“All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness” (2 Timothy 3:16).

Former Fundamentalist seminarian Tim Staples relays his experience at Jimmy Swaggert Bible College: “I was amazed to find myself in two classes back to back that taught entirely different positions on the Trinity. The first taught orthodox Trinitarian theology. The second taught that God the Father has a body and God the Holy Spirit has a body. The first class taught that Jesus was the eternal Son of the Father. The second taught that he was the eternal Word who became the ‘Son’ only at the incarnation. I remember going to lunch with a young lady one day and she was very distraught. She said to me in despair, ‘I thought I knew what I believed about God, but now I’m not sure what I believe.’” (quoted from his testimony, "The Bible Made Me Do It", included in Surprised by Truth, Basilica Press, San Diego, 1994)

Most Fundmentalists have a problem with word and even concept of “tradition.” They believe that the Bible is in itself the only guide of faith and sufficient for all things. Yet I was astounded when I read Tim Staples’ testimony and the above quote, where two different professors from the same teaching institution contradicted each other so greatly. Is this the legacy of sola scriptura? What is the truth?

Tradition is something that carries a negative meaning with Fundamentalists because they believe Jesus condemns them in Matthew 15:9, warning against the “traditions of men” which nullify the Word of God.

Fundamentalists love to use this verse to condemn all Catholic “traditions” as unscriptural and evil. Yet the Bible is full of mainly positive comments about tradition:

Luke 10:16: “He who listens to you listens to me; he who rejects you rejects me; but he who rejects me rejects him who sent me.”

2 Thessalonians 2:15: “So then, brothers, stand firm and hold to the traditions we passed on to you, whether by word of mouth or by letter.”

1 Corinthians 11:2: “I praise you for remembering me in everything and for holding to the traditions, just as I passed them on to you.”

2 Timothy 2:2-3: “And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable men who will also be qualified to teach others. Endure hardship with us like a good soldier of Christ Jesus.”

Paul tells us that divine Revelation comes from both written and oral sources, both are equally binding.

Was Jesus condemning Apostolic tradition and oral transmission of the Gospel? Surely not! For that was not a tradition of man, but it was of God. What Jesus was condemning were “traditions of men” contradictory to the Word of God. One of which, as we will see, is the very unbiblical concept of sola scriptura.

Arguing to a Fundamentalist that Apostolic tradition is equally binding to the written Word of the Bible is not an easy task. However, in the last chapter, I showed rather poignant evidence of Christ’s establishment of the Church based on the Apostles. The Church is the Body of Christ with authority to teach. One can see in Acts that the new converts to Christianity “devoted themselves to the Apostles’ teachings.”

The Bible itself confirms the authority of the Church, but the Church upholds the inspiration of the Bible. The two are inseparable. The Bible comes from the Church and serves as a teaching tool and guide in matters of faith and morals which were given to the Church by Christ Himself. It is a written testimony of the ministry of Jesus and the history of the early Church. I’ve never understood why Fundamentalists claim that the Catholic Church discourages Bible reading, teaches things that are contrary to the Bible, and doesn’t believe the Bible is important.

Nothing could be further from the truth!!! If Fundamentalists spent a little more time actually reading their Bibles, rather than just talking about them (spouting off random verses they barely understand out of context and incoherently), perhaps then they would have a better understanding about the Gospel and salvation!

The greatest problem with Fundamentalism, which actually stems from an error Martin Luther instilled in people’s minds is the notion that Scripture itself is sufficient for one’s salvation. You don’t need the Church. You don’t need anything but the Bible and what’s more, you don’t need anyone to interpret the Bible for you. You can do it all by yourself.

This notion became known as “Sola Scriptura” - “scripture alone” - and is the basis of Protestant rejection of the authority Jesus placed in the Church . The Church is secondary to the Bible according to this ideology.

However, this is impossible. The Hebrew nation did not arise from the Torah; the Torah came from Israel! The Bible did not precede the early Church, rather, the Bible came much later. It is the Church which gave us the Bible, through the work of the Holy Spirit who not only inspired the writers of the New Testament books (just as He did the writers of the Old Testament), but inspired the Church fathers to officially canonize the New Testament nearly 400 years AFTER Christ’s ascension into Heaven! Fundamentalists seem to think that the Bible is like how the Muslims view their Koran - that God wrote the texts and “dropped” it out of the sky for the “invisible Church” to live by and that’s all there is to it!

The first thing I must re-emphasize is the fact that it was the Catholic Church that canonized the Scriptures of the New Testament and decided what would be in our Bible to begin with. This was no easy task! Many centuries of discernment and prayer were necessary, but the Holy Spirit was faithful in sustaining her during this period. There were several excellent books out there which did not make it into canon, as well as several heretical books (of the Gnostic variety) which were rejected as well. If not for the Holy Spirit moving within the Catholic Church to canonize the Bible which Catholics, Orthodox, and Protestants alike revere (mind you, the Protestants removed the deuterocanonical books of the Old Testament because Luther hated them; more on this later) and in the meantime battle heretics and preserve the true Faith, who is to say what heresy could have prevailed and replaced Christianity (Matthew 28:20; John 14:26) ? This only reinforces the necessity and importance of an apostolic tradition to uphold the Truth of the Gospel.

In any case, if the Catholic Church indeed were so “unscriptural” as Fundamentalists maintain, and truly taught things contrary to the Bible, and were really the “whore of Babylon,” why wouldn’t the Catholic Church have just tampered with the books of the Bible to have it conform with its “evil teachings”? How is it possible that the Church that canonized Scripture, by the guidance of the Holy Spirit, would teach something contrary to what the Church itself canonized? There is simply no logic in that argument. Obviously, the Fundamentalists are mistaken about something they believe is true about Catholicism, but is obviously not true. Is that any surprise?

If the Fundamentalists acknowledge the inerrancy of the Bible as the divinely-inspired Word of God, they must ultimately acknowledge the Catholic Church’s authority for providing it.

What do I mean by saying that if Fundamentalists acknowledge the inerrancy of the Bible as the divinely inspired Word of God, they must ultimately acknowledge the Catholic Church’s authority for providing it?!? It is simple. The early Church (especially not the first-century Church described in the book of Acts) did not have a Bible, other than the Old Testament, as a guideline of faith. But the Old Testament does not talk about Jesus’ crucifixion, nor does it provide information on how to deal with the conversion of Gentiles to the Christian faith, among other issues.

There is no “inspired table of contents” anywhere in Scripture telling believers what books should and should not be included in the Bible. This is even true for the Old Testament. We take the canon of the Old Testament on faith because Jewish tradition already had done the job. The decision as to which books should and should not be included in the Christian Bible was made by the Catholic Church in the councils of Hippo (A.D. 393) and Carthage (A.D. 397 and A.D. 419). These decisions were ratified and redefined by the Second Council of Nicea (787), Florence (1440) and Trent (1525-46). For more information about the process of canonization, check out Where We Got the Bible, by Henry G. Graham (published by Tan Books, Rockford, Illinois) or the detailed chronology provided on this web-site: http://ic.net/~erasmus/RAZ45.HTM

“Since the Bible does not indicate which books belong within it, and since Protestants do not believe the Church has any authority to infallibly determine which books belong and which books don’t, Protestants are left in an epistemological dilemma. Hence they are forced to the logical but heretical conclusion that there may be inspired books that should be in the Bible but were left out in error, and that there may be uninspired books in the Bible that have no business being there, but were added in error” (excerpt from the essay "From Controversy to Consolation", by Bob Sungenis, another former Fundamentalist who reconciled to the Catholic Church after examining the Scriptural evidence against Protestantism).

Protestants cannot be certain that the Bible is in fact the inspired Word of God. Sure, one can quote 2 Timothy 3:16-17 all one likes, but other books such as the Koran, the Book of Mormon and the Hindu Vedas all claim to be divinely inspired. A book claiming itself as divinely inspired does not guarantee it is divinely inspired! For example, there were several books circulating in the first and second centuries that claimed to be inspired or seemed to be inspired (among them, The Gospel of Peter, The Epistle of Barnabas, The Acts of Paul, and The Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians) but did not make it into the Bible.

So if you cannot be certain which books belong in the Bible (other than by the Catholic Church’s authority), it is impossible to state that it should be one’s sole, reliable authority.

“The irony is that while Protestants use the theory of sola scriptura to advance their attacks on the Catholic Church, they have no infallible way of knowing what comprises Scripture in the first place” (ibid, page 124).

Fundamentalists will argue that the Catholic Church did not give us the canon; the Holy Spirit did. Indeed, this fact cannot be denied. But look at how He gave it. How did the Holy Spirit work through the members of the early Church to produce those writings, and how did He communicate the canon to the Church? “By asserting that the Holy Spirit gave the canon to the Church, the Protestant must admit that the Holy Spirit guided the Church into an infallible decision” (ibid, page 125).

Isn’t that in line with what Jesus promised the Church? He promised to guide his Church into all truth (John 16:13) and to be with her until the end of the world (Matthew 28:19-20).

And if indeed that is true, then there is no rational basis to deny that the Church has been infallibly guided throughout the ages to proclaim the Gospel and interpret Scripture, and will always be until Christ’s return.

But five centuries of “protesting” make it extremely difficult for most Protestants to want to admit the flaws in their belief system. With Fundamentalists out there spouting anti-Catholic propaganda based on ignorance rather than facts, the full unity of believers for which Jesus prayed seems a long way off.

Anti-Catholics (and I loved reading much of the misinformation and inaccurate “history lessons” from former-Catholic-turned-Fundamentalist [though if you read her testimony it appears she was more driven to know God by her love of a man, rather than the Lord] Mary Ann Collins in her website CatholicConcerns.com, where she made these accusations) love to say that the Catholic Church throughout history has forbidden its followers to read the Bible privately, and during Masses, by keeping Scripture reading by the clergy in Latin which a poorly-educated, illiterate congregation (more on the illiteracy issue later - another reason “Sola Scriptura” falls flat on its face) increasingly did not understand, the Catholic Church used this as a way to control and manipulate its followers so the people would not know all the “unbiblical teachings” it was forcing on them during the Middle Ages.

She sites how in England, the people would flock to hear the Bible read to them aloud in English. People were indeed starving to know the Truth in the Bible.

Sadly, she does not realize that this has always been the case, which is why people came to Mass in the first place!!! The first Bibles were produced by CATHOLICS (the same Church which preserved Scripture and canonized the Bible). The first translation of the Bible into English was in the 7th Century, and in the 8th Century, the translation done by Bede, a Catholic priest, was the most widespread. Gutenberg, a Catholic, and the inventor of the printing press, printed Bibles. In 1478, the Bible was published in Low German so that any literate German could read it. By the end of the Middle Ages, the Bible had been translated and made available in many European languages.

Dave Armstrong, Catholic apologist (and convert to the Faith) writes in his article, Catholic Untruths and Historical Distortion Abound as to Catholicism's Attitude Towards Sacred Scripture :

It is a simple, indisputable historical fact that the Catholic Church was the guardian, translator and preserver of the Bible for the nearly 1500 years between the time of Jesus Christ and Martin Luther. Anyone at all familiar with the Middle Ages knows about learned monks copying the Scriptures laboriously by hand. Had the Catholic Church hated or feared the Bible as is so often absurdly claimed, it was an easy matter during this period to destroy all copies.

Rather than causing the Dark Ages, as some secular historians still surprisingly assert, it was the Catholic Church which saved Europe and the Western Civilization itself from a complete descent into barbarianism, largely through the preservation of the Bible and other Church writings (and Greek and Roman classics as well). Nor were the masses ignorant of the Bible in the Middle Ages before the Protestants came into the picture. If anything, Bible literacy in the fifty years before Luther (1467-1517) among non-scholars was probably greater than in our own time.

Before the modern printing press was invented in the mid-15th century, Bibles were chained at libraries not in order to "keep them from the people," as the stereotype goes, but rather, to protect them from thieves, so the common people could have more access to them, as books were very expensive. This practice persisted long after the Reformation in Protestant countries such as England, since older books would have continued to be very valuable.

These facts are easily attainable at any library and are unarguable. The Bible can logically be considered a "Catholic book." Every Protestant (even the most anti-Catholic sort) ought to be profoundly thankful to the Catholic Church, without which they would not possess their Bible.

Many Protestant scholars (1) have pointed out that the Catholic Church's regard for Scripture is in no wise inferior to that of evangelical Protestantism. Nor is it at all true that the Catholic Church was opposed to the printing and distribution of Bible translations in vernacular languages (it did oppose some Protestant translations which it felt were inaccurate). For instance, between 1466 and the onset of the Protestant Reformation in 1517 at least fourteen editions appeared in High German, and five in Low German:

Strasburg: 1466, 1470, 1485,
Basel, Switzerland: 1474,
Augsburg: 1473 (2),1477 (2), 1480, 1487, 1490, 1507, 1518,
Nuremburg: 1483.
Bible Translations in Low German include:
Cologne: 1480 (2),
Lubeck: 1494,
Halberstadt: 1522,
Delf: before 1522. (2)

The situation was no different in other European countries. From 1450 to 1550, for example, there appeared (with express permission from Rome) more than forty Italian editions or translations of the Bible and eighteen French editions, as well as others in Bohemian, Belgian, Russian, Danish, Norwegian, Polish, and Hungarian. Spain published editions starting in 1478 with the full approval of the Spanish Inquisition. A total of 626 editions appeared, of which 198 were in the vernacular languages, with the sanction of the Catholic Church, before any Protestant version saw the light of day. (3) Furthermore, Latin was not then a "dead language," but the universal language of Europe, much like English is today. Whoever could read, read Latin.

Thus, the oft-heard claim that Martin Luther "rescued the Bible [in German] from the ashes" or from oblivion, is not only false, but outrageously so.

Finally, the state of affairs in England and for English-speaking peoples was no different. The famous preface of the translators of the King James Bible (1611) tells of the history of English translations, most of which predated Protestantism:

To have the Scriptures in the mother tongue is not a quaint conceit lately taken up . . . but hath been . . . put in practice of old, even from the first times of the conversion of any nation.

Thus, John Wycliffe was not the first person to give English people the Bible in their own tongue in the 14th century, as a popular misguided myth would have it. We have copies of the work of Caedmon from the 7th century, and that of the Venerable Bede, Eadhelm, Guthlac, and Egbert from the 8th (all in Saxon, the prevalent language at that time). From the 9th and 10th centuries come the translations of King Alfred the Great and Aelfric, Archbishop of Canterbury. Early English versions include that of Orm around 1150, the Salus Animae (1250), and the translations of William Shoreham, Richard Rolle (d.1349), and John Trevisa (c.1360). (4)

FOOTNOTES

1. E.g., Toon, Peter, Protestants and Catholics, Ann Arbor, MI: Servant Books, 1983, 39; Brown, Robert McAfee, The Spirit of Protestantism, Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1961, 172-173; Lindsell, Harold, The Battle for the Bible, Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1976, 54-56.
2. From Janssen, Johannes, History of the German People From the Close of the Middle Ages, 16 vols., tr. A.M. Christie, St. Louis: B. Herder, 1910 (orig. 1891), vol. 1, 56-57, vol. 14, 388.
3. Ibid.; Graham, Henry G., Where We Got the Bible, St.Louis: B. Herder, 3rd ed., 1939, 98,105-108,120.
4. Graham, ibid.

Collins also reports on her web-site that the Catholic Church opposed having the laiety have access to the Bible so they confiscated people’s Bibles and burned them to stop this. This is simply ridiculous. The truth is that while the Catholic Church did in fact do this, the bibles which were burned were poor translations, such as the Tyndale or the Wycliffe Bibles. (Ever wonder why we don’t hear of those anymore?!? Collins sites these translations as early translations of the Bible in English which the Catholic Church opposed and suppressed, never mentioning - probably due to her ignorance - that they were defective, inaccurate translations. Of course, her lack of scholarly research did not surprise me - after all, she also claimed Peter was named “Petros” the “little rock” which we all know is false. For more information on Wycliffe and Tyndale, check out the following sites: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15722a.htm and www.torahofmessiah.com). In the first centuries of Christianity, Gnostic heresies such as Arianism, Monophytism, Monothelitism, and Nestorianism were picking up steam in various places where the Gospel had been preached by the Apostles and their successors. Any one of these could have overrun Christ’s Church had the Church authorities not stopped the Gnostics, using the authority Christ gave them.

The Apostle Paul worte to Timothy that the CHURCH is “the pillar and bulwark of Truth” (1 Timothy 3:15). He wrote to the Ephesians (Ephesians 4:11-13) of the importance of Church leadership and structure “…to prepare God's people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.” He did not call for “the individual interpretation of faith and knowledge,” he spoke of UNITY, coming through instructing others. This is why Acts 4:32 tells us that the Christians of the early Church “were of one heart and mind.”

Are things really like that now?

Is the fracturation of Christianity truly the response Jesus was hoping for when He prayed for the unity of all people who would come to believe in Him (John 17:20-23)? I don’t think so.

So how has the “Bible alone” idealogy led to a “restoration” of the “biblical Christian Church” as Fundamentalists all claim they have? How has it led to a unity of all believers? Or even the Truth?

“If the doctrines of the Reformation were sound, we would expect to see one Protestant Church, one Protestant doctrine based on Scripture alone, but that is absolutely impossible, as five hundred years of history proves… Using the same Scripture and having the same Holy Spirit, what we’ve ended up with is a theological Tower of Babel” ("Our Mission to Convert Catholics Made Us Catholic", by Kristine L. Franklin).

I would like to quote a letter which Fundamentalist-turned-Catholic, David B. Currie printed in his book Born Fundamentalist, Born-Again Catholic, which gets to the heart of this issue. David Currie was raised in a devout Christian family whose father was a fundamentalist preacher and both parents teachers at Moody Bible Institute. Currie's whole upbringing was immersed in the life of fundamentalist Protestantism - theology professors, seminary presidents and founders of evangelical mission agencies were frequent guests at his family dinner table. Currie received a degree from Trinity International University and studied in the Masters of Divinity program. He wrote his book to explain to his fundamentalist and evangelical friends and family the reasons he became a Roman Catholic. Currie presents a very lucid, systematic and intelligible account of the reasons for his conversion to the ancient Church that Christ founded. He gives a detailed discussion of the important theological and doctrinal beliefs Catholic and evangelicals hold in common, as well as the key doctrines that separate us, particularly the Eucharist, Pope, and Mary.

He wrote it to the leaders of the Baptist Church he was attending before joining the Catholic Church:

“So that you better understand, let me explain the progression of my thinking to you. When I started this pilgrimage, I accepted the Protestant teaching of sola scriptura, or “only Scripture” (Scripture is the Christian’s final authority for his faith).

Several years ago, I set a goal for myself of reading the entire Bible through in a year. I chose the NIV Bible because I had not done much reading in that version up to that time. As I read the Old Testament, I was struck by several major issues. The most revolutionary for me was that I saw that no one could have established or maintained Judaism in the way God desired from the data found only in the Bible. There were too many holes and gaps: so much was assumed. I saw that a tremendous amount of what was involved in being a God-fearing, God-pleasing Israelite must have been passed down from generation to generation in an oral instruction (tradition). You want just one example? Try to reconstruct the process of offering a sin offering from the Old Testament alone. You can’t get to first base! Reconstructing worship that would be pleasing to God from the Old Testament alone is impossible. There are many such examples.

This fact bothered me tremendously. It is hard for me to express in writing how unsettling the implications of that insight were to me. The God-ordained religion that Moses had helped to set up required the faithful transmission of oral tradition from generation to generation. Otherwise, the practice of Judaism in a way pleasing to God would have been impossible. I had always thought of the Jews as “people of the Book,” yet the Book was not enough! This flew in the face of everything I had ever been taught. I knew it struck at the heart of sola scriptura by illustrating the necessity of an authoritative oral tradition.

And yet, for us Christians in this age of grace, had not Jesus changed all that? Hadn’t Jesus condemned all the traditions (binding oral tradition) of the Jews when he taught here on earth? The next step in my thinking came when I understood that the answer to that question is an emphatic “No.” This was not my own insight; I encountered it in a verse that had been pointed out by Scott Hahn [former anti-Catholic Presbyterian minister who became Catholic].

Jesus actually commanded the Jewish people of his day to obey the Pharisees’ traditional teachings, orally transmitted: “The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat. So you must obey them and do everything they tell you” (Matthew 23:2-3). But the seat of Moses itself is not to be found anywhere in the Old Testament! The seat of Moses was a product of that historic oral tradition so important to the Israelite faith. Jesus gives the authority of tradition his unqualified approval and commands his contemporaries to obey tradition’s precepts. They are not given the option of obeying only those traditions they could justify with a “chapter and verse.” Jesus explicity includes “everything they tell you.” Nor are there any “ifs, ands or buts” to qualify the obligation to obey. The main problem Jesus had with the Pharisees is evidenced in the rest of passage; they did not obey their own teaching. The authoritative nature of tradition is expressly taught here by Jesus himself.

We Evangelicals have always (rightly, I think) made a rather large point of the fact that Jesus gave his approval to Old Testament books by quoting from them. We view that as his vote of confidence in their inspiration and canonicity. How could I have gone to Bible school, Christian college, and seminary without having this verse hi me between the eyes before? It establishes the fact that tradition (along with Scripture) had an absolutely valid right to my belief and obedience if I were living in the time of the Old Covenant. The Protestant dichotomy between truth found in Scripture and truth taught verbally by God’s leaders through the generations had no place in Jesus’ thinking.

How about the New Covenant? Did Jesus make the statement he did about tradition just for the benefit of the Jews hearing him (the Old Covenant was almost over, after all)? Did the Holy Spirit inspire Matthew to record that statement of Jesus with no view of how the Church might interpret it? Or was Jesus stating something about tradition (remember, that is just God’s truth passed down in oral form from generation to generation) that would set the stage for his greatest creation, the Church?

The fact that there was a tremendous amount of Jesus’ life and teaching that was never written down cannot be denied. “Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written” (Jn 21:25). The writer of any given book of the New Testament chose, under inspiration, from the available data in order to fit the purpose of his letter or book.

Simply because something was not chosen for inclusion in a book did not mean it was no longer true, or that it was not actively taught by the Apostles in the first century. In fact, in the case of the epistles, the reverse would seem to be more plausible. Many of the most common and well-known practices and teachings of the early Church would be the least likely to be misunderstood or called into question and thus require a written reinforcement or correction…

I could not avoid the possibility that tradition was important and acceptable. I started to enumerate in my mind that Catholic traditions that Evangelicals unthinkingly accept, such as worship on Sunday and the canon of the New Testament (There are even some unbiblical traditions of Evangelicals, such as the popular election of pastors, elders, and deacons.) … I have now come to the firm conclusion that the New Testament clearly and positively teaches that we are under the obligation to obey the verbal teaching (tradition) of the Church, just as we are under the obligation to obey clear mandates of the inspired New Testament. Disobedience of the one is just as serious as disobedience of the other.

A Scripture verse may be in order: “So then, brothers, stand firm and hold to the teachings we passed on to you, whether by word of mouth or by letter” (2 Th 2:15). The verbal teaching by mouth (oral tradition) has an equal authority with the written teachings of Paul. This verse, even if it were the oly one on this topic in the entire Bible (it is not), would mortally wound the Protestant view that Scripture is all we need to know of the will of God for our salvation.

Elsewhere Paul instructs Timothy to take this truth he has learned and find men capable of protecting it and passing it on (note the emphasis on the oral nature of this truth): “And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable men who will also be qualified to teach others” (2 Tim 2:2). This is a natural extension of Jesus’ command to “go and make disciples.” Christianity is a living religion, protected and passed on by people, not paper. We are not to be merely people of the Book but people of God. Nowhere does Paul imply that the written word is to be used against the verbal tradition or the men entrusted with its protection. It would take the Gnostic heretics to think up that strategy. It has been a plague on the Church ever since, starting with its use against the Apostle John himself.

The verse I always used to quote on the sufficiency of Scripture actually reinforces the Catholic view: “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness” (2 Tim 3:16). The Bible is useful for all these, but this verse certainly never promotes Scripture as the final authority for our faith. This is why I said what I said in my previous letter: “To paraphrase Protestants, only those doctrines taught in the Bible are to be trusted for our theology. This very statement, however, is logically self-destructive! The simple fact is (according to your own criteria) this statement cannot be trusted, because it is not taught in the Bible. The Protestant view of the Bible is unbiblical. Your view of Scripture is unscriptural.” I have concluded that, concerning scriptural authority, the Bible clearly teaches the opposite of what the Protestants are trying to say it teaches.

You mention the Trinity as an example of a doctrine we both ascribe to, yet it is not mentioned in the text of the Scripture. For clarity’s sake, we must distinguish between the teaching of Scripture and the mentioning of a specific theological word in Scripture. I believe the Bible does teach the substance of the Trinity, even though it does not use the word “Trinity.” This issue of biblical authority is an entirely different issue. The Protestants have used as the basis for their whole system of authority an idea that is not only not mentioned but not taught in the Bible - anywhere. If you think that it is, then show me. That is precisely what I have been asking leadership of this church to do for several months.

Nowhere does the Bible teach that Scripture is the sole authority for faith. Authoritative? Yes! Only Scripture? No! It is not only that the word is not used, as with the Trinity; it is that the very concept is unbiblical. The Protestant is really saying, “Only doctrines explicitly grounded in the teaching of the Bible are ultimately trustworthy - except for this one.” The system cannot be true with an internal inconsistency such as this.

The Bible does give us a way out: “the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth” (1 Tim 3:15). Christ set up his Church, living from generation to generation, to be the guardian of his truth. The Church is the arbiter of what is true and what is not. It uses the Bible and reverences it, but it must not place the Bible into a position the Bible itself specifically rules out - that of being the only source of authority in a Christian’s life.

The issue is not whether our view of the Bible is “high” or “low” but whether our view of the Bible is biblical. Unless you can show me how I am mistaken, I can only point out the obvious: the Protestant view of Scripture is unscriptural. If that conclusion is true, the whole system of Protestantism, logically speaking, comes crashing down upon its adherents, with eternal consequences.

Your friend and brother in Christ,
David B. Currie

(p. 51-58)

Currie goes on to say that the pastoral staff contacted him after receiving his letter, promising an answer. “I waited months for an answer of any sort. I was surprised when it never came. My Catholic friends were not. They knew there was no answer” (p. 59).

I, myself, have had the same “response” - or rather lack thereof. Every Protestant to whom I have addressed these very issues will repeat ad nauseum 2 Timothy 3:16-17, and mention that Jesus quoted from Scripture often, so therefore it must have authority! But this fact is never in dispute!

How could the early Church appoint new leaders and convene councils for dealing with doctrinal issues before the completion of the New Testament?

We’ve covered this issue in Chapter II. The Church was given this authority. The Bible proceeds from the Church, not the other way around. As Jesus said, “no servant is greater than his master” (John 13:16). Similar logic can be applied here in regards to Scripture’s relationship to its “master” or source, the Church. The Church became the “master” in Christ’s name, by the authority He placed in her (John 15:15).

Church Father Ignatius of Antioch, a disciple of the Apostle John, and head of the Church in Antioch, wrote his Epistle of Ignatius to the Magnesians, written within ten to fifteen years of John’s death, and thus, after all the New Testament books (yet to be canonized) were completely written: “The bishop embodies the authority of God the Father,… show him every mark of respect… defer to him” (Epistle of Ignatius to the Magnesians, 3). He also wrote, “It is proper for you to act in agreement with the mind of the bishop; … by your unity taking your keynote from God, you may with one voice through Jesus Christ sing a song to the Father… It profits you, therefore, to continue in your flawless unity, that you may at all times have a share in God” (Epistle of Ignatius to the Ephesians, 4).

Jesus set up the Church to be the final authority and this is confirmed by all the writings of the early Church.

I think most people have issues with Church authority simply because men are sinful and imperfect, yet the Word of God is inerrant. This is true. But the Bible was written by sinners, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. If the Holy Spirit can inspire men to write the Scriptures, can He not also sustain His Church to teach it infallibly, sustain her from being corrupted by the devil? As mentioned earlier, these were the promises He made to His Church.

Anti-Catholics will argue that the Catholic Church fell deeply into apostasy during the Middle Ages. I disagree. Certain church leaders fell into apostasy during the Middle Ages, but throughout her history, the Catholic Church has had to contend with heretics in her ranks, as mentioned before. Yet if the Catholic Church were totally depraved either from the time of Constantine or the Middle Ages (Fundamentalists never can decide exactly when the Church became so corrupt) , how can one explain the amazing, saintly, devout Christians who also lived during this time, and discount their writings, revivals, movements, and contributions to society and the Body of Christ? (Some examples coming to mind are St. Francis of Assisi, St. Clare of Assisi, and King Louis IX of France.) Therefore, confusing the CHURCH ITSELF, which is the BODY OF CHRIST, and an entity much greater than the sum of her members who apart from Christ are nothing, with the sinful people who make up her ranks, is an error many people commit. Judas Iscariot, who was chosen by Jesus Himself, was the first to fall into evil. There were always be men in the Church laiety and clergy who will not properly reflect the Spirit of God and will abuse the position to which God called them. Those men will be dealt with by God. But they must not keep us from our focus, which is Jesus, and to the unity to which we have been called, as members of the body of Christ.

Yes, there were Church leaders who abused their power. Many of them were planted there by secular leaders to infiltrate the Church for political reasons. But the great saints of the Catholic Church lived holy, inspiring lives and doctrinally were in line with Catholic theology.

The Pharisees’ hypocrisy and vanity were frequent targets of criticism by Jesus. Nevertheless, He told people: “The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat. So you must obey them and do everything they tell you” (Matthew 23:2-3). That is a very strange command to give to people given the behavior of the Pharisees but it is the principle of “doing as they say, not as they do” so to speak. The Pharisees had teaching authority and knew the law and were charged with transmitting this knowledge to others. The doctrine they taught was correct, but the problem was they just did not practice what they preached.

Despicable? Yes. But did the Pharisees’ lack of obedience to the Word of God diminish the validity of the truths they were teaching? Not at all.

However, that is for God to deal with. Do you want to drudge up every sin every Catholic leader has committed? Fine. We can also dig up the sins and evils of Protestant leaders, most notably Martin Luther, John Calvin, and others.

Why do we believe that the Bible is true and authoritative? We take it on faith, first of all. Secondly, when analyzing the evidence of the prophecies that Jesus fulfilled, it certainly lends credence to its content. Thirdly, Jesus told His Apostles He would guide them into the fullness of Truth (John 16:13). Therefore, it is within the Church, the Body of Christ on Earth, where the fullness of the Truth dwells.

There seems to be one issue of contention between Protestants and Catholics regarding the Bible, and that is the fact that the Catholic Bible has “extra books” in it. What is that all about?

Well, it should actually be said that Protestant Bibles have seven fewer books. The Protestants refer to these books as “Apocrypha”; Catholics (like Orthodox and Anglicans who accept their canonicity) refer to them as “deutercanonical” books, part of the Old Testament. (Catholics and Protestants are in full agreement with the canon of the New Testament, even though Martin Luther wanted to throw out several NT books he did not like, like Hebrews, Revelation, James, 2 Peter, among others.)

The Septuagint translation of the Old Testament was the accepted Greek Bible of the Jews living in Palestine and elsewhere for well over a hundred years before Jesus’ birth. Both Jews and Christians accepted the Septuagint (with the seven deuterocanonical books) until A.D. 90 (by this time, many of the Apostles had died and most of the New Testament had been written) when Jewish leaders, fearful of the messianic prophecies contained in these books, decided to exclude them. Their reasoning was that either Hebrew was not the original language of the texts (2 Maccabees, Wisdom, and Daniel 13-14) or that the Hebrew was not extant (Judith, Baruch, Sirach, and 1 Maccabees). By excluding those books, they did away with many messianic prophecies which seemed to support that Jesus was the messiah. This new version became known as the Palestine Canon.

Christians kept the deuterocanonical books in their canon, faithful to the Septuagint version of the Bible which was the version which Jesus and his disciples had used.

New Testament writers allude to the deuterocanonical books over two dozen times. Bruce Metzger’s book, An Introduction to the Apocrypha, explains some parallels between the “apocrypha” and some New Testament verses, such as between the Pauline epistles and the book of Wisdom, and James 1:19, “Be quick to listen, slow to speak” which seems similar to Sirach 5:11, “Be swift in listening, but slow in answering.”

So why did the Protestants decide to reject them? They did not like some of their content, such as passages pertaining to salvation, prayers for the dead and purgatory. For the same reasons the books James, Hebrews, Jude and Revelation did not jive with many Protestant theologies, those books were almost tossed out as well. But while the Protestants used the Palestine Canon as precedent to toss out the apocrypha, there was no precedent to toss out those New Testament books, so they were never rejected. (Of course, there is no biblical precedence for rejecting ANY canonized Scripture - if one has the authority to un-canonize Scripture, what does that say about sola scriptura?)

Here are the “objections” Protestants contend to have with the apocrypha and why they should not be part of the Bible, along with reasons for the error in these arguments:

1) The Catholic Church added deuterocanonical books in 1546 at the ecumenical council of Trent.

**The true fact is the council of Trent was the ecumenical council after the Reformation to officially declare the canon of the Bible, both Old and New Testaments. But the same canon of the Bible was declared at Church Council in Hippo in 393, at Councils of Carthage in 397 and 419 and at the ecumenical council of Basel-Ferrara-Florence-Rome in 1442. The fact that the councils at Hippo and Carthage were not ecumenical and there were different (earlier or later) lists of the Old Testament only indicates that the canon of the Bible remained open-ended. Even among Catholics, Cardinal Cajetan, Luther's opponent at Augsburg in 1518 rejected the deuterocanonical books in his "Commentary on All the Authentic Historical Books of the Old Testament". The ecumenical council of Trent in 1546 endorsed the decision of Hippo and Carthage councils, thus deuterocanonical books were not added in this council.

2) The New Testament never quotes from any of the deuterocanonical books.

**However, the New Testament also never quotes from Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, Song of Songs and Ecclesiastes and it even quotes from outside the Old Testament. For example Jude 9 quotes from the apocryphal Ascension of Moses (according to de Principiis Book 3 Chapter 2 written by Origen, biblical scholar who lived from 185 to 255, only fragments of of Ascension of Moses' manuscript survives) and Jude 14-16 quotes from the apocryphal 1 Enoch 1:9. 2 Peter 2:22 quotes two proverbs, the first is taken from Proverbs 26:11 but the second one comes from outside the Bible. In John 7:38 Jesus quoted from unknown scripture and so does James 4:5. What Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 2:9 (and preceded with the phrase "it is written") resembles but is not equal to Isaiah 64:4. According to Ambrosiaster the words were taken from apocryphal Apocalypse of Elijah, of which only fragments of its manuscript survive. Matthew 2:23 also quotes from outside the Bible and in 2 Timothy 3:8 Paul named the two magicians who opposed Moses, not mentioned in the book Exodus. Thus being quoted in the New Testament is not the reason to be included in the Old Testament; and not being quoted is not the reason to exclude it from the Old Testament either. While there are no direct quotations, there are some allusions from the deuterocanonical books in the New Testament. For example, pagan immorality in Romans 1:18-32 echoes Wisdom 12-14, and the attitude of Jews criticized by Paul in Romans 2:1-11 has affinities with Wisdom 11-15. The writer of Hebrews might refer to 2 Maccabee 6:18 to 7:41 when he wrote about torture which some endured through faith (Hebrews 11:35-3. Jesus words in John 6:35 echo Ecclesiasticus 24:21. The New Jerusalem described in Revelation 21:18-21 resembles the one in Tobit 13:16-17.

3) The New Testament refers to Jewish scripture as the Law and the Prophets (Matthew 7:12, 22:40, Luke 16:16, John 1:45, Acts 13:15, Romans 3:21). ,

**The Law and the Prophets are the first two divisions of the Jewish scripture. Does it show that it approves the Jewish scripture? Furthermore in Luke 24:44 Jesus approved the Jewish scripture when He mentioned The Law, the Prophets and Psalms. The phrase "the Law and the Prophets" indicates that the third part of the Jewish scripture, the Writings was still open-ended in Jesus' time. The New Testament never quotes from Esther, Song of Songs, Ecclesiastes, Ezra-Nehemiah which all belong to the Writings. Note also that both LXX and the Jewish scripture have Law and Prophets. In Luke 24:44 Jesus said that He fulfilled the prophecies in the books of Law, the Prophets and Psalms. Psalms is one book of the Writings of the Jewish scripture, which also includes Daniel. Jesus identified Himself to be the Son of Man mentioned in Daniel 7:13, so it is strange that He did not include this book in Luke 24:44. Luke 24:44 may even indicate that Jesus placed Daniel as one book of the Prophets, which means He followed the LXX grouping of books.

4) In Luke 11:50-51 Jesus mentioned the names Abel (Genesis 4: and Zechariah, who is identified to be the one in 2 Chronicles 24:20-22. Since Genesis and Chronicles are the first and the last book in the present Jewish scripture then the above verses prove that the Old Testament of the Christians is the same with that of the Jews.

**However there are a number of persons with the name Zechariah in the Bible. Parallel verse in Matthew 23:35 says that Zechariah was the son of Barachiah while Zechariah in 2 Chronicles 24:20-22 was the son of Jehoiada. More suitable as a candidate is the prophet Zechariah son of Berechiah (Zechariah 1:1). Bear also in mind that in Jesus' time there were no books like we have today. All books of the Scripture were then written in scrolls, each book in one scroll. While grouping them was possible, they had stack of scrolls, i.e. there was no clear order of the books. Even after Codex (plural Codices) which resembled modern book was later introduced to replace scrolls, the arrangement of the books of the Bible might be different with that of today. Encyclopedia Judaica Volume 4 page 829-830 gives eight different ancient arrangements of the Writings with Chronicles appearing as the first or the last book. Leningrad Codex made in 1009, the oldest complete manuscript of the Jewish scripture and the standard Masoretic text for both Catholic and Protestant Bibles has Chronicles as the first book of the Writings. Thus Chronicles is not always the last book of the Jewish scripture.

5) Deuterocanonical books teach doctrines in contrary with other books of the Bible like praying to the dead (2 Maccabees 12:46) and giving alms as expiation for sin (Tobit 12:9).

**Catholics have no problem with praying for the dead because saints in purgatory belong to the communion of saints, for whom we can pray just like we pray for one another. Similarly we can ask the saints in heaven to pray for us; they are in heaven but they can communicate with us (Revelation 5:5 and 7:13-14). 1 Peter 4:8 says that love covers a multitude of sins and almsgiving is just one way to express our love to others.

6) All existing (copies of) Septuagint manuscript were made by Christians and the earliest belongs to the fourth century. Thus the Septuagint known to Jesus and to the apostles in the first century might not have the deuterocanonical books.

**This claim is speculative and cannot be proved unless we discover a complete manuscript of LXX from that period. For comparison, the oldest manuscript of the Jewish scripture is the Dead Sea Scrolls but Esther is missing. Certainly it is not a reason to drop Esther from the Bible. The Dead Sea scrolls also include deuterocanonical books (Tobit, Sirach and Letter of Jeremiah) and apocryphal books (Jubilee, Enoch and Psalm 151). Furthermore we have the testimonies from the first Christians that their copies of LXX had deuterocanonical books. 1 Clement (written c 96 AD) quotes from Wisdom of Solomon (Chapters 3 & 27) and Judith (Chapter 55). In his epistle to the Magnesians (Chapter 3) Ignatius (died c. 107 AD), bishop of Antioch quoted from Susanna (or Daniel 13). Polycarp (died c. 156) in his epistle (chapter 10) quoted Tobit. Irenaeus, bishop of Lyon (c. 115 to 202) quoted from Baruch as part of Jeremiah (Against Heresies, Book 5, Chapter 35:1) and from Greek chapters of Daniel (Against Heresies, Book 4, Chapters 5:2 and 26:3).

7) Deuterocanonical books were written at the period where there were no more prophets in Israel. 1 Maccabees 9:27 admits that the prophets already ceased to appear among the Jews.

** While there were no more Jewish prophets after fifth century BC, from the lips of Jesus Himself we know that there was no "silent period" in the prophecy: For all the prophets and the Law prophesied until John [the Baptist] (cf. Matthew 11:13). Thus while the last Jewish prophets were Zechariah, Haggai and Malachi, prophecies and revelation did not cease and may be given not only through prophets; in fact in John 11:50-52, Caiphas who condemned Jesus was given the gift of prophecy. We do have a prophecy of Christ in the book of Wisdom 2:12-20. Furthermore while biblical prophecies are the words of God, the word of God is not always in the form of prophecy. i.e. not all books of the Old Testament have prophecy (for example Esther).

8) Deuterocanonical books were written in Greek, not in Hebrew.

**But from the dead sea scrolls we have (fragments of) manuscripts of Sirach and Tobit in Hebrew and Aramaic. In fact study indicated that deuterocanonical books were written either in Hebrews or Aramaic or Greek (refer to Table 2). Among the 39 books (or 24 in Jewish counting) Daniel 2:4-7, 28 and Ezra 4:8 - 6:18; 7:12-26, were also written in Aramaic, not Hebrew, and all New Testament books were written in Greek. Language is definitely not a criteria to determine canonicity.

9) None of deuterocanonical books claims inspiration. 2 Maccabees 15:38 even says: If it is well told and to the point, that is what I myself desired; if it is poorly done and mediocre, that was the best I could do.

**But most books of the 39 proto-canonical and 27 of the New Testament do not explicitly claim inspiration either. Inspiration does not mean that God dictated to the writers of the Bible; they could still make full use of their own facilities and power to write only what God wanted. Thus 2 Maccabees 15:38 indicates the writer's humble opinion of what he wrote. For comparison in 1 Corinthians 7:10, 12, 25 Paul stated that what he wrote was not from the Lord but from himself.

10) We should let the Jews determine the canon of the Old Testament (39 books) because they were entrusted with the oracles of God (Romans 3:2).

**Catholics do not deny that God spoke in the past through Jewish prophets (Hebrews 1:1) and their words were put in written form by the Jews; that is what Paul meant in Romans 3:8. Bear also in mind that deuterocanonical books were also written by Jews. During Jesus and His apostles' time the canon of the Old Testament was still open-ended. They never gave us the list of inspired books of both the Old and New Testaments. If the Church later through the guidance of the Holy Spirit defined the canon of the New Testament then why could She not define the canon of the Old Testament as well?

11) No church councils in the first four centuries accepted deuterocanonical books.

**The true fact is there was no council in the first four century who approved only the 39 protocanonical books. The closest is the council of Laodicea (c. 362) that approved 39 books plus Baruch and Letter of Jeremiah of the Old Testament and 26 books (Revelation not included) of the New Testament. On the other hand we have councils at Hippo (393) and Carthage (397) that approved the same books of both Old and New Testaments of the Catholic Bible.

12) The Church discovered, not determined the canon of the Bible.

**The list of inspired books didn't simply drop from the sky or miraculously appear from nowhere to be discovered. There is no any evidence that Jesus and the apostles gave us the list of all inspired books of the Old and New Testaments. Had they done so then Christians would agree from the very beginning in what comprises the Bible. History shows that they disagreed with each other in deciding which books of both the Old and New Testaments were inspired. The question is who then had the authority to determine the canon of the Bible? If it is not the Church, whom the Bible refers to as the pillar and the bulwark of the truth (1 Timothy 3:15), then who else?

Sources:

Ackroyd, P.R. and Evans, C.A. (Editors): The Cambridge History of the Bible. From the Beginnings to Jerome, Cambridge University Press, 1992.

Bruce, F.F.: The Canon of Scripture, Inter Varsity Press, 1988.

deSilva, D.A.: Introducing the Apocrypha, Baker Academic, 2002.

Geisler, N.L. and Nix, W.E.: A General Introduction to the Bible, Moody Press, 1968.

Greenslade, S.L. (Editor): The Cambridge History of the Bible. The West from the Reformation to the Present Day, Cambridge University Press, 1992.

Lampe, G.W.H. (Editor): The Cambridge History of the Bible. The West from the Fathers to the Reformation, Cambridge University Press, 1992.

McDonald, L.M.: The Formation of the Christian Biblical Canon, Hendrickson Publisher, 1995.

Metzger, B.M.: An Introduction to the Apocrypha, Oxford University Press, 1957.

Sundberg, A.C.: The Old Testament of the Early Church, Harvard University Press, 1964

If Protestants want to claim their own authority to pick and choose their own Scripture, then so be it. What is to say though that that authority will be from God? It will be be of man’s own will, a “tradition of man” and Martin Luther started the trend. When he tampered with the the text of Romans when adding the word “alone” after “justified by faith” in Romans 3:28 (Please note that the only time where the word “alone” appears with the word “faith” in the New Testament is in James 2:24, which states: “not saved by faith alone”) he arrogantly justified his actions by stating “Dr. Martin Luther will have it so.”

If canon is indeed fallible, there is no reason why Protestants (or anyone) cannot remove certain books or add new ones (or for that matter, add or subtract text from it). Wouldn’t that be exactly what liberal theologians would like to have happen, to see great portions of the Bible discarded? “[M]any liberal Protestant theologians and Scripture scholars have already recommended the removal of several New Testament books (some have gone so far as to call into question the entire canon)” (From Controversy to Consolation, pg. 124).

And if this is possible, as Martin Luther and liberal theologians contend, then the Bible cannot be the sole rule of faith, nor does it have any authority.

There is only one way to believe in the authority of the Bible is to believe in the authority of the Catholic Church which canonized it under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

OK, now let us assume that the Bible is indeed inerrant and the divinely inspired Word of God. Who has the correct interpretation?

The answer again is: THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. John 16:18 again pretty much confirms this.

Of course, the Fundamentalist will point to 1 John 2:27 which states, “As for you, the anointing you received from him [the Holy Spirit] remains in you, and you do not need anyone to teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about all things and as that anointing is real, not counterfeit--just as it has taught you, remain in him.” Does this verse not imply that we do not need a Church to tell us what to believe and how to act?

Hardly. In verse 26, John says, “I am writing these things to you about those who are trying to lead you astray.” He confirms in this passage that those who have the anointing of the Holy Spirit and “know the truth” (v. 21) have the Father in them and they remain in the Father. John is not denying teaching or tradition, but rather false teachings which lead men astray: “See that what you have heard from the beginning remains in you. If it does, you also will remain in the Son and in the Father.” (v. 24).

Their other reaction to an attack on sola scriptura is to say (as anti-Catholic Baptist David Goforth so eloquently stated in an internet debate with Catholic apologist Phil Porvaznik): “Consider: Jesus used the Bible to counter the arguments of Satan, quoting Scripture, not tradition (Matthew 4:1-10 and Luke 4:1-12). The same can be said about his debates with the religious leaders. He asks them, ‘Did you never read in the Scriptures?’ (Matthew 21:42). He appeal is not made to any ecclesiastical body, the priesthood, or tradition. The Sadducees, who denied the doctrine of the resurrection, hoped to trap Jesus with a question which seemed to have no biblical answer. Jesus could have given a satisfactory answer without an appeal to Scripture, but he didn't. Instead, he tells them, ‘You are mistaken, not understanding the Scriptures, or the power of God’ (Matthew 22:29). Here Jesus clearly rejected ecclesiastical opinion, as represented by the Sadducees, in favor of sola scriptura.”

He goes on to state that Jesus was “quoting Scripture, not tradition (Matthew 4:1-10 and Luke 4:1-12). The same can be said about his debates with the religious leaders. He asks them, ‘Did you never read in the Scriptures?’ (Matthew 21:42). The appeal is not made to any ecclesiastical body, the priesthood, or tradition.”

Again, no one is denying that Scripture is “useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness” (2 Timothy 3:16). Nowhere in these verses did Jesus condemn Jewish tradition. Nor did he say anything about “sola scriptura.” On the contrary, He was making a great case against sola scriptura by telling the Sadducees flat out that their interpretation of Scripture was wrong! They had the Scriptures but did not understand them. They misquoted and misinterpreted everything about them. By teaching that He is the one prophesied in the Old Testament, Jesus is clarifying the meaning of Scripture, an authority He passes to His Church (Matthew 28:19-20; John 14-17).

Once again, we see Protestants misinterpreting Jesus’ words, as Karl Keating explains in Catholicism and Fundamentalism:

Fundamentalists have objections to all of this, of course. They say Jesus condemned Tradition. They note that Jesus said, 'Why is it that you yourselves violate the commandment of God with your traditions?' (Mt 15:3). Paul warned, 'Take care not to let anyone cheat you with his philosophizings, with empty phantasies drawn from human tradition, from worldly principles; they were never Christ's teaching' (Col 2:8). But these merely condemn erroneous human traditions, not truths that were handed down orally and entrusted to the Church. These truths are part of what is known as Tradition (with an upper-case 'T', to distinguish it from lower-case human traditions or customs.

Consider Matthew 15:6-9, which fundamentalists often bring up: '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.'

At first glance, this seems to undercut the Catholic position, but look at the context. Jesus was not here condemning all traditions. He condemned only those that made God's word void. In this case, it was a matter of the Pharisees making a pretended 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 thy father and thy mother' (Ex 20:12).

Elsewhere, Jesus instructed his followers to abide by traditions that are not contrary to God's commandments. 'The scribes and the Pharisees, he said, have established themselves in the place [or seat] from which Moses used to teach; DO WHAT THEY TELL YOU, THEN, CONTINUE TO OBSERVE WHAT THEY TELL YOU, but do not imitate their actions, for they tell you one thing and do another' (Mt 23:2-3).

He told the Pharisees that they were hypocrites who 'will award to God his tithe, though it be of mint or dill or cumin, and have forgotten the weightier commandments of the law, justice, mercy, and honor; you did ill to forget one duty while you performed the other' (Mt 23:23).

In short, Jesus insisted we should follow all legitimate traditions. In all these cases he was referring to traditions in the sense of customs (lower-case tradition), not to Tradition in the sense of the Church's teaching authority (upper-case). The latter is wider than the former and includes it." (Keating, page 138-139, emphasis added)

Jesus is not putting Scripture above Tradition in these verses Fundamentalists spout off. He is merely reaffirming the necessity of correct interpretation of those verses. Kristine L. Franklin, a former Fundamentalist missionary to Guatemala writes of her struggles with the Fundamentalist view of Bible interpretation in her essay, "Our Mission to Convert Catholics Made Us Catholic":

I heard among Guatemalan Evangelicals a cacophony of conflicting teachings. Pentecostal television preachers railed against the Devil and cast out demons right and left. Fundamentalist non-Pentecostal preachers were just as busy railing against Pentecostals for speaking in tongues, which was, they warned, a sign they were in cahoots with the Devil.

…some preachers taught a ‘health and wealth gospel.’ Many preached American-style democracy as the ‘biblical’ government that God wanted to see in Guatemala. While Lutheran missionaries were busy baptizing babies, Baptists preached that infant Baptism doesn’t count and that those who practice it aren’t Christians. Quakers told people they didn’t need any outward symbols of Christianity.

Every Evangelical preacher waved the Bible, claiming it as his authority. ‘The Bible says…’ may be the most common phrase heard on the radio in Guatemala these days.

With all the competing voices, how was a person to know who was right? What mere mortal could stand up with a clear conscience before a group of illiterate people and say, ‘This is what the Bible means’?

… I began to ask myself, ‘What exactly is my personal theology?’ I felt that if only I could firm up my own beliefs, I’d be able to find the answer. The more I thought about this, the scarier my conclusions became because the bottom line for me and for every other individual Protestant Christian was this: Theology for the modern Evangelical is a matter of his own opinion about what Scripture means.

The Protestant view of the Bible is set upon a cracking rock, which has led to more divisions than it has any sort of “restoration” or reform. The Catholic Church, like Christ Himself, has not altered any of her teachings in 2000 years.

I think an intensive study of the writings of the Church Fathers will reveal that the present-day Catholic interpretations of Scripture were held by the earliest Christians. They were passed down by sacred Tradition and preserved just as carefully as the Scripture was preserved and copied.

If the Catholic Church is in error now, it was in error before the end of the first century, when the Apostles were still alive. Such a belief is absurd. It not only is illogical in itself, but it would show that Jesus was unfaithful to His Church and did not keep His promises to preserve her (Matthew 16, 28, John 17). Was Jesus a liar?

Hardly. Jesus preserved the Church in all truth. The traditions of Fundamentalists are only about 150 years old, and of the earliest Protestants, 500 years old, whereas the teachings of the Catholic Church are 2000 years old. One good source of the works of the early Church fathers is The History of Christianity by Paul Johnson.

Protestant theologian David W. Bercot, in his book Will the Real Heretics Please Stand Up? (Scroll Publishing Co., 1989) took, what he described as a “new look at today’s Evangelical Church in light of early Christianity.” He denounces false doctrines which “reformers” introduced such as symbolic baptism, Calvinist predestination, and salvation by faith alone.

In his book, Common Sense: A New Approach to Understanding Scripture (Scroll Publishing Co., 1992), Bercot says that it is arrogance to reject the early Church Fathers’ interpretations of the Bible in favor of our own modern-day interpretations: “Your quest is to find out how the primitive Church in general understood the New Testament. In other words, what was the ‘course of performance’ of the first generations of Christians? After you have read enough of their works to have a good feel for their culture, mindset, and overall Christian beliefs, go back and re-read the New Testament. Read it through their pattern of thinking. See what new things you will discover. When you’re through, you’re free to go back and pick up all of your former beliefs, if you like. But perhaps you never will” (p. 165-166). He talked of great Church fathers like Polycarp (A.D.69-155), a disciple of John the Apostle himself. This man, like so many other early Christian leaders, refused to renounce Jesus Christ, and became a martyr for the faith. Men willing to die for the teachings of the Apostles, Bercot argues, would not be likely to corrupt those teachings knowingly.

Therefore, these men’s interpretations of the Bible are more than likely more solid than those of Fundamentalism which finds its roots only about 150 years ago.

Philip Schaff, another major Protestant church historian writes in his History of the Christian Church:

“The church view respecting the sources of Christian theology and the rule of faith and practice remains as it was in the previous period, except that it is further developed in particulars. The divine Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, as opposed to human writings; AND the ORAL TRADITION or LIVING FAITH of the catholic church from the apostles down, as opposed to the varying opinions of heretical sects -- TOGETHER FORM THE ONE INFALLIBLE SOURCE AND RULE OF FAITH. BOTH are vehicles of the same substance: the saving revelation of God in Christ; with this difference in form and office, that the church tradition determines the canon, furnishes the KEY TO THE TRUE INTERPRETATION of the Scriptures, and guards them against heretical abuse.” (volume 3, page 606)

J.N.D. Kelly, a major Protestant church historian from this century writes in his Early Christian Doctrines :

“It should be unnecessary to accumulate further evidence. Throughout the whole period Scripture AND tradition ranked as complementary authorities, media different in form but coincident in content. To inquire which counted as superior or more ultimate is to pose the question in misleading and anachronistic terms. If Scripture was abundantly sufficient in principle, tradition was recognized as the SUREST CLUE TO ITS INTERPRETATION, for in TRADITION the Church retained, as a legacy from the apostles which was embedded in all the organs of her institutional life, an UNERRING GRASP of the real purport and MEANING of the revelation to which Scripture AND tradition alike bore witness.” (page 47-48)

“Thus in the end the Christian must, like Timothy [cf. 1 Tim 6:20] ‘guard the deposit,’ i.e. the revelation enshrined in its completeness in Holy Scripture and CORRECTLY interpreted in the Church's UNERRING tradition.” (page 51)

Again, if the Catholic Church and kept them consistent from the foundation of the Church until today, that is evidence of Jesus’ faithfulness to Her. But these teachings included “the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, confession of sins to a priest, baptismal regeneration, salvation by faith and good works done through grace, that one can reject God’s grace and forfeit salvation, that the bishop of Rome is the head of the Church, that Mary is the Mother of God and was perpetually a virgin, that intercessory prayer can be made to the saints in heaven, that purgatory is a state of temporary purification which some Christians undergo before entering heaven.” ("From Controversy to Consolation", p.131).

Why does it matter what one’s interpretation of the Bible is? Well, if Jesus, Paul, Peter, John, and Jude warned of false teachers who would deceive people, would it not be best to stick with the source of authority who knows the Bible completely, was infallibly inspired to write, preserve and canonize the Bible, and has taught and expounded the Gospel with an authority directly from Christ?

I laugh at how Fundamentalists use the verse Matthew 23:9 (“And do not call anyone on earth 'father,' for you have one Father, and he is in heaven.”) to deny the Catholic Church as Christian, since Catholics call their priests “father.” If they paid attention to other Scripture, like the following verse, they should also note that Christ also said, “Nor are you to be called 'teacher,' for you have one Teacher, the Christ” (v.10). So the next time they go to Sunday school, their “Sunday school teacher” should be rebuked for being unscriptural!!!

Or for that matter, they should condemn Jesus for referring to Abraham as “father Abraham” in Luke 16:24. And what about Paul? “Even if you should have countless guides to Christ, yet you do not have many fathers, for I became your father in Christ through the Gospel” (1 Corinthians 4:14-15). He also uses the term “father” in Romans 4:17-18, 9:10, and 1 Thessalonians 2:11. Stephen, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, referred to the Jewish priests and scribes as his “fathers” in Acts 6:12-15 and 7:1-2.

Even in the Old Testament, we see examples: Joseph tells his brothers of a special fatherly relationship God had given him with the king of Egypt: “So it was not you who sent me here, but God; and he has made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house and ruler over all the land of Egypt” (Gen. 45:8).

Job indicates he played a fatherly role with the less fortunate: “I was a father to the poor, and I searched out the cause of him whom I did not know” (Job 29:16). And God himself declares that he will give a fatherly role to Eliakim, the steward of the house of David: “In that day I will call my servant Eliakim, the son of Hilkiah . . . and I will clothe him with [a] robe, and will bind [a] girdle on him, and will commit . . . authority to his hand; and he shall be a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem and to the house of Judah” (Is. 22:20-21).

Without belaboring the point, it is fairly clear that Jesus was instead to warning people through hyperbole against inaccurately attributing fatherhood-or a particular kind or degree of fatherhood, or authority-to those who do not have it.

Is it wise to trust such a denomination to teach and spread the Word of God when they themselves do not understand it?!? I certainly would not. The dangers are far too great to ignore (Luke 17:2).

The Bible is indeed the sacred, written Word of God, but it cannot interpret itself.

Martin Luther, Calvin, Zwigli, Knox and everyone else who practiced "Sola Scriptura" comes up with DIFFERENT INTERPRETATIONS that CONFLICT!!!!

Did you know that until 1930, ALL Christian denominations preached that contraception was a sin? Now only the Catholic Church upholds this. Did the truth change?

So if I take my dispute about contraception to the Methodists in 1929, they'd tell me it's a sin... but today they'd say it's not a sin...

What about Baptism?!? Modern Lutherans, Anglicans, Churches of Christ, and Disciples of Christ believe as Martin Luther did, that people are regenerated in baptism. It is essential for salvation -- if you’re not baptized, you’re probably not saved. They go to the Bible to support this.

On the other hand, Baptists, Reformed, Presbyterians, and many non-denominational churches believe that baptism is purely symbolic. They believe baptism is merely a public testimony to that fact. To these Protestants baptism is not an essential doctrine. In fact, Quakers and the Salvation Army don’t even baptize at all.

All these denominations take THEIR points of view from (you guessed it): THE BIBLE!

What about infant baptism? Lutherans, Anglicans, Methodists, and Presbyterians baptize infants. The Lutherans, Anglicans, and some Methodists believe the infants are regenerated. They quote SCRIPTURE to support their position... And so do the denominations who appeal to Scripture to CONDEMN infant baptism.

Both cannot be right...

And the Eucharist? Almost every Protestant would say the Eucharist, or "Lord’s Supper," is not an essential doctrine, and is only a symbol.

But Jesus said, "I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you" (John 6:53). Paul wrote to the Corinthians that "whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord . . . That is why many among you are weak and sick, and a number of you have fallen asleep [died]" (1 Cor. 11:27, 30). That sure sounds essential to me!

What about the Charismatic signs? "And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well. (Mark 16:17-18).

Pentecostal Holiness churches interpret it to mean that those who believe will exhibit these signs. In other words, if you don’t speak in tongues, you aren’t saved. For them this is certainly an essential doctrine, an essential sign of salvation.

Many other Protestant churches accept the validity of charismatic signs (as does the Catholic Church), but they don’t regard their absence in any given Christian as a sign that the person is not saved. Others believe all "charismatic" signs ended after the Apostolic age. Then you have the other extreme --- many Christians (like most Baptist churches) will say that they are even manifestations of Satan, "great signs and miracles to deceive even the elect" (Matt. 24:24).

Is this the legacy of teaching Christ Jesus meant to leave to those who would come after Him (John 17)?

Oh, how I long for a time when all Christians could be one in heart and mind (Acts 4:32) as the Son and the Father are one (John 17:11), but more often than not, pride and arrogance keep many sheep in the Good Shepherd’s fold from listening to their master’s voice. In the previous chapters, I have tried to illustrate how many of those who profess to be “Bible Christians” have adopted theologies that do not mesh with the actual content and context of Sacred Scriptures. I have been involved in recent months in several “on-line” debates with such individuals and it is alarming how they profess to know God, yet do not understand the very Word they venerate. They reduce the Church into an invisible entity without any scriptural basis for such and assumption. But I understand why they might wish to do this. To admit there actually is a Church founded by Jesus (like the nation of Israel was founded by God millennia earlier), that would ultimately mean having to submit to her God-given authority. Reducing the Church to some “invisible Body of Christ” ultimately reduces God into a merely invisible entity. But we know better, for we have the Word Incarnate, Jesus Christ:

“He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.” (Colossians 1:15-20)

It’s so easy to avoid being held accountable when you make the Church so abstract, so that there is no authority over you. That you alone have authority to interpret Scripture as you please, that in Jesus’ name you have the same “keys” as Peter, merely because there is power in His name. Confession to God therefore (if done at all by Fundamentalists) an abstract act, a quick, “Sorry!” and belief that all is forgiven - and indeed it would be, if the sinner is truly repentant. But in “Bible believing” churches where “once saved, always saved” and “sola scriptura” are the the basis of doctrine, I shudder at their fruits.

It is better not to be in a simple “Bible-believing Church” (for even Satan and his minions believe in the Bible!), but rather a “BIBLE-PRACTICING” Church! And that is what I have in the Catholic Church.

Fundamentalists again don't have a leg to stand on when it comes to Sola Scriptura and have yet to show ONE VERSE of the Bible which supports the idea that a book, which cannot interpret itself, is the final authority, when in fact the “final authority’ of its interpretation rests on the one doing the reading/interpreting, no? So far, in every debate or in every bit of Fundamentalist literature, I have only seen verses from you which quote the INERRANCY and INSPIRATION of Scripture, which is of course, a precious gift!

The CHURCH upholds the Gospel and preaches it, per sacred TRADITION. That is, THE RIGHT INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE.

Paul has affirmed that the CHURCH is the “pillar and foundation of truth” as per 1 Tim. 3:15. Now Fundamentalists hate this verse because it blows their concept of an “invisible church” to bits. In one recent debate on-line, a Fundamentalist stated that pillars and foundations merely serve to support something, and he stated that something is the Bible. Very good and very true... but he has ultimately disproven Sola Scriptura by this claim because without the Church, the Bible alone cannot stand!

When one’s whole theology removes the Pillar and Foundation of Truth you really have built your house upon a hill of sand... such is the man-made tradition of Sola Scriptura. (Matthew 7:26)

Now let us think about something important for a second. If Paul had never written anything down, would the message he preached be any less fallible or reliable? It was written for the benefit of those who could read it, but ultimately it is the content of the message in any form which it is in which was infallible and inspired. We have already seen Paul and John mention the binding authority of what they say in written or ORAL form. And all that which Jesus taught was not written down, for it would have taken BOOKS to document it all... but does that make Jesus' teachings not written, any less truth?

Luke 1:1-4:

“Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word. Therefore, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, it seemed good also to me to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught.”

Scripture is a WRITTEN ACCOUNT, a REAFFIRMING of that which has been taught about the way the Lord has worked among His people (very real, historical events - not just allegory and myth). It is to edify and strengthen. But nowhere in Scripture is it the end-all apart from the Church. The Church gives us Scripture and ultimately has the say in interpreting it. In Acts, without a New Testament, the Church decided on issues, guided infallibly by the Holy Spirit.

Why did Moses (DECADES after the events of the Torah took place!!!!) find it fit to write things down? Or the prophets? Or the apocalyptic writers? As an account, a testament!

Ultimately, the Old Testament came from Israel, and the New Testament from the Church... the book did not create the people, the people produced the Scriptures to attest to God. Like Israel, the Body of Christ is based on a living Word, not just a written book. The Bible is a TESTAMENT to the Gospel of our Lord... hence the term “OLD AND NEW TESTAMENTS”!!!

That is primarily the error of the Fundamentalist perception of history. They do not understand the origins of Scripture.

Again, to read Scripture, you see that not only does the Bible uphold the necessity of a real Church, but the Church is charged with upholding the Scriptures. The two are inseparable.

Take a look at Acts 8:26-40:

Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, "Go south to the road--the desert road--that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza." So he started out, and on his way he met an Ethiopian[4] eunuch, an important official in charge of all the treasury of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians. This man had gone to Jerusalem to worship, and on his way home was sitting in his chariot reading the book of Isaiah the prophet. The Spirit told Philip, "Go to that chariot and stay near it."
Then Philip ran up to the chariot and heard the man reading Isaiah the prophet. "Do you understand what you are reading?" Philip asked.
"How can I," he said, "unless someone explains it to me?" So he invited Philip to come up and sit with him.
The eunuch was reading this passage of Scripture:
"He was led like a sheep to the slaughter,
and as a lamb before the shearer is silent,
so he did not open his mouth.
In his humiliation he was deprived of justice.
Who can speak of his descendants?
For his life was taken from the earth." T
he eunuch asked Philip, "Tell me, please, who is the prophet talking about, himself or someone else?" Then Philip began with that very passage of Scripture and told him the good news about Jesus.
As they traveled along the road, they came to some water and the eunuch said, "Look, here is water. Why shouldn't I be baptized?" And he gave orders to stop the chariot. Then both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water and Philip baptized him. When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord suddenly took Philip away, and the eunuch did not see him again, but went on his way rejoicing. Philip, however, appeared at Azotus and traveled about, preaching the gospel in all the towns until he reached Caesarea.

Now even though the eunuch had scripture, it alone was not sufficient for him. He needed guidance to understand it. This was the last contact Philip had with the eunuch... and sadly, Christianity NEVER took root in that region and with the eunuch's people. Why? No Church.

Look at Matthew 18:17 - the CHURCH has final say. If you're supposed to take a matter contention to the CHURCH for the final authority, it must be a real institution, not some “hidden, invisible” entity. In the book of Acts, how did the Church survive without the Bible? The Holy Spirit... and the Authority vested in her (the Church) by Christ! Hence their councils.

How does Paul ensure that Timothy will teach the Truth and appoint leaders who will do so?: By standing firm to the TEACHINGS of the Apostles. Otherwise there could be trouble, hence all of Paul's admonishing of the Churches who were getting muddled by heresies! (2 Thessalonians 2:15; 1 Corinthians 11:2; 2 Timothy 2:2-3; Acts 2:42; etc.). Paul sent his disciples to admonish, TEACH (orally), and appoint leaders in order to preserve the unity of the Church!!!! (Eph. 2:19-20; 2 Tim. 2:2; 1 Tim. 3:15; Luke 10:16; John 16:12-13)

Sola Scriptura brings CHAOS! Remember Former Fundamentalist seminarian Tim Staples’ account about his studies at Jimmy Swaggert Bible College?: “I was amazed to find myself in two classes back to back that taught entirely different positions on the Trinity. The first taught orthodox Trinitarian theology. The second taught that God the Father has a body and God the Holy Spirit has a body. The first class taught that Jesus was the eternal Son of the Father. The second taught that he was the eternal Word who became the ‘Son’ only at the incarnation. I remember going to lunch with a young lady one day and she was very distraught. She said to me in despair, ‘I thought I knew what I believed about God, but now I’m not sure what I believe.’” (quoted from his testimony, The Bible Made Me Do It, included in Surprised by Truth, Basilica Press, San Diego, 1994)

Luke 10:16: “He who listens to you listens to me; he who rejects you rejects me; but he who rejects me rejects him who sent me.”

Indeed, there had better be only one voice of the Holy Spirit coming from His Church! But Sola Scriptura opens up a disastrous Pandora’s box of heresies, liberal interpretations, and disorder. How can we be sure that past heresies (which, sadly, even today, rear their ugly heads in some form) Arianism, or Monophystism, or Nestorianism are not the truth?!? They all appealed to Scripture after all.

Indeed, the Church as foundation of Truth and established by Jesus HAS to safeguard the correct interpretation of the Scriptures. Why? To defend against heresies. As I detailed in Chapter II., the Church fathers appealed to THEIR APOSTOLIC AUTHORITY as well as Scripture content to rebuke heretics.

Otherwise, we have people who have the Bible yet deny the Trinity, the divinity of Christ, and other heresies, all by SCRIPTURE ALONE!!!

Check out www.torahofmessiah.com, and tell me if this man, who by the Scriptures alone, DENIES JESUS IS GOD, and tell me if he is right!

Was Jesus married?!?

This is an interesting question raised by one heretical article (but it's a topic that I've seen before by liberals)... Sola Scriptura strikes again, with twisted men twisting what they wish to find in Holy Scripture. This time it is men who claim Jesus was married to fulfill the Biblical command in Genesis to procreate (Genesis 1:28).

For commentary on this heretical article:

http://www.mark-shea.com/real.html

This article touches on the idea of many “Christians” who read and analyzed the Bible that the Wedding at Cana was in fact Christ's wedding.

Is THIS the truth?!?

The answer is NO... but who is to say their interpretation is wrong, if Scripture is (as it is for these wrong interpreters) one's sole guide of faith? By what authority can one say that they are wrong?

The best example is how Tradition in Judaism and Christianity has helped to uphold correct interpretation and translation comes from looking at how Messianic prophecy was interpreted in light its revelation to the Church by the Holy Spirit.

Besides the theology of the Trinity, which we get through the Church teaching on Scripture (but it is not explicit; if it were, why would there be any debate or councils called to define the doctrine, and safeguard the Church from heresy?), I came across another Scripture issue which ultimately proves that Sacred Tradition upholds and interprets Scripture correctly through the Holy Spirit. Sola Scriptura (just the Scripture) cannot work.

The issue in question is the Virgin birth. In the original Hebrew text of Isaiah 7:14 we read the prophecy that “the 'almah' shall conceive and bear a son, and you shall call his name 'Immanuel.'” “Almah” means in Hebrew “young woman” or “virgin” and refers to any young woman, virgin or not. About 200 years after Isaiah wrote this, the Hebrew text was translated into Greek for the benefit of the Diaspora Jews who spoke Greek better than Hebrew.

Even though “almah” means any young girl, the Jewish translators of the Septuagint (the Greek language Old Testament) when they translated Isaiah into Greek (long before the birth of Christ), did not translate the term as “young woman” but as “parthenos” which means “virgin.”

Later on, after Christ comes, St. Matthew is reading this Greek translation, not the original Hebrew when he declares of the Virgin Birth, “All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet: 'Behold, a VIRGIN [a woman who's not had sex - “parthenos”] shall conceive and bear a son, and his name shall be called Emmanuel.'”

Today, many erudite theologians deny the Virgin birth based on the Hebrew, saying that the Hebrew “Almah” means “young girl” and not necessarily a virgin (even though the word has two meanings) and therefore Jesus (if he is the Messiah) probably was not born of a virgin, but by normal means.

Many “Messianic Jewish” congregations also hold to this belief. They too, like secular and liberal “Christian” scholars, deny the virgin birth of Jesus, and make him out to be a man conceived through sexual intercourse between Mary and Joseph.

However, those who composed the Septuagint knew through Tradition the correct interpretation of the verse, and how it should be translated from the Hebrew to the Greek.

On this very subject, Ireneaus wrote in the second century:

God in truth became man, and the Lord himself saved us, giving the sign of the virgin but not as some say, who now venture to translate the Scripture, 'Behold, a young woman shall conceive and bring forth a son,' as Theodotion of Ephesus and Aquila of Pontus, both of them Jewish proselytes, interpreted; following whom, the Ebionites say that he was begotten by Joseph." Shortly after he adds: "For before the Romans had established their empire, while the Macedonians were still holding Asia, Ptolemy, the son of Lagus, being desirous of adorning the library which he had rounded in Alexandria with the meritorious writings of all men, requested the people of Jerusalem to have their Scriptures translated into the Greek language. But, as they were then subject to the Macedonians, they sent to Ptolemy seventy elders, who were the most skilled among them in the Scriptures and in both languages. Thus God accomplished his purpose. But wishing to try them individually, as he feared lest, by taking counsel together, they might conceal the truth of the Scriptures by their interpretation, he separated them from one another, and commanded all of them to write the same translation. He did this for all the books. But when they came together in the presence of Ptolemy, and compared their several translations, God was glorified, and the Scriptures were recognized as truly divine. For all of them had rendered the same things in the same words and with the same names from beginning to end, so that the heathen perceived that the Scriptures had been translated by the inspiration of God. And this was nothing wonderful for God to do, who, in the captivity of the people trader Nebuchadnezzar, when the Scriptures had been destroyed, and the Jews had returned to their own country after seventy years, afterwards, in the time of Artaxerxes, king of the Persians, inspired Ezra the priest, of the tribe of Levi, to relate all the words of the former prophets, and to restore to the people the legislation of Moses. (as recorded by Eusebius, Church History, Book V, Chapter 8)

Any wonder why Tradition is important? It preserves the ORIGINAL INTERPRETATION OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES FROM BEING TWISTED INTO SOMETHING IT IS NOT MEANT TO BE! (2 Peter 2)

Even messianic prophesy is interpreted in light of Christ's coming and the Holy Spirit in the Church! The Old Testament gave very confusing, sometimes conflicting views of the Messiah... suffering servant, Davidic conqueror, etc. We see JESUS fulfilled them all, however, we see how this knowledge was not clear until AFTER Jesus was resurrected!

The New Testament makes plain that the prophecies of the Messiah were not so much revealed by the Old Testament as they were HIDDEN there. This is the reason St. Paul writes that the New Covenant was “veiled” until the gospel took away the veil (2 Corinthians 3:14) and why he writes the gospel was “not made known to men in other generations as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to God's holy apostles and prophets” (Ephesians 3:5). There was no “Messianic checklist” that people had to compare Jesus to right away. There were clues (the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem [Micah 5:2] but be called a Nazarene[Matt. 2:23], etc.) but nothing concrete. In short, Paul insists the deepest meaning of the Old Testament was seen only after the life, death and resurrection of Christ.

The foreshadowing of the Messiah in the Old Testament (with verses that had double-meanings, to be understood in the present as well as the future) as well as the mystery of the Trinity and the nature of Christ, all were more deeply understood, not in just reading the Bible, but in understanding it through Sacred Tradition passed from Jesus to the Apostles to the Church, with the guidance of the Holy Spirit who leads her into all truth.

But since the “reformation” (or “deformation”), we have seen the emergence of several diverse, contradictory factions within Christianity, all claiming to have the truth. Some practice infant baptism; others say it is unscriptural. Some focus on charismatic gifts of the Holy Spirit; others say these “gifts” are nothing but demonic possession. The Catholic and Orthodox Churches have long held on to a Sacramental ministry, whereas most Protestants reject the notion of any sacraments. They also denounce the veneration of saints, especially the Virgin Mary, calling it everything from neo-paganism to necromancy.

But who’s right? How can all these denominations who have the Bible, disagree on such things?

The Lord gave us a sure way to have correct teaching of Christian doctrine: the Church.

The depth of the Bible has been opened up to me since I have plunged more into the writings of the Church Fathers, men taught by the Apostles and students of the Apostles -- men who died for their faith, died for the Gospel, and were not afraid to proclaim the Gospel to the ends of the Earth.

“It is within the power of all, therefore, in every Church, who may wish to see the truth, to contemplate clearly the tradition of the apostles manifested throughout the whole world; and we are in a position to reckon up those who were by the apostles instituted bishops in the Churches, and [to demonstrate] the succession of these men to our own times; those who neither taught nor knew of anything like what these [heretics] rave about. For if the apostles had known hidden mysteries, which they were in the habit of imparting to ‘the perfect’ apart and privily from the rest, they would have delivered them especially to those to whom they were also committing the Churches themselves. For they were desirous that these men should be very perfect and blameless in all things, whom also they were leaving behind as their successors, delivering up their own place of government to these men; which men, if they discharged their functions honestly, would be a great boon [to the Church], but if they should fall away, the direst calamity.

“Since, however, it would be very tedious, in such a volume as this, to reckon up the successions of all the Churches, we do put to confusion all those who, in whatever manner, whether by an evil self-pleasing, by vainglory, or by blindness and perverse opinion, assemble in unauthorized meetings; [we do this, I say,] by indicating that tradition derived from the apostles, of the very great, the very ancient, and universally known Church founded and organized at Rome by the two most glorious apostles, Peter and Paul; as also [by pointing out] the faith preached to men, which comes down to our time by means of the successions of the bishops. For it is a matter of necessity that every Church should agree with this Church, on account of its preeminent authority -- that is, the faithful everywhere -- inasmuch as the Apostolic Tradition has been preserved continuously by those who are everywhere.

“Since therefore we have such proofs, it is not necessary to seek the truth among others which it is easy to obtain from the Church; since the apostles, like a rich man [depositing his money] in a bank, lodged in her hands most copiously all things pertaining to the truth: so that every man, whosoever will, can draw from her the water of life. For she is the entrance to life; all others are thieves and robbers. On this account are we bound to avoid them, but to make choice of the thing pertaining to the Church with the utmost diligence, and to lay hold of the tradition of the truth. For how stands the case? Suppose there arise a dispute relative to some important question among us, should we not have recourse to the most ancient Churches with which the apostles held constant intercourse, and learn from them what is certain and clear in regard to the present question? For how should it be if the apostles themselves had not left us writings? Would it not be necessary, [in that case,] to follow the course of the tradition which they handed down to those to whom they did commit the Churches?”

- Ireneaus, bishop of Lyon, Against the Heresies (circa AD 180), martyr for Christ, and a disciple of Polycarp who was a disciple of the Apostle John.

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