Is the Bible corrupt?

[Quiddity]

Fortunately the Vatican is not so dismissive of scholarship.

Agreed....Better then it used to be atleast.

Which would include all Christian scripture.

I certainly don't exclude them.

~Victor

 

[James the Persian]

This whole post is nonsense. You act as though the history of the Church is that of post-1054 Rome. Don't you know anything at all about the history of the Church prior to the middle ages, i.e. when the canon was actually formed?

You and I both know the Mother church has had the scriptures soley in her control since day one.

No. You and I know nothing of the sort. I assume that by 'Mother church' you mean Rome. She was never accepted as such in the east. The four Patriarchs were always the Pope of Rome's equals and as for the canon, most of the process of its formation took place away from Rome, in the east and in north Africa. The actual Mother Church is Jerusalem, not Rome.

Please do not attempt to blind me with historical 'fact' there is no way in the medieval history of Europe that a majority or even a twentieth of the people could read.
The authority of the bible laid in the unquestionable authority of the catholic church and her vassals, literate Bishops.

Who said either medieval or Europe. I said the so-called Byzantine Empire at the time of the canonisation of Scripture and early heretical movements. That's long before the medieval period and it's fact that they were an incredibly literate society. In the east the Scriptures were available to much of the population (and in their own languages), not just bishops, and nobody was a vassal of the Church. The laiety, in fact, not infrequently deposed heirarchs for heresy.

People WHERE burned for heresy or imprisoned or tortured or as you say exiled by the Holy church, her inquisitors and state sponsors.

Yes they were. In medieval Roman Catholic western Europe. That's half a continent, two schisms and several hundred years away from the place and period in which the canon was, mostly, formed though.

For me the Old testament is a historical narrative of the semites of the levant while the New testament is simply a tool of the Church.
It was not written at the time of Jesus's life or even soon after, so to pretend it is the empirical words of Christ and that the excluded texts and gospels are simply 'consensually' unsuitable for assimilation into the bible is erroneous and a blatant lie.

All of the texts were written quite soon after Christ's death. What do you mean by soon? Books were rejected, organically, by the Church as a whole because they came from outside of the Church and opposed that which had been taught from the beginning. They were never, not even in the first couple of centuries, considered as rivals to the canonical Gospels but were generally rejected as heresy almost as soon as they appeared.

You really do need to brush up on your knowledge of early Church history if you seriously wish to argue your point. So far you're just arguing from ignorance and anachronistic views of the RCC.

James

 

[Simon Gnosis]

This whole post is nonsense. You act as though the history of the Church is that of post-1054 Rome. Don't you know anything at all about the history of the Church prior to the middle ages, i.e. when the canon was actually formed?
You really do need to brush up on your knowledge of early Church history if you seriously wish to argue your point. So far you're just arguing from ignorance and anachronistic views of the RCC.
James

I get a better picture if I read all kinds of things (not just bible history) and just read posts like yours to gain deeper insights into particular areas, it don't matter to me whether the Bible is untainted by corruption or not, its still wrong to take it literally or totally empirically for all kinds of reasons, all you have railed against is my accusation of deliberate corruption/ mis-editing by the Vatican, laughable that you question the possibilty really!
Considering the quagmire of corruption the Vatican is currently involved in.

You keep saying the canonisation took place far away from Rome....yeah right who though?


You dont even answer the possibilty of accidental corruption or my point that the gospel authors themselves were human and capabable of human prejudice desire and recall error and thus their writings should not be implicitly interpreted as the word of God.

LOL

Please I am not a biblical historian I am a scientist, give me a break with this "knowledge criticism" you base your arguements on historical fact...shaky for starters.
I base mine on logic and an understanding of human beings.

 

[Simon Gnosis]

Thanks.

No doubt. The author is, apparently, Ralph Martin.

There are no comments available from the publisher, while amazon.com offers "21 used and new available from $0.01".





Its lone Customer Review notes:

Reviewer: "young_preacher" (St. Louis, MO United States) - See all my reviews
Ralph Martin saw the crisis in modern Catholicism (and much of Christianity in general) way before most commentators. His warning and predictions have sadly been fulfilled. This is a good read if you want to see how the modern crises began. Ralph Martin is a good and well researched author.



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Mr. Martin refers to his book here. Nowhere can I find any indication of writing, much less scholarship, addressing the origins and transmission of scripture.






Shroud of Secrecy: The Story of Corruption within the Vatican

FROM THE PUBLISHER
Shroud of Secrecy offers an insider's account of intrigue, sex, and corruption within the Vatican. It is the treatise of written protest from within the Church since 1517, when Martin Luther posted his historic 95 theses on a church door in Wittenberg, Germany. Written by a small group of Vatican prelates who call themselves the Millenari, its publication breaks a code of silence that has allowed impropriety and hypocrisy within the Roman Catholic Church to flourish.



​

What does a book that purports to address "the Church since 1517' have to do with the origins and transmission of scripture?

Fine. You've offered more than enough to demonstrate that quality of your position.

Books basically on the corruptive nature of the Church...those where recent ones.
I read lots of books Jayhawker...ask me how stars are born..il provide formula