Godchaser, Can You Prove That The Bible Has Doctrinal Superiority?

[XIX]

Your skepticism of Catholicism appears to stem from the fact that many many churches claim to be the true church and mouthpiece of God.
[quote]Every single church in the world claims to be the true church? Ask a Catholic Priest - yes because. Ask a Lutheran Priest - yes because. Ask a Baptist - yes because. Ask a Pentecostal - yes because.
[/quote]I was curious to see that you seem very convinced that Jesus is God:
[quote]Don't worry, it's not which religion you belong to that saves you, it is your devotion to Jesus Christ through his death on the Cross. I can't wait to have a BBQ with all of you when we are in the New Jeruselem.[/quote]

So I was just curious as to how you came to that conclusion, considering that every religion in the world claims to be the true religion. As is such, they also claim that their holy book is the truth. Here's a list of such religions and their holy books:

[url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_books"]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_books[/url]

Please nobody respond to this until GodChaser has responded. Unless it's a bump or something similar. Thanks

[GodChaser]

[quote name='XIX' post='1282387' date='May 27 2007, 09:05 PM']Your skepticism of Catholicism appears to stem from the fact that many many churches claim to be the true church and mouthpiece of God.
I was curious to see that you seem very convinced that Jesus is God:
So I was just curious as to how you came to that conclusion, considering that every religion in the world claims to be the true religion. As is such, they also claim that their holy book is the truth. Here's a list of such religions and their holy books:

[url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_books"]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_books[/url]

Please nobody respond to this until GodChaser has responded. Unless it's a bump or something similar. Thanks [/quote]

Let me answer this by the word of God itself.

[quote name='"Hebrews 4:11-13' date=' KJV"']Let us labour therefore to enter into that rest, lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief.

For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.

Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight: but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do.[/quote]

[quote name='"Titus 1:8-10' date=' KJV"']But a lover of hospitality, a lover of good men, sober, just, holy, temperate;

Holding fast the faithful word as he hath been taught, that he may be able by sound doctrine both to exhort and to convince the gainsayers.

For there are many unruly and vain talkers and deceivers, specially they of the circumcision:[/quote]

[quote name='"2 Timothy 4:1-3' date=' KJV"']I charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom;

Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long suffering and doctrine.

For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears;[/quote]

[quote name='"2 Timothy 3:15-17' date=' KJV"']And that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.

All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:

That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.[/quote]

I leave this final one just to let you Catholics know, the scriptures came way before the Roman Catholic Church, or what else was Timothy reading.

And all scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteeousness.

That is why the Bible has doctrinal superiority, because God tells us so.

[XIX]

So you are using the Bible to prove the Bible? Circular logic, much? I'm not a theology expert, but I'm pretty sure than there are many religious texts which claim within its own covers to be the Word of God. Your faith could probably become a lot stronger if you make sure it is not based on circular logic.

Come on...you can do better than that.




And since you brought it up...just because Paul is referring "scripture" does not mean he is quoting the Bible as it is currently canonized. he is certainly not referring Scripture as we know it today, as he pretty much had no idea his letters would be canonized as sacred scripture. There was no "New Testament" when Paul was alive, or until the Catholic Church canonized it.

In other words, when Paul refers to scripture, it is definitely not the same scripture you just quoted. He didn't just wake up one morning and say "Gee I'm going to write scared scripture today, and I'll package it as a letter to my boy Timothy!"

[Katholikos]

[quote name='GodChaser' post='1282404' date='May 27 2007, 10:33 PM']Let me answer this by the word of God itself.
I leave this final one just to let you Catholics know, the scriptures came way before the Roman Catholic Church, or what else was Timothy reading.

And all scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteeousness.[/quote]

[i]"But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings which are able to instruct you for salvation through faith in Jesus Christ." [/i]2 Tim 3:14 RSV.

The Scriptures Timothy knew from childhood are those of the Greek Septuagint, now called the Old Testament by the Catholic and Orthodox Churches. But Protestants reject the Septuagint that St. Paul was writing about. Go figure.

[quote]That is why the Bible has doctrinal superiority, because God tells us so.[/quote]

How and where does God "tell us so"? 2 Tim refers only to the Septuagint OT. The Bible doesn't even tell us which writings belong in the Bible. The Catholic Church does.

Likos

[Aloysius]

You must first establish that God is speaking through the Bible before you can say that God tells us so. You have no established that. Ergo, the Bible tells us so, but logically, so far, you have not shown us that God tells us so, just the writers of the Bible.

I could write something that said it was from God. what would make my claim any different than theirs?

... waits for budge to interject with "Bible code" nonsense... as if only now, in the 20th century, is anyone capable of getting absolute certainty about what is in the Bible because of complex mathematical patterns. You've got to ahow not only how we could know now what is in the Bible, but how any Christian at any time in the Church's history could know; otherwise Christ left His Church in the dark.

[GodChaser]

I can't say why the Bible is doctrinal superior, except, that in the spirit, I know its words are true and pure, and they lead me in the paths I should go.

[Aloysius]

Muslims are absolutely convinced that God has inspired them to believe the same about the Koran. Sure, for those of us who believe in the Bible, that's a deception of satan; but our God is the creator of logic, so logically, how can we know that it is they who have been deceived by satan and not us?

Many a Muslim is absolutely convinced that the words of the Koran and true and pure, and that they lead them in the paths that they should go. If something's the word of God, it's going to be distinct from all other texts in some logical and consistent way which shows beyond doubt that God has made Himself present through it.

[homeschoolmom]

[Katholikos]

GC,

Using the Koran as an example, it is a continuous book written by one man, Mohammed. He claimed it was dictated by an angel, but nevertheless he wrote every word of it.

By contrast, the Bible is a [b][i]collection[/i][/b] of writings, written by many different people at different times, in different locations, for different purposes and audiences. Some authority had to recognize that certain writings among many were inspired -- "God-breathed" -- collect them, canonize them, put them together to form one book, and identify them as "Scripture." That authority was the Catholic Church. The Bible is a [b][i]Catholic[/i] [/b]book.

Likos

[Gal. 5:22,23]

[quote name='GodChaser' post='1282404' date='May 27 2007, 09:33 PM']Let me answer this by the word of God itself.
I leave this final one just to let you Catholics know, the scriptures came way before the Roman Catholic Church, or what else was Timothy reading.

And all scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteeousness.

That is why the Bible has doctrinal superiority, because God tells us so.[/quote]

Two things:

2 Timothy 3:16 and Additional Scripture

In 2 Timothy 3:16 we read, "All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness." Some conservative commentators view this verse as evidence that the Bible is inerrant and therefore as proof that no more scripture is needed. But Paul simply says that "all scripture" is "profitable" for doctrine, for reproof, etc. He does not say that the scripture of which he speaks is "all-sufficient." He only says it is "profitable." A synonym for "profitable" here would be "useful." If anything, Paul's statement seems to refute the claim that the Bible is inerrant and all-sufficient.

Furthermore, what constituted the "all scripture" to which Paul refers? We get the answer in verse 15, where Paul tells Timothy that "from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus." [b]The only "holy scriptures" Timothy could have known from his childhood were the Hebrew scriptures, i.e., the Old Testament.[/b] And yet, would any evangelical scholar assert that Paul viewed the Old Testament as the final and complete word of God to man? Definitely not. Taking verse 15 at face value, the term "all scripture" refers to the Jewish scriptures, which Timothy had known from childhood. It is possible that Paul also had in mind some of his own epistles, but that is about as far as his statement can be pressed. The New Testament as we know it simply did not exist yet; indeed, in Paul's day, many New Testament books were still in oral form or in multiple and varying rough drafts. Moreover, it is fairly certain that Paul's canon included some Jewish texts which are no longer found in the Old Testament, such as the book of Enoch (Barr 1983:25; 1984:4).


Portions of a great article:

[b]We can have a Bible without a Church[/b]

You cannot, for common sense would tell you that what comes first is the Church and then her writings. We must not get the cart before the horse. The Jewish Church or Synagogue existed before Moses wrote a single line of the Old Testament and in the like manner the Catholic Church existed before a single line of the New Testament was written. Pentecost Day, the Birthday of Christianity, was not the coming down of the Holy Ghost in the form of a book, for there was no book as Johannes Jorgensen, the famous convert writer of Stockholm, Sweden, declares. The Holy Ghost came down in the form of tongues of fire symbolizing that Christianity was to be spread not through the written but the spoken word. It is reasonable that Divine Providence had the Jewish Synagogue to protect the Old Testament from mutilation and it is logical and reasonable that the Church that gave the Bible to the world should be set up by God to preserve and perpetuate the inspired writings of the New Testament.

[b]Is not the Catholic Church arrogant in claiming the Bible as her own? [/b]

The Bible is her book and you cannot disprove it. She has preserved it and she alone knows what it means. No one else has any right to it whatsoever, or any authority to declare what the texts mean. The work of translating it, of printing it, and editing it, belongs strictly to her alone and if she cannot prevent those outside her jurisdiction from tampering with it and misusing it then she will take care that her own children must avoid perusal of counterfeit Bibles. History shows that the Church has been wise in prohibiting private persons from translating the Bible without ecclesiastical authority. The Church is very wise in prohibiting the faithful from reading Bibles that are not approved by her, for she desires that the pure, uncorrupted Gospel should be placed into the hands of the people. Mr. Allnatt (in his "Bible and the Reformation") says, "[b]That all the early Protestant versions of the Bible literally swarmed with gross and flagrant corruptions—corruptions consisting in the willful and deliberate mistranslation of various passages of the sacred text, and all directly aimed against those doctrines and practices of the Catholic Church which the ‘Reformers’ were most anxious to uproot. They did give the people an ‘Open Bible,’ but what a Bible." Hence, to hate the Bible is one thing, and to prohibit a false version like the notorious Wycliffe, Tyndale and Coverdale Bibles is quite another.[/b]

[b]The Bible, and the Bible alone, is enough for me. [/b]

Which Bible? Have you the right Bible? Are you certain that your Bible contains all and only the true words that came down from the hands of Apostles and Evangelists? Are you positive that no other word has been inserted by man or dropped out deliberately by man? Have you an exact copy of the Holy Scriptures identical with the writings from Moses to St. John? If you haven’t then why talk about the Bible and the Bible alone theory? How do you know the Bible came from God? Do you prove it by the intrinsic merit of the writings or do you rely upon the religious quality of the Scriptures as sufficient evidence? The intrinsic merit of the Bible and the inspiration it gives the reader is no argument that it has God as the author for we have other books as, for instance, "The Following of Christ," which is much more inspiring than some parts of the Bible. We know that the Bible is the Word of God, because the Catholic Church that gave the Bible to the world says so. You, to believe in the Bible, must admit some third party to come between you and God. The Catholic has as his third party, the Catholic Church which comes between him and God to tell him what’s what about the Bible.

[b]Are any of the original writings of Moses or Paul, or John in existence today? [/b]

No. None of the originals exist today, but we know from history and tradition that these were the books they wrote. What we have now is the printed Bible; but before the invention of printing in 1438, the Bible existed only in handwriting or manuscript form. We have in our possession now copies of the Bible in manuscript which date back as early as the fourth century. We have not the originals but copies of the originals for several reasons: (1) The persecutors of the Church for the first 300 years destroyed everything Christian they could lay their hands on. (2) The material upon which the inspired writers wrote was papyrus, a frail, brittle, perishable, substance not destined to last long. (3) When copies were made of the originals for the various Churches there was not the same necessity for preserving the originals. [b]The early Christians certainly did not consider it necessary for salvation that the very handwriting of St. Paul, etc. , should be preserved. Since they had the living, infallible Church to teach and guide them, they were content with mere COPIES of the original works of the authors. Manuscript or handwritten copies of the Bible known to be in existence number about 3,000 today. None have yet been found earlier than the fourth century.[/b]

[b]Were there other writings besides the New Testament esteemed as Scripture? [/b]

Before 397 A. D. there were 3 classes of sacred writings being read in the Churches. First, there were the genuine writings accepted universally by the Christian Church which hailed this first group of writings as actually written by the Apostles whose names they bore. The second class of sacred writings, which were being used by the Churches, was the disputed class. In some places they were accepted as genuine Scripture and in other places they were not so accepted. In this second class, or disputed list, were St. James, St. Jude, the second Epistle of St. Peter, the second and third Epistle of St. John, the Epistle to the Hebrews, and the Book of Revelation (Apocalypse). Then there was a third class of writings spread about, which was never accepted by any of the Churches as genuine Scripture, books which contained all sorts of fanciful stories or fables of the early life of Our Lord. [b]In 397, the Catholic Church gave a definite decision as to which should be admitted into the Bible and which should be rejected, and every book which is in the Protestant New Testament today, was put there by Pope Siricius and the Catholic Bishops in the year 397 A. D. If Christ had intended that men should learn Christianity from the New Testament, what about the hundreds who lived before the first Bible was given to the world by the Catholic Church? [/b]

[b]Didn’t the Apostles intend to make the New Testament a compendium of Christian doctrine? [/b]

The books of the New Testament were produced as a result of special circumstances that arose among the converts. They were written to meet the particular demands and emergencies of the time. The authors never dreamed of writing the New Testament or composing works which would one day be taken as the sole rule of religion. The Apostles would stand dazed if told that what they wrote would one day be held up as the complete and exhaustive statement of Christian doctrines. [b]No writings were ever intended to be used as an easy guide in faith and morals, independent of any living and teaching authority to interpret them. St. Paul himself says, "How shall they hear without a preacher? How shall they preach unless they be sent? Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of Christ. " When the Apostles speak they claim to speak with Divine authority and they nowhere claim to be laying down a system of Christian doctrine. Their teaching was at first ORAL, and it was no part of their intention’ to create a permanent literature. They wrote to believers, not to unbelievers. The Church existed and functioned before they wrote anything. Before a line in the New Testament was written (1) Christ established His Church; (2) the Apostles preached Christ’s Gospel; (3) St. Peter converted 3,000 Jews; (4) Council of Jerusalem was assembled; (5) Jewish ceremonial law was abrogated.[/b]

Before the last book in the New Testament was written (1) the Catholic Church celebrated her golden jubilee; (2) 11 of the Apostles had died.

Hence, THE BIBLE CAME FROM THE CHURCH. THE CHURCH DID NOT COME FROM THE BIBLE. Christianity existed over 300 years without one single Bible Christian.


Source: [url="http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Troy/6480/catholicbible.html"]http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Troy/6480/catholicbible.html[/url]

IMPRIMATUR:Joannes Gregorius Murray Archiepiscopus Sancti Pauli.

Written by Fr. Chas. M. Carty Rev. Dr. L. Rumble, M.S.C. Copyright 1976 by TAN Books and Publishers, Inc.

Originally published by Fathers Rumble and CartyRadio Replies Press, Inc.

St. Paul, Minn., U.S.A. Complete and Unabridged

Edited May 29, 2007 by Gal. 5:22,23

[homeschoolmom]

Sacti Pauli... I like that. I think I'm going to start calling it that...

[doe-jo]

great post Gal. 5:22,23. im printing that.

[Katholikos]

Gal 22,23 wrote:
[quote]The only "holy scriptures" Timothy could have known from his childhood were the Hebrew scriptures, i.e., the Old Testament.[/quote]

[i]Radio Replies[/i] is always good reading on any Catholic subject! But I think the good Fathers were mistaken that Timothy knew the Hebrew OT. He was a Greek-speaker who was trained by his Mother and Grandmother, both of whom were Greek-speakers. St. Paul's only "Bible" (i.e., the Scriptures of the Old Testament) was the Greek Septuagint. It seems logical that the Scriptures Timothy knew from childhood were those of the Greek Septuagint. The Greek Septuagint -- not the Hebrew -- was the text adopted by the early Church. The entire NT was written in Greek. The Apostles used the Greek Scriptures to spread the Gospel to the entire known world. About 86% of the quotes from the OT in the NT are from the Septuagint. About 14% are from the Hebrew. St. Paul himself never quoted the Hebrew Scriptures.

So St. Paul's statement in 2 Tim 3:14-16 about "all Scripture" included the so-called Apocrypha contained in the Septuagint and excluded the NT, which did not yet exist.

References:

[i]Understanding the New Testament[/i]Howard Clark Kee (a Methodist scholar)

[i]Dictionary of the Bible,[/i] John L. McKenzie, S.J.

[i]Preface to the RSV[/i]

Likos

Edit to add P.S. It's possible, of course, that Timothy knew both the Hebrew and the Greek Scriptures.

Edited May 30, 2007 by Katholikos

[Gal. 5:22,23]

Good catch, Katholikos, thanks!

[Ragamuffin]

Do we know that Timothy only knew the Septuagint as Scripture? For instance, Peter refers to Paul's letters as Scripture in I Peter 3:15-16:

[quote]15 And count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, 16 as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction,[i]as they do the other Scriptures.[/i][/quote] (emphasis mine)

Apparently at the writing of I Peter, Paul's letters are considered Scripture. Is it possible that Timothy also had this understanding?