Paolo Coelho ? Não, Obrigado

@rebeccasmiff
Everyone Loves this Book...Except Me
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/WbnsqZ4LxOE

Is The Alchemist by Coelho?

Bc, yes, it is that by the way, he lost me over saying, in The Fifth Mountain, that Elias pretended to be a Baal worshipper in Phoenicia.

God's Truth is Brighter than a False Choice of Compromise

Were Dinosaurs With Adam? The Behemoth Lie Debunked
Totus Catholica | 24 Dec. 2025
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOZb21LMaCM

1:13 "the Catholic Church has never required belief in a Young Earth"

On what exact plane? The Church certainly hasn't made (yet) a Conciliar or Papal solemn definition that the Earth is no older than Adam (or six days older), or that Adam was as close to Abraham as genealogies in Genesis 5 and 11 (also in Luke 3) indicate.

The Church has not yet excommunicated someone for being Old Earth like Fr. Feeney was excommunicated. (By the way, while he was a Young Earth creationist, as his fan, Sir Charles A. Coulombe is also, he was not excommunicated for being Young Earth).

However, knowing what I do about carbon dating, I know a Neanderthal dated to 42 000 BP by carbon cannot have been just before a Flood in 2957 BC, I'm taking that date from the Christmas Day Roman Martyrology by the way, if the atmosphere is millions of years old. The reason is, the upper atmosphere produces carbon 14 at a certain rate, which can be varied, but not infinitely. Nitrogen atoms meet incoming radiation, and N-14 becomes C-14. Then C-14 decays at a certain rate which, as far as I know is invariable. C-14 is measured against the overall C (nearly all C-12) in a sample, and when compared to a standard, not exactly a contemporary sample, but "modern Carbon, corrected for pre-industrial values", there is only 50 % left, one says it has been decaying for 5730 years.

I'd call 5730 years the "time implication" of 50 % "modern carbon corrected for preindustrial values" (50 pmC) except, it can if we are close enough to the beginning imply that instead of the sample being 5730 years old, or rather the time implication is not strictly about actual time, it is also about extra years due to initial low carbon 14 levels.

Now, the problem with an old earth is, you cannot then have, 4000 years ago, an atmosphere that is 82.753 pmC. How did I arrive at that figure ? Well, 82.753 pmC if translated from a percentage value to a decimal value is 0.82753. And that is the solution for .5^(1565/5730).

Now, why .5^(1565/5730)? Because I want a pmC value with the time implication of 1565 extra years, instantly there from the atmosphere. Why do I want that? Genesis 1 means 24 h days? Genesis 5 and 11 add up to 2000 / 3000+ years depending on text version (3184 AM is when Abraham is born according to the Christmas Day Martyrology)? Those things are true, but the reason is actually Genesis 14.

Can we agree a real man, Abraham, met a real man, Melchisedec, near modern Jerusalem, in a setting after a real short war or the foiling of a raid? Because, if Genesis 14 is history, the evacuation of Asasan-Tamar (possible if not strictly stated) is Biblically dated to when Abraham was c. 80 years, i e 2015 BC - 80 = 1935 BC. However, it is archaeologically dated, by carbon dating reed mats used to evacuate temple treasure, to 3500 BC.

So, if Genesis 14 is history, the atmosphere was laden with 1565 extra years. It was at 82.753 pmC, and it cannot have been that low if it had been millions of years old.

Therefore, Genesis 14 + carbon dating, between them, proves an old earth.

Now, 1909, there was a question put to the Pontifical Biblical Commission. It was question VIII of a questionnaire, it was about the historicity of the first three chapters of Genesis, and Q VIII was about if it was possible to accept the Day Age theory about time between the beginning of the universe and the creation of Adam.

It wouldn't have been a question at all, if there hadn't previously been a common understanding that the days were actual days (or one single moment), and the answer wasn't a dogmatic "no the days are actually longer periods" it was a "you may discuss this freely" (meaning on both sides, including the one against the Day Age theory and for the literal six days).

It's important to note that 1909 involved no discussion being done or questioned or allowed about extending the timeline of Genesis 5 and 11. Abraham is still born 3184 Anno Mundi (or a bit later or a good deal earlier, depending on text version), no hanky panky with generations added outside any text version of these.

"and 1:12 the faithful are free to accept the 1:14 scientific evidence for an ancient Earth 1:16 and the existence of dinosaurs millions 1:18 of years before humans."

Are, on your view, the faithful free to reject that as pseudoscience and contrary to the Bible? They were so in 1909. If they aren't so now, are you in the same Church as that existing in 1909?

The same year that Fr. Fulcran Vigouroux made a decision on free discussion (and not against Young Earth!), his Pope, St. Pius X, canonised Fr. Clemens Maria Hofbauer. Now, he had a friend, a certain Veith (Johannes Immanuel, I believe) who was his doctor, also a Passionist, and who wrote a work in defense of the Young Earth position (Die Anfänge der Menschenwelt, Vienna, 1865).

So, if J. E. Veith was a young earth creationist, Clemens Maria Hofbauer was presumably a young earth creationist. This means, the same year that Fr. Fulcran Vigoouroux provided for discussion between Day-Agers and Young-Earthers, his Pope presuambly canonised as a saint a strict Young-Earther.

That clearly doesn't feel like your Church, where "freedom" just goes one way. Against Young Earth. For the Consensus position of Scientists. Plus, you speak of "accepting scientific evidence" as if most faithful were capable or interested in even discussing and evaluating it. If you accept the evaluation of someone else, for instance a scientist, you are not accepting the evidence, but the authority of the scientist.

1:36 "by forcing modern scientific categories onto ancient poetic texts"

Where do I start?

The difference between "a day" and "very many years" isn't a modern scientific category, it's a category of exactitude that was perfectly comprehensible to Moses and to his first readers or hearers.

If you want to put Genesis 1 into the category of poetry, you have lots to go against you, including people who know actual Hebrew poetry, how it was rhythmed in the original of the psalms, for instance, but that's not the worst.

You are glossing over that Genesis 5 and 11 hardly can be described as poetic. You are also glossing over that Our Lord referenced Genesis 1 in Mark 10:6. He certainly didn't think that there was a significant time gap between Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:27, which there would have been if "day" was a metaphor for "period of millions of years" ...

1:41 "we miss the theological truths the ancient authors intended to convey"

Do we really? Or do we just get a bit more than the truths you think about?

1:53 "many abandon the faith when they think they must chose between the Bible and established science"

In the Roman Emperor, under Decius in 250 AD, many abandoned the faith because they thought they must chose between Christ and established statescraft.

Many who see that "established science" is incompatible with tenets of the faith on other levels than the one you concentrate on, because you know how to gloss over them, actually find the faith that way.

Not quite as many as abandon, perhaps, but that is to be expected in times probably those of the Great Apostasy.

"The official notes in the 2:52 United States Conference of Catholic 2:54 Bishops Bible make clear that Behemoth 2:56 is a primeval monster of chaos and 2:58 Leviathan is another chaos monster."

USCCB is not actually your own bishop, nor that of Rome.

Kenya is outside their jurisdiction.

It's a conference where a McCarrick has been prominent.

But the really quirky part is:

• on the one hand, the Bible is not involved in the kind of story-line where primeval chaos monsters precede gods of good order
• on the other hand, these guys are still saying this is what the Bible passage refers to
• and on top of that, you pretend God, Who is All-Knowing, put this reference in for Job (or worse, that Job isn't historic).

This "theology" makes no sense at all. You cannot find it in pre-Vatican II publications officially approved for the mass of the faithful.

"only the 3:05 Lord, not Job, can control the cosmic 3:07 evil which these forces symbolize."

I'm not denying they symbolise Satan, like Jael symbolises Mary. But Jael existed as a person.

For some reason, those guys pretend that in a list of items that are presumably litteral statements about aspects of tangible nature, there are two items that are just symbols.

Again, try to find this in a publication for the faithful, prior to Vatican II.

3:40 Let's cite St. Thomas on Job 40:

Ecce Vehemot quem feci tecum et cetera. Supra dominus narraverat effectus virtutis suae quos in malis hominibus operatur, nunc autem accedit ad describendum malitiam Diaboli. Manifestum est autem ex praemissis quod apud Iob et amicos eius eadem erat opinio de Daemonibus quam nunc Ecclesia Catholica tenet, ut scilicet ex angelica dignitate per peccatum corruerint, unde supra IV 18 dictum est ecce qui serviunt ei non sunt stabiles. Et sicut homo per peccatum decidit a dignitate rationis et contra rationem agens irrationabilibus comparatur, ita etiam Diabolus per peccatum avertens se a supremis et intelligibilibus bonis, dum principatum super inferiora et terrena appetiit, animalibus brutis comparatur, in quorum effigie frequenter Daemones apparent hominibus, Deo id providente ut tales figuras corporum sinantur assumere per quas eorum condicio designetur.

What St. Thomas is saying is, in the previous, God has been speaking of bad men, now God is comparing Satan to beasts. He's also saying when demons are allowed to appear, they are often allowed to assume the form of beasts.

In other words, there would be actual beasts involved. Precisely as in the vice of forgetfulness is likened to the actual beast "ostrich" (which you may know), so the fierceness of Satan is likened to the actual beast Leviathan.

So, you are misreading St. Thomas by pretending "symbol for Satan, therefore no actual biologic beast".

4:39 Excuse me, can you read, or just repeat what someone else told you something means?

"The 4:29 catechism teaches in paragraph 282 that 4:33 God reveals himself progressively and 4:35 that scripture contains various literary 4:37 forms that must be interpreted according 4:39 to the intention of the sacred authors."

Check the text itself:

Catechesis on creation is of major importance. It concerns the very foundations of human and Christian life: for it makes explicit the response of the Christian faith to the basic question that men of all times have asked themselves:120 "Where do we come from?" "Where are we going?" "What is our origin?" "What is our end?" "Where does everything that exists come from and where is it going?" The two questions, the first about the origin and the second about the end, are inseparable. They are decisive for the meaning and orientation of our life and actions. 120. Cf. N[ostra] A[etate] 2.

Progressive revelation is not mentioned. Various literary forms are not mentioned.

I don't admire that paragraph, but it's not quite as bad as the following one.

Just because your priest told you §282 means what you just said doesn't make that a grammatical fact.

Now, let's cite Nostra Aetate 2, or at least the beginning:

2. From ancient times down to the present, there is found among various peoples a certain perception of that hidden power which hovers over the course of things and over the events of human history; at times some indeed have come to the recognition of a Supreme Being, or even of a Father. This perception and recognition penetrates their lives with a profound religious sense.

Religions, however, that are bound up with an advanced culture have struggled to answer the same questions by means of more refined concepts and a more developed language. ...

I'm not a fan of that document, and not of this paragraph. But unless you pretend that the Christian revelation was preceded by the religious sense within Hinduism etc., you cannot from this paragraph deduce that Christian revelation was "progressive" (which it was in a sense) in a way which would have allowed for actual errors to be there in the early parts (like Genesis or Job).

4:54 "we recognise poetic exaggeration"

If an elephant has a hide that's hard to pierce with a spear, it stands to reason that a sauropod, much bigger, would have thicker skin, possibly scaled, which would be impossible to pierce with a spear.

Also, breathing fire is possible if you look at some insects, and the mechanism doesn't depend on being invertebrate.

"Practically, this means 5:01 Catholics can fully embrace what science 5:03 reveals about dinosaurs while 5:05 recognizing that Job 40 and 41 address 5:08 different questions entirely."

Again, are we, in your Catholicism, free to the opposite conclusion?

Are we free to say that science doesn't reveal, and scientists who conclude, sometimes also conclude wrongly?

Because, if not, it's not the Catholicism of 1909.

"We must 5:41 respect their sincere concern for 5:42 scriptures truthfulness while noting 5:44 that the Catholic Church does not share 5:46 this interpretive approach."

So, is your respect for Young Earth Creationism tied to the condition of the Young Earth Creationist being non-Catholic?

You are basically saying that the Church, as such, is disagreeing with them. J. E. Veith, St. Clement Maria Hofbauer, Pope St. Pius X would probably not agree with you.

6:10 "details impossible for any real animal"

Except a dinosaur.

I

A L

@useraccount5881

Or a one-off, real creature that God made just for Job, to teach him a lesson. “Look at Behemoth, which I made along with you, and which feeds on grass like an ox." Notice: "which I made along with you"; clearly indicating this creature was made by God around the same time Job came into being.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@hglundahl

@useraccount5881 "along with you" = "along with you as you were in the loins of Adam"

It came into being when Adam was created.

II

michael moroney

@michaelmoroney7785

There are various ancient glyphs drawings. One in Leicester? Cathedral- before paleantology existed....

II a)

A L

@michaelmoroney7785 People always draw all kinds of weird things. That's hardly a proof of anything. And I even doubt those drawings are authentic in the first place.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@useraccount5881 There is no actual contestation of those drawings.

And there is a point beyond which anatomical coincidences become less credible.

Your best option was, someone found a skeleton of that type and made "amateur palaeontology" ... but I find that less convincing with serpopards on the Narmer palette, as they are shown with human handlers.

II b)

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@michaelmoroney7785 For instance.

However, the other side could allege that if palaeontology as a systematic study at universities didn't exist as today, bones were already found and dug up before that.

"The 6:13 catechism affirms in paragraph 107 that 6:16 scriptures inspired truth is that which 6:19 God wanted put into sacred writings for 6:21 the sake of our salvation, not to 6:23 provide scientific information about 6:25 geology or paleontology."

The latter is certainly not in the paragraph itself. It's an overreach on the words "for the sake of our salvation"

The inspired books teach the truth. "Since therefore all that the inspired authors or sacred writers affirm should be regarded as affirmed by the Holy Spirit, we must acknowledge that the books of Scripture firmly, faithfully, and without error teach that truth which God, for the sake of our salvation, wished to see confided to the Sacred Scriptures."

Note, "without error" — in other words, not even errors outside the directly salvific truths.

I could be saved without knowing a certain Dorcas lived in Joppe or that that is near Lydda. This doesn't mean I can say St. Luke was mistaken about this historic or geographic detail.

There are some apostates who indeed have made a spin off Dei Verbum 11, especially the words "for the sake of our salvation" and as it hasn't been contradicted, this is one reason to reject the document and therefore also the council itself. Vatican II was not a valid council, it was not convoked or concluded by a valid Pope.

"Father William 6:43 Stoker taught that God does not fill 6:45 gaps in scientific explanation,"

I didn't see him wearing cassock and Roman collar .... you did however quote him as alluding to a sentiment common among scoffers in the scientific community (yes, there are such, their faculties don't recognise theology as queen of sciences and we live in the age of apostasy), and which it has itself taken up from a modernist and evolution believing Calvinist from Scotland, Henry Drummond.

"but 6:47 rather grounds all existence and order."

Which doesn't limit existence, order or causation to the items all scientists recognise or to the theories now most current.

"6:50 This allows Catholics to read Genesis as 6:52 true theological revelation about who 6:55 created and why while accepting 6:57 scientific evidence about how and when."

Did Abraham have parents and are they in Genesis? Was Jesus God while walking in Earth? Check Genesis 5 and 11 for the time distance between Adam and Abraham, Mark 10:6 on the time distance between creation and Adam.

"The Catholic 7:16 Church embraces both the truth of 7:18 scripture rightly interpreted according 7:20 to its literary forms and divine 7:22 intention and the truth of God's 7:24 creation as science reveals it."

Traditional Catholic dogma doesn't pretend there are different literary forms in historic books, nor that Science is "revealing" things.

You have just identified the "Catholic Church" with these two and untraditional errors.

7:32 "They answer different questions"

Not if "Science" (falsely so called) encroaches on Biblical history. They then answer the same questions in opposite ways.

Precisely as politics sometimes encroaches on Catholic morals (you may have heard of a country where abortion clinics are protected even from silent prayer outside). Then, again, they answer the question of what we should do in different and opposed ways.

That Video Wasn't Matt Walsh's Worst, Pretty Decent Actually!

People Are Outraged That I’m Speaking The Truth About America’s Origins
Matt Walsh | 21 March 2025
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yb2BZgSL0FU

3:41 Wait, did someone say Fascism?

What has Fascism got to do with it, given Italy, Spain, Austria have no recent history of settler-colonialism or (prior to death of El Caudillo, last and perhaps in some way best of the Fascist statesmen) of high numbers of immigrants either? Are Mussolini and Franco laughing because you got a partly undeserved compliment, or are they laughing at the ignorance of the man commenting on you? I'm sure they are not whining in flames, at least.

9:24 I'm reminded of a similar complaint against Northern countries being Christianised by the decision of the King.

In pre-Christian Scandinavia, the kings were basically Popes (in the 16th C. they returned to that system, taking bad advice from Luther, Martin). Christianity had even been persecuted on their orders and the younger sons of our nobility had helped to persecute Christianity abroad.

How wild is it that some of them decided to flip the script?

10:53 Come on, Matt!

The Natives can't have lived here before God created Heaven and Earth. More probable, they arrived some time after Noah's Flood which was about 5000 years ago!

12:29 I'm afraid, putting a man on the Moon is not your best claim to fame.

And they said: Come, let us make a city and a tower, the top whereof may reach to heaven: and let us make our name famous before we be scattered abroad into all lands
[Genesis 11:4]

How did Apollo V look before take-off? Like a tower.
Did all of it reach into space? No, only the top did, stages were used and discarded below that top.

Before you put a man on the Moon, the Soviets put a man into space, Gagarin. He took off from a city now known as Baikonur, but back then as Leninsk.

Before Nimrod made repeated futile attempts, making God shake His head, the pre-Babel and early Babel élite was pretty unified in culture. Before you got to the Moon, the US was pretty unified in culture.

Anyway, thanks for underlining that in St. John's day, when he was on Patmos, the Continental US was a wilderness. It may still prove a refuge in the Endtimes, and that will be thing to be very proud of. For much better reasons.

Genesis 5 and 11: (Virtually) Gap Free

Nuzi Tablets: The Discovery That Reshaped Biblical History
Flying Eagle Publications | 19 Dec. 2025
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DdWwT2oBT7I

6:09 "to the time period of Abraham and the patriarchs"

Actually a bit later.

2150 to 1900 BC, if each date is carbon dated, starts after 1634 BC (=dated as 2212 BC).

Hans Stein

@hans.stein.

Can you expand on that?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@hglundahl

@hans.stein. Gladly, Sir!

2150 BC in this context is at least for part of the dates carbon dated (OK, some dates might be 50 or 150 years before a carbon date, but I suppose a tablet can be carbon dated from the wool cover or the wood shelf supporting it).

Now, the carbon date 2150 BC is after ...

1634 BC

93.251 pmC, dated as 2212 BC

... and the last carbon date mentioned, 1900 BC, is before ...

1590 BC

97.033 pmC, dated as 1839 BC

... i e when Moses was born (Exodus in 1510 BC being from the Roman Martyrology and the carbon date/Bibl. date matches around this being:

1590 BC = carbon date of the coffin of Sesostris III, whom I take as the child killing pharao and
1700 BC = carbon date of the burial ship of Djoser, whom I take to be Joseph's pharao, as in Joseph = Imhotep).

So, these tablets are from a short time span, less than 44 years, within the Soujourn in Egypt.

After watching all.

We have three arguments now that the genealogies of Genesis 5 and 11 are complete (and chronologically exact at least at some approximation and in some text version). At least against Christian Old Earthers (who by now imagine Abraham was more than just 2000--3000 years after mankind began).

1) If the transmission was oral, the number of generations from Adam to Moses or from Adam to Abraham was about the number of minimally overlapping generations it could take without being corrupted: if one says there were far more generations, it's untenable, Genesis 3 wouldn't be history so wouldn't be dogma;
2) Alternatively, if it was written, it is for that reason likely to have been precisely preserved;
3) Either way, against the idiocy of Archibald Sayce parallelling Biblical genealogies to regal ones that skipped over unimportant ancestors, we have an exact genre match if not to the exact same period as the Patriarchs, at least to some time before Moses. Nuzi tablets are humdrum records, not claims bolstered by the most highfaluting memories to the omission of the rest.

Parzival

@Parzival711-x7i

long lifespans in Genesis, such as Adam (930 years), Noah (950 years), Abraham (175 years), Jacob (147 years), and even Moses (120 years) in Exodus.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

hglundahl

@Parzival711-x7i Yes?

Kaduri Revisited, Bible, Tradition and Magisterium Defended

Came across BiblicallyMotivated in this video, on Yitshaak Kaduri:

300,000 Mourned This Rabbi...Then His Secret Note Shocked Israel
BiblicallyMotivated | 19 Dec. 2025
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6_kVMed26A

Lots I didn't know, nothing I disagreed with very much (I could have said, there probably was a Yeshu who founded an idolatrous sect, but not in the Mediterranean: and Odinism is already obliterated, by Christianity, no, modern Odinism isn't Odinism any more than John Shelby Spong is Christianity — but the reference to a character in the Talmud was just in passing). So, I left no comment.

Not so next one:

Why Sola Scriptura Became NECESSARY Not Just For Protestants!
BiblicallyMotivated | 9 Nov. 2025
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GcmThOaw80A

Jews say Jesus wasn't the Messiah, you say Jesus didn't found the Catholic Church.

You both have a problem.

0:22 "only one survived"

Oops ... no Bible for that. Actually some Bible against that!

0:22 bis "in a form we can actually verify"

We can verify God exists by noting H+H fuses into D, D+D fuses into He.* This process knows no reversal, and there is no method for making H, yet H is still plenty, so the universe has to have been there a finite amount of time, meaning it is not itself an eternal self-sustaining existence.

However, this cannot be directly what St. Paul wrote about in Romans 1. 1) Having originated the universe doesn't prove God is still around so it doesn't prove His power inexhaustible. 2) H, D, He* have always been around, but very far from always observed. Or even observable.

If however God each day is making Sun, Moon, Fix Stars and Planets circle Earth or the axis through the Poles for some of them, that not only proves His power inexhaustible (and it would be even more proven so if the universe had had no beginning), it is also sth which has been there visible to Men since the beginning of all time, or to be more meticulous than St. Paul was, since six days later.

Now, there is a parallel about verifying the form of the Bible texts. If it were about the canon, sorry, you are joking. But I suppose you mean text reading of 1st and 2nd C. papyri agreeing with text reading of modern editions.

The parallel is this. A 5th C. Christian didn't access 1st C. papyri. If he couldn't trust the tradition in which he received the Bible, he couldn't trust the Bible either.

* Hydrogen, Deuterium and Helium, for those less savvy in chemistry.

8:10 I could actually argue the Eucharist, the Sacrifice of the Mass, the Immaculate Conception (on grounds close to Coredemptrix) on the de facto ground of Bible alone, i e if I had for arguments' sake agreed to not use Tradition or Magisterium.

Here is the thing. Given the NT, I can argue Apostolic Succession and that Jesus didn't mean it to end in the 1st C., but only when the dead are alive again in the valley of Josaphath.

Succession demonstrated

1) The eleven laid hands on people to give over authority (Acts 1, Matthias, and 8, see quote and discussion for the latter).

For he was not as yet come upon any of them; but they were only baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus Then they laid their hands upon them, and they received the Holy Ghost And when Simon saw, that by the imposition of the hands of the apostles, the Holy Ghost was given, he offered them money Saying: Give me also this power, that on whomsoever I shall lay my hands, he may receive the Holy Ghost. But Peter said to him Keep thy money to thyself, to perish with thee, because thou hast thought that the gift of God may be purchased with money
[Acts Of Apostles 8:16-20]

What we see happening is Confirmation. However, Simon Magus considered that the Apostles a) had a special power to confer Confirmation (obvious from what happened), b) could confer this power. Now, the answer of Peter isn't concerned with "oh, you know, we are the only ones who can make the Holy Ghost descend into people, when we die, people will simply have to pray much harder" ... no, it's denying none of Simon Magus' technical assumptions, and rebutting only his motivation and brashness.

2) Agabus went to Antioch from Jerusalem (Acts 11), presumably having received this conferring of authority.

3) Paul and Barnabas received the laying of hands from people having it before they left Antioch as missionaries (Acts 13).

4) Paul conferred it on Titus and on Timothy:

For which cause I admonish thee, that thou stir up the grace of God which is in thee, by the imposition of my hands
[2 Timothy 1:6]

5) They were supposed to confer it on yet other people:

Impose not hands lightly upon any man, neither be partaker of other men's sins. Keep thyself chaste
[1 Timothy 5:22]

This by the way tells us, St. Timothy was not the husband of one woman, but, like St. Paul, celibate.

Summing up:

A) Peter, B) Agabus, C) Paul, D) Timothy, E) other people Timothy imposes hands on.

Absolutely no indication that someone receiving the imposition from apostles couldn't hand it on. In an indefinite number of intermediaries.

Also, no indication you could just have it directly from God, without such imposition. The Apostles received it from Jesus, partly on occasion of John 20:21—23.

Non-finishing demonstrated

1) This series starts with the Apostles. They heard Jesus promise and behold I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world. But as this promise is redundant for people in Heaven it has to refer to some continued presence they have on Earth, for which the obvious candidate is this kind of successor.

2) The instructions St. Paul gives for preparing clergy show it was meant to continue:

For this cause I left thee in Crete, that thou shouldest set in order the things that are wanting, and shouldest ordain priests in every city, as I also appointed thee If any be without crime, the husband of one wife, having faithful children, not accused of riot, or unruly For a bishop must be without crime, as the steward of God: not proud, not subject to anger, not given to wine, no striker, not greedy of filthy lucre But given to hospitality, gentle, sober, just, holy, continent Embracing that faithful word which is according to doctrine, that he may be able to exhort in sound doctrine, and to convince the gainsayers For there are also many disobedient, vain talkers, and seducers: especially they who are of the circumcision
[Titus 1:5-10]

If the preparation to become a simple priest (this is what I think "bishop" means in the NT, while actual bishops are called other things, inter alia Apostles (the first 12, 72, possibly men from the 500) and Teachers (diocesan bishops, also called Angels in Apocalypse 2 and 3)), if then bishops are chosen from the best of these priests, this would seem to be how St. Paul sees God's very definitive plan for handing on Christ's message.

What about "in a form we can demonstrate"?

Suppose we had Catholic / Orthodox apostolic succession, we had Albigensian succession, we had Mennonite succession all not just still around, but around from the time that any of above were recognisable, so they started to be identifiable the way they are known at the same time, and none of them had a head start, and they are all still around. In that case, the above descriptions might be by themselves (not saying they cannot be complemented by other Scripture) inadequate for chosing between these types of succession, which of them came from the Apostles.

But that's not the case. Anabaptists with Mennonites as their surviving branch are very much not a continuation of Albigensians or even of Waldensians. Zwickau is not in Piedmonte, nor close to Toulouse. Albigensians were gone before the first Münzerites came on the scene. Neither of them was heard of 500 years before they disappeared (except Münzerites survive in modified form as Mennonites). The one form that stands a chance of being what the Bible writes about is the one that's Catholic / Orthodox.

Again, before Jesus said He was with the Apostles, He had given them a specific task, to teach the nations. The true Church can be marginal in the end times, because Jesus said But yet the Son of man, when he cometh, shall he find, think you, faith on earth? But it cannot have been marginal all along or for most of the time.

WSK38

@wsk38

You are wrong

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@hglundahl

@wsk38 Fine, you think so.

Would you like responding to my arguments?

10:17 How do you get from Matthew 16 to Acts 1 without as much as mentioning Matthew 28:20?

Oh, before you say this was directed to all believers at the time, no:

And the eleven disciples went into Galilee, unto the mountain where Jesus had appointed them And seeing him they adored: but some doubted And Jesus coming, spoke to them, saying: All power is given to me in heaven and in earth
[Matthew 28:16-18]

This intro totally does tie a continuation up to Doomsday to precisely the tier of Apostles known as "the Twelve" or, for a certain time, between the defection of Judas and the assignation of Matthias, "the Eleven".

10:27 The 12 Apostles were the first bishops.

In the NT, Apostle is one of the categories of bishops, and that category has ceased. But bishops as such hasn't.

No contradiction. Just as "Founding Fathers" can be a category having ceased but "US official" isn't one that has ceased.

10:53 Timothy had Apostolic (that is episcopal) authority from Paul.

Who had specifically Apostolic authority from Christ, but who had episcopal consecration from some in Antioch who already had it and these from people in Jerusalem presumably including the 12.

Episcopal authority is called apostolic, not to say that bishops have equal authority with the original Apostles, but to say it originated with them, and the original ones had all authority involved in the episcopal order.

11:08 None of these verses ... you problem is you approach Biblical proof as "one verse at a time" or possible "two or three verses saying the same thing" ...

Here is a tree, there is a tree, everywhere around is a tree, but I cannot find any trace of a forest!

Update:

The Catholic Church Did NOT Give Us the Bible - Here's the Proof!
BiblicallyMotivated | 1 Nov. 2025
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDRIKwwSq3Q

Two points.

1) Defenders of Deuterocanonic books will not consider them as another category. Judith? Ketuvim. Tobit? Ketuvim. I and II Maccabees? Ketuvim. In so far as post-Torah historic books that are not extensively prophetic are Ketuvim, like Kings. Sirach? Ketuvim. Wisdom? Ketuvim. Like Proverbs is Ketuvim. The odd one out is Baruch. Neviim. And this one is one that has sometimes been seen as just part of Jeremias, whose disciple Baruch was. So, for Jews to consider that the contested books are Scripture, we don't need an extra category. We only need this category of Ketuvim not to have yet been closed as to its canon. Which is what we find. That Jesus taught from Ketuvim doesn't mean everyone in Israel at the time agreed on what books were in it.

2) Majority vote of 5000 manuscripts, there are two problems. a) For most of Christian history, no Christian has had access to 5000 manuscripts, they have had access to some few ... which they had from the bearers of Tradition. A k a Catholic / Orthodox bishops. Up to 1054, this was one Church, and immediately after, each side claimed both designations and officially still does so. St. Ignatius of Loyala gives rules for "agreeing with the Orthodox Church" one of which is obeying the Pope. He obviously means the Catholic Church. Russian distinguishes "Kafolik" (Orthodox, F after Greek TH as a lisp) from "Katolik" (RC, T after Latin pronunciation of the word). So, as previously mentioned, most Christians could not use your rule). Besides, most manuscripts are from a time which uncontestedly had this Church structure. b) The 5000 manuscripts are not all transscripts directly from one text, but from each other. Text families are sometimes contested. If two readings are attested in 4th C. manuscripts, seeing how many of the later ones are repeating the one or the other won't tell us which one was the original. Plus, does only Greek count, or do translations? For both of these reasons, the majority of Christians have relied for the Bible text, as they have relied for its being the word of God, on the tradition of the Church, and on the succession of its tradition bearers, the bishops, from the apostles. If it was good enough for them, it is good enough for us, even if it's less indispensable now.

A third point 3)

on two doctrines found in II Maccabees. It doesn't matter if Maccabees are Scripture or not, the historic events show that very prominent believers in the Resurrection (a non-Sadducee priesthood!) believed in prayers for dead who were not quite top notch and in prayers from dead who were. Neither of these beliefs is explicitly rebutted in the NT, like pilpuls allowing disobedience to parents are. In fact, we have things showing Jesus and Paul believed them. a) Jesus basically affirms Abraham could pray for people, since the only reason the Rich Man was rebutted was the fact he was himself damned and his brothers on a firm way to damnation. b) St. Paul prays for Onesiphorus in terms very suggestive that he had already died.

LARP-ing Isn't Evil Nor (to Catholic Sensibilities) Awkward

Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere: Sharing on Eugenics · On Vikings and Sapmi · LARP-ing Isn't Evil Nor (to Catholic Sensibilities) Awkward · HGL's F.B. writings: Fascism (Why Nordic Social Democracy is Worse) · New blog on the kid: Swedish Social Democrats Were Criminal in a Way that Franco Wasn't

I get the feeling some people are trying to adapt Catholicism to Baptism or to KGB type "Orthodoxy".

It can be mentioned, in Sweden and Norway part of the popularity of LARP garb is kind of an envy for Lapps having a different garb, a bit how the envy of Indians can have contributed to larping getting popular in the USA.

@MilitantThomist
DESTROY Grudges, FIGHT Libs ft. Timothy Gordon
Catholicism DESTROYS LARPing...
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/r_wI0EehrhI

Neither the IV commandment nor the other duties of a Catholic are against LARP-ing.

While God put us in the days we are put, for a reason, the reason may be to lament that better days are gone:

And he humbled himself afterwards, because his heart had been lifted up, both he and the inhabitants of Jerusalem: and therefore the wrath of the Lord came not upon them in the days of Ezechias.
[2 Paralipomenon (2 Chronicles) 32:26]

So, the days of Ezechias were, for instance happier than those of his successors.

Ethnic identity ... a modern costume allows a European, and American and a Pakistani to all wear suit jacket, pressed trousers, white shirt and necktie. If I wear a Medieval hood, that's exclusively European. No one in the Americas wore it before modern larping outside Dominicans and Franciscans and similar who are indeed larping the Middle Ages. Nor did Pakistanis wear them. If I use the kind of cape-jacket the Hungarians call a mente, I narrow down to Austro-Hungarian, and while I'm a Swede, I'm born in Vienna.

If I wear breeches, tied under the knees, I'm seeking common ground between Europeans and Americans. If the breeches are leaned down, 18th C. wise, I am again approaching Austro-Hungarian customs. Austrians wear them. And, still not Pakistanis. In France it has an added flavour of "I'm not a sansculotte" ... which it seems some freemasons want me to regret.

And as Dominicans and Franciscans are larping the Middle Ages, 12th C., so Jesuits are larping 16th C. Academics. Benedictines are larping 6th C. Aristocrats. I just hold, larping is not an exclusive prerogative of men in religious orders.

Honouring our father and mother. I don't think any larper, ever was in the impression that their parents were uncool for simply not larping, and if the parents are larping too, how can it possibly be against the IV? You are making up rules that aren't in the commandments of either God or Holy Mother Church!

---

TheJollyViking

@thejollyviking8083

I mean, call it larping, being a reactionary, being a luddite, or whatever else you want, but I see nothing wrong with looking at ways in which past societies were better than ours, or aspects of our society which are bad and saying "let's do the better thing and not do the bad stuff."

Unless this is simply a statement that you shouldn't literally try to live in an identical situation as a 1200s Medieval peasant... in which case, yeah. But I feel as though that makes this statement extremely uninteresting. I'm about as close to the "I want to reject all modern technology and political institutions and retvrn to the 1200s" sentiment as someone can get and even I know I can't live in a replicated situation.

nox play

@noxplay4906

The issue is if you forget about the true aim of life which is union with God and you subsume Catholicism under that worldly ideology (which is unfortunately exactly what we're seeing right now.)

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@hglundahl

@noxplay4906 How can you tell he is forgetting?

How can you tell from this one comment he's subsuming Catholicism under a wordly ideology rather than the other and correct way around?

Caleb Howells Makes a How-Ler

Was Jesus Really Born on December 25?
Caleb Howells | 16 Dec. 2025
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AN_92VBzu14

5:49 No Jewish Year is 52 weeks. None at all. Doesn't exist.

A normal year of 12 months is 354 days. That's 50 full weeks and 4 days. (It can vary between 353 and 355)

A leap year of 13 months is 384 days. That 54 full weeks and 6 days.

So if anyone ever told you that the division of Abia came the same two weeks year after year, that's bogus.

At the end of the month Adar, the temple checked the wheat, if it was mature, to a specified point, not sure of the exact degree, the next month was Nisan of the next year. If it wasn't, there was a Second Adar. And Nisan started after that one.

When Julian the Apostate failed to reestablish the Temple, the Sanhedrin was disbanded, there was no more anyone who had authority to make the "Hillel / II Adar" test. So, Hillel II invented an alternative method for calculating Jewish years, still used today, one in which II Adar is always 30 days long, one in which you don't watch for newmoons to see when months start.

Not very far from when Christians had got fed up with asking Jews when Nisan was, in order to have Easter the Sunday after 14 Nisan. Our alternative way of calculating Nisan was in principle outlined at the council of Nicaea and would at the time on average have coincided with a Jewish Nisan. Yes, the Roman Catholic Church actually does count Nisan, it's just that this is done among clerks and the laymen are only told "Sunday the ... is Easter"

6:12 On Yom Kippur, only ONE priest does what Zacharias did. According to the Mosaic law, that was the High Priest.

Now, Zecharias was in fact not on the list of serving High Priests that we have.

However, there is a clue in the text showing what I mean:

And it came to pass, when he executed the priestly function in the order of his course before God According to the custom of the priestly office, it was his lot to offer incense, going into the temple of the Lord
[Luke 1:8-9]

It could be a simple synonym of "according to the law of the priestly office" since liturgic laws are customs. But I think St. Luke meant a custom prevailing then and there.

Here is another clue to this custom I hypothesise:

And how our chief priests and princes delivered him to be condemned to death, and crucified him
[Luke 24:20]

Summi sacerdotes, not summus sacerdos or simply sacerdotes ... according to the Mosaic law, there is only one High Priest at a time, and he serves till he dies. However, the Romans violated this part. My hunch is, in response to Romans (already at this time, it was after Pompey de factor conquered / occupied Judea) manipulated Jewish High Priests as chess pawns, they had liturgy follow not always the nominal High Priest, but anyone could in fact (if he was a priest), at least outside Easter, do an office for which Moses required the High Priest. Any priest was a High Priest, much like in Rome any bishop, priest or deacon of an old Church is a bishop (so, the priest of Santa Sabina, being a cardinal, is usually a bishop). There you find the plural in both Luke and Mark to "summi sacerdotes", there you find someone not listed in (Antiquities? anyway) Josephus as high priest being a high priest ... and there you find a famous Christian of Asia Minor, who could be John the Gospeller, as having "worn the golden headband" (which was reserved for the High Priest).

So, this Yom Kippur, the nominal High Priest didn't officiate, he might have already done so, he might have been ritually impure, he might simply have wanted to get as many priests involved in the duties of a High Priest as possible. So the Romans couldn't have the chance of picking out a really incompetent High Priest. As, if Yom Kippur hadn't interfered with the courses, this year the course of Abia would have fallen on Yom Kippur, he drew lots for the available ones from the course of Abia. Zecharias was chosen.

6:44 Wait, are you going to count eight weeks from "the first day of the seventh month" to find the week the course of Abia was in Ezra 3:6, then apply this to every year and therefore also to the year when Zecharias served?

Sorry, doesn't work. No Jewish year is 48 weeks. Add the weeks for major festivals, no Jewish year is exactly 51 weeks either. The courses will be displaced from year to year, and more so on leap years with a leap month.

7:18 No. You DID IT!

You did misapply Ezra 3:6 to the start of the first division every year. Because, you know, the division of Abia we are talking about here is a different year from the year in which Ezra 3:6 happened. Indeed, centuries apart!

48 weeks + 3 weeks when all priests work ... that's fifty-one weeks, 357 days. So, supposing you are right about the general setup, the year after a normal one will have the courses displaced to later 2 to 4 days. A leap year 384 +/-1 day, will involve allow the third turn of it's first courses (not the first courses) to begin before the year ends.

You cannot transfer when the course of Abia was in Ezra's time to Luke 1.

Caleb Howells

@calebhowells1116

There is good evidence that the priestly divisions regularly started in the month of Tishri, the seventh month, and that this wasn’t just something that was established in the time of Ezra and then allowed to drift through the year.

We don’t have enough information to say how they accommodated the extra time in the year, but we certainly can say that they seem to have regularly started in the month of Tishri. Hence, the calculations in this video hold up.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@hglundahl

@calebhowells1116 "good evidence" simply isn't a named source, and Biblically, there isn't.

Confer the extra quotes in a comment below my post:

https://assortedretorts.blogspot.com/2025/12/caleb-howells-makes-how-ler.html

@calebhowells1116 But, let's suppose you are right. St. Luke doesn't say Zacharias served in the course of Abia, he says he was of the course of Abia and served in his course.

After the exile, some of the courses had become standins for extinct lines, so he could also have been serving in a course that Abia took over.

Caleb Howells

@hglundahl The problem with that argument is that the divisions which were divided to substitute the lost divisions after the exile took the names of those lost divisions, hence why we continue to see references to them in post-exilic documents. So if Zechariah had been serving in one of those other divisions, Luke would have used its name.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@calebhowells1116 Or not, since that would anyway have been his division. His right to it being in the division of Abia.

But mainly I argue that the succession of courses was a rolling scheme, so each course had access to all feasts of the year.