Catholics Wrote the Bible?

"And I swear my best Scout's Honor on a stack of Roman Catholic Bibles (Who am I kidding- it was the Catholic's who wrote the Bible in the first place!)"

What hubris!

Moses wasn't a Catholic. Neither was David. I'm pretty sure that Matt, Mark, Luke and John were all Jews.

Ah.. but they did, as it appears in the King James version of the bible. Now if he said the Torah or the Dead Sea Scrolls I would argue.  A bunch of catholics got together and decided what and who's accounts would be included. They left out many gospels such as Thomas.

At least he did not say the 10 commandments

Deciding what books should be included in the Bible could be construed as writing it but in reality the Catholics didn't write the Bible. It was written by Jews & Gentiles. And the Catholic bible is different from the Protestant Bible.

Ed Mori

1 Peter 4:10

So, if the quote was "after all Catholics assembled the Bible" would that have been better?

I understood what the poster meant and perhaps we are just arguing semantics, now before I make an anti-semantical remark I should say, ... well... oh well, carry on

For many Centuries there was one Christian Church, the Catholics, and all Christian Churches trace their lineage back to it, something a few peole forget.

Leastwise that was what I was taught

OGE, as I recall, the Ethiopian Church was founded before the canon, before the Catholic Church was Catholic.

Pappy

Hey guys, I was just being my obstreperous self. I didn't say we own the bible, or the good news it contains. IT is for anybody who wants it.

As a Catholic, I am taught to pray for all souls. And I am also taught that like it says in the bible, wherever three people meet in Jesus Name, He will be there. We believe that anyone is legitimately baptized if it is done with water and the name of the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit are invoked.

And finally, the Catholic Church has never proclaimed the certainty of anyone going to hell over anything. Ex-communion only means that you are not in full communion with the Church- not that you are any less loved by God. All are welcome into her fold.

With that said, I was just trying to get your goad.

It was the catholic Church and the wisdom of its theologians like Augustine that successful fought the great heresies that nearly destroyed the Christian faith for all, such as Arianism, the Manichean Heresy, Gnosticism, Montanism, Sabellianism, Pelagianism, Semi-Pelagianism, Nestorianism, Monophysitism, Iconoclasm, Catharism, Protestantism, and Jansenism.

Heresies have been with us from the Churchs beginning. They even have been started by Church leaders, who were then corrected by councils and popes. Fortunately, we have Christs promise that heresies will never prevail against the Church, for he told Peter, "You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it" (Matt. 16:18). The Church is truly, in Pauls words, "the pillar and foundation of the truth" (1 Tim. 3:15).

It was the Catholic Church who formed the great councils to solidify what was going to be deemed worthy of the term Sacred Scripture. (What we now call the Gospels and the New Testament and even some of the Old Testament).

This was a monumental task that took many centuries or prayer, reflection, study, research, debate, and in many cases martyrdom. And it was only because the Church was recognized as being an authoritative body that had the ultimate power to bind on earth and in heaven issues pertaining to the correct understanding of Scripture and the Liturgy that it was able to prevent the fracturing and super schismatic phenomena of Protestantism we see in our world today.

I do love my Church, and I do believe it was instituted with a covenant between Jesus and Peter. But I believe that the truth of the Gospel and the reality of Christ are for all God's Children. We Catholics have a very long tradition that is in a continuum from the present to Genesis. We believe we are the church of the catacombs, The Church of Peter and Paul, The Church of Christ with Jesus being our first Priest, . And we believe that the Tradition of two millennia of teaching, learning, exploring, and living the faith has provided humanity with a great resource of wisdom and guidance that Sola Scriptura cannot hope to provide.

And I dont hate nor am I threatened by those who think that the Church is evil, or misguided, or whatever. I truly think that these people really dont know the Church; they only know what they think the Church is.

The truth is, there is only one Church, like there is only on Gospel and only one Savior. And salvation is at hand.

Have a wonderful Sunday, and I wish you all the blessings of God in you scouting endeavors.

Pappy

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Well, now...

I reckon that back then it was da Christian Church, eh? Plus a wee bit of the Roman Empire. All of Christianity springs from that heritage and calls it it's own.

'Twas only later when you Catholic types split from the tradition and started claimin' all kinds of Central Authority in what used to be a Spirit-driven collegial enterprise that there was any muss and fuss, eh? And what did all that authority bring yeh? Sale of indulgences to finance papal armies and Crusades, eh?

Da rest of us just kept goin' along like in the olden days, when St. Paul wrote to the various different churches in Corinth and Ephesus and Rome and such, eh? You folks have mostly come around to our way of thinkin' in the last century, though, so no hard feelings.

Beavah

Yep, I don't think the Roman emperor Constantine (who authorized Christianity as the official religion of the Roman Empire and set the ball rolling) would have called himself Catholic.

Vicki

"Yep, I don't think the Roman emperor Constantine (who authorized Christianity as the official religion of the Roman Empire and set the ball rolling) would have called himself Catholic."

Since we Orthodox trace our church back to Constantine, we hold that we are the one true church. Unfortunately, Orthodox dogma does not mention Znerflot :-( so even it is lacking completness.

Dear Beav,

The History of Christianity has heroes and villains distributed pretty even-handedly. For every indulgence abusing priest and sadistic inquisitor, one can easily recall the Rabid Anabaptist or totalitarian Calvinist. Humans are fallible. The Church has had many reforms in its history, as well has its Schismatic Brethren in Christ.

The Catholic Church was the first Church. From the earliest writing of the Church fathers and the Acts of the Apostles the majority of the liturgy and the Sacred Texts we celebrate today was emerging and becoming solidified by the second and third centuries. The Holy Eucharist was believed to be the true Body and Blood of our savior to the Christian martyrs of Nero. The priestly line comes directly from the succession of Peter and the twelve that elected their replacements. Catholics view themselves as the fulfillment of the Jewish faith and thus in continuum with a priestly line that goes back to Melkesedek and then on to Moses and Aaron. It is a specific world view of Christianity that is historically and authoritatively continuous.

BEav, you are absolutely correct to write that the Church strayed in countless ways. But even when straying, the Church was spreading the word, converting Gaul, Germany, Britain, Spain, Africa, and the East. And then on to Asia and the Americas. (allied in Christ with an army of Protestant missionaries).

The important message of Christs Salvific powers and of the nature of the God Head is preserved in most Christian churches today.

So all is mostly well in Christendom.

I meant no slight to any non-Catholic practicing Christians. You are my Brothers and Sisters in Christ.

The Truth is the Truth. God allows no dualistic co-truths that are contradictory. Thus, there is only one truth, one God, one Church, one Son, and one Flock.

I run an ecumenical Christian Home School Latin Class. Every Monday 15 children and their parents come to my home and we study Ecclesial Christian Latin. We sing Gregorian Chants. We learn of Rome, the Early Christians, and of the Impact of Christendom on our culture today.

This class is made up of Baptists, Pentecostals, Catholics, Agnostics, and Presbyterians. I keep it together because we stay focused on the positive aspects of the faith that we all shared: Our shared truths. No one feels that they are compromising their values by having their children taught by an openly Roman Catholic man because they understand the spirit in which we are gathered is good.

Maybe an interesting thread would be

How is The Scouting Movement like Christianity?

If a Scouter is out of Communion with the BSA

is he still a scouter and doing scouting?

Peace Brother Scouter

Pappy

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Back in confirmation classes (in a protestant denomination), catholic in early church terms meant 'whole". And that when we recited prayers that included reference to the "catholic church", it meant the whole body of christians, and not Catholic with a capital "C", as a specific denomination whithin chritianity today.

Oh the way Protestants justify heresy . . .

LOL

Ay yi yi yi yi.

First an argument about whether Mormons are Christian. Then an argument about whether the Catholic Church is the first and one, true church.

You people are making it really easy for me to convert to Pastafarianism and the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster - the only religion to be founded by an Eagle Scout!

Calico

"Ay yi yi yi yi. Carumba!"

Ricky, standing with his hands on hips, stern look on his face, "LUCY, what have you and Ethyl been up to??"

Lucy, looking sheepishly at the floor, "Nothing sir."

Sorry Pappy but you got your facts a little screwed up. First the Roman Catholic Church did not come into exsistence until about 1050 when they split from the eastern Church and established the papacy in Rome. The church in the time of Constantine 400's AD was not even called Catholic, until he created the hierarchy of what was the early church in the east and what would later become known as the Roman Catholic Church eliminating the small community churchs of Paul replacing them with elaborate Basillicas (Cathedrals). The first written Bible was by St. Jerome in 400AD who created the Latin Vulgate Bible, translating the ancient scrolls written in Aramaic, Ancient Hebrew and Greek into Latin. It was the Catholic monks in Britian who were held prisoners during Henry the VIII's reign when he banned Catholicism in England that organized the Bible into chapters and verses like we are used to today, it was called the Douay Rheims Bible used by the Catholic Church until the 1960's.

So you see the Catholics did not write the Bible just modified it to match their unique brand of theology.