Even if that were true, and I don't know that it is; so what?
You don't have to be a catholic to buy, own or read a Bible.
No one is saying that you cannot own or read the Bible. But the Reformation started with the premise that the Catholic Church has a corrupted gospel of faith plus works. But the Reformers still want to use the Catholic Church's Bible. This is grossly inconsistent. If the Catholic Church has proved to corrupted the gospel then how you trust its Bible?
Take a look at the Mormons. They have felt that the Catholic Church totally corrupted the simple teachings of Jesus. So they have felt that they cannot trust the Catholic Church in preserving the Bible all those centuries without the Church also corrupting the Bible. That is why they believe that God has given mankind another prophet (Joseph Smith) with another scripture (Book of Mormon) that has not been corrupted. I am not advocating to be a Mormon, but at least they are consistent. They understood that the Bible was a Catholic book. And since they believes that Catholic Church's gospel is corrupted then the Catholic Church's Bible would also be corrupted.
A few years ago there was a book, made into a movie, called "The Da Vinci Code". The author's premise is that the Catholic Church, in order to maintain power, wanted people to believe that Jesus was God. Do they inserted key verses in the Bible, that showed that Jesus was God. From a Protestant perspective, I do not see how this is not possible. If the Church corrupted the gospel of faith alone to faith plus works then why wouldn't they insert verses in the Bible to say Jesus was God? This used to bother me a a Protestant. But praise God, I am now Catholic! I no longer believe that the Church's gospel is corrupt so I am comfortable in believing that the Church's Bible is not corrupt.
I don't see how you can possibly know that.
I recall studying this at a Protestant seminary (I was once a Baptist minister). Up until the end of the first century, all writings were done on papryus. Starting in the second century, they were replaced with the more durable parchments, and then later paper. But papyrus was easily decayed - only small fragments remain. If God had providentially introduced parchments just a century earlier then we would have the original documents fully preserved. That would have made it much easier to hold to sola scripture! But He did not do this. It is almost as if God wanted to make sure we did not have any of the original documents, so that we would have to depend on copies and copies done under the auspices of the Catholic Church. Could this mean that God is Catholic?
If someone was convinced that the Lord wanted them to make copies of the documents, they would do it, and they would no doubt expect their wife to know, and honour, that.
You are thinking that the 1st century was like the 21st century. People worked sun up to sun down in the earlier centuries to raise families. We take for granted what we have today. Life is much easier - many of us have free time that they did not have back then. Making copies would be a gruesome hobby - something that the layman could not afford to take up. He had a family to raise and mouths to feed. Only a hermit or a monk could have done this. In fact, we even know of one person - St. Jerome, who lived in a cave by himself to dedicated his time to such an extensive work.
No doubt because they had a lot of time on their hands; it doesn't mean that there was no one else at all who couldn't have done it.
Yes it does. Because no one had the time to do it. They were too busy feeding their families.
That might be true, and no doubt that we owe a great deal to those who translated the Scriptures for us. But why does that make it YOUR book?
When I say it is our book, I am not meaning that we have some copyright on it. It is in public domain by now. But up until the Reformation there were no Protestants. The Catholic Church was the custodian of the Bible. As the Jews were entrusted with the Old Testament oracles of God so was the Catholic Church entrusted with the New Testament. Not only did God entrust the Church to make copies, God entrusted the Church with the important task of determining which NT documents should be part of the Bible.
At the end of the fourth century, there were two councils to determine what should be in the Bible. They had to choose among 19 gospels. Most of them were rejected. Only four were put into the Bible. Then at 405 AD, they were finished, and they sent that to the current pope, who ratified it. Now, we Catholics believe that the Holy Spirit moved on these Councils and the pope to compile the Bible as He wanted, just as the Holy Spirit has led the Church in the rest of its doctrines. But since Protestants do not believe that the Holy Spirit has led the Church in all of God's truth then Protestants should start over with those 19 gospels and decide which gospel should be in the Protestant Bible. But it is a bit more difficult, since most Protestants do not believe in the infallibilty of councils. So I suggest that the Bible bookstores have all 19 gospels on their shelves. Then a Protestant can browse all the gospels and can prayerfully choose which gospel should be in his or her Bible. Then the Bible would not be Catholic book. However, the Bible owned by another Protestant would be an entirely different book. At least then would can be consistent. You would no longer be rejecting the Catholic gospel but still holding onto the Catholic Bible.
It is interpreted, and applied, by the Holy Spirit; no one else.
If you only have the Holy Spirit lead to individuals to interpret the Bible, then what happened when you have conflicting interpretations.
Over two hundred years we had a great revival in our land, called the Great Awakening. Two of its leaders were George Whitfield and Joyhn Wesley. Both of these were men of God, being led by the Holy Spirit. But they had two different interpretations of the Bible. Whitfield believed that the Bible taught that God predestined some to turn to Christ and be saved and the rest be damned and Wesley believed that man has a free will to accept Christ or reject Him. Their differences were so strong that Wesley said to Whitfield (as I remembered it), "Your God is my Devil". Those are pretty strong words. This was no small difference. Did the Holy Spirit lead both of these men of God to two contradictory interpretations of the Bible?
Your statement implies that I could not read the Bible without being in a Catholic church, or without the help of the Catholic church - yet I have been doing so for more than 50 years. Millions of others would say the same.
But are these millions coming up with the same interpretation of the Bible? Do they all see predestination taught in the Bible? Do they all see free will in the Bible? Do they all see salvation being taught the same way in the Bible? Do they all believe that the Bible teaches that you must accept Jesus as your Savior and Lord? Do they all believe that the Bible teaches that you must accept Jesus as your Savior only? Do they all believe that a born-again Christian can never lose his salvation? Or do they all believe that a born-again Christian can his salvation? This is why there are over 25,000 schisms in Protestanntism. Check the history of your denomination. Unless your denomination was around at the time of the Reformation your denomination was split off from some other denomination.
The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery, idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.
Gal 5:19 - 21
Look what it says about dissensions and factions! It says live in dissensions and faction will not inherit the kingdom of God. There are thousands of factions within Protestantism! There are thousands of dissensions within Protestantism! How can all these schisms be of God?
Catholics translating it into English does not mean it is a Catholic book - any more than me translating Pliny's letters means that I now own Pliny's letters.
You would not own Pliny's original letters but you would own the translation you made of Pliny's letters.
The Catholic Church compiled the original documents into what was then called the Bible. The Bible was the end-product of the canonization process of those original documents. To be a consistent Protestant go back and start with those documents again and build your own Bible from scratch.
