSEN PEOPLE, THE JEWS, WAS PERFECTED HERE BY THE CATHOLICS. The treasures of these lands were pillaged and brought back to the Vatican - some of which are still in the 6-acre underground vaults that were surreptitiously shown by National Geographic on television. As in most Catholic practices, all these campaigns are totally contrary to what that the HOLY BIBLE teaches.
May God have mercy on the Catholics for making a deep and permanent blow to the world peace.
For lack of space, I shall write next time about the infamous Council of Trent in Vatican, and on the Opus Dei the Catholic Church, both of which were the templates of the modern-day Cosa Nostra, or better known as the Mafia.
I am a christian, I am not Catholic but went to Catholic schools for 12 years. I here alot of Catholic bashing and I just wanted to share this with you guys. Sometimes I wonder if I would even be saved if it was not for those Catholic teachers and priests drilling it into our heads on a daily basics. We always had mass and theology class, but I would sometimes be tempted to become Catholic but I never did. It seemed so scripted to me. But, one thing I can say is that taught me about Jesus and the trinity. I am the only one out of four girls that went to a Catholic school, my sisters went to public. I am the only one that is saved. I thank God for saving me, and I also thank all those mean nuns(just kidding) and priests as well. I don't believe in all of Catholic doctrine, but I do have a soft spot for Catholics. I feel all those teachers, priests, and nuns laid the foundation for the Christian I have become today. God really used them, and for this I say thanks.
Exactly God saved you and only God. He gets all the credit and no one else. You would have been saved anyway because it was God's will. I have seen people saved by bad preaching even bad movies.
I'm back here in a jiffy just to clarify what I wrote a few minutes ago on the contribution of the Catholic church to its flock. The Deuterocanonicals that I mentioned is the collection of 14 or more books that also known as the Apocrypha.
These were ADDED to the HOLYBIBLE, a few insertions were done in the Old Testament but most were into the New Testament. Some of these are the books of 1 Baruch; 2 Baruch; Letters of Jeremiah; added to Daniel were Susanna, Song of Three Children, Bel and the Dragon; 1 Esdras; 2 Esdras; addiitions to Esther; Judith; 1 Macabees; 2 Macabees; 3 Macabees; 4 Macabees; Sirach; Tobit; Wisdom; Prayer of Manasseh; Psalms 152-155; Odes; Enoch; Jubilees; 1 Meqabyan; 2 Meqabyan; 3 Meqabyan; and others books and insertions.
Some of these scripts are downright comical and absurd. Some of them even appear to be written in the style of the Quoran, or the Koran as some Muslims would spell it.
For anyone who's interested to react to the issue on the Crusades, or to the added books of Apocrypha, Kindly notify me as I am often on the road, or in the mountains, with my computer tucked in my backpacks. Thank you. And may GOD blow the wind behind you and your sails.
I actually find it funny the hatred that "Christians" feel toward people that don't subscribe to their own brand of Christianity. I also find it funny that people twist history and hem an haw about people adding things to the Bible. Well...it also says not to remove things from the Bible. Some people think the Catholics added stuff to the Bible...nah...the books were removed after the reformation. The Catholics compiled the Bible from a huge number of scriptures that have been found over the years. There's actually some neat sites where you can read some of the books that were not included in the compilation.
I have a good friend that is no longer a minister. She hasn't left her denomination or church just because of the prejudices against her...she's actually helping to work toward change in the denomination with her church (who kept her on as a lay minister). She is one of the most wonderful women I know. She's brave. She's caring. She's accepting of those that are different from herself. She may not agree with their belief systems or the like, but she does accept them for who they are and not condemn them for their beliefs. She's even been a huge help to me with my spiritual life and beliefs. That's the kind of Christian we should all strive to be.
Quote:
Originally Posted by JuLioBanderas
For lack of space, I shall write next time about the infamous Council of Trent in Vatican, and on the Opus Dei the Catholic Church, both of which were the templates of the modern-day Cosa Nostra, or better known as the Mafia.
I suggest that you do some research before making statements. Opus Dei is a sect of Catholicism...and their practices are NOT condoned by the church. Also, I would not forget about the injustices that Protestants committed against Catholics...and I'm talking about murders and torture. Some people like to point out the Spanish Inquisition and argue that the Catholics murdered people. I don't deny the Inquisition...I don't deny that Protestants have been "picked on" by Catholics...but people also seem to forget about the reverse side. Throughout history, Billions of people have been murdered in the name of religion. Ancient Egyptians killing Jews. Romans killing Christians and Jews alike. Christians killing Muslims. Muslims killing Christians and Jews. The cycle continues with everyone. There was a "Fundie Preacher" that use to scream and yell on the corner outside the Music Building at West Chester U. I had my letters on one day and he screamed at me that I was going to hell for being in a Frat. Now, I am a 'brother' in Alpha Phi Omega...a National Co-Ed Service Frat. APhiO has done a lot of good for a lot of people...and he said I was going to hell for this. Go figure. It's radical fundamentalists like this that I worry about...and I pray for.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
