markomalley

Well, I, for one, welcome your joining the fray. You may regard my comments as simplistic, but they simply try to deal with the most critical issues without confusing matters. You bring up Tyndale. He was found to be guilty of violation of the "Constitutions of Oxford" (an act of the English parliment) and was burned at the stake in Beligium, by the Belgian authorities at the instigation of Henry VIII and the Church of England in 1536. That was an act of the English state, not an act of Rome. Tyndale's version of the Bible was condemned by Rome because it was alleged to be laden with errors, not because it was in the vernacular. This translation was condemned not only by Rome but also by the Church of England (post-separation). That point cannot be over-emphasized. Now I haven't personally studied Tyndale's Bible, so I am relying upon other people's analysis of it. But I understand that much of it was used in the KJV. So I'd like to give one example (yes, I realize that this is going off a bit on a tangent): 1 John 5:7-8. If you take a look at the KJV, you will notice the following: 1 John 5:7 (KJV) For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one. 1 John 5:8 (KJV) And there are three that bear witness in earth, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one. 1 John 5:7 (RSV) And the Spirit is the witness, because the Spirit is the truth. 1 John 5:8 (RSV) There are three witnesses, the Spirit, the water, and the blood; and these three agree. The RSV is a whole lot closer to the Greek (because the Greek fonts are not always faithfully reproduced, you can follow this link here to see for yourself) The point is that there were a NUMBER of mistranslations...not just casual ones, but dramatic ones like the one above...that occurred in many of these vernacular translations. That's why some of the vernacular translations, such as the Tyndale, were proscribed. Tyndale, was, in essence, a Lutheran. Lutherans were not treated well by the Church of England. They regarded him a heretic just as surely as Rome did. To clarify one statement you made, though, Tyndale's Bible was not in Belgium, it was published in Worms, Germany (a hotbed of the Lutheran heresy). I realize you did not address where it was published, but that little detail is important in understanding the full scope of the issue. And that is all well and good. But, keep in mind that these people sympathetic to the likes of Luther and Calvin were subject mostly to the wrath of the Church of England, which had already separated itself from Rome. As I mentioned in my earlier post, the Puritans left England for the Netherlands, and ultimately for Massechusetts, not because of Roman persecution, but because of persecution at the hands of the English Church. Again, let me stress (in my simplistic fashion) that what ended up happening as often as not was that rulers used the Church to accomplish their political goals. Heresy was not only regarded as a threat to the Church, but as a threat to the State, as well. Again, this is not to say that all of the popes were perfect or that there were not abuses happening within the church, rather than strictly on behalf of the church. But I do believe it is important to clarify when abuses are being done in the name of the Church, vice done by the Church. Obviously, nothing (provided an accurate translation is provided). However, this brings up one critical point that nobody has cared to address: If the Catholic Church was so opposed to a Bible in the vernacular, why would they authorize, sponsor and publish the Douay-Rheims Bible, which, as I mentioned earlier, was published well before the KJV? (The New Testament was published 25 years before the KJV first came out and the full Bible published two years before the KJV). Why would they do this if they so hated the thought of the scriptures being translated into the vernacular? Sorry, Rick, I'm beyond the time allowed for editing. I did report myself to the moderators, though, so hopefully they can either yank the tag or pull the post altogether. (I did reduce the number of repititions from 10 to 1, though...it used to be worse) :)

Oakspear, I would almost agree with you; its my belief, based upon what I've seen, that these various competing belief systems (with the exception of the gnostics) sprung up during various periods of time in the early church history. For example the Marcionites came into existance somewhere around the middle of the second century (named after Marcion, bishop of Sinop on the Black Sea coast, who originated the practice). The Arian heresy is said to of originated with Paul of Samosata, about 100 years after the Marcionites. The common thread, though, of almost all of these groups was a divergence from what was already identified as orthodox Christian doctrine. I draw an exception with the Gnostics, because, so far as I can tell, gnostic thought originated hundreds of years before Christ. The heretical "gnostic" group to which I believe you refer tried to interpret Christianity with that gnostic philosophy that was pre-existent. But I do agree with your conclusion, though. Had any of these heresies prevailed, they would now be considered the orthodoxy and what is now considered orthodox would be considered heresy.

Jerry I believe that your statement is inaccurate. I believe that the scriptures were preserved by that church that you accuse. It is a historical fact that the Catholic Church taught the scriptures. It is a historical fact that the scriptures were read each week to a largely illiterate people in their service. No matter what propaganda you happen to subscribe to, that is a fact. All you have to do is to look at the liturgical ceremonies from any time period since they have been recorded. Your example of Mary I's persecution is an interesting one. Her father, Henry VIII, split from Rome because the Pope would not grant him a divorce when he tired of his wife. For that reason, he split from Rome. His daughter, Mary, never renounced her original faith. When she acceeded to the throne, she attempted to return England to the Catholic church. Her marriage to Phillip of Spain was very unpopular with her subjects. But do you know what the difference, dogmatically between the Church of England and the Catholic Church was, particularly in those days? The Catholic Church recognized the Pope. The Church of England gave that authority to the Crown. (Why? So that Henry could get the nookie he wanted). That's it. The liturgy was still the same, all of those evil practices of the Catholics were still done by the English Church. The three hundred people Mary had burned were were those who resented her taking England back to Catholicism. What were they defending? Certainly not the Word of God...they were defending having the Crown serve as the head of the church. Oh, and by the way, after her sister, Elizabeth, took the throne, returning England to Anglican rule, she ended up killing seven times as many Catholics as her sister did Protestants. But, of course, killing Catholics is perfectly OK, therefore, Elizabeth had a reputation as a noble leader (the Virgin Queen), while Mary got the title "Bloody Mary." Go figure. So try again with another example. Let me try. Of course, we know that the Pilgrims who settled in Massachusetts were fleeing religious persecution, right? And since they were fleeing religious persecution, they must have been fleeing from the Catholics, of course, right? Wrong...they just happened not to agree with the (Protestant) Church of England. And for that, they had to pay. So they were persecuted and moved to the Netherlands (who, at the time were Calvinists). The Netherlands decided that it was not in their best interest to keep them anymore, and so the Pilgrims went on to the New World...where their descendents became known as the Puritans. Of course, we know what happened there...the Salem Witch Trials. And then lets try the Spanish Inquisition. The Catholic Church killed millions of protestants there, right? Surely he can't defend that, can he? Do me a favor, read the Wikipedia article on it. What you should note is <u>who</u> established it. I know that you weren't taught this in Sunday School or in TWI Jerry, but facts are, nevertheless, facts. And I could go through more. Don't get me wrong, I am not saying that the Catholic Church is perfectly innocent...not hardly. But the garbage you get from reading your Jack Chick tracts needs to be a bit balanced with some reality. Look, I'm used to anti-Catholic bigotry. Anti-Catholicism is as American as apple pie. Ever hear of those fine Protestant organizations, the Ku Klux Klan and the Know-Nothings? (btw, Raf, before you say anything, I know that no Protestant denomination established the Klan. However, their membership was restricted to White Protestant Males, therefore they are as much a Protestant organization as the Knights of Malta is a Catholic one) I realize that you may have been taught this stuff as fact. I remember how anti-Catholic TWI was when I was in TWI. If you grew up in a Protestant household, particularly one in certain denominations, you would have likely grown up with that for your entire life. But look, if you were a "good old boy" who grew up in the rural south, you may not mean anything when you call blacks n*gg*rs, because that's just what they're called. You may honestly believe that they are mentally deficient and cannot control the urge to eat watermelon and fried chicken. But, just because you may not mean anything by it, its still a bigoted statement and is still wrong-headed, hurtful, and factually wrong -- even if you mean nothing by it. Look, Jerry, I am mostly a live-and-let-live kind of guy. I'll respect your right to believe what you want and won't start going off calling you a heretic or anything. All I'm asking is that you do the same. I'll be happy to get into a spirited discussion about the differences in theology or the differences in Biblical interpretation as a matter of intellectual interest, but I don't typically get up in arms over it. But when you start making statements like those that I called you on, I consider those statements to be over the top and a personal affront. You generalize, inaccurately, and then expect it to be considered as fact...and, of course, it can't be offensive. You want me to chill out? Then show some respect. And that goes not only for Catholics, but Mormons, Jews, or whoever. You'd want them to show some respect for your beliefs, right?

I guess that makes me unreasonable. Sorry.

You're right on that count. But, correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought that the Marcionite belief system came into being around the middle of the second century and largely died out somewhere around the fifth, only recently (in the past 100 years or so) coming back into fashion with the modern resurgence into the "new age" practices and gnosticism in general. I believe that most orthodox Christians (not just Catholics) would have a hard time accepting gnostic beliefs as genuinely "christian." You are quite correct that the Marcionites were one of the longest-lived heterodox groups in the ancient world. I'm not sure as to the numbers, but I do believe their life-span was about twice that of the Arians. As to baptism, I said in that thread: I think the point you raise about them having their own Canon is a vital one. Their Canon did not line up with that accepted by orthodox Christianity. As you can (and have) attest, their complete Canon is not available. Your pet project, reconstructing that Canon, illustrates the point I was trying to make: had the Catholic Church wished to eradicate the scriptures, they surely could have done so in the first 1500 years of their existence (particularly if the power and reach of the Church was as ubiqutous as some anti-Catholic writers claim it was). As to the ecclesiastical structure of the Marcionite church, I am certainly no expert, but will take your word for it. And so, I will revise my original statement from: to: The caveats added are highlighted by italicizing. Hopefully that will placate the critics on this thread while still illustrating the point that I was attempting to make that jbarrax's assertion that Rome intentionally tried to destroy the scriptures is not only ludicrous but is highly offensive.

That is a truly disturbing image, Goey.

Oh no, I guess we'll have to deal with this: Note: keep watching the pic... On edit, to correct myself.

Mike has lemmings?

There is intercommunion between the groups. The groups accepta tha apostolicity of each others episcopate. Give me a break, Raf.As to your: You quote me saying: That is not the full context.The full context is: And if you really want the total context, you need to go back to my opening statement to capture that full context: That sort of frames the whole discussion, doesn't it?

Sorry, Raf, but it is historically accurate (unless you are speaking of the Eastern/Western Schism in the 11th Century...but I would submit that both churches are Catholic in form and belief.) Otherwise, there were little heretical movements that popped up from time to time, but no other "denominations." You'll note that I said "Catholic," not "Roman Catholic." I did so for a reason. In fact, there were no protestant denominations until 1517-1521, the time period between the 95 Theses and the Diet of Worms. Further I never said all copies of scripture were in the hands of the Church. I did say the following: That doesn't state that all copies of the scriptures were in the hands of the Roman Catholic Church (common sense says that this could not be true). I never addressed possession of copies of scripture; I addressed reproduction of scripture. Finally I wasn't berating somebody for ignorance of history...I was berating somebody for sheer bigotry.

On edit, to reduce the repetitions of the "Maniacal Laugh" [sound effects deleted by the moderator]

Jerry, Your bigotry is getting old. First, for 1500 years, there was nothing but the Catholic Church. Had they wished to bury the scriptures, they could have done so and utterly destroyed them, particularly if they were as all-powerful as you claim they were. Before printing presses, how were the scriptures preserved and transmitted? They were hand-written: normally by Catholic monks working and living in Catholic Monastaries. Curious behavior for a group who wished to "bury the scriptures." Secondly, its curious that the first English edition of the Bible approved for use by the Catholic Church was published 2 years before the King James Version. (The NT section was released a full 25 years before the KJV) -- strange behavior for a group that wished to bury the scriptures. Also curious that the scriptures are read during each and every liturgical service performed by the Catholic Church and always have been (in the ancient days, it was called the Mass of the Catechumens). In fact, if one goes through the Lectionary (the calendar of scripture readings), one will find that about 40% of the scripture is covered during the 3-year Sunday calendar. If one adds the 2-year daily calendar, the number goes up to about 70%. Curious behavior for people who wished to bury the scriptures--reading them in public. Oh, by the way, its also curious that the American Baptist Churches in the USA, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Anglican Church of Australia, Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada, .Anglican Church of Canada, Presbyterian Church in Canada, Christian Church [Disciples of Christ], Presbyterian Church in the USA, Christian Reformed Church in North America, United Church of Canada, Church of England, United Church of Christ, Anglican Church in South Africa, and United Methodist Church use substantively the same lectionary (the Common Lectionary) in their services as the Lectionary developed by that evil Catholic Church. Again, strange behavior for a group trying to destroy God's Word. Did you ever consider that the vast majority of people had no more exposure to the Bible than the readings they heard in the church because they were ILLITERATE? Why were they illiterate? Because they were too busy eking a living for themselves to spend time on foolishness like school. Even if they had been able to read, books were all done by hand...Gutenburg didn't invent the moveable type press until the 1440s and didn't publish his famous Gutenburg Bible until 1455. Even then, one of his Bibles would cost an average person more than three years' wages. (as a point of interest, you know who subsidized Gutenburg's operation? The Catholic Archbishop of Mainz, Germany -- pretty strange behavior for an Evil Catholic who wanted to bury the scriptures, supporting publication of a Bible) Jerry, you make inaccurate assumptions that are clearly ignorant of the reality of history. And why am I lashing out at you? Because you offend me personally when you spout this garbage (why? because I'm Catholic). I don't care if you agree with what I believe or not. But when you continue to propagate your lies that are based on something only casually related to the facts and to history, I need to set the record straight.

I'll sell mine to the highest bidder!

LOL. How about this: "Any group whose beliefs don't agree with mine." Nope. Don't think so. I'm Catholic and there's a lot on this board who think I'm in the most evil cult in the history of man :blink: ;)

Thanks, David. I knew that already. I wanted Def to answer that though for a reason...

Define cult for this purposes. Is it a cult if its doctrine is outside of "orthodox" Christianity (and who determines that one...) or some other criterion(criteria)?

Mo, Does he know something that we don't????? ;) ;) :wacko: Or maybe he got confused which thread he was on LOL

Sami, you're a class act. Shellon, you should be proud.

Yes, but would he bring Hooters Girls into the WOW Auditorium to serve wings and drinks?

We know that we are saved by grace and not by works: So I've got a question to try to find out what people think about this. If you have some verses to help back up what you answer, I'd appreciate hearing that as well. I don't want to get into an argument with anybody...I don't want to result in any huge controversy, I'm just curious what people think on the subject. So what are the works talked about in the above? And no I am not asking what one must do to be saved. The specific question is what works is Paul talking about in the above quote? I make the following disclaimer, because if I don't, I'm confident that SOMEBODY is going to quote Rom 10:9-10 to me :D

I think Martindale is the perfect person to run TWI. I think that he should return. Then he could finish the job he started. Just think about it for a little bit. What was the size of TWI in the early '80s? What size was it in '99? How many innies who are saying 'its better now that he's gone' would bolt the minute he was 'rehabilitated? Yup, I truly believe that they should immediately rehabilitate LCM and restore him to the seat of power as the mogfart!

Uhhhh, John, its Mark, not Mike ;) And the point remains that either you should be able to stand by your words or not. If you can't stand by your words, you shouldn't speak them. I think that's a big part of the problem with the Internet, as a whole, is that you can state something in total anonymity with no accountability. Not that I have anything against that, but it does result in some people being meaner than they would if they were in a position where somebody could knock their block off (as would surely happen if they were f2f). When a person can make those posts, get people riled up, and then edit or delete the post, then that's inexcusable. In my mind, at least. The point is that people should think before they post. I would fully agree with an 'edit' ability if we didn't have the ability to preview our posts before committing them to the board. But we CAN preview...and we should all preview...before hitting the "Add" button. Since we CAN "preview," there should be no need to "Edit" or "Delete."

Thanks for your nice words, Biker Babe. Unfortunately, the duragesic is not working as well as it was...and I think that we may need to go up to the next higher dosage of it. Yes, I am aware of a lot of chronic pain support groups. There are several in the DC area where I live. I'm glad that you have gotten a lot of help with them. My wife is not into the "group" thing so much. She has tried some pain management therapy (nerve blocks, etc.), but got some mixed results from her efforts. We may try to get a pain pump implanted if the upcoming round of surgeries is unsuccessful. But this was not intended to be a (whine) about my wife's condition or (whine) about my caretaker position thread. I wouldn't have put it down in the "Doctrinal" basement of the cafe had that been the intent. I was just trying to share some things I found in the Bible that were prompted by that situation. Unfortunately the information wasn't received in the manner that I'd hoped (either: gee that's cool, I hadn't seen that before or No Mark, you're wrong. Did you not consider the following). But such is life. And I can very much so appreciate anybody not feeling that comfortable with dealing with the Bible after having been in TWI. It was several years after I got out of TWI and had tried a couple of offshoot groups before I could come back to dealing with the Bible. And I didn't get horribly burnt by TWI (I left on my own back in '89, versus being M&A'd, being abused and having to escape, or whatever). If somebody did get "burnt" by TWI, I could appreciate them having a life-long resentment of everything to do with God. As to the giving up part: no, we're not. The priority of action is: 1) Corrective medical therapy (surgery, PT, whatever) to the degree that we can. Its very convenient to live only 20 minutes from Johns Hopkins in regards to that :) 2) Adaptive medical therapy (pain management and mobility stuff) 3) Spiritual therapy (trying to see if there is an ultimate 'good' to this undesirable situation -- what kind of 'lemonade' God can make from these 'lemons'). Just because we are looking in this direction is not that we're giving up on the fight, btw. But I believe that the psychological damage done by this can be mitigated if we can see what spiritual good happens as a result of it. Again, thanks.

I think that we should have to live with what we post. I also think that we should have to live with the warts of our posts. With this new board we can preview our posts...I think that previewing the post should be mandatory before allowing us to add the post to the thread, but once we've previewed it (do you really want to add this?), then we should have to live with what we've said. Having said that, though, we should be able to petition the moderators to remove a post we've made if we truly regret that post. Look...in the real world, if you send an e-mail, once its gone, its gone. Once you say something in person...its said. Once you drop the letter in the mail, its gone. Why should this be different?