Thank you Grant.

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is.

ABC's of Salvation:
Admit you are a sinner.  Rom 3:23
Believe in Christ.  Acts 16:31
Confess your faith.  Rom 10:9-10

If you believe there is not a God.  Than just die.  For without a God you
can do this.

The national anthem in Hell is:  "I Did It My Way"



-----Original Message-----
From: The Electronic Church [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
Behalf Of Grant E. Metcalf
Sent: Friday, May 10, 2013 4:17 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Catholic (with deuterocanonical books) Audio Bibles (NRS, DR)

Sharon Hooley ask: "Is there a difference between the Catholic Bible and the
new Jerusalem Bible?"

Angel wrote: "There is no such thing as a 'Catholic' bible. The Roman
Catholic church recognizes the New Jerusalem bible, however.  She recognizes
all bibles which are translated from the Septuagint wherein are found the
deuterocanonical books."

john schwery comments: When I see a version with the Apocrypha added, that
is a Catholic Bible."

Grant comments:  Below I will provide several quotations which indicate that
there is a Roman Catholic version of the Bible officially designated by the
Council of Trent, 1546. I also provide the info from the title page of a
braille New Testament given to me 45 years ago which seems to indicate that
there is a Roman Catholic Bible.

Begin:
  The New Testament of Our Lord Jesus Christ, Translated from the Vulgate, A
Revision of the Challoner-Rhemes Version, Edited by Catholic Schollars,
under the Patronage of THE EPISCOPAL COMMITTEE of the CONFRATERNITY OF
CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE, St. Anthony Guild Press, Patterson, New Jersey. End of
quotation.
This comes in ten braille volumes with multitudinous explanatory notes
reflecting Roman Catholic views.

Secondly, I quote numerous snipits from: Baker Encyclopedia of Christian
Apologetics, Norman L. Geisler, 1999. This is lengthy. I will provide the
entire 8 pages if you want to read the full section. Write me off list.
Begin:
     Apocrypha, Old and New Testaments. Apocrypha most commonly refers to
disputed books that Protestants reject and Roman Catholics and Orthodox
communions accept into the Old Testament. The word apocrypha means "hidden" 
or "doubtful." So those who accept these documents prefer to call them
"deuterocanonical," or books of "the second canon."
     ...
     The Septuagint and the Apocrypha. The fact that the New Testament often
quotes from other books in the Greek Old Testament in no way proves that the
deuterocanonical books it contains are inspired. It is not even certain that
the Septuagint of the first century contained the Apocrypha. The earliest
Greek manuscripts that include them date from the fourth century A.D.
     ...
     It is also important to remember that these books were not part of the
Christian (New Testament period) writings. Hence, they were not under the
province of the Christian church to decide. They were the province of the
Jewish community which wrote them and which had, centuries before, rejected
them as part of the canon.
     ...
     The Catholic Arguments in Summary. At best, all that the arguments
urged in favor of the canonicity of the apocryphal books prove is that
various apocryphal books were given varied degrees of esteem by various
persons within the Christian church, usually falling short of claims for the
books' canonicity. Only after Augustine and the local councils he dominated
pronounced them inspired did they gain wider usage and eventual infallible
acceptance by the Roman Catholic church at Trent. This falls far short of
the kind of initial, continual, and full recognition among Christian
churches of the canonical books of the Protestant Old Testament and Jewish
Torah (which exclude the Apocrypha). True canonical books were received
immediately by the people of God into the growing canon of Scripture. ... 
Any subsequent debate was by those who were not in a position, as was the
immediate audience, to know whether they were from an accredited apostle or
prophet. ...
     Arguments for the Protestant Canon. Evidence indicates that the
Protestant canon, consisting of the thirty-nine books of the Hebrew Bible
and excluding the Apocrypha, is the true canon. The only difference between
the Protestant and ancient Palestinian Canon lies in organization. The
ancient Bible lists twenty-four books.... The Palestinian Jews represented
Jewish orthodoxy Therefore, their canon was recognized as the orthodox one. 
It was the canon of Jesus, Josephus, and Jerome. It was the canon of many
early church fathers, among them Origen, Cyril of Jerusalem, and Athanasius.
     ...
     Jewish Rejection. In addition to the evidence for the propheticity of
only the books of the Jewish and Protestant Old Testament, there is an
unbroken line of rejection of the Apocrypha as canon by Jewish and Christian
teachers.
     Philo, an Alexandrian Jewish teacher (20 B.C.-A.D. 40), quoted the Old
Testament prolifically from virtually every canonical book. However, he
never once quoted from the Apocrypha as inspired.
     Josephus (A.D. 30-100), a Jewish historian, explicitly excludes the
Apocrypha, numbering the Old Testament as twenty two books (= thirty-nine
books in Protestant Old Testament). Neither does he ever quote an Apocryphal
book as Scripture, though he was familiar with them. In Against Apion (1.8)
he wrote:
     For we have not an innumerable multitude of books among us, disagreeing
from and contradicting one another [as the Greeks have] but only twenty-two
books, which are justly believed to be divine; and of them, five belong to
Moses, which contain his law, and the traditions of the origin of mankind
till his death. This interval of time was little short of three thousand
years; but as to the time from the death of Moses till the reign of
Artaxerxes king of Persia, who reigned at Xerxes, the prophets, who were
after Moses, wrote down what was done in their times in thirteen books. The
remaining four books contain hymns to God, and precepts for the conduct of
human life. [Josephus, 1.8.
     These correspond exactly to the Jewish and Protestant Old Testament,
which excludes the Apocrypha.
     The Jewish teachers acknowledged that their prophetic line ended in the
fourth century B.C. Yet, as even Catholics acknowledge, all apocryphal books
were written after this time.
     ...
     Jesus and the New Testament writers never quoted from the Apocrypha as
Scripture, even though they were aware of these writings and alluded to them
at times (e.g., Heb. 11:35 may allude to 2 Maccabees 7, 12, though this may
be a reference to the canonical book of Kings; see 1 Kings 17:22). Yet
hundreds of quotations in the New Testament cite the Old Testament canon. 
The authority with which they are cited indicates that the New Testament
writers believed them to be part of the "Law and Prophets" [i.e., whole Old
Testament] which was believed to be the inspired and infallible Word of God
(Matt. 5:17-18; cf. John 10:35), Jesus quoted from throughout the Old
Testament "Law and Prophets," which he called "all the Scriptures" (Luke
24:27).
    ...
     Early church council rejection. No canonic list or council of the
Christian church accepted the Apocrypha as inspired for nearly the first
four centuries. This is significant, since all of the lists available and
most of the fathers of this period omit the Apocrypha. The first councils to
accept the Apocrypha were only local ones without ecumenical force. The
Catholic contention that the Council of Rome (382), though not an ecumenical
council, had ecumenical force because Pope Damasus (304-384) ratified it is
without grounds. It begs the question, assuming that Damasus was a Pope with
infallible authority. Second, even Catholics acknowledge this council was
not an ecumenical body. Third, not all Catholic scholars agree that such
affirmations by Popes are infallible. There are no infallible lists of
infallible statements by Popes. Nor are there any universally agreed upon
criteria for developing such lists. At best, appealing to a Pope to make
infallible a statement by a local council is a double-edged sword. Even
Catholic scholars admit that some Popes taught error and were even
heretical.
     Early fathers' rejection. Early fathers of the Christian church spoke
out against the Apocrypha. This included Origen, Cyril of Jerusalem,
Athanasius, and the great Roman Catholic Bible translator, Jerome.
     ...
     Conclusion. Differences over the Old Testament Apocrypha play a crucial
role in Roman Catholic and Protestant differences over such teachings as
purgatory and prayers for the dead. There is no evidence that the Apocryphal
books are inspired and, therefore, should be part of the canon of inspired
Scripture. They do not claim to be inspired, nor is inspiration credited to
them by the Jewish community that produced them. They are never quoted as
Scripture in the New Testament. Many early fathers, including Jerome,
categorically rejected them. Adding them to the Bible with an infallible
decree at the Council of Trent shows evidence of being a dogmatic and
polemical pronouncement calculated to bolster support for doctrines that do
not find clear support in any of the canonical books.... (End of
quotations.)

Hopefully this has been helpful to your understanding of Biblical history
and its canonicity.

Listening for His shout!

Grant E. Metcalf
Bartimaeus Alliance of the Blind, Inc.
Email:  [log in to unmask]
Desk:  650-754-4207
Home:  650-589-6890
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