RE: Protestant vs. Catholic

[KephaMeansRock]

This is aphisherofmen,

What happened to the protestant v. Catholic debate forum that was going on here?

I just worked last night for over an hour on a post, and now it's gone, and my account is deleted!!!

Did we break a rule'? We were on topic and being respectful....

Anybody? HELP?!

[McCulloch]

Inflicting bodily harm on another human being was not sanctioned by Jesus, and not even in the Temple is it said that Jesus inflicted bodily harm on anyone.

It says he got angry, used a whip to scare off the moneychangers and overturned tables, but not that he inflicted bodily harm on anyone. I think I've made this point before.

Oh, I see. It is all right to scare people off when you are angry with the threat of violence and the threat of inflicting bodily harm but it is not justified to actually carry through on that threat. That does not square with, let your 'yes' mean 'yes' and your 'no' mean 'no'.

[MagusYanam]

I just made quite a long post to answer, and then the browser crashed and I lost it...

Sigh..

I'll try to retype it later...

Don't sweat it, Justin; it happens to me often enough!

When it happens I usually just go into Word and retype it, and then cut-and-paste it in.

[MagusYanam]

McC, you'll notice that I phrased it poorly the first time. St. John says he used a whip to drive out the cattle and sheep, but doesn't imply that he used it to threaten or injure people.

In every account, it's said that Jesus 'drove [the money changers] out'. I take this to mean, in the context of his quotation of Scripture and his decrying of their turning the temple into a 'den of robbers' that he had shamed them out.

[McCulloch]

McC, you'll notice that I phrased it poorly the first time. St. John says he used a whip to drive out the cattle and sheep, but doesn't imply that he used it to threaten or injure people.

In every account, it's said that Jesus 'drove [the money changers] out'. I take this to mean, in the context of his quotation of Scripture and his decrying of their turning the temple into a 'den of robbers' that he had shamed them out.

And He found in the temple those who were selling oxen and sheep and doves, and the money changers seated at their tables.
And He made a scourge of cords, and drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and the oxen; and He poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables; and to those who were selling the doves He said, "Take these things away; stop making My Father's house a place of business."

It seems to me that it is quite difficult to read this passage as he was using the scourge of ropes to drive only the animals. In the passage, them refers not to the animals but to the vendors. Are you suggesting that he simply waved the scourge at them, not as a threat but to shame them?

[MagusYanam]

Okay, McC, I'll throw down. It's kind of a silly semantic game, but it seems the issue here is whether we take the 'both' of the NRSV or the 'with' of whatever the hell version it is you're using, and who the 'them' is that Jesus drove out with the whip.

kai poiesas phragellion ek skhoinion pantas exebalen ek tou ierou, ta te probata kai tous boas

'And [he] made a whip out of (single rushes?) and cast [them all] out of the sacred (temple?), both (te... kai = 'both... and') the sheep (probata) and the cattle (boas)'.

I think that the Greek makes extending the 'them' to include the moneychangers difficult, and requires a forced (and grammatically incorrect) reading of the passage, which says that Jesus used the whip to drive out the livestock. I personally think the 'Indiana Jones' Jesus is kind of a fabrication based on such a forced reading.

[samuelbb7]

This is a reply to an earlier letter. I will be replying late for awhile.

Send as note to self. http://www.geocities.com/mormonismdisproved/

Howdy Justin
I was not trying to do an attack against you are the current pope as a person. I was glad that the news was inaccurate and accepted your word on that point. On the Inquisition being a church doctrine I will refer you to the Catholic Encyclopedia. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08026a.htm

However, this looming threat does not negate the office. You keep confusing the office with the office holder.

Not Exactly. When a system that continually appoints those who are unworthy in time after time. That System is not longer working. It becomes a false system dedicated to keeping itself alive at the cost of truth. Then even if the offices remain they are no longer valid.

Saul lost the office, but the Kingship wasn't thereby taken away. The wickedness of neither Jeroboam nor Rehoboam could themselves break the king-ship for their successors.

I do not agree with the comparison unless you are saying that being a pope is like being a king. Which in fact some popes do make that claim. They considered themselves rulers of both temporal and spiritual power. Which is one of the main reasons for the fall into spiritual ruin.

Can you show me these teachings you're questioning? Cite them in council or the Catechism or ex-cathedra statement?

The Merit of Saints can be given to others in indulgencies. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07783a.htm

I'm not going to debate until I have a clear idea of what it is you're debating - I hope you can respect that.

Yes. I do. I apologize for not being clearer.

There is no "leaving in" in purgatory; all who enter will leave - for it is that final washing in the blood of Christ which makes us clean and perfect, fit for heaven and communion with God. We have good reason to believe - given bits in scripture like St. Paul praying for Onesiphorous and the practice of Judas Maccabeus's offering for the sake of his dead men found with idolatrous medals on their persons (which Luther threw out of the bible because it contradicted what he wished to teach); or the practice of the 1st century Christians as made evident in their writings asking for prayers for those who died on tomb inscriptions (and, conversely, for some of them to pray for us still here living).

Onesiphorous was alive.

Careful. Let's assume you're right, and that this is a parable to prove a point.

All of Jesus' parables are based on real life events, even if they are not speaking of an actual historical event in particular. There are people who sow seeds, draw nets, etc. None of Jesus' parables were fictitious, so neither should this parable be taken as such. It is portraying a reality, even if the characters are made up for the purpose of making a point. According to Jesus, Lazarus was carried away to Abraham's bosom, a place which was nowhere near people who were still alive in their bodies on earth. In this state Lazarus and the Rich Man are portrayed as being conscious. Period. Whether he anthropomorphised them a bit for the sake of his bodily audience is up for debate...

Some of these events are common a rich man ignoring the poor. In fact some commentators have stated that some Pharisees used these parable against others. Now if parts are up for debate should a doctrine be based on a debatable point?

It says 'Put to death in the flesh, he was brought to life in the spirit. In it he also went to preach to the spirits in prison...who had once been disobedient in the days of Noah...when only eight were saved."

That means that IN THE SPIRIT (i.e. separate from the body) Christ was able to preach. "in the spirit" does not mean "as the Holy Spirit". They are separate persons of the trinity.

1Pe 3:18
For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us[fn5] to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive by the Spirit,

1Pe 3:19
by whom also He went and preached to the spirits in prison,
1Pe 3:20
who formerly were disobedient, when once the Divine longsuffering waited[fn6] in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight souls, were saved through water.

NKJV Whom brings us to GOD? Whom made JESUS alive again? When were these dead disobedient? So the preaching was only to those who died during the flood not all the dead. How did Noah preach? By the power of the HOLY SPIRIT. Many commentators agree with this point so do many scholars.

St. Peter even clarifies in the next chapter "For this is why the gospel was preached even to the dead that, though condemned in the flesh in human estimation, they might live in the spirit in the estimation of God."

1Pe 4:3
For we have spent enough of our past lifetime[fn2] in doing the will of the Gentiles--when we walked in lewdness, lusts, drunkenness, revelries, drinking parties, and abominable idolatries.
1Pe 4:4
In regard to these, they think it strange that you do not run with them in the same flood of dissipation, speaking evil of you.
1Pe 4:5
They will give an account to Him who is ready to judge the living and the dead.
1Pe 4:6
For this reason the gospel was preached also to those who are dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit.

Dead in sin. What Spirit must we live in to be alive? Certainly not our own.

Well, first off, how do you know that the 24 elders were resurrected?

Secondly, even if they are, how do they present our prayers to God?
Because they are in heaven and have bodies. They hold vials that have our prayers in them. So this is poetical in nature.

I Corinthians 15 The resurrected have bodies.

To the first part, the "step" would be an analogous use of language referring to what happens after death in the body; it doesn't require a body because it's not a literal step per se.

Yes sometime language is not literal. But New Life in the Bible is always in reference to the resurrection.


As for the second part, "And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am." (John 14:3)

Jesus was speaking of returning to earth, where the living people he was talking to resided. He was (and St. John was recording) a reference to the paraousia, the second comming (cf. 1 John 2:28)

Why did he not tell them when you die you will be with me? Why the point on coming back?

"What the bible does not say" and "what the bible says is not" are two entirely separate things.

Okay the Bible says the dead do not praise GOD. It says the dead are asleep. So that is what it says.

This would seem damning to your claim then that spirits at death return to the father, and would rather substantiate my claim that Sheol was in fact a real destination/holding place for souls. And given that we know that Christ descended into that prison at his death per 1 peter 3, this would account for where he was...

But the Bible says Sprits return to GOD. Are you saying the Bible verse that says that is wrong and the supposition based on a parable is correct? If they go to a holding place that would not be going to GOD. Unless you are saying GOD is in Sheol.

It would have come from Sheol (at least BEFORE Christ ascended to the father, for things very well might have (and did) change after this happened. Sheol is no more insofar as we know. Don't confuse Sheol and Heaven.

Sheol quit existing seems to be a specualation. Here is a Catholic history about the soul
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14153a.htm What does the Catachism say about the soul?

Not necessarily. He was waking the body. Sleep is a Hebrew euphemism for death based upon the external appearances of the body.

So the body can wake up without the Spirit which give it life? You believe it is a euphemism. I believe it is an accurate description of our state. Also you are saying the spirit is conscious. That would make it our soul not our spirit. But nowhere does the Bible say the soul goes any where.

Um...no...the were awaiting the resurrection - either of the rightous or the damned...(Acts 24:15)

Yes I believe we are awaiting the resurrection. But you are telling me they are not really dead but already in heaven. Or purgatory or hell. Is that not true? So not all go to be with GOD. But where is the verse that says the soul or spirit at death goes to one of those three places? I have shown one that says the Spirits return to GOD who gave them. You have not shown me any verse that speaks of the soul going anywhere. Also the Bible is plain the soul is made of two parts body and spirit.

You seem to have very few verses that might show what you believe. But you have none that say it. You have not explained many of the verse I have shown. How about this verse. Dan 12:2 And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame [and] everlasting contempt.

Again, notice that what is being spoke about is the BODY in the earth, not the spirit. The spirit does not "sleep in the dust". "Sleep" is idiomatic parlance for "body, not moving, eyes closed, in the ground". Everytime such "sleep" is referenced, it references a body in the ground, not a spirit.

It does not say the bodies. It says them sleep in the dust. But you are saying them are awake in some other place or places. True the Spirit is not there. For the Bible says all spirits go to GOD the same place. Not three different places. Also is it not the RCC teaching that it is the soul that goes to these places not the spirit?


Where are the verses that say that God exists "in a trinity" or that "there are to be 27 books in the NT" (a point you've yet to return to)

True the Bible does not say the word Trinity. But the teaching that JESUS is GOD as the Father is very plain. Trinity is a word used by us to define the doctrine.

Personification? How so?

Because that which is not alive is spoken of as alive. Like the Blood of Abel crying out from the ground.

There are verses, as stated above, whcih certainly imply the spirit persists, and that it is conscious.

You think they imply that it does. But it does not say it does. Second the RCC doctrines is not that it is the Spirit which has conscious but the soul.

Is this said, or asked semi-rhetorically by the psalmist ("can the shades praise you?", which would not be biblical expounding upon this matter.)

But you say the shades can praise GOD. So who is correct the Psalmist who says no or those who agree with Plato.

I never said they all go back to God, but merely conceded what you were saying for the sake of argument.

But the verse says they all go back to GOD. Now where does the Bible say the doctrine that souls are immortal and they all go to different places. You have been saying spirits can think but the actual doctrine is of an immortal soul.

Part 1, Section 2, Chapter 1, Article 1, Paragraph 6, SubSection 4
382 "Man, though made of body and soul, is a unity" (GS 14 # 1). The doctrine of the faith affirms that the spiritual and immortal soul is created immediately by God.
Part 1, Section 2, Chapter 3, Article 11
990 The term "flesh" refers to man in his state of weakness and mortality. 536 The "resurrection of the flesh" (the literal formulation of the Apostles' Creed) means not only that the immortal soul will live on after death, but that even our "mortal body" will come to life again. 537
Part 1, Section 2, Chapter 3, Article 12, SubSection 1
1022 Each man receives his eternal retribution in his immortal soul at the very moment of his death, in a particular judgment that refers his life to Christ: either entrance into the blessedness of heaven-through a purification 594 or immediately, 595-or immediate and everlasting damnation. 596

[McCulloch]

Okay, McC, I'll throw down. It's kind of a silly semantic game, but it seems the issue here is whether we take the 'both' of the NRSV or the 'with' of whatever the hell version it is you're using, and who the 'them' is that Jesus drove out with the whip.

I generally use the NASB

kai poiesas phragellion ek skhoinion pantas exebalen ek tou ierou, ta te probata kai tous boas

και ποιησας φραγελλιον εκ σχοινιων παντας εξεβαλεν εκ του ιερου τα τε προβατα και τους βοας

But since it is all Greek to me, I must rely on the translators to have done their jobs correctly.

So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple area, both sheep and cattle;

And He made a scourge of cords, and drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and the oxen;

And making a whip of cords, he drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and oxen.

and having made a whip of small cords, he put all forth out of the temple, also the sheep, and the oxen;

And when he had made a scourge of small cords, he drove them all out of the temple, and the sheep, and the oxen;

I think that the Greek makes extending the 'them' to include the moneychangers difficult, and requires a forced (and grammatically incorrect) reading of the passage, which says that Jesus used the whip to drive out the livestock. I personally think the 'Indiana Jones' Jesus is kind of a fabrication based on such a forced reading.

It is clear to me, that all of the translators agree that them in verse 15 quoted refers to those who were selling oxen and sheep and doves, and the money changers seated at their tables from the previous verse.

[MagusYanam]

It is clear to me, that all of the translators agree that them in verse 15 quoted refers to those who were selling oxen and sheep and doves, and the money changers seated at their tables from the previous verse.

Okay, assuming that you're right, why is it that, having already driven them out with the whip, he could say to those who were selling the doves, 'Take these things out of here!' (Presumably the temple?) and 'Stop making my father's house a marketplace!'? Hadn't he already done so if he had driven them out by force? I think the stronger case here is to be made for him having put them to shame.

There is some ambiguity in the Greek, sure, especially with that pantas there. (What does 'all' mean in this case?) But I think that contextually, logically and grammatically speaking, the NRSV and the NIV seem to have the best approach to the matter - the whip was meant for the sheep and the cattle. (It's clear enough, at any rate, that he hadn't used it on one of the fellows selling doves, so it doesn't make sense for the pantas to have applied to him.)

Also, note that this takes place in St. John, the 'weird Gospel' and (chronologically) the last of the Gospels, something which also ought to be taken into consideration. No mention of a weapon is made in the synoptic Gospels, though he does tell off and put out the people in the temple.

[McCulloch]

And He found in the temple those who were selling oxen and sheep and doves, and the money changers seated at their tables.
And He made a scourge of cords, and drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and the oxen; and He poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables; and to those who were selling the doves He said, "Take these things away; stop making My Father's house a place of business."

Assuming that the translators have done a reasonable job, it seems like the following:

• Jesus found in the temple those who were selling oxen, sheep and doves and he found money changers at their tables.
• Jesus made a scourge of cords.
• As Jesus was driving those who were selling oxen, sheep and doves out of the temple with their various animals, Jesus poured out the coins, overturned the tables and spoke to the dove-wallahs.

[MagusYanam]

Yes, but you still have the problem of sequence. It doesn't say, 'as he was doing this' in the Greek, it says 'and' (kai), which in addition to being an 'in addition to' or 'also', is also a sequential marker, 'and then'.

But all this semantic babbling aside, you have to admit that:

a.) It is unclear that Jesus used the whip of cords on any person, especially in the context of him talking to the dove-sellers and ordering them to leave after he had already supposedly drove them out.

b.) If he had used the whip on any person, it would be an action inconsistent with his nonviolent teachings to turn the other cheek, to love your enemies and to pray for those who persecute you.