"The Bible was never intended to take the place of the living, infallible teacher, the Church, but was written to explain, or to insist upon, a doctrine already preached. How indeed could a dead and speechless book that cannot be cross-questioned to settle doubts or decide controversies be the exclusive and all-sufficient teacher of God’s revelation? The very nature of the Bible ought to prove to any thinking man the impossibility of its being the one safe method to find out what the Saviour taught. It is not a simple, clear-as-crystal volume that a little child may understand, although it ought to be so on Protestant principles.”
Bertrand L. Conway, The Question-box Answers: Replies to Questions Received on Missions to Non-Catholics, p. 67
The Bible is a SURE guide while some man's opinion as he sits on a throne and pretends to speak for God is NOT a sure guide at all. He changes with the wind.
ReplyDelete“I have said these things to you while I am still with you. But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything and remind you of all that I have said to you.”
ReplyDeleteThe living Spirit is greater than any scripture and, in fact, is the one who gives the bible any life at all. And since the divine life and love of the Spirit works in the here and now, so the the Spirit must be guiding the reflection of the church on its scriptures in the here and now.
God is not dead. God is not a book. And, as we learn in Acts 10-15, God will not be contained by letters and parchments and law. The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath. This includes scripture and the reading and interpreting of it.
How are we to learn of the divine life and love of the Holy Spirit apart from the Bible? What other infallible source can we use to be taught the things of God?
ReplyDeleteReally? You just went to the library or bookstore, saw an interesting book, got it and started reading? Took you an awful long time to get to Jesus I bet.
ReplyDeleteWhere is your head? You’re supposed to be reasonable. How did the Christian church last for 1600 years before there was a book and another 200 years before the majority could read? The majority of Christians heard the stories of Jesus or saw scenes of his life in glass and icons.
I bet you heard about Jesus first. And I bet you heard about Jesus for some time before you sat down to read the New Testament.
Catholics and Orthodox, 2 billion Christians, don’t read the Bible much or at all.
"Really? You just went to the library or bookstore, saw an interesting book, got it and started reading?"
ReplyDeleteNo, it is simply a matter of reading the Bible and accepting it as the only written source of revelation from God in existence.
"Took you an awful long time to get to Jesus I bet."
It isn't too hard given how many translations of the Bible are in circulation today and how much the gospel has been preached.
"Where is your head? You’re supposed to be reasonable."
I just checked, and it is still on top of my shoulders. Where did you last see yours?
"How did the Christian church last for 1600 years before there was a book and another 200 years before the majority could read?"
The assumption that Christians did not have a Bible for 1600 years is untrue without reservation. This is not to deny, however, the presence of difficulties such as illiteracy and questions about the canon in the early church. These issues may make it harder to teach spiritual truths, but they do not change the authority of Scripture because it is still God-breathed.
Obviously, God is the one who sustained the Christian church through the ages. But how are we going to learn about Him aside from Scripture?
"The majority of Christians heard the stories of Jesus or saw scenes of his life in glass and icons."
Even if that is true, it is beside the point. The four gospels are the only sources that we have that furnish us with a perfect account of the life of Christ.
"I bet you heard about Jesus first. And I bet you heard about Jesus for some time before you sat down to read the New Testament."
The sequence by which I came to know about Jesus Christ is irrelevant. The source through which I heard about Him would ultimately be the New Testament.
"Catholics and Orthodox, 2 billion Christians, don’t read the Bible much or at all."
That is not a good thing, especially if it involves willful negligence.
My point is that the Christian story did not come to you at first or second or third by accidental discovering a bible. Like nearly 100% of christians - and absolutely 100% of christians we read about in the New Testament - you first heard the story of the God the Son, God the Father, and God the Holy Spirit… through the ears. You heard it told.
ReplyDeleteThere was no Nee Testament until two centuries after Jesus. And even then, almost everyone was illiterate for the next 1400 years. Priests and Monks were the only ones who knew Latin in the West or Greek in the East. Almost all christians only knew the narrative because it was spoken to them.
The Bible that you think is primary as reading material is unnecessary to faith and growing in wisdom in faith. We have it but it’s tertiary to the spoken narrative of the life, teachings and passion of Jesus Christ and the life among us of the Holy Spirit who was sent by God.
"My point is that the Christian story did not come to you at first or second or third by accidental discovering a bible."
ReplyDeleteEven if that is true, it has no influence on the situation being considered. The point remains that the "Christian story" came down to us from no other source than the Bible itself. You did not get information about Jesus from the Quran or Book of Mormon, for instance.
"Like nearly 100% of christians - and absolutely 100% of christians we read about in the New Testament - you first heard the story of the God the Son, God the Father, and God the Holy Spirit… through the ears. You heard it told."
The mode of communication by which one receives knowledge about the person of Christ or God is beside the point. Believers who lived in the first century still had the Old Testament. What teachings had been passed down to them by word of mouth has been preserved for us in the New Testament.
"There was no Nee Testament until two centuries after Jesus. And even then, almost everyone was illiterate for the next 1400 years."
Your assertion about the New Testament is mistaken. For example, the four gospels and Pauline epistles were written and in use even before all the apostles died. As for illiteracy, there still was the public reading of Scripture, preaching, and teaching (1 Timothy 4:13). People who could read taught those who could not do so for themselves and the latter could recite Scripture from memory.
"Priests and Monks were the only ones who knew Latin in the West or Greek in the East. Almost all christians only knew the narrative because it was spoken to them."
I am fully aware these details. In fact, the very purpose of me providing citations such as the one found in stand-alone form above is to emphasize that Rome has historically encouraged the ignorance of Scripture.
"The Bible that you think is primary as reading material is unnecessary to faith and growing in wisdom in faith."
It is if you are really a Christian. The Bible testifies to who Jesus Christ is (John 5:46-47).
"We have it but it’s tertiary to the spoken narrative of the life, teachings and passion of Jesus Christ and the life among us of the Holy Spirit who was sent by God."
Name a few authentic sayings of Jesus Christ or the apostles that cannot be found in the New Testament. You will not proceed to do this because it cannot be done. Therefore, we are to stick with Scripture alone as our guide to a life of godliness.
"The point remains that the "Christian story" came down to us from no other source than the Bible itself. You did not get information about Jesus from the Quran or Book of Mormon, for instance." It would be logically sensible to apply this point to the whole of the development and use of written scripture.
ReplyDeleteThe Apostles and disciples spread the Christian faith all over the Roman world from Spain to North Africa and the Middle East, and according to legend to India. Solely by oral storytelling of the person and passion of Jesus the Messiah. Before there was a recognized and agreed upon canon of which books to bind together. btw, the decision was made by a Council of Rome. All across the known Western world, they just had stories. Were they illegitimate? During the era of Missions, coinciding with colonizing expansion in the modern age, Christian missionaries spread the Christian faith throughout South America, Africa, and Asia... Solely by oral storytelling of the person and passion of Jesus the Messiah. Without a Bible translated into indigenous languages for generations, some places for centuries. All across the globe, they just had stories. Were they illegitimate?
The Christian Bible itself was not born on the day of Jesus' ascension, lowered down on a rope from heaven. It wasn't thought of as a canon of scripture until the late fourth century. And the various documents comprising the Bible were not translated from Hebrew and Greek into the dominant language of Latin until the 5th century. btw, by a priest from Rome.
So, before the Bible was constructed, the early church grew from the ministry and mission of the Apostles and Disciples before there was a Bible. Solely by oral storytelling of the person and passion of Jesus the Messiah. Further, only the places to the church of which Paul and Peter and James and the Gospel writers wrote had the documents to read. Sure they were all copied but they were not all distributed everywhere until there were gathered together 300 years after Christ. The Christian story - the Gospel - was a verbal one only for almost all of the expansive Hellenistic world of spreading Christendom for 300 years. (Though specific places did have individual letters from Paul or Peter or James or the writer of Hebrews.) And for another 1200 years before European populations were literate, including priests! And then again a verbal story across the rest of the globe for the colonizing period of missionary activity. Is the ancient and medieval church not legitimate, not having got the Christian Story from the Bible? Further still, as hinted above, the Christian Story would not have been distributed by the Bible itself without the Roman Church constructing it, debating what would and would not go into it, and copying it. Thank God for the Roman Catholic councils, right?! There would be not Bible without Rome.
Clearly these are "influences INDEED on the situation being considered"! Christian believers and the Christian church wrapped around the know world twice not because of a bound book, but because Christians told the story to each other and to others.
Before there was a Bible, Paul wrote, "But what does it say? 'The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart.' So faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes through the word of Christ."
And what does Christ say? “I have said these things to you while I am still with you. But the Advocate,[k] the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything and remind you of all that I have said to you."
How can you revere scripture and not pay attention in reading it to that fact that it does not point to itself. It points to God. And it says that God is with you... as the body of Christ... not as an isolated, modern fetish of the individual.
"It would be logically sensible to apply this point to the whole of the development and use of written scripture."
ReplyDeleteWhile other religious texts may contain references to Jesus Christ or Christian concepts, they do not hold the same place of authority within the Christian tradition. The Bible is to be seen as the primary source for understanding the life, teachings, and significance of Jesus. The two examples that I provided for the sake of argument are not even credible sources.
"Solely by oral storytelling of the person and passion of Jesus the Messiah."
Telling a story orally and having one written down are not mutually exclusive concepts (Luke 1:1-4).
"Before there was a recognized and agreed upon canon of which books to bind together. btw, the decision was made by a Council of Rome."
That is an oversimplification. There was no single church council that decided for all time and for everybody else what books belonged in the New Testament.
"All across the known Western world, they just had stories. Were they illegitimate?"
It depends on what the contents of those oral stories are.
"The Christian Bible itself was not born on the day of Jesus' ascension, lowered down on a rope from heaven."
I never indicated that was the case, but reject entirely this notion that primitive writers were absolutely clueless as to which writings comprised the New Testament.
"It wasn't thought of as a canon of scripture until the late fourth century."
There were already lists containing almost the entire New Testament canon by the second century. Given that our knowledge of this period is fragmentary, there just may have been earlier lists that corresponded exactly to what we have today.
"And the various documents comprising the Bible were not translated from Hebrew and Greek into the dominant language of Latin until the 5th century. btw, by a priest from Rome."
The process of translating texts into Latin began much earlier than the 5th century. In fact, portions of the Bible were translated into Latin as early as the 2nd century. That would have included Psalms and other parts of the Old Testament. In the late 4th century, Jerome began revising the existing Vetus Latina gospels into contemporary Latin.
"Further, only the places to the church of which Paul and Peter and James and the Gospel writers wrote had the documents to read."
The early church had a practice of sharing letters and teachings among different congregations, which would have included the writings of Paul, Peter, James, and others. This practice helped to establish a unified doctrine and fostered communication between separated Christian groups.
"Sure they were all copied but they were not all distributed everywhere until there were gathered together 300 years after Christ."
Your assertions are vacuous as well as they are illogical.
"The Christian story - the Gospel - was a verbal one only for almost all of the expansive Hellenistic world of spreading Christendom for 300 years."
ReplyDeleteIt would have included a combination of both verbal communication and circulating written documents.
"And for another 1200 years before European populations were literate, including priests!"
Most Roman Catholics are still ignorant of the Bible, so clearly that part of the religious landscape has not changed much since then!
"Is the ancient and medieval church not legitimate, not having got the Christian Story from the Bible?"
The ancient and medieval church made a number of good moves and others that were not so good. It is really a diverse assortment of things.
"Further still, as hinted above, the Christian Story would not have been distributed by the Bible itself without the Roman Church constructing it, debating what would and would not go into it, and copying it."
It is a myth that the Roman Catholic Church gave us the Bible:
https://rationalchristiandiscernment.blogspot.com/2017/02/did-catholic-church-give-us-bible.html
http://answeringcatholicclaims.blogspot.com/2012/02/did-catholic-church-give-us-bible.html
"Thank God for the Roman Catholic councils, right?! There would be not Bible without Rome."
I am not obligated to accept ideas from people who came before me just because they were believed to be true. Rome was never the sole contributor to the development of the canon or its sole possessor.
"Clearly these are "influences INDEED on the situation being considered"! Christian believers and the Christian church wrapped around the know world twice not because of a bound book, but because Christians told the story to each other and to others."
No, it continues to be the case that the Bible is the underlying source from which Christians have preached the gospel across the world. It makes no difference whether it be bound in one volume or exists in portions; whether it is cited directly or recalled from memory.
"Before there was a Bible, Paul wrote, "But what does it say? 'The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart.' So faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes through the word of Christ."
The "Bible" for Paul would have been the Old Testament, so in that sense, it did indeed exist. He appealed to it as his source of authority and expounded on how it pointed to Christ in order to convince his fellow countrymen that their Messiah had already came.
"And what does Christ say? “I have said these things to you while I am still with you. But the Advocate,[k] the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything and remind you of all that I have said to you."
Christ spoke those words to the twelve apostles, not us. They were an implicit anticipation of the production of the New Testament writings.
"How can you revere scripture and not pay attention in reading it to that fact that it does not point to itself. It points to God."
You certainly are not helping others to find God by trying to belittle the Bible. You are a part of the problem.
You're kicking up dust in order to obfuscate.
ReplyDelete1. I use christian scriptures to signify what is in the Bible. In part, to remind Bible idolators of what we read: scripture. The book as a printed book is an only a modern medium, now beginning to be transcended by eBibles.
I like to remember that they are scriptures - papyri scrolls, then vellum rolls - that the Church reads as documents not just in and of themselves but principally interpreted as in relationship to the revelation of the Christ.
2. The "Christian story" is what it has always been: the good news of the life, teachings, and passion of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
You cite Luke 1:1-4, which did not exist when Jesus sent the disciples to Judean towns to preach the good news of the Incarnation and ministry of the Son of God. Which did not exist on Pentecost when the Apostles and disciples preached the good news to the crowds having come to Jerusalem for Passover. Which did not exist when Paul was converted on the road to Damascus. Which was not universally present across Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and the East for a few centuries.
And yet, in the first 200 years, this wide map of the known world, in thousand of places, the church was started and grew on the basis of the Christian story alone: the Incarnation, teachings, and Passion of the Christ.
You keep pointing to text when the texts themselves point to events. It appears as if you miss the event of Jesus Christ because you trust printed words more than the Holy Trinity. It appears that you're fearful to believe that Holy Spirit, God the Holy Spirit, is not really here for you. So you're soothed by a book... despite the fact that the book points you to trust in the Spirit.
3. You're not credible on what Catholics know or don't know. You don't acknowledge the delayed, piecemeal, not always agreeing history of the texts in their varied but multiple-copied lives.
You cannot acknowledge that millions of Christians believed and lived their worshipful lives with only carvings, paintings, and stained glass scenes of Jesus Christ, the Saints, and Israel.
You reject the life and love of the Holy Spirit for the illiterate, the poor towns with no priest, the far flung communities with no access to a printing press.
Why?
"You're kicking up dust in order to obfuscate."
ReplyDeleteI am not kicking up dust; I am just sifting through your nonsense to find some solid ground.
"I use christian scriptures to signify what is in the Bible. In part, to remind Bible idolators of what we read: scripture."
You show contempt for Scripture and the people who take it seriously, but conceal your true attitude with layers of false piety and humility.
"The book as a printed book is an only a modern medium, now beginning to be transcended by eBibles."
You are obfuscating by bringing up details that have no bearing and only distract readers.
"I like to remember that they are scriptures - papyri scrolls, then vellum rolls - that the Church reads as documents not just in and of themselves but principally interpreted as in relationship to the revelation of the Christ."
The documents that you claim "the Church" reads are in and of themselves the revelation of Jesus Christ for us: "but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name" (John 20:31). They directly reveal who He is to those who read them.
"The "Christian story" is what it has always been: the good news of the life, teachings, and passion of Jesus Christ, the Son of God."
Hey, put a sock in it, you can stop lecturing the rest of us like we do not know anything.
"You cite Luke 1:1-4, which did not exist when Jesus sent the disciples to Judean towns to preach the good news of the Incarnation and ministry of the Son of God."
You continue in your obfucations by diverting the attention of readers to things that are of little to no consequence. Your attempts to mislead others suggest that you have lost the argument.
"You keep pointing to text when the texts themselves point to events."
It is appropriate practice to cite the Bible as a historical reference. I am not citing it to prove itself, but treating it like other sources such as Josephus and Philo.
"It appears as if you miss the event of Jesus Christ because you trust printed words more than the Holy Trinity."
It appears that you have a lot of false impressions about other people. Further, it is precisely because of those "printed words" (e.g. Matthew 28:19-20; John 1:1; Colossians 1:15-16, etc.) that the doctrine of the Trinity could even be formulated.
"It appears that you're fearful to believe that Holy Spirit, God the Holy Spirit, is not really here for you."
It appears to me that you have reduced the Christian life to a series of mystical experiences that are devoid of an objective standard to test them.
"So you're soothed by a book... despite the fact that the book points you to trust in the Spirit."
ReplyDeleteDid not the Holy Spirit move Paul to write that Scripture provides people of faith with hope, encouragement, and comfort (Romans 15:4; 1 Thessalonians 4:18)? Do you not find the description of God's love in Romans 8 to be at all "soothing?" What kind of voices have you been listening to?
"You're not credible on what Catholics know or don't know."
You are not a credible source to dismiss out of hand any of the claims that I have made concerning the Roman Catholic Church. I have routinely utilized official publications, cited my sources in context, and have made standard arguments. I managed to experience the heartbeat of Roman Catholicism for years and know that system far better than most Catholics themselves would know. My standards are much higher than you could ever hope to reach.
"You don't acknowledge the delayed, piecemeal, not always agreeing history of the texts in their varied but multiple-copied lives."
The Bible is a unified narrative that points to and finds its fulfillment in Jesus Christ.
"You cannot acknowledge that millions of Christians believed and lived their worshipful lives with only carvings, paintings, and stained glass scenes of Jesus Christ, the Saints, and Israel."
I feel nothing but pity for the people who were misled and for those who continue to be so. The unfounded legends of healings brought about by Mary's intercession before God, eucharistic miracle hoaxes, and superstitions surrounding relics having powers are just a few things that come to my mind. First century Christians who came from a Jewish background would have been mortified had they known beforehand that masses who call themselves followers of Christ in future generations would prostrate themselves before images of "saints."
"You reject the life and love of the Holy Spirit for the illiterate, the poor towns with no priest, the far flung communities with no access to a printing press."
The Roman Catholic Church expected its priests to interpret the Bible for the average person. Efforts were made to stop the Bible from being translated and circulated. This practice became more pronounced during the Middle Ages, particularly from the 5th to the 15th century. This was certainly different from the Jewish practice of public Torah readings. Apparently, people in the pews were just too dumb and could not be trusted with a text that God Himself would have wanted everyone to have access to.
Roman Catholics in modern Western society are as free as a bird, have so much time on their hands, and tend to be well-educated. What is the excuse for the many of them who have not read through the Bible even just one time? Is that really too much to expect of people who claim to be Christians?
If you don't believe what your book tells you to believe, then you don't really believe your book either, do you?
ReplyDeleteThe book tells us Jesus didn't point to a book:
John 14 “I have said these things to you while I am still with you. But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything and remind you of all that I have said to you.
John 15 “When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who comes from the Father, he will testify on my behalf. You also are to testify, because you have been with me from the beginning."