Recently in The Bible Category

In a recent discussion about the Sacrament of Penance (or Confession) with a protestant family member, this passage in particular came up:

John 20:21-23. [Jesus was alone with the disciples] Jesus said to them again, "Peace be with you. As the Father has sent Me, even so I send you." And when He had said this, He breathed on them, and said to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained."

Think about this passage for a second. What was Jesus trying to do?

In my old Baptist faith we viewed forgiveness much as Martin Luther tended to; we considered ourselves "saved" at one point in time and basically forgiven for everything from that point on (assuming we were really "saved"). So why would it matter if anyone can retain the sins of another person?

Another point of view: Jesus is taking a power that only God has, namely the power to forgive sins, and giving it to mere humans. As my protestant friends are fond of pointing out: why confess sins to a priest, I can go straight to God. That's a wonderful point of view - and it is true, we can go straight to God in prayer - so what is Jesus doing here? Why is He giving the disciples the power to not only forgive the sins of others, but to retain them? And what does it mean if a disciple "retains" the sins of another?

The Truth is beautiful and perfect, however it is only found in the Catholic Church. This is one of those passages of Scripture that only the Catholic Church can explain (as I've posted before). Jesus also offers the apostles the ability to "bind" and "loose", which is basically the same power (Matthew 18:18), but this is only given to the apostles. Is it carried down to their successors over time? Practically, why would Jesus give this power to the apostles and not allow it to be carried down through the ages? Is it only needed just after He ascends to heaven? That would be a difficult argument to make. And it is clear that this continues (at least in the minds of the apostles):

2 Corinthians 5:18-19. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to Himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, no counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.

What makes this fascinating is that it is written by Paul, who was not present in the room as Christ gave the apostles the power to forgive sins or not. And Paul uses this power:

1 Corinthians 5:3-5. For though absent in body I am present in spirit, and as if present, I have already pronounced a judgment in the name of the Lord Jesus on the man who has done such a thing. When you are assembled, and my spirit is present, with the power of our Lord Jesus, you are to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.

Again, clearly Paul believes he has the power to forgive sins or to retain sins, so he believes this power was passed down to him because of his role in the Church (as a priest).

Confession is one of the Sacraments most visible in the Bible (there are other verses - and books like James - that cover confession). Together these verses alone build a strong basis that the apostles were given the power to forgive or retain sins by Jesus Himself and they believed this was passed on (at least to Paul).

Speaking as a former protestant, Confession is very effective. First, it gives you knowledge (when you leave) that you are completely forgiven for your sins (assuming you meet the conditions of confession). Second, I can personally tell you that you try harder not to sin when you have to go tell someone exactly what you've done wrong. At the least it makes you pause before committing the same sin over again!

God bless,
Jay

For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. - - John 3:16

I think most would agree that this is the most popular, well-known verse of Scripture in the world today. But is this verse as simple as it seems? Or is there more?

The problem here isn’t the verse. The problem is context. All Scripture verses are given to us in specific contexts and must be kept in their context to be understood completely. This verse is a perfect example, since the verses following it help to shed light on what John the Gospel writer is saying. Let’s read further:

For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God sent the Son into the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him. He who believes in him is not condemned; he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgement, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the light, and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. But he who does what is true comes to the light, that it may be clearly seen that his deeds have been wrought in God. - - John 3:16-21

Clearly there is a reason people stop at verse 16 of this chapter, but the verse continues on. And John seems to interchange the words “believe” and “do” in this section – in other words the Gospel writer assumes that those who “do” actually “believe” and those who “believe” actually “do.” Can you simply believe and not follow the commandments of God?

What does it profit, my brethren, if a man says he has faith but has not works? Can his faith save him? If a brother or sister is ill-clad and in lack of daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what does it profit? So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead. - - James 2:14-17

Christians are not simply believers, they are doers. To truly live out the Christian faith we must grow in holiness by resisting sin, helping the poor, and teaching others about Christ. We must be doers of the Word if we expect to see the light at the end of our lives.

God bless,
Jay

We live in a culture that has embraced the notion that any protest of “gay marriage” or homosexual activities is considered “homophobia” or “gay bashing.” In a sense, America has already embraced the homosexual agenda. However, the Bible has a clear position concerning homosexual activities that might not square with current cultural norms.

Differentiating between the Sinner and the Sin
One point I should make before getting into this discussion is that God created and loves every person on earth. No matter the sins they have committed or their refusal to believe in Him, He does love them and died for their sins. As Christians, we never condemn anyone (let he who is without sin cast the first stone), however we can judge an act as morally wrong and protest against that act. Abortion, euthanasia, and homosexual acts all fall into this reality.

Just as heterosexual people can sin by having sex outside of marriage, so can those with homosexual tendencies. We only judge homosexual acts as wrong and encourage all to avoid the as sinful at all times.

The Old Testament and Homosexuality
There are six verses in the Bible that deal with homosexuality: three in the Old Testament and three in the New Testament. I’ll start with the Old Testament. The first two, in Genesis 19:1-8 and Judges 19:23-24, both deal with men looking to essentially rape other men. For example:

[Lot] said “I beg you, my brothers, do not act so wickedly. Behold, I have two daughters who have not known man; let me bring them out to you, and you do to them as you please; only do nothing to those men, for they have come under the shelter of my roof.” - - Genesis 19:8

One note of interest, Lot seems to view the sin of homosexuality as worse than other sexual sins – in other words as the height of depravity. This ties in with Leviticus 18:22, which is often quoted:

You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination. - - Leviticus 18:22

This ties in with a punishment in Leviticus 18:29, which is being “cut off from among their people.”

So the Old Testament clearly paints homosexual acts as sinful.

The New Testament and Homosexuality
Like the Old Testament, two of the New Testament verses are similar: they both list homosexuality among a list of other grave sins (1 Corinthians 6:9 and 1 Timothy 1:10). The first seems to be the strongest:

Do you know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither the immoral, nor idolators, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor robbers will inherit the kingdom of God. - - 1 Corinthians 6:9

Father Jean-Baptiste Edart recently wrote Clarifications on Homosexuality in the Bible and explains:

These two texts contain a list of vices presented as unacceptable for access to the kingdom of God.

In 1 Corinthians, two Greek words make reference to homosexuality:
"malakos," translated here as "homosexuals," and "arsenokoites,"
translated as "sodomites."

These terms are very rare: "Malakos" appears only here in St. Paul, as for "arsenokoites," it is the first recurrence in the whole of Greek literature.

"Malakos" means, literally, "gentle, silky, delicate." In a homosexual relationship, it designates the passive partner, but it can also refer to homosexual prostitutes or very effeminate men.

The study of the meaning of "arsenokoites," and the clearly sexual context of the list of prohibitions invalidate these last two marginal interpretations.

"Arsenokoites" means literally "to lie with a man." Formed by the association of two words present in Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13, it quite probably appeared in the Judeo-Hellenistic context. Rabbis used the Hebrew expression "lie with a man," taken from the Hebrew text of Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13, to express the homosexual relationship.

They did not limit it to pederasty. All these elements seem sufficient to us to affirm that the most plausible theory is that this term refers to men having the active role in relations of a homosexual nature. The meaning of "arsenokoites" allows one to limit the meaning of "malakos" to the passive partner in a homosexual relationship.

Homosexual acts, therefore, are considered extremely grave, directly offending the divine Law. This teaching is perfectly consistent with Judaism of that time.

No distinction is related to a question of sexual orientation, or of circumstances of the act, nor is it indicated. It is the act itself which is condemned.

The third New Testament reference is Romans 1:26-27, which is a stronger condemnation:

For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. Their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural, and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in their own persons the due penalty for their error.

So absent Grace and the call of God to holiness, we see men who choose the unnatural over the natural, which is shown by their embrace of homosexual acts.

The Catholic Church and Homosexuality
So it is clear from these verses that Scripture condemns homosexual acts in a clear and strong way. There is no misunderstanding of this without deliberate attempt to misunderstand. But notice that Scripture never condemns those with homosexual tendencies – it only condemns the act. Heterosexuals joining in homosexual acts are committing the same sins and do not escape because of their lack of homosexual tendencies. Which is why the Church teaches that we love those with these tendencies and do not discriminate against them because of it. Yet we do not embrace the sin, either.

CCC 2357. Homosexuality refers to relations between men or between women who experience an exclusive or predominant sexual attraction toward persons of the same sex. It has taken a great variety of forms through the centuries and in different cultures. Its psychological genesis remains largely unexplained. Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, tradition has always declared that “homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered.” They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church also notes that we must accept those with homosexual tendencies with “respect, compassion, and sensitivity” (CCC 2358). And “every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided” (CCC 2358).

Love the sinner, hate the sin. It is a difficult position, but one we must accept. But what does “unjust discrimination” mean?

Homosexuality and “Gay Marriage”
The gay lobby in America has waged a war under the notion that it is unjust to discriminate against homosexuals wanting to get married. Is marriage a “right”? It is unjust to prevent and fight against the legalization of homosexual “marriage”? Kenneth Whitehead, a former US Secretary of Education, addressed this in the magazine Homiletic & Pastoral Review:

. . . [T]he so-called “gay rights” movement defines itself [as] a movement composed of people who engage in homosexual acts and who are now, in such cases as the same-sex marriage court cases, claiming the legal entitlement to do so. Marriage, precisely, does entitle spouses to engage in sexual relations with each other, and that is exactly what same-sex couples are now claiming the legal right to do.
The moral distinction so favored by Catholics between a morally neutral homosexual “orientation” and the homosexual “acts” that alone can be considered immoral pretty much falls to the ground here. Legal recognition of same-sex “marriage” means legal recognition of the moral licitness of homosexual acts.

In other words, if we allow homosexual marriage, we are in a clear way approving of homosexual acts which the Bible clearly condemns. It also puts homosexual relationships on par with heterosexual relationships, which is a clear equivocation of the truth. For natural laws tell us otherwise.

Natural Law and Homosexuality
The last angle to look at homosexual acts lies in the natural law. As Christians, we believe God created the universe with His Law “written” into the very nature of our world. In other words, just as the law of gravity means that a rock will always fall when dropped, natural laws are just as valid that explain the truth of God in a natural way. I won’t delve into this too deeply except to point out that homosexual relationships are barren by their very nature.

God could have chosen to make homosexual relationships fruitful as He choose to do with heterosexual relationships. However, since homosexual acts violate the natural law that God designed into the world, they are barren and cannot result in the creation of a new child, which is a gift from God. A husband and wife participate with God in the creation of a child and this intimate union reflects the nature of the Trinity (the Holy Spirit is the result of the love between God the Father and Jesus the Son), though obviously in a non-sexual way. Our bodies are also designed to “fit” together, which is another reality of the natural law. The fact that you are either male or female is not a mistake or a scientific game of chance, your gender informs much about you and is part of who you are.

In other words, the Natural Law along with the Bible and the Catholic Church, which Jesus founded, all condemn homosexual acts as gravely disordered and sinful. They are not the equivalent of heterosexual acts and should not be considered so. Those with homosexual tendencies must practice chastity and pray for God’s help in dealing with these tendencies.

Conclusion
The Bible condemns homosexual acts in no uncertain terms. And, as Christians, we have an obligation to preach against homosexual acts without condemning (moreso: while loving) those with homosexual tendencies. But we cannot agree with gay “marriage” or any other societal acceptance that embraces homosexual acts – including gay unions or institutionalized preference for homosexual couples over heterosexual marriage, which provides a foundation for society and a means of future population.

God bless,
Jay

Ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ. - - St. Jerome quoted in the Catechism of the Catholic Church 133.

It has become an extremely common belief that the Catholic Church prevented Christians from reading the Bible and protestant reformers gave it back to the people. At this point it has become a common perception pointing to the problems of the Catholic Church. The argument goes that the Catholic Church forbid parishioners from reading the Bible, because they knew the Church was not following Scripture. And then, when Gutenberg’s printing press was invented, suddenly the people could read the Bible – and Martin Luther led them back to worship as it was supposed to be or as the Bible intended.

Historical Reality and Personal Bibles
Starting with a clear understanding of history is important to clarify the context of this claim. Very few Christians realize that for almost 400 years after the Crucifixion we did not actually have a Bible. The books that the Catholic Church eventually pulled together into the Bible were floating around at the various Churches, but there was much disagreement over which of the books were Scriptural and which were not. Some parishes (or individual churches within the Catholic Church) accepted one book or another, but many did not accept all of Scripture. Hebrews and Revelation, for example, were hotly debated during the time. And some books, like the Gospel of Thomas, which are not Scriptural, were accepted as such.

So finally the Catholic Church compiled the Bible as we know it (Martin Luther later removed some books from protestant Bibles) at the Council of Hippo. So up until that time the Bible did not exist as a single book the way we think of it today.

To further complicate matters there is one other issue: illiteracy. Americans still have trouble understanding that the vast majority of the world is illiterate even today. During the Dark Ages it was even worse, since virtually no one could read (Catholic monks in monasteries saved culture and writing in an amazing way). So even if the Catholic Church had personally given a Bible to every Christian, it would have been fruitless (and still would be today). The people learned about God through their parish priest and worshipped Him through Mass.

And yet, the Catholic Church could not have given a Bible to every Christian. Why? Because the printing press had not been invented! Until Johann Gutenberg’s wonderful invention in 1456 AD, Bibles were copied by hand. (Remember, Gutenberg was a good Catholic and the Church approved of and encouraged his printing of Bibles.) Before the printing press copying the Bible was the work of Catholic monks in monasteries who actually took a pen and paper and copied books of the Bible to create additional copies.

But the question still remains: Did the Catholic Church forbid Christians from reading the Bible?

What the Catholic Church did do
The actions the Church actually took are the most indicative of their frame of mind. Instead of hiding away the Bible – or making changes to it during the Dark Ages when no one would have known – the Church did something different. They chained Bibles down in individual Catholic parishes.

At first, this sounds barbaric: they were chaining down God’s Word to keep people from it. However it was quite the opposite. The Church wanted Christians to have access to the Bible, but they were not able to provide personal copies of the Bible to parishioners (the ultra-rich were able to get copies). So they put a copy of the Bible in each church and made it publicly available. But they did have to chain it down to keep it from being stolen (it took copious amounts of time to create a single Bible).

Kept in the parish church, that Bible [ed: the one chained down that cost as much as $10,000 in today’s currency] was made available to lay Catholics by chaining it to the table on which it was placed, just as telephone books today are kept available for the public by chaining them to telephone booths. Does the phone company chain the Yellow Pages so that no one can use them? Quite the opposite – so that the maximum number of people can have access to them. It was the same with the Bible.
- - Karl Keating What Catholics Really Believe

The Church also did something perhaps more important: it translated the Bible into art. This sounds a little silly, but it is not. When the people cannot read, the answer is to create art that explains the Bible. Not just paintings from famous artists (which the Church cannot take credit for), but stained glass art in churches that depict scenes from the Bible. This was a way to preach the Gospel even to the illiterate. They could understand what was happening in the scenes since they were hearing the Bible from the pulpit (the Catholic mass goes through every word of Scripture in a three-year time frame).

The Church also translated Bibles into the vernacular. Often you will hear things such as “Wycliff was the first to translate the Bible into English,” but this is simply untrue. We can cite a contemporary, Saint Thomas More the Lord Chancellor of England who was martyred:

The whole Bible long before Wycliff’s day was by virtuous and well-learned men translated into the English tongue, and by good and godly people with devotion and soberness well and reverently read.” - - Dialogues III

Happy Easter to you all and God bless!

At the Transfiguration of Mount Tabor, Peter and James and John had seen Jesus radiating light from His body and clothes, in a manner outside all earthly experience. The evidence of the Holy Shroud of Turin, analyzed scientifically by micro-densitometer, VP-8 image analyzer, spectroscope, and other modern scientific instruments and methods, suggests that the extraordinary impressions upon its cloth could only have been formed by a brief scorching flash at a level of energy approaching themonuclear.
"Let there be light . . ."
Christ had slain death, the last enemy. He had come back from the fathomless abyss from which no man had ever emerged. - - Warren H. Carroll The Founding of Christendom

God bless,
Jay

We’re seeing an interesting trend in America these days that gives more credence to the controversial than the actual. In other words, people seem to crave controversy in a way that leads them away from Truth. In fact, Truth is simply not sought as the highest authority and much is believed that should not be.

The latest example is the Gospel of Judas, which is simply a non-Scriptural Gnostic text written around 300 A.D. The document is interesting and does provide insight into the Gnostic heresy, which was a huge problem in the early Church (before the Church defined the true nature of God). But the USA Today piece linked above is a joke and the author should be embarrassed. Take this passage:

Scripture, like history, was codified by the winners, by those who emerged with the greatest numbers at the end of three centuries of Christianity, said Michael White, director of the Institute for the Study of Antiquity and Christian Origins at the University of Texas-Austin, He has counted more than three dozen gospels that didn't make the canonical cut. The ones that did, he said, were not in total harmony but shared a theological view of the passion, the crucifixion and their significance that became the core of the new religion.

In other words, it isn’t because the Gospels chosen were True, it was because a political struggle elevated a group of men who chose texts they agreed with. This is pretty much total “Da Vinci Code” nonsense that assumes Christians are wrong and likely suckers in those not familiar with history.


Background on Gnosticism
Gnosticism first cropped up in the second century and evolved out of pre-Christian pagan religions. The key to understanding Gnosticism is the idea of gnosis, which is secret knowledge that revealed the true way of salvation – it was supposedly only transmitted to those deemed “worthy” of receiving it. Most early Gnostic texts claimed to be from Jesus or the Twelve disciples and handed down secretly by oral tradition. In general these teachings created a split between the spiritual and the material worlds in which material was always bad and spiritual good (thus it was Gnostics who first suggested Christ was not man but wholly God and only spiritual).

The biggest problem with Gnostic teachings is of course that they are false: if Gnosticism is true, then why did the teachings of the Twelve apostles contradict them? And why did Jesus teach differently? Gnosticism eventually died out after writers like St. Clement of Rome, St. Irenaeus, and St. Hippolytus challenged them and pointed out the errors inherent in their teachings.

The Problem of Today: Authority
Although Gnostic fallacies continue to crop up now and again throughout the Church’s history, we seem to see an increase in these today. Another quote in the article points out the obvious:

"Just because you can date a document to early Christian times doesn't make it theologically true," said Pastor Rod Loy of the First Assembly of God in North Little Rock "Do you decide everything you read on the Internet is true because it was written on April 6, 2006? Fiction has been around for as long as man."

Pastor Loy makes a great point but fails to answer the bigger question: how do you separate fact from fiction and determine the Scriptural Canon? The problem is one of Authority: if you don’t accept the Church’s authority to (a) compose the Bible and (b) teach authoritatively, then it becomes easy to get caught up in these errors. As the passage above shows, if you don’t believe the Catholic Church chose the texts in the Bible because they were true (rather than for some political reason), you start to question why the Church chose the books She did. There are numerous other Gospels and supposed writings of the apostles, but these were rejected for one reason, the weren’t True.

Authority is becoming the issue of the day. Writers are challenging every aspect of Christian thought and belief in books like The Da Vinci Code. How can you assert that you know what is True? As Catholics we can point to Jesus’ promise in Matthew 16:18 that His Church will never fail. What can you point to? Where does the authority for your beliefs come from?

If you are protestant you are accepting Martin Luther’s revision of the Bible in the 1500’s – over 1,100 years after the Bible was originally compiled by the Catholic Church. How does this affect your notion of Authority? How can you discredit other claims that try to remake the Bible if you accept Luther’s (remember, he was no scholar and died a terrible sinner)?

God bless,
Jay

Are there “Secrets of the Bible?” We are constantly (in America at least) being told that someone has discovered the secrets of the Bible. We are told to buy a book or subscribe to a particular website so that these “secrets” will be revealed.

Is this legitimate?

Well, we can look to the Bible to determine if there is any indication of hidden “secrets” within – if you are a sola scriptura Christian, this is the first and only source to look to. The Bible does not indicate secrets anywhere. It does however tell us what we really need to know:

Ephesians 3:8-12. To me, though I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ and to make all men see what is in the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all things; that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places. This was according to the eternal purpose which he has realized in Christ Jesus our Lord in whom we have boldness and confidence of access through our faith in him.

This is powerful passage. According to St. Paul, the plan was hidden until now when it is revealed through the Church. Which Church? Well, only the Catholic Church existed at that time (up until the protestant reformation, in fact). In other words, there was a “hidden” mystery in the Old Testament. There are secrets buried in the events. But now, because we have a Church run by the Holy Spirit, these mysteries are exposed. We know what Noah’s journey prefigured. We understand how Abram’s willingness to sacrifice his son prefigured Christ’s sacrifice. Now we don’t have to search for “secrets” in the Bible: we have God’s wisdom poured out to us through the Church.

Don’t search for “secrets of the Bible,” search for the truth of the Catholic Church.

I know some of you are saying ‘Not this verse again’ (I do enjoy the verse and not only because it exposes the fallacy of sola scriptura). But this is the heart of the matter. God gave us a Church and promised (Matthew 16:18) that Satan would not prevail against it. The Bible explains the position and power of the Church and yet many revolt against it. Or were taken in by Martin Luther’s errors. Ultimately this verse (and the others like it) provide a barrier against protestant thought.

In summary, there were secrets in the Bible, but now we have an authoritative institution to interpret them. That institution is also the one that gave us the Bible and has existed for almost 2,000 years since the death of Jesus Christ: the Catholic Church. Search for the Truth of the Bible, not the “secrets of the Bible.”

God bless,
Jay

Joachim has once again graced our lowly site and posted an excellent refute to comments made by a fellow blogger. After reading Joachim's comment I felt it worthy of being a post in and of itself. If you wish to review the entire dialogue you can find it at:

10 Questions for "Bible Christians"

Kaffinator,

I have come to give Matthew some assistance in the debate on the correlation of Sacred Scripture with Church Tradition.

From reading your posts, it is clear that you, the “Kaffinator,” believe in “Scripture Alone” as the means to attain salvation, and, therefore, consequently you believe that Sacred Tradition and the Catholic Church are “not necessary.” However, your arguments for “Scripture Alone” are insufficient in so much as you misinterpret Scripture, and misunderstand what the Church means by Tradition.

What is Tradition?

In this debate it is important to understand what the Catholic Church means by Tradition. Contrary to the belief of numerous persons outside and even within the Church, the term, “Tradition,” does not refer to legends or mythological accounts, nor does it encompass transitory customs or practices which may change, as circumstances warrant, such as styles of priestly dress, particular forms of devotion to saints, liturgical rubrics or even “avoiding to take a bath for a full week after baptism.” Sacred or Apostolic Tradition consists of the teachings that the apostles passed on orally through their preaching. It is true that a majority of these teachings overlap with those contained in Scripture, but the mode of their transmission is different.

Jesus and the Apostles were Pro-Tradition

Fundamentalists say Jesus condemned tradition. They note that Jesus said, "And why do you transgress the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition?" (Matt. 15:3) (Mark 7:9 is parallel). Paul warned, "See to it that no one makes a prey of you by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the universe, and not according to Christ" (Col. 2:8). But these verses merely condemn erroneous human traditions, not truths which were handed down orally and entrusted to the Church by the apostles (Sacred Tradition) which is to be distinguished from human traditions or customs. Let’s look at Matthew 15:6–9, "So by these traditions of yours you have made God’s laws ineffectual. You hypocrites, it was a true prophecy that Isaiah made of you, when he said, ‘This people does me honor with its lips, but its heart is far from me. Their worship is in vain, for the doctrines they teach are the commandments of men.’" Jesus was not condemning all traditions, only those that made God’s word void. In this case, it was a matter of the Pharisees feigning the dedication of their goods to the Temple so they could avoid using them to support their aged parents. By doing this, they dodged the commandment to "Honor your father and your mother" (Ex. 20:12). Kaffinator, granted you are correct in saying that Jesus used and instructed with passages from the Old Testament often, but He also instructed His followers to abide by traditions that are not contrary to God’s commandments, "The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat; so practice and observe whatever they tell you, but not what they do; for they preach, but do not practice" (Matt. 23:2–3).

What Fundamentalists and Evangelicals often do, unfortunately, is see the word "tradition" in Matthew 15:3, Mark 7:9 or Colossians 2:8 or elsewhere and conclude that anything termed a "tradition" is to be rejected. They fail to see that the term is used in a different sense, as in 1 Corinthians 11:2 and 2 Thessalonians 2:15, to describe what should be believed. Jesus did not condemn all traditions; he condemned only erroneous traditions, whether doctrines or practices, that undermined Christian truths. The rest, as the apostles taught, were to be obeyed. Paul commanded the Thessalonians to adhere to all the traditions he had given them, whether oral or written.

The Bible denies that it alone is sufficient as the complete rule of faith. Paul says that much Christian teaching is to be found in the tradition which is handed down by word of mouth (2 Tim. 2:2). He instructs us to "stand firm and hold to the traditions which you were taught by us, either by word of mouth or by letter" (2 Thess. 2:15).

This oral teaching was accepted by Christians, just as they accepted the written teaching compiled in Sacred Scripture that came to them years later. Jesus instructed his disciples: "He who hears you hears me, and he who rejects you rejects me" (Luke 10:16). The Church, in the persons of the apostles, was given by Christ the authority to teach; the Church would be his representative. He commissioned them, saying, "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations" (Matt. 28:19).

How would the apostle make disciples of all the nations? By giving everyone they met a Bible? No, but by preaching, by oral instruction: "So faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes by the preaching of Christ" (Rom. 10:17). The Church would always be the living teacher. It is a serious error to limit "Christ’s word" to the written word only or to suggest that all his teachings were reduced to writing. The Bible nowhere supports either notion.

I stumbled upon this article recently and I felt that it adequately addresses this common misunderstanding held by many Protestants. It also sheds some light on just how active the Catholic Church has been in making Sacred Scripture available to all. For the full text of this series follow this link: Catholics and the BibleEnjoy!

It is the wish of the Church that her children should know the Bible.

In the Past. Pre-reformation literature is satu¬rated with Bible quotations. Much that is left to us consists either of books of the Bible or breviaries which are almost wholly made up of Scripture. The sermon literature of the Middle Ages was a mosaic of Scripture texts. Preachers used the Bible much more than is customary today in any pulpit. Half an hour’s perusal of the sermons of a Bernard or a Bonaventure shows us that the preachers almost thought in Scripture texts. For those who could not read, the Church moreover, provided a knowledge of the Bible by means of mystery plays, illustrated editions of parts or the whole of it the paintings, sculptures, and stained glass windows of her churches: the statuary of one great cathedral is known as the Bible of Amiens. Of the Bible in pictures, the Synod of Arras (1025) said: "The illiterate contemplated in the lineaments of painting what they, having never learnt to read could not discern in writing."

To the man of the Middle Ages the Bible was a living reality.

In the Present. Priests are obliged to read Scripture in their Office, or daily prayers, for about an hour and a half every day.

The laity are more than encouraged, they are urged to read the Bible. By Pius VI (1778), bv Pius VII (1820), they were earnestly exhorted to read it, by Leo XIII a special blessing was given to all who would read the Gospels for at least a quarter of an hour daily. Benedict XV (himself the founder of the Society of St. Jerome for distributing the Gospels in Italian, which sells great numbers every year sent, by the Cardinal Secretary of State, the following message to the Catholic Truth Society:

"It was with no little gladness of heart that the Holy Father learned of the work of the Society and of its diligence in spreading far and wide copies of the Holy Gospels, as well as of the other books of the Holy Scriptures, and in multiplying them so as to reach all men of good will. Most lovingly therefore his Holiness blesses all who have put their hand to this very excellent work; and he earnestly exhorts them to persevere with ardor in so holy an enterprise."

Ultimately many of the questions we all discuss on this website come down to one question: Is the Bible the sole source of authority? According to our brothers and sisters who are non-Catholic, the answer is “Yes” in the vein of Martin Luther and John Calvin. However, as Catholics point out, there are some serious problems with this.

The biggest problem is the Bible itself. Sola Scriptura, or the Bible Alone, is not Scriptural. No where does the Bible make this claim. In fact, the Bible makes another rather startling claim (from the protestant point of view). The Bible states plainly that the Church is the “pillar and foundation of truth” (1 Tim 3:15) and “through the church the manifold wisdom of God may now be made known” (Eph 3:15). In addition, many of the Scriptures tell us to obey the written and oral teachings of the apostles. In other words, the Bible itself doesn’t support the claims of those who would force it to a level just below God.

A problem that falls in as a close second is that of Jesus’ actions. If, as protestants suppose, the Bible was so important, why didn’t Jesus call for it to be written? Why did He not choose those who were to write in it (some of the writers were not apostles before His ascension into heaven)? In other words, why didn’t He instruct His apostles on the all-important book they were to write?

In fact, Jesus did something quite different while here. He founded a Church. That’s correct, He never wrote anything we are aware of (except for one instance in the sand), He never instructed His apostles to write, and He never suggested an infallible compilation of writings that people could base their faith off of. Instead, in Matthew 16:18, Jesus founded a Church and choose Peter as the head of it. He did promise that the “gates of Hell would not prevail against His Church” – so we can have complete trust in the Church Christ created; the Church that the Bible calls the pillar of truth as pointed out above. This little fact that Jesus was completely uninterested in the Bible should concern protestants.

Another big problem involves the realities of history. We believe that God is all-knowing, so He is aware of the past and the future (He is also outside of time). Which means God would realize that throughout history one word can clearly describe the majority of inhabitants: illiterate. In other words, most people on earth will never read one word of Scripture to verify truth or falsehood. To add insult to injury, the Bible wasn’t compiled until almost 400 A.D. That means the millions of people who lived between the crucifixion and 397 A.D. had no infallible book to guide them. They had snippets and maybe even a full book here or there, but it wasn’t clearly defined that certain books were infallible and others weren’t.

The Bible, just to complicate things, was created by the Catholic Church. Bishops (the apostles) of the Church wrote most of the books and the Church officially defined which books were included and which were not. In some ways, everyone who has a Bible depends on the “manifold wisdom of God” coming through the Church in this act of creating an infallible collection of infallible books.

However, protestants must go further. Martin Luther in the 1,500’s removed many of the Old Testament books he didn’t agree with. So protestants must assume that the Catholic Church’s definition was somewhat flawed, but Martin Luther was infallible in cleaning up the errors. This also means that for the 1,100 years between the creation of the Bible and Martin Luther’s changes, all those millions of people had a Bible that was very fallible. Why do I say that? Some of the books Martin Luther removed include teachings like praying for the dead and purgatory (not that these aren’t in the current protestant Bibles, but they are explicit in the books he removed). So God, according to protestants, allowed 1,500 years before He gave us an actually infallible collection of books that we could base our faith off of. Before this, apparently, sola scriptura couldn’t work – the Bible was wrong and had errors that have since been fixed by Martin Luther, a man who no one would argue died in a state of grace – we just argue over when he became a heretic and whether heretics can make infallible decision about the Bible or not.

The last problem I’ll point out has to do with interpretation. An infallible book requires an infallible interpreter. Why do I say this? Because anything can be misinterpreted – even a perfect book. For a clear example just look at the various forms of Protestantism and what they disagree on:

• Baptism of infants? Some yes, some no.
  
• Worship on Sunday? Most yes, a couple of churches say no.
  
• Communion as symbolic or real? Each church is different.
  
• Requirement of baptism?
  
• Homosexual ministers?
  
• Women as ministers?
  
• Abortion allowed?
  
• Contraception allowed? Well, I guess they have all given up on this . . .
  

In other words, all of these churches have intelligent men reading the same book, and they can’t even agree on fundamental articles of faith. Much less on moral issues, etc. Some, such as the sinfulness of homosexuality, are explicitly condemned in Scripture, but these churches find a way around it (often using other verses interpreted in such as way to contradict the clear verses).

Would God really leave us in such a state? If so, it would be very odd indeed. In the Old Testament, they had better clarity than this and one clear church to lead the people. Why would God do a worse job with the new covenant? I don’t believe He would.

To sum up, there are a lot of problems with the claim that the Bible is our sole source of truth and authority. As Catholics, we believe:

CCC 80. Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture, then, are bound closely together and communicate one with the other. For both of them, flowing out of the same divine well-spring, come together in some fashion to form one thing and move towards the same goal. Each of them makes present and fruitful in the Church the mystery of Christ, who promised to remain with his own, “always, to the close of the age.”

The Bible is infallible and true. However, it is incomplete and subject to misinterpretation without the Church which holds Sacred Tradition (the “oral” part of the Word of God) and gives us the manifold wisdom of God. The Word of God cannot exclude the oral Tradition passed down through the ages by the succession of apostles.

God bless,
Jay

Often I’ve heard from non-Christians the seminal phrase that the Bible is just a collection of writings from men, rather than from God. How can we defend the Bible as God’s divinely written Word? This is tougher than it sounds.

The Truth about the Bible
The problems are pretty straightforward. The Bible is a collection of writings from various time periods written by various men. We aren’t 100% sure who wrote all of the books involved and we don’t have original copies (for many of the books the oldest copy we have available isn’t even in the original language).

In addition comes the logical problems: Christ never (at least in recorded memory) asked for a book to be written. As far as we know, Jesus never wrote anything except on sand. He never stated who could or should write in the Bible and never promised to protect it’s integrity (Christians claim the book is infallible on faith and moral teaching). In addition, until almost 300 A.D. there wasn’t a compiled New Testament (this is over 260 years after the death of Christ) and there was disagreement over whether certain books should be included or not (some were, like Hebrews, some weren’t).

Finally add to that the problem that a reasonably large percentage of Christians use a Bible changed by Martin Luther over 1,500 years after Christ. Luther removed 9+ books of the Bible that didn’t fit in with his theology and suggested other books were also problematic (he called James “an epistle of straw” and had real problems with Revelation).

All of these combine to make atheists, in particular, skeptical of our infallible book.

Suggested Answers to the Atheist
There are those who attempt to answer this question in various ways. The first answer many people run to is that we can trust the Old Testament because Jesus used it and we can also trust books written by the Apostles. This is the worst possible answer, primarily because many New Testament books weren’t written by Apostles (including some Gospels). Also, we have no real way of proving who wrote some of the books. Just one example: Matthew is still somewhat questionable as the author of the first Gospel. And we are simply trusting in Tradition to determine who wrote what (the authors haven’t signed most of their work). Finally, Jesus quoted exclusively from the Septuagint, which was one of the three main versions of the Old Testament used at the time He was living here – this is the Catholic Old Testament, but it is not the Old Testament used by protestants today. More confusion!

Many, even protestants, turn to tradition: we’ve been using these books for years and they are acceptable. This does nothing to convince the atheist that s/he should seriously consider the Bible as the “word of God.” In other words, it does nothing to inspire faith in the many claims we make on the Bible.

The most innovative answer, which we’ve heard on this blog several times, is that we can’t be sure, but we trust in the Holy Spirit. This answer is commonly cited by those who claim we have a “fallible collection of infallible books.” In other words, there may be additional “Scripture” out there that we know nothing of, but we can trust that the Holy Spirit has okayed those books which we do have. This argument also has many holes in it. If the collection is fallible, how can we know an erroneous book didn’t make it in? For example, Revelation is very different from other Scripture and makes some odd claims: can we prove it wasn’t an error? In addition, what of the other Scripture? If God can’t get all of it in our hands, He seems pretty weak or inept, doesn’t He? Finally, remember that Martin Luther removed some books completely and removed parts of other books; was he improving the Bible? This would suggest there were errors made in compiling the Bible and there could be others (he didn’t like James . . . ).

In fact, there is only one answer we can give to how we trust the Bible.

God did protect the Bible
That answer is simple: God gave us something that could protect the Bible and did. That “something” is the Catholic Church. And the Bible agrees.

In Matthew 16:18 Jesus founded a Church (that He calls “His” Church) and placed Peter firmly at its head. In Ephesians 3:8-10, Paul tells us that “now through the Church the manifold wisdom of God can be made known.” And 1 Tim 3:15 plainly states that the Church is the “pillar and foundation of truth” (I bet you thought the Bible was the pillar of Truth). At that time there was only one Christian Church: the Catholic Church.

And, in 397 A.D. it was a Catholic council that decided which books comprised the written Word of God that was simply called “Book” (the English translation of “Bible”). Every Christian church uses the New Testament decided upon at that Council and thus, in a very important way, trusts that the Catholic Church decided correctly on these books. We cannot completely trust the Bible without trusting in the Holy Spirit’s guiding of the Catholic Church.

Conclusion
One of the biggest feats Martin Luther pulled off was to remove the Catholic Church, which gave us faith in Scripture, from the heart of the believer and yet keep their faith in Scripture intact. It is irrational to trust in Scripture without trusting the Church, since Scripture comes straight from her to us.

Do you have a way of knowing that Scripture is true and infallible outside of the Church? If so, I’d love to hear it.

God bless,
Jay

PS - I also recommend you read A Quick Overview of Sola Scriptura for more.

We continually argue that the Bible is unconditionally “Catholic” in its thought and arguments. Because of that, there is Scripture that cannot be explained outside of Catholic theology – in other words, if you aren’t Catholic, you can’t comprehend what was meant. Each of these deserve their own explanation, so I have also highlighted the articles we’ve written that refer to the verses.

Let’s start small and work our way up:

1 Corinthians 15:29. Otherwise, what do people mean by being baptized on behalf of the dead? If the dead are not raised at all, why are people baptized on their behalf?

At a simple level, this verse suggests that those on earth can help those who are dead by being “baptized” on their behalf. At a deeper level it is clearly Catholic – particularly the notion of helping the dead. For more read Should we pray for the dead? and Purgatory and the Bible.

Acts 19:11-12. And God did extraordinary miracles by the hands of Paul, so that handkerchiefs or aprons were carried away from his body to the sick and diseases left them and the evil spirits came out of them.

To a Catholic, these are called “relics,” but to a protestant these are unexplainable. For more read Idolatry! The Catholic Veneration of Icons and Relics and Answering Protestant Objections.

John 20:17-18. Jesus said to her, “Do not hold me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father; but go to my brethren and say to them, I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.” Mary Magdalene went and said to the disciples . . .

Non-Catholics argue that the Church is wrong on Jesus being an only child. But here, when Jesus tells Mary to get his “brethren,” Mary gets the disciples. This is the Catholic argument – for more see The Brothers and Sisters of Jesus: Did Mary have Other Children?.

1 John 5:16-17. If any one sees his brother committing what is not a mortal sin, he will ask and God will give him life for those whose sin is not mortal. There is sin which is mortal; I do not say that one is to pray for that. All wrongdoing is sin, but there is sin which is not mortal.

All protestants that I’m aware of teach that “sin is sin” and there is no such thing as venial or mortal sin. This verse teaches otherwise. For more on this, read Are there different “levels” of sin?.

1 Corinthians 3:11-15. For no other foundation can any one lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if any one builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble – each man’s work will become manifest; for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work which any man has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If an man’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.

Explicit teaching on purgatory in the Bible? Most would say no, but this verse clearly answers the call. For more read Purgatory and the Bible.

Col 1:24-25. Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church, of which I became a minister according to the divine office which was given to me for you, to make the word of God fully known.

Catholics understand this verse, since they understand that suffering has redemptive qualities. Since protestants disagree, this verse becomes unexplainable. For more read Why must we Suffer? and The Value of Suffering.

James 2:14. What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can his faith save him?

Suffice it to say that this verse explicitly teaches Catholic theology in terms of salvation. For more read Sola Fides 2: Understanding Faith and Works.

John 6:51-56. "I am the living bread that came down out of heaven; if anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread also which I will give for the life of the world is My flesh." Then the Jews began to argue with one another, saying, "How can this man give us His flesh to eat?" So Jesus said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For My flesh is true food, and My blood is true drink. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him.”

Along with this goes the oddity (to non-Catholics):

Acts 2:42. They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles' teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.

These are the beginning of the Eucharist. There is more that could go in this post, such as 1 Corinthians 11:27-30, but I’ll start with these. They clearly teach the need for the Eucharist. Read more in This is the Lamb of God Who Takes Away the Sins of the World: Understanding the Eucharist and in Why does Jesus call Himself “Bread”?

I know there are more – feel free to add your favorites in the comments box – but this covers the basics. What are your thoughts?

God bless,
Jay

Many protestants don’t realize that they have a different Bible than Catholics (many Catholics miss this as well). The protestant Bible only contains 39 Old Testament books, 7 less than the Catholic Bible and two other books are missing a few chapters or verses. Why is this?

Where we got the Bible
The story starts with the origins of Scripture. There were several Old Testament versions floating around at the Birth of Christianity. Some groups recognized only the first 5 books of the Bible, which are commonly called the Torah or Law. Another group recognized only the Torah and the Prophets. But the most common version of the Old Testament, which was accepted by virtually all of the Jewish people, is the Septuagint. The Septuagint includes the Torah, the prophets, and all of the other Old Testament books – including the seven only in the Catholic Bible. Those seven books include Tobit, Judith, 1 and 2 Maccabees, the Wisdom of Solomon, Sirach, and Baruch. These seven books were written a little later than the others (the Old Testament was compiled over many, many years) and became known as deutocanonical, which means ‘second canon.’

In 70 A.D. the plot thickened. The Romans invaded Jerusalem and destroyed the Jewish temple. Because of this, the Jewish authorities met in Javneh in 90 A.D. to re-establish the canon. They excluded the Gospels and threw out every Old Testament book that referred to the Romans as a friend of the Jews (this was the worst imaginable travesty to faithful Jews). But remember, by this time the Christians had become the true church of Christ, thus the Jews did not have the authority to change the books of Scripture. In addition, if we accept their decision at this council, how can we include the Gospels? These were also condemned. (Note also that some Jews still include the deuterocanonical books in their canon of Scripture.)

The New Testament began being written around 55 A.D. (Matthew was the first to start). But the last New Testament book completed wasn’t until after 100 A.D. (Revelations). Remember that Christ was crucified in 33 A.D. During this time, individual churches would have access to some Scriptural text, but probably not all. There was no consensus over which books were Scripture and which were not – several books were floating around that we do not consider Scripture today, such as the Gospel of Thomas, etc. Over the next few hundred years a general consensus was reached concerning which books were Scripture. But there were still discrepancies, for example some people did not acknowledge Revelation as Scripture.

So in 393 A.D., over 350 years after the Crucifixion, the pope called a council of all the Roman Catholic bishops. Together they determined the official canon of Scripture that we now call the Bible (which translates as “book”). This council, called the Council of Hippo offers us the first definition of the Bible and lists the exact books in the Catholic Bible as we know them. This was reaffirmed at the Council of Carthage in 397 A.D. and again at the Council of Trent in 1548 (this last was in response to the challenge by Martin Luther). From the definition in 393 A.D. until Luther entered the world stage, the Catholic Bible was the only Christian Bible.

Martin Luther’s Influence
Much like the Jesus Seminar, Martin Luther was very skeptical of some parts of Scripture. In particular, he didn’t like some books of the Old Testament that clearly contradicted his interpretation of Scripture. For example, Tobit and Maccabees teach that we should pray for the dead; 2 Maccabees 15:14 (which is alluded to in Revelation 6:9-10) teaches the intercession of the Saints; Tobit teaches the intercession of Angels. But Martin Luther had a convenient way out of this problem: the Jewish Scriptures (the Old Testament) of his day did not include the Apocryptha (this was a new term to denigrate the authority of these Scriptures). So Luther effectively changed the Bible – despite the fact that Scripture condemns those who do so.

So, in 1520 we have the first Bible printed that separates out the deuterocanonical books. Initially all protestant Bibles were still printed with these books included. In fact, in England a law was passed that threatened the death penalty for anyone printing a Bible without them – even the original King James version included the “Apocryptha.” But Luther, Calvin and others taught that these books were not equivalent to other Scriptures. It wasn’t until 1827 that the first Bible was printed without them. Luther also wanted to throw out several New Testament books, including Hebrews, James (which contradicts his thought), Jude, and Revelation. In fact, he moved these books to the back of the protestant Bible because of his dislike of them (they remain at the back of most protestant translations). He also wanted to remove the Old Testament books of Job and Jonah (he considered them “fables”).

Should we read the Apocrypha or Deuterocanonical books?
I think there is far more evidence supporting the validity of these books. Here’s a quick summary:

• Out of the 350 Old Testament citations in the New Testament, 300 come from the Septuagint, which included the deuterocanonical books.
  
• The earliest Greek copies of the Old Testament we have (circa 450 A.D.) include these books (there are two such Greek copies).
  
• The early Church Fathers (even from before the Council of Hippo) refer to these books as Scripture (they don’t suggest any difference between these books and the rest of the Old Testament). These men weren’t perfect and there are a few that did separate the deuterocanonical books out, but not many. Only St. Jerome suggested they might not be Scriptural (again, pre-Council of Hippo). Later in his life, St. Jerome defended the deuterocanonical books as Scripture.
  
• Jesus and His apostles never denounced the Septuagint or even suggested that it was erroneous. It was the predominant translation of His day, so if it included incorrect books you would expected Christ himself or one of the twelve to condemn it. But they choose not to and instead quoted from it.
  
• There are several New Testament verses which are considered paraphrases of deuterocanonical passages. For example, 1 Corinthians 15:29 references 2 Maccabees 12:44 (this is a particularly problematic passage for protestants); Hebrews 11:35 references 2 Maccabees 7 (the only place in the Old Testament where someone is tortured as described in Hebrews); and Revelation 8:3-4 references Tobit 12:15.
  
• Finally, if the books had not contradicted Luther’s new translation of Scripture, it is unlikely they would have been removed. They had to be removed in order for Luther’s new “church” to be even partially believable.
  

Conclusion
Clearly, the deuterocanonical books were accepted by Christ and His apostles in the Septuagint as they were by the earliest Christians. The primary definition of the Bible as we know it includes these books and for a millennia all Christians accepted it. Why should it change? Martin Luther had invented a new theology that was not consistent with Scripture as we know it, so he had to remove these books in order to make his theology palatable. Is that a good enough reason for you?

The facts stand far more in favor of these books than against them. For more reading, see:

• Understanding the Apocryphta
  
• Where we Got the Bible
  

God bless,
Jay

It amazes me what passes for journalism these days. Tonight I’m watching an episode of 20/20 that questions whether Jesus really rose from the dead. These so-called men of God are suggesting that Jesus didn’t physically rise from the dead. It was metaphysical, they suggest, Jesus became the equivalent of a ghost.

Is this true? Absolutely not. And if you believe this, you do not believe the Bible. Period.

Biblically, what happened is telling. When Jesus was arrested, all of his followers fled. John followed, but at a distance. Let me repeat that: all of the disciples fled. These aren’t men who totally, completely believe – they fled from men arresting God, who could have easily protected them. Then, after His crucifixion, they basically remained in hiding. Doing nothing. Then Christ appeared to them after being raised from the dead. Was it a physical resurrection?

John 26:24-29. Now Thomas, one of the twelve, called the Twin, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see in his hands the print of the nails and place my finger in the mark of the nails, and place my hand in his side, I will not believe.” Eight days later, his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. The doors were shut, but Jesus came and stood among them, and said “Peace be with you.” Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand and place it in my side; do not be faithless, but believing.” Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.”

Here in the passage, we have Jesus suggesting His resurrection was physical: Thomas could stick his finger in Jesus’ wounds. The book of Acts takes the proof even further when the disciples who fled earlier were suddenly completely unafraid. So faithful now, that all but John suffered martyrdom for their beliefs. In other words, their lives radically changed once they saw the risen Christ. Would they do this without a resurrection? Could a ghostly Christ allow Thomas to feel His wounds?

If you believe that Christ wasn’t physically resurrected, you obviously believe the Bible is also in error or that Christ was lying. If you believe the Bible, particularly the Gospels and Acts, then you believe Christ physically rose from the dead. We believe that Christ was physically resurrected and that we will be physically resurrected. Yes, we will have glorified bodies, but they are still our bodies – the same ones we sin in today. As Jesus told Thomas, “do not be faithless, but believing.” And don’t believe anyone who purports to follow Christ and then ignores basic tenants of Christian belief. If Christ wasn’t physically raised from the dead, then our faith is in vain.

God bless,
Jay

The Wall Street Journal featured an interesting review of a new book by Jaroslav Pelikan – a history professor at Yale – entitled Whose Bible is it? A History of the Scriptures Through the Ages. I don’t know much about Mr. Pelican, but the review by George Sim Johnston made a few points I think are very important:

In the beginning, Mr. Pelikan reminds us, was the spoken word. The biblical God who speaks to man does not “write” anything until 80 chapters into the Old Testament. Similarly, Christ did not write anything (except on sand), nor did he tell his disciples to do so. When picking up a Bible, we should recall that its words were “heard long before they could ever have been read.” Faith, as St. Paul reminds us, comes from hearing.

Both the Old and New Testaments came out of a strong oral tradition . . .

We’ve been making these points, but it is nice to see others pointing this out as well. Another point:

When St. Paul in his letters quotes Jewish scripture, he is not referring to this official Hebrew Bible (compiled in 100 A.D.), which in any case did not yet exist, but to the Septuagint, the Greek translation of Hebrew Scripture that had been made for Jews who lived outside of Palestine and no longer spoke Hebrew. The Septuagint contained several books, including Tobit and first and second Maccabees, that were not included in the Hebrew Bible. But it was this Greek version that became the Old Testament for all Christians – until, that is, Luther demoted those books to “Apocryptha,” which is why Catholics and Protestants have different Old Testaments.

Remember, this is a history professor at Yale, rather than a Catholic apologist – I don’t believe he is Catholic, in fact. And this review is penned exactly on the book, which might be a good read for non-Catholics interested in the history of the Bible.

The review makes several other important points and discusses that it took the Church until almost 400 A.D. to decide which books to include or exclude. But the two passages above should offer enough to make you want to learn more. The questions are: why isn’t spoken Tradition valid – after all this is what the Bible was based on for hundreds of years; Also, did Martin Luther really have the authority from God to remove books of the Bible? These are serious questions for non-Catholics who base their faith upon the Bible.

God bless,
Jay

I’m curious about something that protestants obviously uphold. My understanding of Sola Scriptura is that the Bible is all we need to understand salvation and become “saved.” From a logical perspective, how does this work?

For example, three-fourths of the world population is illiterate. How can they become saved? They must, I assume, ultimately trust another person’s interpretation or version of Scripture verbally. They cannot verify whether they are being told the truth. Does God hold them responsible for believing someone who is incorrect?

In California there’s an extremely popular protestant minister who insists that if you’re good, God will reward you with material riches. Of course this is absurd and completely anti-Biblical, but suppose this guy convinces others of his beliefs? Not everyone has the mental acuity to analyze Biblical passages, even if they are literate. Where is the line drawn?

To take this further, all protestants must trust completely in St. Jerome. Why? He translated the Latin Vulgate Bible, which is what most translations are based upon (some are apparently based upon English versions, which takes them even further from the source material). Most of the original writings of Scripture have been lost and there are numerous discrepancies even in the oldest texts. After Jerome, King James had his minions translate the Bible into English and from there it has been translated numerous times. What happens when the translators make a mistake?

What I’m getting to is this: If you can believe that the Bible you have was kept infallible or “protected” by God so that you could have the truth, then why couldn’t God have done the same with the Church? Is it a further reach to suggest that God protects his Church from error? I don’t believe it is. Furthermore, this provides a trustworthy opportunity for the illiterate to learn infallibly about God, whereas the written Word does not.

Don’t misunderstand: I believe the Bible is infallible, but I believe this because the Church has told me, not because I’ve gone back and analyzed the evidence. I’ve read some of the works that were not deemed canonical and, frankly, I have to trust in the Church to know the difference (some are easy, obviously). Ultimately, this is why God gives us a living institution: to protect Truth. And He does it infallibly for “the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”

God bless,
Jay

Hello Everyone! It's been quite some time since my last posting, in fact this is my first time on the blog in over a month. So please know that my lack of responses hasn't been due to the fact that any particular Protestant brother or sister has stumped me nor has me waivering in my firm belief in the Catholic Faith. In truth, I have been quite overwhelmed with the arrival of Samuel (the newest member of our family), the beginning of a new semester, and the starting of a new business.

I found a great website for all of you interested in "reading the Bible from the heart of the Church." It is called the St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology and it is run by a lay organization founded by Dr. Scott Hahn. It is full of interesting resources and articles about Sacred Scripture. It has a Biblical theology course that is outstanding. I recommend it even to our Protestant friends interested in understanding how we Catholics read the Bible.... Who knows it may actually be an eye-opener for some of you. I have decided to quote a message from the website about what Catholic Biblical Theology is...enjoy:

What Is Biblical Theology? By Dr. Scott Hahn

When it comes to working a puzzle, there are two kinds of people: One looks at the "big picture" on the box while they're working; the other enjoys figuring out how the pieces fit together and watching the picture slowly emerge. I'm definitely a big picture kind of person.

I tell you that as a way of answering one of the questions I hear most often: "What exactly is biblical theology? Why didn't you start The St. Paul Center for Bible Study?"

If you think of the Bible as a collection of "puzzle pieces" - all those individual books and chapters and verses, then biblical theology is the picture that shows you how those pieces are meant to fit together.
That's how we read the whole Bible and discover a unified vision of salvation history.

Biblical theology is based upon God's Fatherly plan ("divine economy"), the unity of the Old and the New Testaments ("typology"), and how this applies for us today in all seven sacraments, especially the Mass ("mystagogy").

But biblical theology is more than simply one of many possible methods for reading the Bible - it is the way the Church mandates that Scripture be studied.

I often hear protestants proclaim proudly that their pastor or church “focuses” on the Bible. “He preaches right from it!” is a sign that they have a good pastor at their local church. I agree that focusing on Scripture, the written Word, is an excellent trait of a pastor, but I also wanted to point out that no church focuses on Scripture week to week like the Catholic church.

I can hear the collective gasp of some readers, but this is true. Typically a protestant pastor will select a collection of ten or so verses and build a sermon around these verses. He may disperse one or two other tidbits within the sermon, but he is focused on the initial passage of Scripture.

In a Catholic church it is handled differently. At each mass there are four passages from the Bible used. First, we have a reading from the Old Testament. Next we sing from the Psalms in the Old Testament. Then we have a reading from the New Testament (outside of the Gospels). And finally the churchgoers stand and we read a passage from the Gospels. Each of these passages are around ten or so verses; so each of the four are equivalent to the entire passage a protestant pastor is building his sermon on. In addition, the passages used by the Catholic church are related, so that the Old Testament and New Testament writings work together to explain Christ in a more fruitful way.

The Catholic church is naturally focused on the Scriptures her members wrote and she compiled. But even moreso, often a protestant pastor may have a favorite book or Biblical writer that he tends to focus on. Even worse, there may be a section of the Bible which the pastor neglects – not necessarily on purpose, but simply because of his natural inclinations. In the Catholic church the Bible is read through entirely in one year if you attend daily Mass. If you only attend Sunday mass, you hear the entire Bible in three years. So every Catholic who regularly attends mass has heard the entire Bible (assuming they have been attending for three years). Pretty interesting, huh? How many non-Catholics can claim their church covers the entire Bible in that timespan? I doubt many.

I think it’s important for non-Catholics to realize how seriously the Catholic church takes Scripture – it’s an integral part of our worship. By the way, there are also millions of Catholic Scripture scholars out there – many more than protestant churches have combined.

God bless,
Jay

Over the years I have spent a lot of time pondering the Scriptures as well as the claims of various denominations in terms of the inspiration of the Bible. As I have always found, the Protestant explanation is wanting. It lacks substance. Many reach the conclusion that the Bible is inspired simply because they believe it is or because the Bible claims to be. But does it really? Below is a chapter from the book Catholicism and Fundamentalism: The Attack on "Romanism" by "Bible Christians". Keating is an active apologist, writing multiple books, debating with various Protestant leaders over the main dividing issues between Catholics and Protestants, and speaking across the country to Catholics interested in learning more about their Catholic Faith. The chapter I have quoted here is on the understanding of the inspiration of the Bible. It fairly presents the Protestant claims as well as the Catholic answer. Enjoy!

The Reformers said the Bible is the sole source of religious truth, and its understanding must be found by looking only at the words of the text. No outside authority may impose an interpretation, and no outside authority, such as the Church, has been established by Christ as an arbiter. As heirs of the Reformers, fundamentalists work on the basis of sola scriptura, and they advance this notion at every opportunity. One might think it would be easy for them to explain why they believe this principle.

Yet there is perhaps no greater frustration, in dealing with fundamentalists, than in trying to pin them down on why the Bible should be taken as a rule of faith at all, let alone as the sole rule of faith. It all reduces to the question of why fundamentalists accept the Bible as inspired, because the Bible can be taken as a rule of faith only if it is first held to be inspired and thus inerrant.

Now this is a problem that does not keep most Christians awake at night. Most have never given it any serious thought. To the extent they believe in the Bible, they believe in it because they operate in a milieu that is, if post-Christian in many ways, still steeped in Christian ways of thought and presuppositions. A lukewarm Christian who would not give the slightest credence to the Koran would think twice about casting aspersions on the Bible. It has a certain official status for him, even if he cannot explain it. One might say he accepts the Bible as inspired (whatever that may mean for him) for some "cultural" reason, but that, of course, is hardly a sufficient reason, since on such a basis the Koran rightly would be considered inspired in a Moslem country.

Similiarly, it is hardly enough to say that one's family has always believed in the Bible, "and that's good enough for me". It may indeed be good enough for the person disinclined to think, and one should not disparage a simple faith, even if held for an ultimately weak reason, but mere custom cannot establish the inspiration of the Bible.

Some fundamentalists say they believe the Bible is inspired because it is "inspirational", but that is a word with a double meaning. On the one hand, if used in the strict theological sense, it clearly begs the question, which is: How do we know the Bible is inspired, that is, "written" by God, but through human authors? And if "inspirational" means nothing more than "inspiring" or "moving", then someone with a deficient poetic sense might think the works of a poetaster are inspired.

Parts of the Bible, including several whole books of the Old Testament, canot be called "inspirational" in this sense in the least, unless one works on the principle of the elderly woman who was soothed every time she heard "the blessed word Mesopotamia." One betrays no disrespect in admitting that some parts of the Bible are as dry as military statistics--indeed, some partsare nothing but military statistics--and there is little there that can move the emotions.
So, it is not enough to believe in the inspiration of the Bible merely out of culture or habit, nor is it enough to believe in its inspiration because it is a beautifully written or emotion-stirring book. there are other religious books, and even some plainly secular ones, that outscore most of the Bible when it comes to fine prose or poetry.

Allow me to begin by saying that this is an article I never dreamed I would ever have to be writing but considering the extensive controversy surrounding this matter, at least in the minds of some of our Protestant brothers and sisters, I felt it necessary to clarify the validity of St. Matthias' apostleship.

In those days Peter stood up among the brethren (the company of persons was in all about a hundred and twenty), and said, "Brethren, the scripture had to be fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit spoke beforehand by the mouth of David concerning Judas who was guide to those who arrested Jesus. For he was numbered among us, and was alloted his share in this ministry. (Now this man bought a field with the reward of his wickedness; and falling headlong he burst open in the middle and all his bowels gushed out. And it became known to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so that the field was called in their language Akeldama, that is, Field of Blood.) For it is written in the book of Psalms, 'Let his habitation become desolate, and let there be no one to live in it'; and 'His office let another take.' So one of the men who have accompanied us during all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from the baptism of John until the day when he was taken up from us - one of these men must become with us a witness to his resurrection." And they put forward two, Joseph called Barsabbas, who was surnamed Justus, and Matthias. And they prayed and said, "Lord, who knowest the hearts of all men, show which one of these two thou hast chosen to take the place in this ministry and apostleship from which Judas turned aside, to go to his own place." And they cast lots for them, and the lot fell on Matthias; and he was enrolled with the eleven apostles. - Acts 1:15-26

Now the argument of some of our Protestant brothers and sisters goes like this: Peter and the other apostles thought that they were chosing who was to take Judas' place, but they chose incorrectly and this is proven by the fact that Jesus later chose Paul to be an apostle.