Re: Translations. Questions for everyone. -- Catholic Friends Forum

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Date Posted: 20:23:29 08/03/07 Fri
Author: Catie
Author Host/IP: h166.243.213.151.ip.alltel.net / 151.213.243.166
Subject: Re: Translations. Questions for everyone.
In reply to: Joan 's message, "Translations. Questions for everyone." on 14:00:11 08/03/07 Fri

Joan, Jeepers, I know I should wait until I'm drug-free, but since that looks like it's going to be far into the future, I'm gonna answer right now, mainly because I have become tired of lying in bed tonight. :) I'm giving it a shot and am going to make a feeble attempt to answer your question. You have asked it before and you deserve an answer of some kind. I'm bet I'm going to open a can of worms, but I do it with the best of intentions.

"This is what I don't get. They accept that the Bible is the inspired word of God, but they go and change it. :-)
...If they truly believed that the councils got the canon right, why would they change the Bible? "

Who do you say changed it? How did they change it?

There were councils, those in authority writing down God's word from the beginning of time. The old testament tells us first, God wrote the Ten Commandments. From there we read in old (Torah) and new testaments where he instructed specific men throughout the ages to write down his words. In Acts 15 a council gathered in Jerusalem to determine if Gentiles were bound by the law of Moses. There was debate then as to what was to be acknowledged as God's word for his people. Some Jews believed it eas okay for the Gentiles to not be bound by Mosiac laws, but that Jews should not be free of them. Then St.Paul (of Tarsus) came along and said something to the effect that to live by the law was crucifying Christ anew. Paraphrasing, he said the Holy Spirit would be the guide (in place of the law). But Christ himself said "I've come not to destroy the law, but to fulfill it". There was division among believers.

Then in Nicaea, 325 A.D., as you know, there was a council that was the beginning of the Catholic Church. At the heart of that council was Constantine. Sorry, earlier I incorrectly referred to him as a Pope. that's not the first time I've done that. I mean no disprespect, and I don't want anyone to misunderstand my thinking, but I equate him the same as a Catholic Pope, I think because of his religious power.

My point is, there have always been councils that met, discussed and voted on books, scriptures, etc. As you probably know, the protestant holds Constantine responsible as is the one framed into being a church of his own design, dictating what should be. YOu can argue that the Catholic church kept the original books, that nothing ws changed and that the protestants changed it. But the protestants have the same argument... That the books Constantine and his council voted on, deemed acceptable, are not accepted as divine holy inspired scripture. Protestants accept the 66 books of the original bible, written by 40 inspired authors, over a period of approximately 1,600 years. Protestants adhere to the scripture in 2 Timothy 3:16 which states that "All scripture is inspired by God�." All as in the original scrolls. 2 Peter 1:20-21, Peter reminds the reader to "know this first of all, that no prophecy of scripture is a matter of one's own interpretation, ... but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God." The Bible itself
tells us that it is God who is the author of His book. I don't expect you to agree, but does this is the best I can do at such a late hour. :)

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[> [> [> [> I just read my own words. Yep, I pretty well botched it. LOL -- Catie, 20:27:36 08/03/07 Fri [1] (h166.243.213.151.ip.alltel.net/151.213.243.166)

It's a late hour. I should just return to my weary bed. lol... Gosh, Even I can barely make sense of it. *ack*

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[> [> [> [> Re: Translations. Questions for everyone. -- Joan, 03:28:14 08/04/07 Sat [1] (ip68-0-253-131.ri.ri.cox.net/68.0.253.131)

" YOu can argue that the Catholic church kept the original books, that nothing ws changed and that the protestants changed it. But the protestants have the same argument... That the books Constantine and his council voted on, deemed acceptable, are not accepted as divine holy inspired scripture. Protestants accept the 66 books of the original bible, written by 40 inspired authors, over a period of approximately 1,600 years"

Catholics accept the Alexandrian Canon. Protestants use the Hebrew Canon. The New Testament writers used the Alexandrian canon. Something like 300 quotes from the OT that are in the NT came from the Septuagint, the Alexandrian Canon which is in Greek. This was the popular translaton, because Hebrew was a dying language then. The New Testament was written in Greek. Jesus used the Greek translation, the Septuagint.

The Hebrew Canon wasn't "ratified" (if that's the right word) as the "correct" canon until long after Jesus' death, around 100 AD. Until then, only some of the Jews used that version. Others, including Jesus and the NT writers used the Septuagint translation.

Luther rejected the canon because he agreed with the Jews that certain books shouldn't be included because there was no evidence of Hebrew copies of those books. Well, what do you know? They found copies of some of those books in the Dead Sea Scrolls! :-)

So, one of the reasons that the canon was disputed has been found completely invalid. Luther also wanted to ditch anything that supported belief that he was uncomfortable with, like prayer for the dead. That doesn't sound "inspired" to me.

The councils that decided that canon (OT and NT) were held in 393 and 397, and the canon was approved and closed forever in 405 by Pope Innocent.

This was long after the church was supposedly ruined and made invalid by Constantine. So why would Protestants accept the Canon? How do they know that these books and only these books are the right canon? And if the quotations from the OT in the NT came from the Septuagint, how can they accept the NT as inspired? If they don't believe that the Septuagint translation is good, how can they accept scripture based on that translation as valid and inspired?

The answer, I think, is that they don't accept it. 16 centuries after the canon was closed, they opened it again. Luther decided which books were right, based on mistaken information as shown above, and changed the canon.

How does anyone accept a canon based on misinformation, decided on by someone who was obviously not guided by the Holy Spirit?

The Septuagint was the translation used by Jesus and the New Testament writers. Why would anyone choose to use another, less complete version, especially when it's been proved that the reason for throwing out the books was faulty? The books do exist in Hebrew!

And yet, the Protestants accept the canon of the NT without question, even though that canon was decided by the same councils and pope--all Catholic--after the CC was supposedly ruined by Constantine. These were fully Catholic councils. They didn't meet before Constantine. I know that some Protestants divide things along what I call the Constantinian line, as if everything before Constantine were pure and everything after were impure.

But there were many doctrinal disputes before Constantine. There were sects long before Constantine. In fact, many of Paul's letters were in response to local disputes about belief. So how do Protestants accept that the Catholic council members were guided by the Holy Spirit when deciding on the NT but were not about the OT? Or do they believe that it was Luther who was guided by the Holy Spirit and actually decided the canon of the NT as well, and that it just happened to match the Catholic NT canon?

But who made the decision on the canon, according to Protestants? Did Luther have complete control? Did they have their own councils in the 16th century?

Joan

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