Purgatory question

The Catholic Church indeed creates doctrines of men. It has been doing this throughout history. Purgatory is just one example.

The doctrine of Purgatory was first established by Gregory the Great about the year....593
The doctrine of Purgatory was proclaimed as a dogma of faith by Council of Florence in....1439

There is not one word in the Bible that would teach the purgatory of priests. The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all sins. (Read I John 1:7-9; 2:1-2; John 5:24; Rom. 8: 1).
From this information you can see that it is an invented doctrine, not believed in by the early believers, but first established in 593 by Gregory the Great.

I like to give other examples other than purgatory. Kissing the pope's feet is a good example because it also is not taught in the Bible, goes against the teaching of the Bible, and yet has become a teaching of the Catholic Church.

The kissing of the Pope's feet
It had been a pagan custom to kiss the feet of emperors. The Word of God forbids such practices. (Read Acts 10:25-26; Rev. 19:10; 22:9).This had become common in the Catholic Church as early as 709 A.D.

The veneration shown in the kissing of a person's hand or the hem of his garment is accentuated in the kissing of the feet. This is probably implied by the phrase of Isaias (xlix, 23): "Kings...shall lick up the dust of Thy feet." Under the influence, no doubt, of the ceremonial of king-worship, as manifested in the cultus of the Roman emperors, this particular mark of veneration came to prevail at an early date among the usages of the papal court (see Lattey, "Ancient King-Worship", Lond., 1909 C. T. S. pamhlet). We read of it in the first "Ordo Romanus" belonging to the seventh century, but even earlier than this the "Liber Pontificalis" attests that the Emperor Justin paid this mark of respect to Pope John I (523-26), as later on Justinian II also did to Pope Constantine. At the election of Leo IV (847) the custom of so kissing the pope's foot was spoken of as an ancient one. It is not, therefore, wonderful that a practice supported by so early a tradition should still be observed. It is observed liturgically in a solemn papal Mass by the Latin and Greek subdeacons, and quasi-liturgically in the "adoration" of the pope by the cardinals after his election. It is also the normal salutation which papal etiquette prescribes for those of the faithful who are presented to the pope in a private audience. In his "De altaris mysterio" (VI, 6) Innocent III explains that this ceremony indicates "the very great reverence due to the Supreme Pontiff as the Vicar of Him whose feet" were kissed by the woman who was a sinner.
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08663a.htm

That is the Catholic explanation for it. Is it Biblical? No! Is Purgatory Biblical? No!
We challenge you to defend your faith with the Word of God.

Isa.8:20 To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.
DHK

 

DHK,

You avoided the question completely. I guess that's what you intended to do, though?

 

What question did I avoid? I admit I missed some of them. I wasn't sure which one was "the question." You said I avoided "the question" completely, when in reality, in your post you posed no less than eight questions!
DHK

 

The avoided question:

"Please explain why you can say she (the Church) added entire books to the Bible and upholds traditions of men that run contrary to Scripture, and yet she did not make it easy on herself by ommitting verses that make these doctrines harder to swallow? Surely if she can add she can omit, right?"

GraceSaves is pointing out a logical fallacy in the cynicism directed towards the Church, and it has weight. Whether this weight is felt, well, that's the honest reader's choice.

 

Grace that question can be answered. It does have an answer. To give it a short answer is difficult, and would be best answered in the versions forum. Basically there are only two kinds of Bible. Basically the Catholic Church has omitted many verses from the Bible. But like I said that is a completely different subject best discussed or read about under the versions forum, where you will find ample information about it.
DHK

 

DHK,

What verses has the Catholic Bible ommitted? I have never, not once, heard of such a thing, so please back it up immediately.

 

DHK,

I cannot post in the Bible versions/translations forum. You'll have to bring this astounding evidence here to us.

 

Hi DHK,

You wrote, "Basically the Catholic Church has omitted many verses from the Bible. But like I said that is a completely different subject best discussed or read about under the versions forum, where you will find ample information about it.

*whistle* wow.. Now, this is interesting. I'm all ears!

God bless,

Carson

 

DHK,
I'm waiting for you to post your proof that the Catholic Church added books to the Bible rather than the Protestants removed those same books.

And for proof of your assertion that the Catholic Church deleted verses from the Bible. A list please.

Pauline

 

DHK,

Is it just me, or is the fact that you are not posting in the other threads but completely avoiding this one proof that you made this statement up entirely and have no way to back it?

Well, this is the truth, because our Bible is the exact same as your Bible, only we have MORE, not LESS in any part of it.

And, since you can simply make such an enormous lie, I don't see how any of your other assertions can be seen in a truthful light. I could be wrong, and feel free to prove me wrong.

 

Well, I'm starting to think that this thread has died. I'm going to make revisions to a research paper I wrote on purgatory, and when I have finished that, I'll be happy to post it here.

The paper is in response to a pamphlet released by the Lutheran Press which attacked all aspects of Catholicism, one of those issues being purgatory. More on that once I make the corrections.

 

Sorry I took so long in answering. There are others, such as Thomas Cassidy, who could do a much better job at explaining this than me.
Basically, there are two Bibles, each based on an entirely different text: one is the KJV (based on the Received Text), and the other are most other modern translations (based on the Westcott-Hort text).

A list of omissions can be found at:
http://biz.ukonline.co.uk/trinitarian.bible.society/articles/tk.htm

I have a copy of the New American Bible. It is the Saint Joseph Edition published by the Catholic Book Publishing Co., in New York, in 1986
In the preface to the New Testament on page 7 it says, "The Greek text followed in this translation is that of the third edition of The Greek New Testament, edited by Kurt Aland, Matthew Black, Carlo Martini, Bruce Metzger, and Allen Wikgren, and published by the United Bible Societies in 1975. It is the same text, with a different critical apparatus and variations in punctuation and typography, was published as the twenty-sixth edition of the Nestle-Aland Novum Nestamentum Graece in 1979."

I first refer you to the link that I posted above for a cursory look at all the omissions found in what is labeled as the Westcott-Hort text, the text used all by virtually all modern translations, including the Catholic translations. When I looked up 1John 5:7 in my Catholic Bible, and compared it to the KJV, I found that the verse was missing completely without any explanation at all. That is an omission. When I looked up Acts 8:38, I found that it was missing. It wasn't there. It is not in the Catholic Bible, and if it is, it is relegated to a footnote, indicating that it is not important, and it shouldn't be there in the first place. There are hundreds of such omissions.

These omissions relate to the text from which the Catholic Bible was translated from.
Here are some things to consider about the text that the modern versions (Catholic included) are taken from:

B. The Alexandrian Text-type
This is a very small group of manuscripts. Peculiarities of spelling show that they are to be associated with Alexandria in Egypt; and, not surprisingly, readings from this type of text are to be found among the early Egyptian papyri (e.g., P46, P47). Its chief representatives, however, are Codex Sinaiticus (or Codex Aleph) and Codex Vaticanus (or Codex B).

Support for this text-type comes from the Alexandrian Fathers, most notably from Origen (AD 185-254) and Cyril (376-444).

Several things should be observed here:

1. This text-type originated from Alexandria, in Egypt. Scripture gives no indication that there was ever an apostolic presence in those parts, but church history reveals that many notorious heretics lived and taught there including such Gnostics as Basilides, Isidore, and Valentinus. Anything proceeding from this place must be regarded with some suspicion.

2. There is clear evidence of revision by its rearrangement of words. B.H. Streeter suggested that the editor was an Egyptian bishop called Hesychius.23 This means that although great claims are made for it, this text-type cannot be regarded as singularly "pure".

3. The two great representatives of this text-type, Codices Aleph (Sinaiticus) and B (Vaticanus) are exceedingly poor in quality. When examined by Dr. F.H.A. Scrivener, Codex Aleph was declared to be "roughly written" and "full of gross transcriptural blunders" such as "leaving out whole lines of the original". Codex B, although "less faulty", was found to be "liable to err" committing "errors of the most palpable character".24

4. These principal manuscripts show their corruptions by disagreeing with themselves in literally thousands of places (3,000 times in the Gospels alone).

5. The text attested by Aleph (Sinaiticus) and B (Vaticanus) is at variance with the overwhelming majority of the Greek manuscripts. Not only is it confined to a very small family of manuscripts, but it has been estimated that there are somewhere in the region of 6,000 differences between the Alexandrian and Byzantine texts.

6. It is true that there is severe loss of text in B (Vaticanus), but considering their age (mid- or late-fourth century), these two uncials are in remarkably fine condition. Since most accurate manuscripts of this age perished through reason of use, it may be supposed that these were rejected as flawed and therefore were not used by the early church.
(Trinitarian Bible Society)
http://biz.ukonline.co.uk/trinitarian.bible.society/articles/watts.htm

The King James Bible comes from the Received Text and does not have these omissions. We can trace the history of this text, also called the Byzantine text, back to the time of the early churches.
DHK

 

I'm in The New American Bible, St. Joseph's Edition, and 1 John 5 runs from verse 1-12, with verse 5 fully intact and the save as verse 5 in my NIV Bible, which also runs verses 1-12. This verse is in here; I have no idea what you are talking about.

First off, the verse is Acts 8:37, not 38. You act like it may not be in the Catholic Bible, but it is in a footnote. Did you bother reading a footnote? "The oldest and best manuscripts of Acts omit this verse, which is a Western text..." So I opened my NIV Bible, and...egads! They did the same thing; it's only in a footnote. Looks like the makers of the NIV are out to get you too! :rolleyes:

If the evil Catholic Church wanted the verse all out, why would they bother footnoting it? No one requires them to, ya know.

Yes, I read through the website, and the verses that were listed as "completely omitted" were footnoted, with the full verse available, and the reason for not being included in the regular text. Not because of unimportance, but because not all manuscripts carried it, or others, which tend to be the exact same verse from another book, were copied here in error, such as Luke 19:10 and Matthew 18:11.

 

DHK,

I just want to add that you are basing all of this on research conducted by other people. Have you read the transcripts yourself? Have you seen the papyrus? No. You're putting your faith in these people to be correct.

So you can't say one version is correct without the other without putting your trust in others to be speaking the absolute truth. You can disagree, fine, but I'm entitled to also tell you that your Bible is radically incomplete.

 

The Bible that you use is based on the research of others, primarily Westcott and Hort. Have you done your research on these men, and on the text that underlies your Bible? You are putting your faith in unsaved individuals that put together a corrupted text from which your Bible was translated, and from which many verses are omitted. Most of those omissions significantly pertain to the deity of Jesus Christ. It is no accident that it is the same text that the Jehovah's Witnesses use for their "New World Translation."
I do have in my possesstion a copy of the Textus Receptus, from which the KJV was taken, and also a copy of the Nestle-Aland text, the text that your Bible was translated from. And, yes I can read Greek. I have done quite a bit of research in this area.
We all put our faith in others to some degree or another. Only the original manuscripts were inspired, and we don't have those today.
DHK