Scripture Only

I guess my feelings on the matter are similar to my feelings on OT Judiasm; I fully believe that the Jews received and preserved all of the OT writings that qualify as scripture, and yet they were wrong on a great many other things (killing the very prophets who gave the scriptures, idolatry, misunderstanding the person and ministry of the Messiah to come, etc.). I don't believe the Catholic Church is nearly as bad off as OT Judiasm, so I don't see any problem accepting that the Early Church was able to preserve the NT scriptures and yet be wrong in other areas in the future.

If accepting the Jewish canon of OT scripture demanded that we must accept every aspect of Judiasm as being correct then we would all have to reject Jesus as the Messiah and convert to Talmudic Judiasm.   I can recognize that the Early Church preserved the NT scriptures in the same way that I can recognize that the Jews preserved the OT scriptures, despite the failings of both.  God was the one doing the preserving. 

In Christ,

Acts6:5

Originally posted by s0uljah
In discussions with people on this forum, it seems that some would like to stick with scripture only.  If that is the case, I ask, why? 

 Did God come down and hand us the Perfect Bible?  Or did the Catholic Church selectively put together a collection of writings by many different authors, throwing out other writings as invalid?  The latter is obviously the case.

If the Church can be trusted to get that right (as you obviously believe since you want to follow these writings), then how can you say that the Church doesn't get Apostolic Tradition correct, or doctrine statements, etc?

It would seem that you want to follow one part of the Church's teachings, and ignore the rest.  Or is this just a function of being raised Protestant?

(I was raised Protestant, but when I actually thought about it, I converted)

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The Catholic Church had nothing to do with the puting together of the Bible Cannon.  It was completed centuries before they came on the scene.

And when Jesus said the gates of Hell wouldn't prevail against His Church, which He set up on his "rock," Peter, which Church do you suppose He was refering to exactly?

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The Body of Christ.   Again, if accepting a certain canon of scripture required that you accept every aspect of the organization that compiled it then you would have to become a Talmudic Jew and you would have to reject Jesus as the Messiah, because the very Jews that upheld the "Law and the Prophets" in the 1st Century were the ones who also rejected Jesus when he lived among them.

In Christ,

Acts6:5

Originally posted by s0uljah
In discussions with people on this forum, it seems that some would like to stick with scripture only.  If that is the case, I ask, why? 

 Did God come down and hand us the Perfect Bible?  Or did the Catholic Church selectively put together a collection of writings by many different authors, throwing out other writings as invalid?  The latter is obviously the case.

If the Church can be trusted to get that right (as you obviously believe since you want to follow these writings), then how can you say that the Church doesn't get Apostolic Tradition correct, or doctrine statements, etc?

It would seem that you want to follow one part of the Church's teachings, and ignore the rest.  Or is this just a function of being raised Protestant?

(I was raised Protestant, but when I actually thought about it, I converted)

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<GASP> Oh wow, am I imagining things or did you just say the bible isn't %100 correct? Did you just imply that it was not, dare I say....Perfect?

Originally posted by s0uljah


Ok, so now I am going to ask you for your historical reference.

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Does the claim that the Catholic Church made the Bible fit the facts? In answering that question let us first note that the Bible is God’s Word. That being so, then ever since Moses completed the Pentateuch (the five books, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy) God’s Word has been available to his servants. As other inspired servants wrote it grew and grew so that by the time Malachi penned his prophecy God’s Word, the Bible, had grown to 39 books. These 39 books constituted the sacred Scriptures that Jesus and his disciples used and which they encouraged others to study. John 5:39; Acts 17:11; 2 Tim. 2:15; 3:15-17.

With the writing of the accounts of Jesus’ life by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, the letters of Paul, Peter, James, Jude, and John and the Acts of the apostles and Revelation (or the Apocalypse), God’s Word grew to 66 books. As these were written down and circulated among the early Christians they became recognized as part of the Bible. (2 Pet. 3:15, 16) The last of these writings, John’s three letters and his Gospel, were completed about A.D. 98. Shortly thereafter began the compiling of these writings, and there is evidence to indicate that as early as A.D. 170 the canon or catalogue of the Bible we have today was recognized. Both Origen and Eusebius list these same books, and of ten early catalogues extant six likewise give the same list as is recognized today, three others omitting Revelation and one omitting both Hebrews and Revelation. In view of these facts, which show that the canon of the Bible was settled among the Christians in the second and early third centuries after Christ, can the Catholic Church claim to have made the Bible, simply because some 150 to 200 years later her Council of Carthage announced what writings she considered canonical?

If the Catholic Church made the Bible, is it not strange that she failed to include any word about the assumption of Mary, her immaculate conception and about the efficacy of praying to her; about the veneration of relics, images and saints; about the use of holy water; about the ceremony of the mass; about a pope’s being the vicar of Christ; about monsignors, archbishops and cardinals; about purgatory; about a celibate clergy; about not eating meat on Friday or during Lent; about making novenas; about infant baptism; etc.? Is not the fact that the Bible is silent on all these outstanding points of the Catholic religion strong circumstantial evidence that the Catholic Church did not make the Bible? that it is not a Catholic book?

Who made the Bible is very clear from its own pages. God is its author. “Thy word is a lamp to my feet.” “The spirit of the Lord hath spoken by me: and his word by my tongue.” “Thy word is truth.” “For the word of God is living and effectual.” “The holy men of God spoke, inspired by the Holy Ghost.”—Douay Version at 2 Ki. 23:2; Ps. 118:105; John 17:17; Heb. 4:12; 2 Pet. 1:21.

The Catholic Church further states: “There can be no doubt that the world must thank the Catholic Church for the Bible—if only for the 1,500 years which elapsed before the first Reformers appeared on the scene. Who spanned the gulf? We ask that the monks who copied for centuries, . . . be given their due. But for them we would have no Bible.” Does this claim fit the facts? Let us see.

The facts are that not one of the oldest, most reliable and most valuable manuscripts of the Bible was found in territories under Catholic domination. Even her prized Vatican manuscript 1209 has been in her possession only since the fifteenth century. And this she hid away, making it available to the public only when another great manuscript, the Sinaiticus, bid fair to eclipse it. So if the monks had done no copying at all during the Dark and Middle Ages we would still have the best manuscripts. They copied none of the good ones.

Bible copying may have been largely limited to the monks, but that was primarily due to the Catholic Church’s keeping the Bible in a dead language. When Wycliffe translated the Bible into English his followers made many, many copies, and that without the assistance of monks. And as for giving these monks any credit, they dared to take liberties with the inspired text. That is why we have in the King James and the Douay versions some spurious passages, such as 1 John 5:7, to mention one of the most flagrant examples.

Not only can no credit go to the Catholic Church for preserving the Bible but the facts of history show that she has been the chief destroyer of the Bible. Copies of Wycliffe’s Bible were hunted out by her from one end of England to the other and then destroyed. Tyndale had to print his “New Testament” on the continent of Europe, for he could not do so in Catholic England. Although he published 18,000 of them and had them smuggled into England, they were hunted down and destroyed so efficiently that only seventeen copies are known to survive today.

Endeavoring to justify such Bible-burning Our Sunday Visitor, February 10, 1952, stated that such “was the burning of versions which were proved to be faulty, and therefore had no right to pass as ‘the word of God’”. But was there such a great difference between the Catholic Bible and the translations of the Reformers as to justify the crusade which destroyed not only Bibles but also Bible translators, publishers and distributors? On this point note what the Catholic Encyclopedia has to say regarding the English Challoner-Douay Version:
“To call it any longer the Douay or Rheimish version is an abuse of terms. It has been altered and modified until scarcely any verse remains as it was originally published. . . . In nearly every case Challoner’s changes took the form of approximating to the Authorized Version.” So in improving the Catholic version it became more like the Protestant King James version! Recent instances of this could be cited from both the new American Catholic versions of the book of the Psalms and Genesis and Msgr. Knox’s version.

No, the claim that the Catholic Church burned Bibles because of their being faulty translations does not fit the facts. There must have been some other motives. What these were I will let others judge. Incidentally, note that such Bible-burnings are not a thing of the distant past. Many Bibles were publicly burned on May 27, 1923, in Rome, in homage of the virgin Mary, and in the New York Times, March 6, 1952, appeared an article under the following headings: “Protestant Cleric Is Beaten in Spain. Youths Invade Chapel and Set Fire to Bibles, Pews and Hymnals.”

The evidence above does not show your claim that the Catholic Churches gave us the Bible to fit the facts.

The Roman Catholic Church claims responsibility for the decision as to which books should be included in the Bible canon, and reference is made to the Council of Carthage (397 C.E.), where a catalog of books was formulated. The opposite is true, however, because the canon, including the list of books making up the OT or Greek Scriptures, was already settled by then, that is, not by the decree of any council, but by the direction of God’s holy spirit—the same spirit that inspired the writing of those books in the first place. The testimony of later noninspired catalogers is valuable only as an acknowledgment of the Bible canon, which God’s spirit had authorized.

The Evidence of Early Catalogs. A glance at the accompanying chart reveals that a number of fourth-century catalogs of the Christian Scriptures, dated prior to the above-mentioned council, agree exactly with our present canon, and some others omit only Revelation. Before the end of the second century, there is universal acceptance of the four Gospels, Acts, and 12 of the apostle Paul’s letters. Only a few of the smaller writings were doubted in certain areas. Likely this was so because such writings were limited in their initial circulation for one reason or another and thus took longer to become accepted as canonical.


Outstanding Early Catalogs of the Christian Greek Scriptures


A - Accepted without query as Scriptural and canonical
D - Doubted in certain quarters
DA - Doubted in certain quarters, but cataloger accepted it as
Scriptural and canonical
? - Scholars uncertain of the reading of the text or how a
book mentioned is viewed
A blank space indicates that the book was not used or
mentioned by that authority


Name and Place
                               Muratorian   Irenaeus,    Clement of    Tertullian, 
                               Fragment,    Asia Minor    Alexandria      N. Africa
                                  Italy
Approximate
Date C.E.                  170                180               190             207
Matthew                     A                    A                   A                 A
Mark                           A                    A                   A                 A
Luke                           A                    A                   A                  A
John                            A                    A                  A                  A
Acts                             A                   A                   A                  A
Romans                       A                    A                  A                  A
1 Corinthians              A                   A                    A                 A
2 Corinthians              A                    A                  A                  A
Galatians                    A                    A                   A                 A
Ephesians                   A                    A                  A                  A
Philippians                   A                   A                   A                  A
Colossians                   A                   A                  A                  A
1 Thessalonians          A                    A                  A                  A
2 Thessalonians          A                   A                   A                  A
1 Timothy                    A                   A                   A                  A
2 Timothy                    A                   A                   A                  A
Titus                            A                   A                   A                  A
Philemon                      A                                                           A
Hebrews                                          D                  DA                DA
James                                               ?
1 Peter                       A?                  A                   A                   A
2 Peter                       D?                  A
1 John                         A                   A                  DA                  A
2 John                         A                  A                   DA
3 John                        A?
Jude                           A                                         DA                  A
Revelation                 A                     A                   A                   A

Continued:

Outstanding Early Catalogs of the OT or Greek Scriptures


A - Accepted without query as Scriptural and canonical
D - Doubted in certain quarters
DA - Doubted in certain quarters, but cataloger accepted it as
Scriptural and canonical
? - Scholars uncertain of the reading of the text or how a
book mentioned is viewed
A blank space indicates that the book was not used or
mentioned by that authority


Name and Place    Origen,    Eusebius,   Cyril of     Cheltenham 
                           Alexandria  Palestine  Jerusalem     List, 
                            N. Africa
Approximate
Date C.E.                230             320             348                365
Matthew                  A                   A                A                     A
Mark                        A                  A                 A                    A
Luke                        A                    A                A                     A
John                         A                   A               A                      A
Acts                         A                    A                A                     A  
Romans                    A                   A                A                      A
1 Corinthians          A                    A                A                      A
2 Corinthians           A                    A                A                      A
Galatians                 A                   A                 A                     A

Ephesians                A                   A                 A                      A

Philipians                 A                    A                A                       A

Colossians               A                   A                 A                       A
1 Thessalonians      A                    A                A                       A
2 Thessalonians      A                    A                 A                       A
1 Timothy                 A                     A               A                       A
2 Timothy                A                     A               A                       A
Titus                        A                     A                A                       A
Philemon                  A                      A              A                         A
Hebrews                 DA                   DA              A
James                      DA                   DA            A
1 Peter                    A                      A               A                        A
2 Peter                   DA                    DA            A                          D
1 John                      A                      A               A                        A
2 John                     DA                    DA             A                         D
3 John                      DA                   DA              A                         D
Jude                         DA                    DA             A
Revelation                A                     DA                                         A


I think I'll leave the lists of the 2nd, 3rd and 4th century canonicle catalogues here though there are more.  The ones listed do proove that the Bible Conon was complete and accepted long before the Council of Carthage (397 CE)

The earliest canons also included works that were dropped from later ones. Examples include the `Revelation of Peter' and the `Shepherd of Hermas'.

Furthermore, the early church was far from a unified creature; the `catholic' church was merely one faction among several. Notable rivals include the Marcionites (Paulists), Ebionites (direct decendants of the Jerusalem Church), Valentinians (Gnostics), and others.

The claim of apostolic succession also has problems; when you really start looking at the names of the various apostles and their successors, information becomes very scant very fast; many are no more than names on a list. So `so-and-so' was head of the church in this region (maybe) during this time period (maybe) - does that mean he preached the same doctrine as is currently found? No way to tell.

“BETWEEN Peter, the first Bishop of Rome, and our present pope, John Paul II, there stretches a long line of supreme pontiffs—more than 260, in fact.” So says Catholic friar Anthony Foy in The Southern Cross, a Catholic weekly for southern Africa. He continues: “It is to this unbroken line of popes that we can confidently point, when we are asked to prove that the Catholic Church was founded by Jesus Christ.”

Can it be confidently said that this long line of popes began with the apostle Peter? According to Catholic theology, four popes, Linus, Anacletus, Clement I, and Evaristus, are said to have succeeded Peter up to the year 100 C.E. The Bible does mention a Christian named Linus who lived in Rome. (2 Timothy 4:21) However, there is nothing to suggest that Linus, or anyone else, was a papal successor to Peter. The apostle John, who penned five books of the Bible in the last decade of the first century, made no reference to any of the above so-called successors of Peter. Indeed, if there was a successor to Peter, would not the logical choice have been John himself?

As to the claim that Peter was the first bishop of Rome, there is no proof that he even visited that city. In fact, Peter himself states that he wrote his first letter from Babylon. (1 Peter 5:13) The Catholic argument that Peter used “Babylon” as a cryptic reference to Rome is groundless. The real Babylon existed in Peter’s day. Furthermore, Babylon had a sizable Jewish community. Since Jesus assigned Peter to concentrate his preaching on the circumcised Jews, it is altogether reasonable to believe that Peter visited Babylon for this purpose. Galatians 2:9.

Note, too, that Peter never referred to himself as anything more than one of Christ’s apostles. (2 Peter 1:1) Nowhere in the Bible is he addressed as “Holy Father,” “Supreme Pontiff,” or “Pope” (Latin, papa, an affectionate term for “Father”). Instead, he humbly adhered to Jesus’ words at Matthew 23:9, 10: “Moreover, do not call anyone your father on earth, for one is your Father, the heavenly One. Neither be called ‘leaders,’ for your Leader is one, the Christ.” Peter did not accept veneration. When Roman centurion Cornelius “fell down at his feet and did obeisance to him . . . , Peter lifted him up, saying: ‘Rise; I myself am also a man.’” Acts 10:25, 26.

Nor can the Catholic Church pass as the teaching authority on the basis of her claim to be built on Peter. There is no proof that she is founded on him. He would not accept money for divine favors; the priests do. (Acts 8:20) He would not allow another man to kneel at his feet; the popes have men kiss theirs. (Acts 10:26) Moreover, the true church of Christ is not built on Peter, but on Christ. He is the one the Jews rejected as cornerstone for the spiritual temple, not Peter. He is the one Peter himself identified as the Chief Cornerstone, and added that other anointed Christians are living stones built up as a spiritual temple on Him. As for Peter, he claimed no infallibility, was corrected and taught by Paul, and was spoken of as only one of the twelve apostolic foundation stones. Isa. 28:16; 1 Pet. 2:4-8; Gal. 2:11-14; 2 Pet. 3:15, 16; Rev. 21:14.

As to the 260 alleged popes, priest Foy admits: “A number have been unworthy of their high office.” In an attempt to justify this, the New Catholic Encyclopedia states: “What mattered for purposes of government was the office, and not the personal character of the individual pope. He may personally have been a saint, a mediocrity, or even a scoundrel.” But do you believe that Christ would use such men to represent him?

At any rate, the assertion that the papacy was founded by Jesus is simply not supported in the Bible. According to the Encyclopedia of Religion, even modern Catholic scholars concede that “there is no direct biblical proof that Jesus established the papacy as a permanent office within the church.”

Originally posted by s0uljah


And when Jesus said the gates of Hell wouldn't prevail against His Church, which He set up on his "rock," Peter, which Church do you suppose He was refering to exactly?

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 The rock of Christ Jesus.

 

Job_38
Completely agreed.

I, too, am waiting for the link, Lightbearer. Please provide us with specific references as to where the information in your posts came from.

Standard bibliographic format will be fine.

Do a bit of research under the individual catalogues. For example "The muratorian Fragment"

Oh here's a start for ya http://www.bible-researcher.com/canon3.html

Statement from the web owner (Michael Marlowe) of the site listed:

My use and interpretation of the Bible falls along the lines of the Reformed tradition, popularly known as Calvinism. I subscribe to the Westminster Confession of Faith (American Revision), which I consider to be an excellent summary of Biblical theology.

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It isn't surprising, therefore, that he would adhere to the Reformer's listing of canonical books. There's nothing wrong with that, mind you; but bear in mind that there are other viewpoints.

Any other sites? (I won't be doing the research, BTW, as I lack both time and inclination to re-invent the wheel; but if you want to provide web addresses for me, I'll be happy to look at them. )