Mary Ann Collins (A Former Catholic Nun)

Don't forget -- Ibid!

 

Hi John,

You wrote, "First Please do not confuse true Bible teaching with being Anti-Catholic."

Your statement is a non sequitur. I referred to your statement, "It was not till about 170 A.D. that people began to teach that Peter had even been in Rome at all" as Anti-Catholic lore, which entails extra-Biblical history. If you consider the events 170 A.D. to be "Bible teaching," please explain.

You can not show from God's word that anyone after Peter was given the authority Peter had.

Your demand is unBiblical for the reason that the history of the NT does not extend past Peter's death. I've already made this comment, and you need to respond to what I responded with, not with a reassertion of your original premise, which I have shown to be invalid.

You have to assume direct parallels between Peter and Daniel and Joseph. It never states it.

That's the beauty of allusion. It's never explicit, yet that does not diminish its literal-historical truth as an implicit affirmation through the grammatical devise of literarly allusion. In demanding that all teaching in the Bible be explicit, you have denied the Bible from being what it is. When the author utilizes allusion to convey a point, you nullify the Word of God by denying the author his prerogative. In doing so, you deny Biblical truth for the sake of your own Anti-Catholic tradition.

In fact, neither Daniel nor Joseph had successors.

No, they don't. Yet, isn't this besides the point if the Biblical authors weren't making an allusion to them? Why go on to speak about their successors if they themselves are irrelevant to begin with? In making this point, you are affirming the validity of my premise that Matthew if alluding to both Daniel and Joseph.

You have to assume that the keys that Christ had in Revelation 3:7 is a second set.

John, keys are metaphorical, not real. It is a symbol for authority. Christ, the Heavenly King and invisible Head of the Church, manifests his authority on earth through his Vicar, his Prime Minister, his Vizier, who is the visible head of the Church.

You have to assume that Babylon and Rome are one and the same--it never states it.

Yes, I do have to assume that, and no this isn't explicit in the text. Yet, my assumption is based upon a conclusion due to a study of the historical situation surrounding the composition of Peter's epistle, which demonstrates quite convincingly that Peter is using a code term for Rome.

G.J. Polkinghorne, writing in the Protestant International Bible Commentary, explains:

"Babylon (5:13) cannot be the city on the Euphrates, which after A.D. 41 was very sparsely populated and with which Peter had no connection. Nor can a Roman garrison in Egypt be seriously considered. Rome must be meant, cf. Rev. 17 and 18, as was universally accepted until Reformation times. The symbolic designation would save trouble should the censor's eye light on the letter in transit." (1)

(1) G.J. Polkinghorne, "1 Peter," International Bible Commentary, ed. F.F. Bruce, (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1986), 1551.

Even if Peter was in Rome you have not shown a second with his authority, a successor if you will.

His successor is Linus, as named by Irenaeus in his famous apology against the Gnostic heretics in Adversus Haereses (3:3:3). In the same work, Irenaeus writes:

"Matthew also issued a written Gospel among the Hebrews in their own dialect, while Peter and Paul were preaching at Rome, and laying the foundations of the Church. After their departure, Mark, the disciple and interpreter of Peter, did also hand down to us in writing what had been preached by Peter." (2)

(2) Irenaeus of Lyons, Against Heresies, III, 1, A.D. 189.

Or the ecclesiastical writer Tertullian who records:

"[T]his is the way in which the apostolic churches transmit their lists: like the church of the Smyrneans, which records that Polycarp was placed there by John, like the church of the Romans, where Clement was ordained by Peter" (Demurrer Against the Heretics 32:2 [A.D. 200]).

If he was in Rome, what makes you think the men who followed him were more than elders in the church. Peter was an elder you know. (See 1 Peter 5:1)

The term in Greek is presbyterus, which is the etymological background of the English word "priest". You can check it out on Dictionary.com by typing in "priest" and analyzing the term's etymology. The Pope is certainly a priest of Jesus Christ.

We are talking approx. 110 yrs. after his death. A lot of urban legions can happen in that time.

And the canon of the New Testament wasn't solidified until the end of the fourth century. So your point is?

If apostolic tradition isn't reliable, then neither is the table of contents in your Bible, or even the Gospels themselves which were written decades after the events they speak on.

 

Are you trying to tell me for almost 400yrs we did not have the NT Bible?

We had to wait for the Catholic Yes! These are the one that we can use?

I hope you have a little proof.

 

Hi SixKids,

You asked, "Are you trying to tell me for almost 400yrs we did not have the NT Bible?"

No, that is not what I mean. I mean to say that the canon was not solidified until the Council of Rome under Pope Damasus I in 383 A.D. Throughout the Catholic Church, various epistles were disputed such as Paul's Epistle to the Laodiceans, 2 Peter, Hebrews, the Didache of the Twelve Apostles, Revelation, the Shepherd of Hermas, Jude, 2 John, and 3 John.

Today, non-Catholics who deny any apostolic teaching authority composed of bishops and who deny the existence of any authentic apostolic tradition must rely upon the Catholic Church's decision (by apostolic authority) based upon apostolic tradition to exclude three of the above texts and to keep the others.

 

Are you trying to tell me for almost 400yrs we did not have the NT Bible?

We had to wait for the Catholic Yes! These are the one that we can use?

I hope you have a little proof. </font>[/QUOTE]Just curious -- where do you think the NT canon came from, and how do you know the books in it are the written Word of God? By what authority do you accept the books of the NT as being Divinely revealed? How was the NT table of contents itself Divinely revealed?

I hope you have a little proof.

 

Carson, sir, I want to take your class when you start to teach college! It would be an honor to have a seat of learning under your professorship.

(that is, if you ever teach college)

 

Adam,

You may have to settle for an Adult Faith Formation program on the parish level, because it looks like that's the area I'm going to enter upon graduating. Please pray for my job discernment.

 

"Every one to whom much is given, of him will much be required," You'll need to work your way up to a diocesan post at the very least! That diocese would have a fine Adult Faith Formation program, no doubt about it.

 

Carson,

I found a copy of The Bones of St. Peter at a library sale early last year and consumed in in about two days. It was a very captivating and eye-opening read, with lots of data.

 

I found a copy of The Bones of St. Peter at a library sale early last year and consumed in in about two days. It was a very captivating and eye-opening read, with lots of data.

And I was stupid enough not to take the Scavi tour when I made a pilgrimmage to St. Peter's Basilica during the summer of 2001!

That will never happen again.

 

So! what is the difference between your church listing what they believe the Bible to be and some other church doing the same thing?

 

So! what is the difference between your church listing what they believe the Bible to be and some other church doing the same thing?

Because the other church, in doing so, is merely ratifying the first church, thus inheriting the canon from that first church. The second is wholly dependent upon the first.

 

Here is the conclusion of an extended article concerning the crazy idea that the christian world must rely on the "tradition" of the Catholic Church to know what books are scripture and which ones arent...

"The claims of Rome for the Canon are historically bankrupt. She suggests that we should receive her as supreme authority because of this issue of the canon. This would be equivalent to the Pharisees demanding that Jesus receive their teaching as supreme authority simply because as Jews they had determined which books were truly the word of God. Even if the claims of the Roman Church were true with respect to the canon, and they aren't, it doesn't follow that this makes them automatically authoritative in every area and are to be blindly followed any more than the Jews and Jesus should follow the Pharisees. The teachings of Rome contradict Scripture and much of its teaching, such as that on Tradition, the Papacy, Mary, the sacraments, purgatory, in addition to that of the Canon is patently contradictory to much of the teachings of the early Church. More importantly, its gospel message is a perversion of the teaching of the Scriptural gospel.

Rome is guilty of misrepresenting history and the teachings of the Reformation and has misinterpreted Scripture. It is a false system which has become corrupted over time, just as the Jewish system did in the Old Testament.

Here is the link... Click Here

I hope I used the link thing correctly. If not I'll try again.

God bless,

"D"

 

And exactly where did you get the idea that the Pharisees had the authority or even claimed to have the authority to define the Hebrew canon? Where do you see this being exercised? The Pharisees were by nature "lay people." And you don't even see them coming into existence until after the Maccabean revolt.

Your analogy is void unless you back up that it was the Pharisees who decided on the Hebrew canon for the entire Jewish people.

 

If the second is wholly dependent upon the first.
What is to say you did not put down what was already known to be true?

 

Hello!

 

Sixkids,

Too many threads!!

What was already known by WHOM? That is the important distinction. By "the majority of believers?" By the "wise believers?" By "all the believers?" The latter is certainly not true. Different churches had different canons. And yet today, all Protestant Christians have the same canon. Why is there no longer disagreement? Do you have some special knowledge that the ones that wanted to include the letters of Clement? I doubt it. And I'm sure the ones who had differing canons were wholly sincere.

The fact is that there has to be an original authority that makes a final decision. The canon is "closed." The canon is not up for discussion anymore. But it was back then. What happened between then and now?

 

Why did the RC Church add book at trent if the

?

 

Because they found some weird statements in those spurrious books, that they added to Gods word, that seem to maybe support some of their more "out there" teachings.

Mike