The Inspiration of Scripture

[Mountainmike]

@Athanasius377
Luther declared James an epistle of straw because it destroyed Luthers apriori preferred interpretation of scripture. End of. Luther had no basis to reject or demean any item of scripture, but such was the arrogance of the man he did. There is none so blind as those who refuse to see.


The eucharist "is the flesh of Jesus". Justin Martyr said it. No doubt you disagree with them all. Because like Luther you make up your doctrine first, then fit scripture to it second, and finally discount all who disagree.
But Since you disagree with your namesake so much why do you take his name?

 

[Athanasius377]

uther declared James an epistle of straw because it destroyed Luthers apriori preferred interpretation of scripture. End of. Luther had no basis to reject or demean any item of scripture, but such was the arrogance of the man he did. There is none so blind as those who refuse to see.

That's what I am trying to tell you is that it's not so simple. And the phrase "Epistle of straw" doesn't mean its trash. It means its useful, nothing more. And once again this is a young Luther who had not worked out all the nuances of theology yet. Furthermore he is hardly alone in questioning the book of James' apostolic origins. This dispute goes back to before Eusebius as he recounts in his Ecclesiastical history book III chapter XXV.

The eucharist "is the flesh of Jesus". Justin Martyr said it. No doubt you disagree with them all. Because like Luther you make up your doctrine first, then fit scripture to it second, and finally discount all who disagree.
But Since you disagree with your namesake so much why do you take his name?

I agree with you on this point. We don't agree in the mode or the use but I agree that one receives the body and blood of Christ. Why? Because Scripture teaches this doctrine not because someone in my church one day though it was a good idea.

Lastly, I am Lutheran not because I admire Martin Luther but because I think I think the Lutheran church teaches correct doctrine. Look, Luther wrote a LOT of things. Some really good, some bad, some down right looney tunes. Augustine was a lot the same way. Read his writings and you will likely say the same things. But that's why the Lutheran church is not Martin Luther and all that he wrote its more than that. But alas that is for another thread.

 

[Mountainmike]

I have been away , reason for the delay.

So if you agree, why do you argue?
We teach the doctrine because that is what was handed down from the earliest church not because "somebody thought it a good idea" because paradosis was the main passage of faith. Scripture alone (one of luthers big errors) is not supportable.


. The pronouncement was to clarify a doctrine that always was: it was not a new invention: the clarification made with the power to "bind and loose".

So from earliest times all were taught Eucharist is the "flesh of Jesus"
Not in any symbolic way.
-Earliest christians were considered cannibals because of that belief. See roman records.
-Jesus used the word that means "gnaw" in eat my body (not generic consume)
-Athanasius makes the change on blessing clear.

And so on.

Catholic doctrine only reiterates what anathasius did all those years before.
Edit
And as an aside, not a matter of faith, for those of a scientific bent, the foresnic analysis of eucharistic miracles by numerous pathology labs around the world whose day job is criminology state it really is flesh and blood, when Jesus decides to reveal himself to senses! Check it out. Tixtla. Legnica. Sokolka. Buenous Airies ( and of course the oldest, Lanciano) . And the presence of white cells show it is still alive, which pathologists will tell you is impossible in vitro normally. Perhaps this is Jesus telling you not to be so sceptical. Just because your senses seem to still register bread.

That's what I am trying to tell you is that it's not so simple. And the phrase "Epistle of straw" doesn't mean its trash. It means its useful, nothing more. And once again this is a young Luther who had not worked out all the nuances of theology yet. Furthermore he is hardly alone in questioning the book of James' apostolic origins. This dispute goes back to before Eusebius as he recounts in his Ecclesiastical history book III chapter XXV.




I agree with you on this point. We don't agree in the mode or the use but I agree that one receives the body and blood of Christ. Why? Because Scripture teaches this doctrine not because someone in my church one day though it was a good idea.

Lastly, I am Lutheran not because I admire Martin Luther but because I think I think the Lutheran church teaches correct doctrine. Look, Luther wrote a LOT of things. Some really good, some bad, some down right looney tunes. Augustine was a lot the same way. Read his writings and you will likely say the same things. But that's why the Lutheran church is not Martin Luther and all that he wrote its more than that. But alas that is for another thread.

 

[Athanasius377]

I have been away , reason for the delay.

So if you agree, why do you argue?
We teach the doctrine because that is what was handed down from the earliest church not because "somebody thought it a good idea" because paradosis was the main passage of faith. Scripture alone (one of luthers big errors) is not supportable.


. The pronouncement was to clarify a doctrine that always was: it was not a new invention: the clarification made with the power to "bind and loose".

So from earliest times all were taught Eucharist is the "flesh of Jesus"
Not in any symbolic way.
-Earliest christians were considered cannibals because of that belief. See roman records.
-Jesus used the word that means "gnaw" in eat my body (not generic consume)
-Athanasius makes the change on blessing clear.

And so on.

Catholic doctrine only reiterates what anathasius did all those years before.
Edit
And as an aside, not a matter of faith, for those of a scientific bent, the foresnic analysis of eucharistic miracles by numerous pathology labs around the world whose day job is criminology state it really is flesh and blood, when Jesus decides to reveal himself to senses! Check it out. Tixtla. Legnica. Sokolka. Buenous Airies ( and of course the oldest, Lanciano) . And the presence of white cells show it is still alive, which pathologists will tell you is impossible in vitro normally. Perhaps this is Jesus telling you not to be so sceptical. Just because your senses seem to still register bread.

No worries Mike, life comes before CF. The reason I agree in part is because Scripture says it’s His body. Because I believe it is the only infallible source of doctrine. So when even an ECF like Cryil seems to teach something else Scripture trumps his thoughts. Now give the guy a break, he is writing at a time where persecution is a reality even though the worst post hoc is over. At least for Christians writ large though of Nicene Christians not so much. So a lot of things haven’t been hashed out because he’s worried about Christology as is most of the ECF of the period. So when he writes we should be careful not judge him by later standards because those standards reflect centuries of Christians working out doctrine that Cryil simply didn’t have. What I am objecting to is the idea that there is a unanimous voice of the fathers when there is not. Church history is a messy affair and even our most celebrated heros don’t believe everything we believe. Perhaps they would agree with modern Roman doctrine or maybe modern Lutheran but we can’t really speculate so we are only left with what they wrote. And so I propose letting the ECF speak as they are recorded without reading into their writings more than is there. Though I am no fool and don’t think we do not each have a tendency to do so based on our own theological points of view.

I also believe apostolic succession means the successors teach the doctrine of the Apostles and as such their successors have the power to bind and loose. Perhaps a discussion in another thread may be more appropriate to hash this point out but I do understand what Rome means by this doctrine.

I disagree with the definition of the Greek term to eat as meaning to gnaw. No lexicon gives that definition as a possible meaning. See BDAG. Jesus commands to Take, Eat. This IS My Body. That’s good enough for me. Yet I am certain The Lord didn’t mean a symbolic presence. I see no reason to put words in His mouth.

I don’t discount these miracles. Miracles are part and parcel of the Bible. God can miracle anything he wants though I have never seen them. I try and keep it simple. He said it, He’s God and that settles it.

That said I think I know, and correct me if I’m wrong, the anything goes that is the Anglican Church (at least the mainstream in the UK) grinds your gears. Match that with the fact believers are under seige in the UK. I pray for you folks every day. Of course we’re only 10 years behind you in the States. I have bona fide snake handlers that live next door to me In Kentucky. There is some sort of Pentecostal cult a mile from my house. So the drive for secularism is very strong here even in the American heartland because we get lumped into the same category as the those folks. I would rather have an orthodox Catholic like yourself living next to me. But I do not think the way to discuss church history is to assume the thing you are trying to prove.

That’s all. God bless. Try and laugh to much about the snake handlers they are good folks just really confused. A certain Chesterton quote comes to mind.

To be clear I don’t believe these folks are in the main Pentecostal.

 

[Mountainmike]

Thanks for the reply. Good to have a discussion rather than a brow beat.

One thing I would urge you to consider is the structure of the passover, which was part of the covenant replaced with the new.

The passover was not concluded by the sacrifice and slaughter of the lamb, which was male, young and pure... or the blood offering. It was concluded by the physical eating of its body.

There is a book on the jewish roots of the eucharist, Pitre, which makes fascinating reading of the linkages between such as covenant, passover and eucharist: it is also worth looking at Jewish tradition in contemporary writings of what they thought the messiah, new exodus , new temple ,would be That book considers such things. It also observes a lot of analogies. Such as the pinning of the lamb, with direct analogies to crucifixion. Fascinating parallels. Anyone who reads it will learn something, whether or not they agree with the conclusion!

You are right - my journey from anglicanism was a result of the uncertainty of anglican doctrine and particularly the meaning of eucharist depended on who you asked. But there could only be one truth, so some of them had it wrong. For me that questioned even the fundamental validity of the Anglican church, since it is clear from scripture that "profaning the eucharist" had serious consequence and here is a church in which some were teaching false doctrine, I just did not know which parts!. That invited the question: how can I know what is true doctrine? The rest was history as it was with Chesterton!

The other problem I had was reading many opinions on these matters. ( yours of course is an educated and informed opinion). But the problem is , most of the opinions (including yours )are in essence deciding veracity on other peoples writings (eg yours ...so Luther had this right, but not that..). That led me to question...by what authority are those expresssing these opinions expressing true
doctrine? By what authority can you dismiss some of luthers opinion, not others?

Which is when I got back to succession, power to "bind and loose". So therefore the power by whcih the church is "the foundation of truth". I concluded - It is not for the individual to decide veracity, the church and succession are appointed and given the power to do that.
The only question therefore was which church....and how could it claim succession from the first apostles. And indeed, what of the individual role given to Peter, as chief pastor "tend my sheep" office of Keys , and individually power to bind and loose separate from other apostles.

You see my conclusion by where I ended up! A distillation of a journey which was not a straight line, took years, and went round in circles and off at tangents!

The problem with eucharistic miracles, is if you accept the occurrence, you are also obliged to conclude only one of two things: that either they are demonic, or the eucharist really is flesh. It is hard to find any middle line between those, it can only be one of the two conclusions.

The forensics are consistent, compelling and repeated. Done by labs whose day job is criminal evidence "beyond reasonable doubt" One of the fascinating bits of evidence on tixtla is they determined that blood had forced its way out of the bread fibre, not into it. And in all the miracles the edges were so intimitaely intermingled of bread and flesh, that it would be impossible to conceive of how they were faked. So not fake. And real flesh and blood... and alive at the point of sampling which is beyond science to explain.

Anyway God bless...... I don't seek to judge anyone elses choice, I just explain my own. That they are christian is good enough for me...

No worries Mike, life comes before CF. The reason I agree in part is because Scripture says it’s His body. Because I believe it is the only infallible source of doctrine. So when even an ECF like Cryil seems to teach something else Scripture trumps his thoughts. Now give the guy a break, he is writing at a time where persecution is a reality even though the worst post hoc is over. At least for Christians writ large though of Nicene Christians not so much. So a lot of things haven’t been hashed out because he’s worried about Christology as is most of the ECF of the period. So when he writes we should be careful not judge him by later standards because those standards reflect centuries of Christians working out doctrine that Cryil simply didn’t have. What I am objecting to is the idea that there is a unanimous voice of the fathers when there is not. Church history is a messy affair and even our most celebrated heros don’t believe everything we believe. Perhaps they would agree with modern Roman doctrine or maybe modern Lutheran but we can’t really speculate so we are only left with what they wrote. And so I propose letting the ECF speak as they are recorded without reading into their writings more than is there. Though I am no fool and don’t think we do not each have a tendency to do so based on our own theological points of view.

I also believe apostolic succession means the successors teach the doctrine of the Apostles and as such their successors have the power to bind and loose. Perhaps a discussion in another thread may be more appropriate to hash this point out but I do understand what Rome means by this doctrine.

I disagree with the definition of the Greek term to eat as meaning to gnaw. No lexicon gives that definition as a possible meaning. See BDAG. Jesus commands to Take, Eat. This IS My Body. That’s good enough for me. Yet I am certain The Lord didn’t mean a symbolic presence. I see no reason to put words in His mouth.

I don’t discount these miracles. Miracles are part and parcel of the Bible. God can miracle anything he wants though I have never seen them. I try and keep it simple. He said it, He’s God and that settles it.

That said I think I know, and correct me if I’m wrong, the anything goes that is the Anglican Church (at least the mainstream in the UK) grinds your gears. Match that with the fact believers are under seige in the UK. I pray for you folks every day. Of course we’re only 10 years behind you in the States. I have bona fide snake handlers that live next door to me In Kentucky. There is some sort of Pentecostal cult a mile from my house. So the drive for secularism is very strong here even in the American heartland because we get lumped into the same category as the those folks. I would rather have an orthodox Catholic like yourself living next to me. But I do not think the way to discuss church history is to assume the thing you are trying to prove.

That’s all. God bless. Try and laugh to much about the snake handlers they are good folks just really confused. A certain Chesterton quote comes to mind.

To be clear I don’t believe these folks are in the main Pentecostal.

 

[Athanasius377]

Thanks for the reply. Good to have a discussion rather than a brow beat.

One thing I would urge you to consider is the structure of the passover, which was part of the covenant replaced with the new.

The passover was not concluded by the sacrifice and slaughter of the lamb, which was male, young and pure... or the blood offering. It was concluded by the physical eating of its body.

There is a book on the jewish roots of the eucharist, Pitre, which makes fascinating reading of the linkages between such as covenant, passover and eucharist: it is also worth looking at Jewish tradition in contemporary writings of what they thought the messiah, new exodus , new temple ,would be That book considers such things. It also observes a lot of analogies. Such as the pinning of the lamb, with direct analogies to crucifixion. Fascinating parallels. Anyone who reads it will learn something, whether or not they agree with the conclusion!

You are right - my journey from anglicanism was a result of the uncertainty of anglican doctrine and particularly the meaning of eucharist depended on who you asked. But there could only be one truth, so some of them had it wrong. For me that questioned even the fundamental validity of the Anglican church, since it is clear from scripture that "profaning the eucharist" had serious consequence and here is a church in which some were teaching false doctrine, I just did not know which parts!. That invited the question: how can I know what is true doctrine? The rest was history as it was with Chesterton!

The other problem I had was reading many opinions on these matters. ( yours of course is an educated and informed opinion). But the problem is , most of the opinions (including yours )are in essence deciding veracity on other peoples writings (eg yours ...so Luther had this right, but not that..). That led me to question...by what authority are those expresssing these opinions expressing true
doctrine? By what authority can you dismiss some of luthers opinion, not others?

Which is when I got back to succession, power to "bind and loose". So therefore the power by whcih the church is "the foundation of truth". I concluded - It is not for the individual to decide veracity, the church and succession are appointed and given the power to do that.
The only question therefore was which church....and how could it claim succession from the first apostles. And indeed, what of the individual role given to Peter, as chief pastor "tend my sheep" office of Keys , and individually power to bind and loose separate from other apostles.

You see my conclusion by where I ended up! A distillation of a journey which was not a straight line, took years, and went round in circles and off at tangents!

The problem with eucharistic miracles, is if you accept the occurrence, you are also obliged to conclude only one of two things: that either they are demonic, or the eucharist really is flesh. It is hard to find any middle line between those, it can only be one of the two conclusions.

The forensics are consistent, compelling and repeated. Done by labs whose day job is criminal evidence "beyond reasonable doubt" One of the fascinating bits of evidence on tixtla is they determined that blood had forced its way out of the bread fibre, not into it. And in all the miracles the edges were so intimitaely intermingled of bread and flesh, that it would be impossible to conceive of how they were faked. So not fake. And real flesh and blood... and alive at the point of sampling which is beyond science to explain.

Anyway God bless...... I don't seek to judge anyone elses choice, I just explain my own. That they are christian is good enough for me...

Good post Mike. I won’t quibble with anything you wrote because I think we both understand where each other is coming from. Two questions. First, what’s the name of the author of the. Book on the Passover? Second, when you were in the Anglican Church did your parish (sic) use the 1662 BCP? I spent a decade in the Anglican Church here in the States (not the Episcopal Church) and am quite familiar with BCP (The US 1928 BCP, not the proposed book in the UK). And as a follow up how important in your experience where the 39 Articles of
Religion?

 

[Mountainmike]

This is the book.

https://www.amazon.com/Jesus-Jewish-Roots-Eucharist-Unlocking/dp/0385531869/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2MJAPO0WHIEFN&keywords=jewish+roots+of+the+eucharist&qid=1558651282&s=gateway&sprefix=Jewish+roots+,aps,229&sr=8-1

Well worth the read for messianic roots, and also contemporary Jewish tradition sources you do not see quoted elsewhere even if you question some theology.


Mine was a low church CofE that believed in the "pneumatic " rather than " corporeal" presence.

I could not figure how the same church could on the one hand say it was spiritual, and treat it with less respect, elsewhere close to catholic corporeal, and utmost respect. Only one of them could be right. And how could a church that had such ambivalence also claim either to be the truth, or indeed criticise others such as Catholicism when they didn't seem to know what they stood for.

I also disliked what I saw as intellectual dishonesty. You could not say dogmatically it was not transubstantiation, and in the same breath leave it as mystery as to what it was instead. ( a charge I lay at the door of orthodox too)

I studied the articles and discovered the artickes had drifted with whims of monarchs towards and away from Calvinism. It did not seem to have very deep foundations.

I then asked the fundamental question: surely these articles as faith handed down, we're precisely the anglicans own version of the very tradition they do despised in other older churches. Except there's was truly man made. You knew the authors!

But It was Eucharist that sparked my journey, which meandered often in circles and blind alleys!

I was at one time for example swept up by the fervour of evangelicals, to find their theology was very thin. They seemed more interested in saying others were wrong than evidence that they were right. Most had not heard of early fathers or realised the gap in history between Jesus and the New Testament. They certainly had no idea where the New Testament came from! So I left those as well.....

It was listening to testimonies of Theologians and pastors on such as journey home that finally put pieces together for me. People talked about traffic out of Catholicism, oblivious seemingly to the many returning!

I also couldn't figure why Jesus would abandon his church for 1500 years.

Anyway God bless...

What was your journey?

Good post Mike. I won’t quibble with anything you wrote because I think we both understand where each other is coming from. Two questions. First, what’s the name of the author of the. Book on the Passover? Second, when you were in the Anglican Church did your parish (sic) use the 1662 BCP? I spent a decade in the Anglican Church here in the States (not the Episcopal Church) and am quite familiar with BCP (The US 1928 BCP, not the proposed book in the UK). And as a follow up how important in your experience where the 39 Articles of
Religion?