Catholic Hatred. (Impossible Thread, Episode #2)

reply to post by adjensen


I dont know if I buy into the concept that Jesus or the apostles used Greek Translations.

I state this because of something which is obvious in the Epistle to the Hebrews...by Paul.

In the Book of Hebrews..Paul uses noticeably more Olde Testament than does he in any of the other Epistles. This because he is speaking to a mostly Hebrew Audience. They would more immediately know and understand that of which he spoke....verses Gentiles. They would be more fluent in Olde Testament than a Gentile.

And Paul is a particular case...As a Pharisee..he would be well tutored and knowlegeable in the Olde Testament...In Hebrew if not in other languages. For he was not just any Pharisee..but in the inner group. For it was Paul who was to catch the other Apostles in not knowing or understanding the Cross and what changed when they tried to separate themselves from the Gentile Christians at meal time. They being Hebrews had not a clue until Paul showed them. They were still practicing Olde Testament Bondage.

And to my limited knowledge..the Gospel was to go to the Hebrews first...the Jews...then later to the Gentiles. Hebrew would be a natural selection verses Greek. Almost all of the First Apostles were Jews with the exception of Luke.

Thanks again,
Orangetom

reply to post by orangetom1999

I dont know if I buy into the concept that Jesus or the apostles used Greek Translations.

How could he quote from it if he didn't use it? As I've stated before, I'm not a Bible scholar, but those who are say that when Jesus is quoting scripture, almost all of the time he does so, he quotes the Septuagint wording, not the Hebrew.

No one is saying that Jesus couldn't, and didn't, use the Hebrew Bible, as well, but the preponderance of evidence is that he used the Septuagint.

I state this because of something which is obvious in the Epistle to the Hebrews...by Paul.

In the Book of Hebrews..Paul uses noticeably more Olde Testament than does he in any of the other Epistles.

Paul did not write Hebrews -- scholars differ on who did (I'm in favour of Barnabas,) but it is almost universally accepted that Paul did not.

adjensen
reply to post by nenothtu

 

Okay, you've completely lost me.

That's probably because I was replying to Colbe's assertion that "the Bible is a Catholic book" when you came riding in to the rescue. It's hard to follow two conversations at once. I'm confident that you can manage, however, once you get it straight in your mind as to who said what in reply to whom.

I didn't say that there wasn't a Catholic Canon -- I specifically said that there was one -- what I said was that the concept of canon wasn't a Catholic invention.

Precisely. Therefore, the Bible is not a "Catholic book", which was the original contention that I was responding to when we got into this discussion.

The church started with the Septuagint -- when Paul says that "Scripture is useful for instruction" in 1 Timothy, he's not talking about his own books, he's talking about the Septuagint (and maybe Gospels that were in circulation at the time, but there's no evidence for that, so we know he's talking about what became the Old Testament.)

No argument. I've already given you that Paul probably used the Septuagint in order to reach a wider audience.

From that base, the criteria for including a book in the New Testament was:

1) It had to have an Apostolic connection - either written by an Apostle, or with their assistance
2) It had to be in wide circulation and accepted as valid teaching by many churches
3) It had to be in harmony with other scripture, including the Septuagint

#3 is the biggie to my mind. Harmony, rather than being at odds. However, a good exegesis is also in harmony, and that is how I personally view the epistles. Then again, I think we've already established that my own "canon" is pretty radical, and I see no reason for anyone else to subscribe to it at all.

As for why I believe that Jesus and the Apostles used the Septuagint, I wasn't aware that there was much controversy on that point.

Many of the Jews in Jesus' day used the Septuagint as their Bible. Quite naturally, the early Christians also used the Septuagint in their meetings and for personal reading; and many of the New Testament apostles quoted it when they wrote the Gospels and Epistles in Greek. What is most fascinating is that the order of the books in the Septuagint is the same order in our Bibles today, and not like the Hebrew scrolls. So this means that:

Jesus Primarily Used a Translation
Jesus and the Apostles: studied, memorized, used, quoted, and read most often from the Bible of their day, the Septuagint. Since Matthew wrote primarily to convince the Jews that Jesus of Nazareth was indeed their promised Messiah, it follows as a matter of course that his Gospel is saturated with the Hebrew Scriptures. Yet, when Jesus quotes the Old Testament in Matthew, He uses the Hebrew text only 10% of the time, but the Greek LXX translation—90% of the time!

Amazingly, Jesus and Paul used the LXX as their primary Bible. It was just like the Bible each of us holds in our hands, not the original Hebrew Old Testament, but a translation of the Hebrew into Greek. But it was based on exactly the same original and inspired words, and reads just like the Bible we hold in our hands today. (Source)

(That's from a non-Catholic source.)

There probably isn't much controversy over the point - I just have a hard time simply accepting something just because someone else "said so". other folks' mileage varies. It seems illogical to me to assume that a people used a text that was a translation into a foreign tongue over their own native writings. Ir would be like me preferring to read stuff translated into Urdu as a native English speaker.

In other words, regarding the "controversy", it's not you, it's just me.

I'm familiar with Crosswalk as being non-Catholic, if it's the same as it used to be. I used to run a weekly Crosswalk show on the radio when I was a DJ, many years ago. Sunday mornings were devoted to religious programming, and Crosswalk was one of those programs.

I'm not sure how they arrived at the 10% vs. 90% figure, but one has to wonder just how much of the vernacular crept into the book over time, in an effort to relate to the wider world. I.e. was the author of Matthew (and Mark and Luke, for that matter) reporting what he heard with his own ears, or reporting what an apostle told him was said, and reporting in in such a way as to appeal to a particular audience? While it is self-evident that the audience intended for Matthew was Jewish, the question arises of which Jews that would be - the Palestinian Jews, or the foreign Jews such as the Alexandrians. If the latter, why would he NOT use a translation that they were already familiar with in his report?

Fascinating discussion. Thank you.

orangetom1999
To my limited understanding the Dead Sea Scrolls do not contain any New Testament works. They do contain most of the books of the Olde Testament. Also some other Gody works.

While not containing any NT books, they Do contain some works that are considered of a Christian nature, or "proto-Christian". It's just that those works never found their way into the Catholic Canon.

Concerning The Septuagint, I find the concept a bit difficult to conceive that a bunch of Hebrews in Synagoge would be reading from a Greek Text when their dominant language and writing is Hebrew. Now if they were in Alexandria this would be more palatable but not in or around Jerusalem. Also is not the Septuagint in Classical Greek..verses Koine Greek..the Greek of the streets, of commerce...common Greek.

No, it was in Koine Greek

I am also aware that the Apocropha was originally included in the King James Version. I also have it in the one NIV I have which was given to me by my older sister many years ago.
For some reason it was removed from later versions. I believe it was because they were deemed to be gody stories as were some in the Dead Sea Scrolls...verses what we see today in the King James of 1611.

I searched until I found a copy of the KJV Apocrypha (separately bound), but have never even seen a copy of the NIV Apocrypha. I don't get around much. It was originally separated by Protestants because they saw it as valuable for teaching, but not inspired, and eventually stopped being included in the same binding as the works considered "inspired". I have a few versions of the Catholic Bible that include the Apocrypha in the Catholic places (like "The Jerusalem Bible" and the "Douay-Rheims Version"), and a few that include it in the Protestant position, but with Catholic imprimatur.

The English already had bibles in English. The Tynsdale, The Wycliffe and also the Great English Bible which found it's way to the Colonies right here in Jamestown, Virginia about 30 miles up the road from me.

One of the key differences in King Jame's translation committee verses Tynsdale and Wycliffe was that King James and his translators made their version under more ideal conditions..not having to worry about interference from Rome.
This in addition to having some gifted and learned scholars..some of the best of his day.

Wycliffe translated from the Vulgate, so it was a translation of a translation, similar to the Douay-Rheims, but less of it. As I recall, Tyndale was executed for his translation. If by "Great English Bible" you mean the Geneva Bible of 1599, I have that one, too. It makes for interesting reading if you can translate Elizabethan English into modern English, and is not all that different from the KJV. It was the one used by the Pilgrims, and as you say, the Jamestowne colonists. it was probably the one originally used at St. Luke's Church over in Surrey, too. There used to be a copy of it in an antiquarian bookshop in Jamestown which came over with the colonists.

Well...getting a bit off track but it is interesting to me how some of this ties into history and how the history is often hidden and concealed from many of us unless we do some digging. I think that sometimes it is hidden right in front of us ...such that most of us would not recognize it for what it is.
Even in plain sight.

You live in a history-saturated area. It's the same place where I gained most of my religious history education regarding biblical translation.

Also - dogma is dogma, whether Catholic, Protestant, or whatever. there is a reason it has come to be associated with the idea of unquestioning belief and fealty to a cause. That's because adherence to dogma relieve one of the need to investigate for himself.

reply to post by nenothtu

Precisely. Therefore, the Bible is not a "Catholic book", which was the original contention that I was responding to when we got into this discussion.

I don't understand how you make that leap. The church is contiguous, from Peter to today, in four denominations, as well as in the general catholic community of believers. While the church itself did not write any of it, I think it quite the stretch to say that those who did were not members of that contiguous church, and the Catholic Church itself did determine what was canonical and what was not, so it is a "Catholic book" -- if you used Marcion's canon, you would have a "Marcionic book", regardless of the authorship of the texts.

#3 is the biggie to my mind. Harmony, rather than being at odds.

That was the cited reason for ultimately rejecting Apocalypse of Peter, which was in and out of canon for quite a while -- the church believed that Peter wrote it, it was a popular book, but there were bits in it that seemed to imply that Jesus taught a form of Universal Salvation, which was contrary to the rest of scripture.

I'm not sure how they arrived at the 10% vs. 90% figure, but one has to wonder just how much of the vernacular crept into the book over time, in an effort to relate to the wider world. I.e. was the author of Matthew (and Mark and Luke, for that matter) reporting what he heard with his own ears, or reporting what an apostle told him was said, and reporting in in such a way as to appeal to a particular audience?

If you are into textual criticism and statistical analysis, I would point you to Jesus and the Eyewitnesses by Richard Bauckham -- it's a fascinating and well researched look at the structure of the Gospels and makes a very good case that Mark was written from material sourced directly from Peter, and Matthew and John were written by people who actually witnessed the events they wrote about.

You may find this video interesting as an overview of Bauckham's findings:

reply to post by adjensen

I think you are still missing that user's point
When Colbe says "The Bible is a Catholic book", the intended meaning is that "the Bible is a book created by and belonging to the community now commonly known as the Roman Catholic church, as against other Christian groups", and THAT is the claim which the user is contesting.

reply to post by orangetom1999


The oldest Biblical manuscripts in existence, the Dead Sea Scrolls were found in caves near Jerusalem in 1947, only to be kept a tightly held secret for nearly fifty more years, until the Huntington Library unleashed a storm of controversy in 1991 by releasing copies of the Scrolls. In this gripping investigation authors Baigent and Leigh set out to discover how a small coterie of orthodox biblical scholars gained control over the Scrolls, allowing access to no outsiders and issuing a strict "consensus" interpretation. The authors' questions begin in Israel, then lead them to the corridors of the Vatican and into the offices of the Inquisition. With the help of independent scholars, historical research, and careful analysis of available texts, the authors reveal what was at stake for these orthodox guardians: The Scrolls present startling insights into early Christianity -- insights that challenge the Church's version of the "facts." More than just a dramatic exposé of the intrigues surrounding these priceless documents, The Dead Sea Scrolls Deception presents nothing less than a new, highly significant perspective on Christianity.

www.amazon.com...

The above book is an excellent read. I highly recommend it...

reply to post by OpinionatedB


I have a book on the dead sea scrolls but, as there were so many partial fragments rather than entire documents, it makes reading a bit disjointed. What are the insights mentioned in your referenced book that would contradict the RCC orthodoxy? TIA

reply to post by whitewave


The dead sea scrolls prove the earliest Christians did not worship or believe Jesus to be God. To this day the church will not allow much of the findings to be published. What you have seen of the dead sea scrolls is a drop in the bucket.

literally.

Read that book, it is very very good. I read it at my local library.

nenothtu,

While not containing any NT books, they Do contain some works that are considered of a Christian nature, or "proto-Christian". It's just that those works never found their way into the Catholic Canon.

Yes..thanks, I am aware of this. That is what I mean by gody stories or to what you refer as not inspired.

No, it was in Koine Greek

Ah...thanks for this correction. I must be getting it mixed up with Origin's work.

I searched until I found a copy of the KJV Apocrypha (separately bound), but have never even seen a copy of the NIV Apocrypha. I don't get around much. It was originally separated by Protestants because they saw it as valuable for teaching, but not inspired, and eventually stopped being included in the same binding as the works considered "inspired". I have a few versions of the Catholic Bible that include the Apocrypha in the Catholic places (like "The Jerusalem Bible" and the "Douay-Rheims Version"), and a few that include it in the Protestant position, but with Catholic imprimatur.

I never could get into the Apocrypha. It just does not ebb and flow like the rest of the Bible..both Olde and New Testaments. (KJV)

It is the same to me when I try to read certain Occult or Eastern Religious works. I cannot read them for long because something very different flows and ebbs in them. Something disturbing to my soul. Such is the same with the Apocrypha.
Curious if you have ever noted this with certain works??

Wycliffe translated from the Vulgate, so it was a translation of a translation, similar to the Douay-Rheims, but less of it. As I recall, Tyndale was executed for his translation. If by "Great English Bible" you mean the Geneva Bible of 1599, I have that one, too. It makes for interesting reading if you can translate Elizabethan English into modern English, and is not all that different from the KJV. It was the one used by the Pilgrims, and as you say, the Jamestowne colonists. it was probably the one originally used at St. Luke's Church over in Surrey, too. There used to be a copy of it in an antiquarian bookshop in Jamestown which came over with the colonists

I did not know much about William Tyndale until I came across a book titled Fox's Book of Martyrs. Contained in these pages was a wealth of informations of the struggle for "Absolute Power" between the Protestants and Catholics..including the Anglican Church. Also the Churches persecuted by the Anglican power structure. It took me some time after reading this book to begin to tie the history together to form a line of dots. Also with this came some conclusions about history which is not want to be found in many of todays books. The nature of the power struggle which is still ongoing today...even by concealed hidden secular religious means. I have occasionally gone back to re read "Fox's Book of Martyrs."

As to history..yes..I agree. Alot of history in this nation took place right here...in this very area.

Yes...great that you know about St Lukes Church. I go past it often when visiting friends in Surry or closer in Smithfield, Virginia.


About that antiquarian book store...is it this one??


www.rarebookman.com...

It has been some time since I have been to Hamiltons. I believe he does private sales today and his store just down the road from the Ferry at Jamestown to Surry is no longer open.
But when it was I loved to stop by. The smell of olde musty books was intoxicating to me. Perhapsed Strange..I know..but I loved that olde store. As I recall he had on display a book written in the 1500s. I do not recall the title.
Obviously there are some serious collectors of olde books still out here.
I hope the electronic age does not do away with books. There is something that is comforting to me about an olde book which I do not find in something like a Kindle.

You live in a history-saturated area. It's the same place where I gained most of my religious history education regarding biblical translation.

You know ..it took me some years to gain any sort of appreciation for the width and breadth of the history which took place here. I was at one time so much in the fast food lane as I tend to describe it. I never stopped to think about what took place here.

It was not until some years ago when I took a trip out west to visit my sister and her husband in New Mexico. While there I took a trip out to Southern California. With the exception of the Spanish or local Indian culture..California is not that olde compared to here. 60 to 150 years is olde in California.
I visited a place called San Juan Capistrano..the place of the swallows, I believe. An olde Spanish Mission. This is where it finally dawned on me how new comparatively most of California is.

Also - dogma is dogma, whether Catholic, Protestant, or whatever. there is a reason it has come to be associated with the idea of unquestioning belief and fealty to a cause. That's because adherence to dogma relieve one of the need to investigate for himself.

While I am somewhat versed in Catholic and Protestant Dogma..I have been spending my time of late looking into areas of the "Whatever " category. I am thinking that this one has been working privily on the other two for awhile now...and accelerating.

Thanks for some very interesting views and thoughts,

Orangetom

OpinionatedB
reply to post by whitewave

 

The dead sea scrolls prove the earliest Christians did not worship or believe Jesus to be God.

I think a lot of the confusion regarding Jesus as God vs. Jesus as man stems from a general confusion over the meaning of the word "god". God means "mighty one". Throughout the bible there are many who are referred to as 'gods': angels, kings/rulers, mortal man.

I've seen that book you mention advertised. Will look into it at the library and see if they have it. Thanks.

reply to post by DISRAELI

When Colbe says "The Bible is a Catholic book", the intended meaning is that "the Bible is a book created by and belonging to the community now commonly known as the Roman Catholic church, as against other Christian groups", and THAT is the claim which the user is contesting.

If she didn't say that, is it fair to infer it and then argue the thing to death, when "The Bible is a Catholic book" is a true statement? For a thousand years, the Catholic Church WAS the catholic church, and that is the organization that selected Biblical canon, so to say that the Bible is not a Catholic book is not valid. It is also a Christian book, as well as a catholic book, but if the Catholic Church did not exist, had died out in 70AD, there would be no Bible.

reply to post by OpinionatedB

The authors' questions begin in Israel, then lead them to the corridors of the Vatican and into the offices of the Inquisition. With the help of independent scholars, historical research, and careful analysis of available texts, the authors reveal what was at stake for these orthodox guardians: The Scrolls present startling insights into early Christianity -- insights that challenge the Church's version of the "facts."

You seem to be of the opinion that the Dead Sea Scrolls contain Christian texts, and that the Vatican controls access to the Dead Sea Scrolls, neither of which is true. That there are texts that might have a Christian basis is an extremely fringe view, not supported by evidence, and the texts are not owned by the Vatican.

adjensen
If she didn't say that, is it fair to infer it and then argue the thing to death, when "The Bible is a Catholic book" is a true statement

Yes, I can justify my interpretation by quoting Colbe's own words, as the other user did;

Who is the spiritual leader here on earth of Protestantism?
The disconnect, is saying NO to the faith that gave you your Bible and then telling everyone to
look in the Bible. The Bible is a Catholic book, canonized by a successor (Pope Damasus) of Peter by his God given authority.

And i have had the same thing said to me outright on my own threads.
The message (until I have time to track down some actual examples) being that we Protestants should not be quoting the Bible or such-and-such writers, because they belong to Cathoilcs [= non-Protestants] only.

"The Faith", in Colbe posts, ALWAYS means the Roman Catholic teaching, and Catholic always means Roman Catholic.

I suggest a deal.
If Colbe will stop arguing to death the idea that Protestants are not entitled to use the Bible beause it is a Roman Catholic book, an idea which you yourself know to be nonsensical, then Protestants will stop arguing to death in response.

But if she persists in using that line of argument, why the dickens should not Protestants persist in disagreeing with it?

reply to post by adjensen


The Catholic Church through their chosen acedemics en.wikipedia.org... controlled all access for 40 years, and in that time much of the scrolls were ruined, of course, accidentally because of lack of funding etc etc etc. And much discovery completely covered up.

community.seattletimes.nwsource.com...

No way can you distance the catholic church from this....

reply to post by OpinionatedB


Did you even read either of those articles? There's nothing in them that says that the Catholic Church "controlled the scrolls for 40 years." One was a profile of the leader of the Catholic committee that was researching and reviewing the scrolls (there were non-Catholics on other committees, and the originals were held by Jordan and then Israel) and then the other article talks about the scrolls being released and doesn't even mention the Catholic Church.

reply to post by DISRAELI

Who is the spiritual leader here on earth of Protestantism?
The disconnect, is saying NO to the faith that gave you your Bible and then telling everyone to
look in the Bible. The Bible is a Catholic book, canonized by a successor (Pope Damasus) of Peter by his God given authority.

Okay, those are her words, now show me where she said "the Bible is a book created by and belonging to the community now commonly known as the Roman Catholic church, as against other Christian groups" in that quote. Near as I can tell, all she's saying is that it's a little disingenuous to put 100% of one's faith in the Bible, and detest the Catholic Church, which was responsible for its creation and protection for 1500 years.

Perhaps she has said it in the past, perhaps that's what she believes, but saying "The Bible is a Catholic book" does not say that, and it is a true statement. That is what I'm arguing, not what you infer about that statement, because that's between you and her.

OpinionatedB
reply to post by orangetom1999

 

The oldest Biblical manuscripts in existence, the Dead Sea Scrolls were found in caves near Jerusalem in 1947, only to be kept a tightly held secret for nearly fifty more years, until the Huntington Library unleashed a storm of controversy in 1991 by releasing copies of the Scrolls. In this gripping investigation authors Baigent and Leigh set out to discover how a small coterie of orthodox biblical scholars gained control over the Scrolls, allowing access to no outsiders and issuing a strict "consensus" interpretation. The authors' questions begin in Israel, then lead them to the corridors of the Vatican and into the offices of the Inquisition. With the help of independent scholars, historical research, and careful analysis of available texts, the authors reveal what was at stake for these orthodox guardians: The Scrolls present startling insights into early Christianity -- insights that challenge the Church's version of the "facts." More than just a dramatic exposé of the intrigues surrounding these priceless documents, The Dead Sea Scrolls Deception presents nothing less than a new, highly significant perspective on Christianity.

www.amazon.com...

The above book is an excellent read.

I highly recommend it...

edit on 4-1-2014 by OpinionatedB because: (no reason given)

edit on 4-1-2014 by OpinionatedB because: (no reason given)

This book you endorsed from amazon "Dead Sea Scrolls Deception" was mentioned in another link you provided in a later post: en.wikipedia.org...

In their work The Dead Sea Scrolls Deception, Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh heavily criticized de Vaux, describing him as "ruthless, narrow-minded, bigoted and fiercely vindictive," anti-semitic and a fascist sympathizer.[2] The Dead Sea Scrolls Deception has, in turn, been denounced by scholars as consisting largely of a "pattern of errors and misinformed statements".[3]

reply to post by sad_eyed_lady


There has been serious attempts to eradicate everything that disagrees with the "approved" view... As if this is any different? Its not the one view people are allowed to have....

If there wasn't something to cover up they would have published ALL of it within a few short years....The attempts to discredit this work falls short in my mind. WAY short.

1) Catholic Church holds dead sea scrolls hostage and refuses to let but only a select few see them, all catholic church approved.

2) Scholars scream for 40 years trying to get access, access denied.

3) The one scholar who was not catholic who was allowed to work on the scrolls was given what was thought to be non-religious material to translate.

4) That one scholar found it to be very religious indeed, and very christian, just not the approved kind.

5) The catholic church destroys his career and refuses to allow him to publish his work on the scrolls, because he wants to publish his findings....

6) The people who spoke to him before his death tell people what he said....

7) the people who spoke to him are evil minions who cannot be trusted... lol


Yeah... try again...People can be deaf and blind all they want... I prefer my eyes and ears.

OpinionatedB
reply to post by sad_eyed_lady

 

There has been serious attempts to eradicate everything that disagrees with the "approved" view... As if this is any different? Its not the one view people are allowed to have....

If there wasn't something to cover up they would have published ALL of it within a few short years....The attempts to discredit this work falls short in my mind. WAY short.

1) Catholic Church holds dead sea scrolls hostage and refuses to let but only a select few see them, all catholic church approved.

2) Scholars scream for 40 years trying to get access, access denied.

3) The one scholar who was not catholic who was allowed to work on the scrolls was given what was thought to be non-religious material to translate.

4) That one scholar found it to be very religious indeed, and very christian, just not the approved kind.

5) The catholic church destroys his career and refuses to allow him to publish his work on the scrolls, because he wants to publish his findings....

6) The people who spoke to him before his death tell people what he said....

7) the people who spoke to him are evil minions who cannot be trusted... lol


Yeah... try again...

edit on 4-1-2014 by OpinionatedB because: (no reason given)

What is it I am supposed to try? You are the one who provided the wikipedia link that had a critical review of the book you endorsed. If all the above is from that book, keep it. This fish won't take the bait.

I read the links you provided and like adjensen, I was wondering if you even read them yourself.

www.abovetopsecret.com...