Hi Grant, Ron, Clint, and all others,
This may be of interest to you guys:
Translation of Scripture into Modern Japanese Is Completed:
http://www.zenit.org/english/visualizza.phtml?sid=26916
Clint wrote, "
Back to the original post (does anyone remember the original post?) if the inscription found on the grave proves to be valid, it is likely to add evidence against the Catholic position of the enduring virginity of Mary."
In my initial post on this thread, I immediately diffused this argument. Clint, I urge you to read it:
http://www.baptistboard.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=28;t=001172
It should be obvious by now to everyone that mutual edifying dialogue cannot continue until the foundational concern of authority is settled.
Catholic theology recognizes that all authority comes from the Father, that it was given to the Son, and that the Son gave it to his Church, which is just as visible as the Incarnate Redeemer was and still is in his glorified state. The Church produced the New Testament texts through its authors and redactors and retained them in existence for the primary purpose of reading them in her liturgy to feed the souls of the faithful. She also refers to Scripture as the norm that norms in her theology.
Clint and his Protestant contemporaries on the board do not recognize the greater context of the Bible.
Since they have rejected a priori the Christian Church that produced, defined, preserved, and promulgated the texts, they have set up their own authority (actually, they inherited this newly founded authority from their Protestant teachers), which is a mixture of Scripture and private judgment (Scripture can never be separated from the eyes that translate the text; this is an enlightenment presupposition).
Until Catholics come to recognize that the Magisterial authority of the bishops is supposed to give way to Scripture and private judgment at some locus in time that is already past, or the Protestants come to recognize that they are attributing to the Bible a place that it was never meant to acquire, we will be left in a standstill regarding dialogue.
Lastly, I would continue to reassert the argument of the New Testament canon, which I have found to serve as the foundational unanswerable argument that Clint nor any of the other Protestants on this board are able to answer. And, a published Protestant Scripture exegete whom I discussed this with two weeks ago could not answer it either.
In fact, no Protestant can answer the argument, and since any system of thought is only as strong as its foundation, it shows the weakness of the Protestant foundation.
The argument entails the composition or canon of the New Testament. Scripture cannot define itself, and it is the Church in her Tradition and Magisterial authority that has set the boundaries to the New Testament that Protestants venerate so dearly.
And, then, the Protestants have rejected the seven Deuterocanonical texts from the Old Testament with explanations that could just as well be aimed at New Testament texts themselves. But, Protestants will not make this move for the precise reason that they are so entrenched in their own tradition established by men in the 16th century that they will not question the canon of the New Testament (for the most part; there are aberrations).
Until the Protestants on this board can show the Catholics just how the Bible fell from the sky in its leather-bound KJV translation with God's imprimatur, they should adhere to the self-same Tradition and Authority that defines the boundaries of the Sacred Text they hold in such dear esteem. To be consistent, they should also return the Deuterocanonical texts to their rightful place.
God bless,
Carson
[ October 25, 2002, 09:23 PM: Message edited by: Carson Weber ]