... on Bible Access in the Middle Ages (quora)

Considering the last of the 4 answers is by one Dennis Gardner who was pastor for 43 years and it is so ignorant of history, they are the kind of problem now that they pretend and for some priests perhaps rightly so there was of ignorant priests.

Two of the answers illustrated a blatantly protestant ignorance about Medieval conditions, and I commented under them, but the first, Alec Cawley, at least is not supposed to be a pastor!/HGL

Q

Did all churches have a Bible in Middle Ages?
https://www.quora.com/Did-all-churches-have-a-Bible-in-Middle-Ages

C on Q

I’m not sure if even smaller churches in small villages had one. Books were expensive at that time , before Gutenberg invented the printing press in 1450.

What (do you/do we) know about this ?

Answers:

I

Alec Cawley

Read a bit, learned a bit. Much more to read, much more to learn.

Answered 15h ago

Yes, it is true that not all churches had Bibles, and doctrine said they didn’t need them - studying the Bible was the province of professional clerics and ordinary folk should not read them lest they get mistaken ideas. And also, the Bible could only be distributed in Latin, which the common folk could not understand but was spoken by clerics.

The teaching medium for the common people was essentially the equivalent of comic books - stained glass, and simple representations of favorite Bible stories. The rest would have been passed on by the village priest, who might, or might not, have had some sort of Book of Hours or compendium of prayers.

The more or less simultaneous arrival of native language translations and of a printed Bible which could be distributed to all churches (and of printing generally, which sharply increased literacy and general inquiry) was an earthquake which shook the Church and, among other things, split off the Protestant churches.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

14h ago

“doctrine said they didn’t need them - studying the Bible was the province of professional clerics and ordinary folk should not read them lest they get mistaken ideas.”

This is a bit summary about doctrine.

ALSO, every Church HAD one professional cleric at least, the Parish priest.

“And also, the Bible could only be distributed in Latin, which the common folk could not understand but was spoken by clerics.”

There were approved Bible editions in some languages, though this is correct for England between roughly 1401 and Reformation.

Understanding of Latin was not strictly limited to clercics, but varied among diverse commoners.

“The teaching medium for teh common people was essentially the equivalent of comic books - stained glass, and simple representations of favourite Bible stories.”

Comic books are however a great medium for teaching Biblical history.

Genesis flows fine as it is, but try getting the rest of Pentateuch as history directly from Bible without being distracted by all the laws … I am thankful for Bible comics.

“The rest would have been passed on by the village priest”

Even that would have been passed on by the village priest who was after all a professional cleric. Assume you had a stained glass window, it was he who explained what was happening.

Assume you had a Rhymed Bible - translated from Historia Scholastica - in the parish, you can’t read, he can, guess who reads what to whom?

“who might, or might not, have had some sort of Book of Hours or compendium of prayers.”

He needed a book of hours, a book for Mass and also a Bible, in order to fulfil the duty of studying all of the Bible.

“The more or less simultaneous arrival of native language translations and of a printed Bible which could be distributed to all churches (and of printing generally, which sharply increased literacy and general inquiry) was an earthquake which shook the Church”

It was the Church who did it.

“and, among other things, split off the Protestant churches.”

Not by itself.

II

Benjamin Peterson

I've read C. S. Lewis

Answered 15h ago

In England, all churches had a bible (barring accidents). The scriptoria of major monasteries constantly produced new bibles, often with specific quirks and stardards unique to that monastery. Many of these centers of production were in France, and bibles were often shipped a long distance if a church required one; on the other hand, even relatively small centers sometimes produced their own bibles. Over time, bible production was refined; the earlier middle ages tended to have massive, multi-volume bibles but by the mid-1200s, portable single volume bibles were common. The vast majority of bibles were based on the Vulgate, St. Jerome’s Latin translation — not because it was the only permitted text but because the effort of duplicating St. Jerome’s effort was too huge. The middle ages being as they were, scholars were often busy enough just trying to keep faithful to the original Vulgate.

These bibles were indeed very expensive, and they tended to be extremely durable and to be chained to the church as a result!

Pedantry: I should point out that Gutenberg only invented printing *in the West*.

III

Hans-Georg Lundahl

History buff since childhood. CSL & Eco added to Medieval lore. + Classics.

Answered 15h ago

I think all Churches had one Bible, as well as one Missal and one Breviary.

The priest was obliged to read the Bible continuously.

As to expensive books before Gutenberg, there was an activity invented a bit earlier, at the start of the High Middle Ages, which made books a bit cheaper.

The book from which a copy was made was divided into peciae, these were then distributed among several copyists (12 peciae = > 12 copyists) who would take turns copying each the same peciae.

But before that, in the Dark Ages? I don’t know.

IV

Dennis Gardner

Master's in Biblical Studies, 43 years as a pastor and student of the Bible

Answered 7h ago

No. Very few churches had even a part of the Bible. The Pope made sure that only the priests would have control of the Bible so they could tell people what it said. The people had little choice but to believe their words. It’s also true that many people didn’t know how to read or write.

Yes, Gutenberg’s press made a very tremendous difference in the world. There were also churches other than RC churches that had a portion of the Bible. Some of these were heretical in their teachings, and many were truly Christian orthodox in their teachings. Gradually when the world came out of the Dark Ages, more copies of the Bible were available and more people were beginning to learn to read and write.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Just now

“The Pope made sure that only the priests would have control of the Bible so they could tell people what it said.”

But there was a priest in each Church, for starters!

Also, it is not quite true.

A priest was obliged to read the Bible and obliged to be able to explain it to laymen. But laymen were not strictly speaking obliged to not read the Bible.

Under certain circumstances, “pirate translations” had been abused by heretics, and so there was a requirement for a layman to get permission before reading the Bible.

If you have seen “Sceptics’ Annotated Bible” you may realise why this is a good idea.

“The people had little choice but to believe their words.”

This is even Biblical, since they are successors of Apostles Luke 10:16.

“There were also churches other than RC churches that had a portion of the Bible.”

Can you enumerate?

“ Some of these were heretical in their teachings,”

I say amen to that, except for calling them Churches …

“and many were truly Christian orthodox in their teachings.”

Namely?

“Gradually when the world came out of the Dark Ages”

What Dark Ages? The militarily dark ones for Christendom which ended with beginning Reconquest of Sicily and Spain and First Crusade in 1033 and 1089? Or did you mean sth else?

“more copies of the Bible were available and more people were beginning to learn to read and write.”

Much thanks to the efforts of the RC Church.

... on CMI mixing Flat Earth and Geocentrism (on second half of video too)

... on CMI Mixing Flat Earth and Geocentrism (first half of video) · ... on CMI mixing Flat Earth and Geocentrism (on second half of video too)

Not repeating link to video right now, see previous.

14:54 Back to Flat Earth, the other subject where you are not wrong.

Yes, four corners could be a figure of speech taken over from Babylonian terminology and never taken literally at all in Bible while Babylonians had taken Earth to be a flat rhombic shape (as seen on ordinary map directions), with a corner at each cardinal direction.

But in Revelation we have an angel standing in each of the four corners and holding in the winds.

This implies that angels have power to hold in winds (or conversely to make it blow), but it also pinpoints "four corners" as actual places.

You can get that better with a round earth than with a flat earth, unless you want to count all South corners and on top of that give Oz two of them.

Earth seems to be a word which can also mean "land" - both eretz and "terra" have such a double meaning.

And land can have corners outside which you fall into the sea.

If it refers to the four corners of the "main land" of mankind, namely Old World, we would have a NW corner at Greenland, Iceland, British Isles or Scandinavia, a SW corner at Cape of Good Hope, a SE corner at Singapore, New Guinea or even Oz, and a NE corner at Sakhalin or Japan.

Which would imply that Americas, outside these corners, would have lost in importance, before this happens.

15:21 Earth not on back of some animal - good.

But most mythologies which had a flat earth were not really into backs of animals anyway.

Norse has a tree trunk, also excluded.

Many would have agreed with this word in Job, Greek would. Despite Flat Earth (as witnessed by Hercules meeting Atlas near where Heaven would have touched Earth without the service.

As to Isaiah, if khûg means circle or globe, either way it is at least open for a round Earth.

And if khûg on top of that actually must mean sth globe shaped, well, too bad that some Talmudists missed that.

Many of the Christians involved in Flat Earth are bona fide and simply too much into "Jewish roots". Willing to take anything Talmudic which does not positively directly contradict Christianity.

15:42 Other example of misinformation in public school systems and these days most private schools too : they teach Heliocentrism as if it were a solid and proven fact. It is not.

16:06 "The American Pageant" by Thomas Bailey .... would it perhaps include some endorsement of Heliocentrism too?

16:56 As to full sphere, there was no total proof before Magellan.

Aristotle's fourth and best proof was a mistake about already having a Magellan type proof : if Ganges would have been on the immediate West of Pillars of Hercules, a k a Gibraltar.

Sailors passing equator were not much done by pre-Columbian sailors, except perhaps Portuguese ones - and Columbus had a Spanish crew.

18:22 Lunar eclipses are a fairly good argument for a round earth, but not a fool proof one.

Hindoos who deny round earth attribute lunar eclipses to Rahoo - a planet usually not seen, since it is hidden below the rim of Earth, but which comes up every once in a while to produce eclipses (both lunar and solar, I think).

And a Hindoo would answer that Rahoo is a globe?

Sure always casting a circular shadow proves sth is a globe, but not necessarily the Earth.

Works of Aristotle I: p. 389 is a bad reference, since given in relation to a modern edition.

You ought to have given either the work with its separate title and the book and chapter and paragraph or the pagination of a Renaissance edition, with all works paginated ... sorry, it was a Prussian edition:

"Bekker numbers, the standard form of reference to works in the Corpus Aristotelicum, are based on the page numbers used in the Prussian Academy of Sciences edition of the complete works of Aristotle (Aristotelis Opera edidit Academia Regia Borussica, Berlin, 1831–1870). They take their name from the editor of that edition, the classical philologist August Immanuel Bekker (1785–1871)."

I would like to have known how Aristotle argued against Rahoo, if he even had come across such an idea of a body other than Earth causing lunar eclipses.

[They give a list from 9 to 1 on why Earth is a sphere:]

Number 9 : all "other" celestial bodies are round - but is Earth a celestial body?

Number 8 : day and night happen at different times.

Which is easy to verify by internet, and sometimes when I wake up at night thinking about sth, I am sure someone opposite side of the Earth was praying for me to consider x, but was not considering my timezone being sleeping time. Usually it is also an argument where they would be wiser to try to verify my answer by arguing over the internet with me, than to pray for me to immediately consider the argument when it is perhaps bright day in LA or Sydney, but middle of the night in the area of Paris.

This one has however mostly not been verifiable through out history. Chronometres used to verify latitude ... sorry longitude ... by comparing time on chronometre to astronomic noon or midnight are a fairly recent invention.

Number 7 : note that Coriolis might have a bearing on shape of Earth, but would be the same whichever of Earth and Universe were moving.

So, cannot be used against Geostationary or Geocentric world view.

Number 6 : two quibbles.

• a) if it has three straight angles but curved lines between them, I think triangle is a somewhat misplaced word (it has a bearing on two dimensional geometry);
• b) while I consider this as true, I consider this as a conclusion of Round Earth,, not as a proof of it, since it cannot be well tested.

Or would you like to start walking South from the North Pole to the Equator and then back North to the Pole after some march along equator?

I'd consider it uncomfy.

Number 5 : the curvature of Earth can be measured.

Without Magellan, this might not prove more than Earth being shaped like a chapati pan.

Number 4 : the constellations and the moon appear upside down if seen from other hemisphere than the one you are used to (an Aussie would be saying it is here they appear upside down) : good point, but it is also just recently this is testable.

Number 3 : the Magellan proof!

Yes. But there is such a thing as trusting the Portuguese on this one!

Precisely as there is on trusting Latin Americans on the seasons and day lengths at Tierra del Fuego.

You bet there are Protestants around still who say "na, that is a Jesuit plot". Just as there are such who claim Baptist continuity theory in Church History. To these, the normal givens of history through the centuries as applied to Church are results of a Jesuit plot to deny the "one Protestant faith which was older than Catholicism" as they would have it.

There is also such a thing as trusting sailors - and some land crabs will consider sailors as impure, just as Pharisees did with fishermen.

You can perhaps see now why Jews and Judaising Christians are prominent among Flat Earthers?

Number 2 : good point.

However, some are bungling the mathematical implications on this one.

I have seen people argue as if seeing buildings at all at a certain distance disproved Earth's known diameter. Their argument is equivalent to what you would have if the one watching always had his eyes at ground level.

Number 1 : the Moon landing is perhaps real, I am not DENYING it, but it would have been much easier to fake than the Magellan proof, considering the number of times it has been repeated (mostly by sailors, or Latinos or people who were both).

Admittedly, Deep Space Climate Observatory is a bit better documented, seeing the photo was not from Moon but from EPIC.

24:49 The photoshopping you refer to is indeed a technical possibility which is a weakness in the proof you put as number 1. 24:54 And CGI might have been secretly invented but not yet on market before the opening date of the invention.

I still think you number 3, Magellan, is much better.

25:03 NASA is apart from Round Earth promoting things like Heliocentrism - including Earth turning on its axis - and Climate Science. Not quite traditional things, perhaps NASA could have a skeleton in the cupboard.

By the way Magellan could have had motives like promoting Catholic exegesis. If you are into that kind of thing.

And now, the thing about footages taken from Moon. You believe them to be genuine, I have no quarrel with that, but a footage from Moon taken in timelapse showing Earth turns around itself is like a footage from ISS showing same : in both cases (and for ISS you know it) the stance of observer is moving around the observed object.

26:16 There you have a mighty motive for a Protestant. All Medieval scholars ... think of what that means to a Protestant.

Orbis cruciger is also appealing to Catholics.

27:06I actually saw an evolutionist or old earther appeal to King James.

... on CMI Mixing Flat Earth and Geocentrism (first half of video)

... on CMI Mixing Flat Earth and Geocentrism (first half of video) · ... on CMI mixing Flat Earth and Geocentrism (on second half of video too)

The Flat Earth myth and the Bible. (Creation Magazine LIVE! 6-11)
CMIcreationstation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=768rHLiGsL4

Already on intro : what do you mean by "pre-scientific"?

At 3:15 - why are you omitting St Thomas Aquinas from the Round Earth list?

Summa Theologica, part 1 q 1 a 1.

Objection 2: Further, knowledge can be concerned only with being, for nothing can be known, save what is true; and all that is, is true. But everything that is, is treated of in philosophical science--even God Himself; so that there is a part of philosophy called theology, or the divine science, as Aristotle has proved (Metaph. vi). Therefore, besides philosophical science, there is no need of any further knowledge.

Reply to objection 2: Sciences are differentiated according to the various means through which knowledge is obtained. For the astronomer and the physicist both may prove the same conclusion: that the earth, for instance, is round: the astronomer by means of mathematics (i.e. abstracting from matter), but the physicist by means of matter itself. Hence there is no reason why those things which may be learned from philosophical science, so far as they can be known by natural reason, may not also be taught us by another science so far as they fall within revelation. Hence theology included in sacred doctrine differs in kind from that theology which is part of philosophy.

My emphasis. Link: http://newadvent.com/summa/1001.htm

Ah, he gets a separate entry at 4:51 - very good!

And his wording is somewhat different, since he repeats it in I-II, q 54, a 2, there also in reply to objection 2. Thanks for extra reference.

3:30 c. St Bede popularised the AD reckoning, but as to calling years before it is relevant BC years, that came about 900 - 1000 years later.

4:06 "Bede was the first with that insight about the moon and the tides, and Galileo explained the tides wrongly centuries later"

No quibble about Galileo statement, no quibble about St Bede having that insight, but was he the first? Didn't he have it from Aristotle?

10:24 Draper and White had a French colleague, Camille Flammarion, who was in Theosophical society and published his book Météorologie populaire in 1888.

Flammarion's famous wood cut was used to illustrate his words about Ptolemaic theory of the universe (one which St Thomas Aquinas by the way did not think infallible : the Geocentrics who condemned Galileo were Tychonians rather than Ptolemaics).

I have a hunch it could have a model in some Bible illustrating the book of Hezechiel : because upper left corner (from spectator) there is a wheel within a wheel.

10:34 Fine scientist, lousy historian ... I think I have heard this before. And I'd add that if you want to know the history of science, most historians of science should be avoided in favour of historians. Honorable exception for ...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Duhem

12:15 You mean Stephen Jay Gould was a conspiracy theorist? He actually taught one part of major aspects of modern culture was deliberately planted to enforce a bad attitude against Christians?

[For those not capting my irony : statements like that have gotten me stamped as a conspiracy theorist, from time to time!]

13:51 Joshua 10 is relevant for a totally other debate, namely geocentrism/geostasis vs geokinetism/still often called heliocentrism (though not strictly accurate about modern cosmology). NOT about flat earth, these two topics are different.

14:12 "today we use the same language conventions the Bible used here"

Well, are you sure the Bible could NOT have meant what some people still mean, namely Sun actually going across the sky? [Psalms 18:6] is a bit more explicit than just "sunset" and "sunrise". It is a bit misleading to smuggle in he topic of geocentrism into a video about the topic of Flat Earth.

14:39 Supposing Joshua 10:13 could indeed be explained by phenomenological language.

This is not the case with Joshua 10:12. Joshua, having spoken first to God, is inspired to adress Sun and Moon and tell THEM, not Earth, to stop moving. Nor can you explain it like God hearing a prayer while dismissing unimportant misconception in the mind of the prayer.

The words are NOT "God, make the Sun stop". They are "Sun, stand thou still". And, giving an extra astronomical clinch, "Moon, move thou not from ..." These words are NOT the prayer, unless you consider he considered Sun and Moon as names for God. These words came between the prayer and the miracle.

... on Tower of Babel - a Classic (quora)

... on Tower of Babel - a Classic (quora) · ... on PIE · Historic Linguistics as Viewed by a Creationist (Featuring Proto-Languages, on quora) - 8 questions + update · ... on Bread and Comparative Linguistics

Q

Why must we believe that, according to the Bible, all the world languages started from the Tower of Babel? Is there any archaeological evidence and plausible facts to support this?
https://www.quora.com/Why-must-we-believe-that-according-to-the-Bible-all-the-world-languages-started-from-the-Tower-of-Babel-Is-there-any-archaeological-evidence-and-plausible-facts-to-support-this/answer/Hans-Georg-Lundahl

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Studied religions as curious parallels and contrasts to Xtian faith since 9, 10?

Answered 3m ago

If you believe the Bible, you must believe this. Wait, I’ll come back to a little proviso.

Even without archaeological evidence, even without support.

Now, what we must believe is that all the ORIGINAL 72 world languages started out at Babel (except Hebrew continuing from before Babel, but that could be a 73:rd one).

We are NOT in any way, shape or form obliged to believe French and Spanish are immediate products of the punitive miracle of Babel rather than the results after centuries of an earlier language known as Latin. We are not even obliged to think Latin as we know it, or Mycenean Greek as we know the oldest Greek, are immediate products of the punitive and protective miracle at Babel.

Some say Proto-Indo-European was one of the languages resulting from Babel, but one problem is, if so it displaced a lot of other ones.

Greek would have been spoken by descendants of Iavan, Latin by descendants of … well, a mixture of diverse peoples, Gaulish, Irish, Cappadocia, and presumably Hittite by descendants of Gomer. Yet all these are counted by most linguists as descending from Proto-Indo-European.

One solution is that Iavan and a lot of other ethnic tribes splitting up after Babel did sacrifice their own language or get invaded by one or other of the other ones.

Another solution is that instead Iavan’s and Gomer’s and the Semite Lud’s and a few more languages influenced each other in an Indo-European melting pot, and once we see them historically, they have all been Indo-Europeanised. That is my position, with option of Hittite acting as a kind of catalyst for the melting pot. Other option, Indo-European was a lingua franca, an Esperanto, that failed. These are not mutually exclusive.

Since Proto-Indo-European is not a documented language (unless identic with Hittite), but a reconstructed one, other reconstructions of the scenario of how Indo-European language family came to be are possible.

With Romance language group, we know they all came from Latin, the older language is preserved and so are the delays between people in the countries obviously speaking Latin and them obviously speaking some other thing.

With the Balkan language group, we know they all came from diverse languages, Turkish from Central Asia, Bulgarian from Russian steppes, extinct Uralian Bulgarian language from Asia, anything on Serbocroatian and Slovenian scale from Russian steppes, Greek had been there in the South, most traits of Romanian are from Romance language group, i e from Latin, Albanian could be the Illyrian which had been there north of the Greeks and so on. THEN they started acquiring common traits, borrowing from each other.

With the West European language group we know both Latin and later French acted as matrices for influencing other languages, due to being spoken by élites.

With the Indo-European language group, either one is missing such a scenario in the Hittites, or one does not know what it really looked like, and either way all three possibilities can be considered as per our real present knowledge - even if only the parallel to the Romance language group is being generally presented as, not just a plausible reconstruction from our knowledge, but even part of our knowledge.

In fact, if, as I suppose, Babel was Göbekli Tepe, the archaeological span of 9600 - 8600 BC identic to the traditionally 40 years of Tower of Babel - City, there is indeed some supporting evidence : most old Indo-European languages start showing up to the West of it, to the North you have Uralic and Altaic languages hovering without writing for some time, to the East you have Semitic and other Oriental languages.

This would be at least consistent with any new languages after Babel walking out in directions radially outwards from it.

Update

Monday, St Vincent's Day, January 22, 2018.

Tony Trupp

Thu

“Babel was Göbekli Tepe”

What evidence are you basing this upon?

My understanding of gonekli tepe is that was not a tower. Furthermore, if the tower collapsed, the gobekli tepe would be much less intact than what was found. It would be a pile of absolute rubble.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Just now

“What evidence are you basing this upon?”

Carbon date of Göbekli Tepe is between those for Abraham’s time (c. 1000 extra years when he’s 80) and those of Flood (30 - 40,000 extra years).

But Peleg comes between Shem and Abraham, therefore …

Furthermore, if Shinar is not read as Sumer but as Mesopotamia, Göbekli Tepe is within the ancient definition, since East of Eurphrates and West of Tigris.

Furthermore, it is bigger than other old cities back then from that area, like Nevali Çori or Çatal Höyük.

Furthermore, posing Tower of Babel as Ziggurat of Ur is a time paradox, since Ziggurat of Ur had a post-Babel, Sumerian speaking, building master.

“My understanding of gonekli tepe is that was not a tower.”

Read the text again.

It speaks of both a city and a tower.

It says they ceased to build the city, not that they ceased to build the tower.

It also does not say the tower in its entirety shall reach into heaven, but according to their plans, its top should.

At take off, a three step rocket looks like a tower. The part which gets into space is the top part of the “take-off-tower”.

And before you ask, no, I don’t think the top would have reached heaven if they had not broken off, it did much later at Cape Canaveral. And Bajkonur. Or, not at, but from.

Believers in Ancient Astronauts theory, notably Graham Hancock have noted GT looks like a launching ramp. This similarity can be used for my theory too, and that is what I do. But Nimrod would have used the wrong fuel and blown himself up with nearly everyone else, if God hadn’t stopped him.

... on Quoran Questions Needing Improvement

Here are links to the questions needing improvement, and two of them were probably in restricted access for other reasons:

Q I

To creationists: Do you think that the penguins travelled all the way from Antarctica to the Middle East in order to hitch a ride on Noah's boat?
https://www.quora.com/To-creationists-Do-you-think-that-the-penguins-travelled-all-the-way-from-Antarctica-to-the-Middle-East-in-order-to-hitch-a-ride-on-Noahs-boat?__filter__&__nsrc__=2&__snid3__=1100200354

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Blog : "http://creavsevolu.blogspot.com".

Debating evolutionists for 15 years +.

Answered May 12

I don’t know where penguins lived in the pre-Flood world, just that they gravitated to one edge (Tierra de Fuego and Antarctica) after it.

As to how they came to the Ark, God led them.

He could have either led some couple from very far away, or they could have lived nearer, or they could have come from a Nodian zoo, which they ran away from a few days before the Flood, nearby.

God knows how to arrange that kind of things.

[God led them = God sent angels to lead them.]

A Login

Answered May 1

From what I have read there seems to be good evidence of a single continent in ancient history called Pangaea, so no Antarctica before the Noahic flood. It would still be a long way for Penguins to walk (across half a large continent maybe), but not quite as far as today’s Antarctica.

One hypothesis is that the continents formed during after the flood through a mechanism called Catastrophic Plate Techtonics.

Lucha Tijuanera

Updated 12h ago

We do not know if it was a local or a general deluge.

If it is was general, there is nothing impossible to God. He has angels that could bring the pengüins from Antartica or even from beyond.

[I upvoted the last one here, because of angels. Not because of local flood.]

Q II

Can someone help translate the attached words to Latin?
https://www.quora.com/unanswered/Can-someone-help-translate-the-attached-words-to-Latin?__filter__&__nsrc__=2&__snid3__=1101844110

• spirituality without religion
• my individuality resolute
• will of the 3 indisputable

[It seems that the question was already improved, since the words as I saw them were in a sequence, as if one sentence.]

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Studied religions as curious parallels and contrasts to Xtian faith since 9, 10?

Answered 1h ago

I am sorry, but I think Google translate has garbled a Latin sentence for you.

And I think it is unmendable.

Do you have the original Latin yourself?

If so, tell me when you disclose it!

[Actually, when I saw it, it was given as "back to Latin" and "without Google tran", so it would have been a Google translate from one Latin phrase, as it read. That did need improvement if really three diverse phrases as here. Other answerer gave answers as if translating three separate phrases into Latin.]

[Reedited:]

Can someone help translate the listed words into Latin?

• spirituality without religion
• My individuality resolute, the will of the 3 indisputable

Q III

I am 16 years old, what books would you recomend me to read? (science, philosophy and something to make you more knowledgeable)
https://www.quora.com/I-am-16-years-old-what-books-would-you-recomend-me-to-read-science-philosophy-and-something-to-make-you-more-knowledgeable?__filter__&__nsrc__=2&__snid3__=1102116215

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Writing? I've been doing that for some time.

Answered 13m ago

Chesterton, and then let it branch out.

Not just Father Brown and novels, but also his essays and monographic books.

G. K. Chesterton's Works on the Web
http://www.gkc.org.uk/gkc/books/

I think the last one was marked as needing improvement, because I recommended Chesterton.

Perhaps some nincompoop following me around thought I needed clarifications on knowledgeable, or was confused in answering Chesterton, who is best known for Father Brown. But really and truly, even by reading Father Brown, you are conducted to some themes where he was more knowledgeable than his Protestant ceontemporarty public, and if you add to that his non-fiction, of which there is plenty, reading Chesterton and branching out from him, is a very good general education.

And the first one was probably marked as needing improvement because of angels being mentioned in answer, some clearly atheistic minded thinkers would have considered the answer as not serious or showing mental confusion. If those were the reasons, quora has a problem with the moderation team.

... on Restrainer and Pre-Trib, Disagreeing with Chuck Missler

Video

The Antichrist and The Restrainer - Chuck Missler
Koinonia House
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCg-ymuG-NU

6:05

You think the Church is the restrainer?

No. The Roman Empire (ended in Russia October 1917 and in Austria-Hungary in 1918) is.

6:36

The specific event [CM had said taking away of restrainer was a specific event, not a gradual petering out.] was most likely when Karl von Habsburg left Hofburg - or will be a future impossibility of restoration or failure of restoration of Roman Imperial dignity.

Haydock : "St. Jerome indeed, and others, thought that the Roman empire was to subsist till the antichrist's coming, which by the event most interpreters conclude to be a mistake, and that it cannot be said the Roman empire continues to this time."

If it didn't subsist to the coming of the final Antichrist, it subsisted to the coming of clear precursors, such as Vladimir (not the Vladimirovich, as yet) and Bela, after Nicolas and Karl were taken out of the way.

In my study of how WW-1 echoes Apocalypse 19 verse by verse, I find Bela Kun rather than Lenin the closest parallel to Antichrist.

[Did I miss posting the link or did they edit it out? I am posting this Monday and was commenting this one Saturday. Here it is, anyway:]

Φιλολoγικά/Philologica : War of 14 a Rehearsal for Harmageddon?
http://filolohika.blogspot.com/2015/04/war-of-14-rehearsal-for-harmageddon.html

[And I do think I did post a link to the Haydock commentary. But not seeing one now. Here it is:]

2 THESSALONIANS - Chapter 2
http://haydock1859.tripod.com/id224.html

[If not, that was a bit clumsy, since I actually quoted from it.]

7:30

If the Holy Spirit were the restrainer, He could not be taken away.

As you said, He is given without repentance, and this to a Church which also is always there. Matthew 28.

seq

As there were Roman Emperors up to end of WW-1, and as the world has been going very rapidly downhill since then, I think Roman Emperors is pretty right.

Also, confer the fact that the four beasts of Daniel reappear as composite beast of Antichrist - missing precisely one animal component : it has no eagles' wings.

Czarist Russia had eagles' wings as a symbol, but Putin hasn't got them.

seq

And no, Roman Emperors in the Christian sense have not been promoters of sins, fomentors of social problems or eager to profit from these to increase central power.

Even a Pagan and a persecutor of Christians, Diocletian, said "I hate nothing as much as change".

In other words, they were very Constitution abiding, generally - if you except Peter the Great in Russia and Joseph II in Austria.

8:52

Only God has ever restrained sin as sin.

Perhaps a point.

But even sinners have restrained lawlessness as lawlessness. Even Theseus, who believed he was a son of "Posei-don" (in his day "potei Daon" = "lord Dagon") and allowed a demon to act that part, even Theseus restrained the lawlessness of a man like Procrustes.

9:12

God's protection of Job against Satan can be involved in the actvity of the restrainer, but, God is not the restrainer, rather the restrainer is one whom Satan at first cannot remove, like at first he could not give Job plagues, and then finds he can remove, like Satan gave Job sores.

9:25

[The restraining of Antichrist is] "an agency of the Holy Spirit".

But the Holy Spirit can act through evil men!

He spoke the Gospel through Kaiaphas. He preached repentance to Ninivites through a man who did not want them to regain His grace and who rebelled against His mission.

Therefore, while the Restrainer is such thanks to the Holy Spirit, it can be a man or a series of men, and of men who are not always themselves holy.

Not always - but usually. Most prophets were holier than Jonah. Most kohanim were holier then Kaiaphas who maybe even knowingly murdered God.

Note that the Holy Spirit is symbolised by olive oil, and that not just prophets and priests, but also certain rulers, kings, and Holy Roman Emperors too, from Charlemagne to Karl of Habsburg, from Justinian to Nicolas II, unless I misrecall are chrismated, are anointed with oil, since the Church (Catholic Church and Orthodox Church, the right Church and a very close rival) is asking the Holy Ghost to help them in restraining lawlessness.

Or were so doing, up to 1917-1918.

10:22

The Church is not having a pre-Trib rapture.

The saints are however in some sense beaten by Antichrist - like an army is beaten.

Hence, while the Church is not itself a military unit in the most literal battle field sense, it involves one, which Antichrist can beat.

He can't beat the Holy Spirit. He can't beat the faithful of the Church as faithful of the Church, at least not those who most are willing to sacrifice. But if the saints have an army, it can be beaten, they can be considered as beaten by its defeat.

When the Czarist army under Denykin was beaten by Trotski's Red Army, in a sense, that was a prefiguring of Antichrist beating ... whatever and whoever is the Army of the Saints.

11:07

A person can be grammatically neuter whether naturally masculine or feminine. In German, Hänsel and Gretel are naturally masculine and feminine, but through the [German dialectal diminutive] ending -el, they are both neuter.

11:33

So, the restrainer, in masculine, is NOT the Holy Spirit.

12:12

If the Restrainer is Holy Roman Emperors, the man of sin can already be revealed.

12:48

No, you are wrong in believing a pre-Trib rapture for all of the Church and you are also wrong to consider that as the Restrainer being taken out of the way.

And so, the restrainer can well have been already taken out of the way, about 100 years ago.

St Paul did not say the Man of Sin would be revealed immediately after the taking away.

12:56

"Don't look for him, we look for the coming King"

Well, but the King won't be coming until the Man of Sin comes ... and that one will deceive a lot ... and it was told to count the number of his name (Apocalypse 13:18).

... on Sufficiency of Scripture and Bible Canon (feat. our very special guest star : J. P. Holding)

Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere : ... on Sufficiency of Scripture and Bible Canon (feat. our very special guest star : J. P. Holding) · Great Bishop of Geneva! : Answering a Page about "Apocrypha"

For some who are not familiar with the genre I am using here (and no, it is not the dialogue which is default genre on this blog), you first listen to the video. You then read the text of my comments. The hours after I publish this, the text will probably still be top of comments, but when there are 1000 plus comments, you will need to go here to read them. In each comment I give time signature, often an indication of what J. P. Holding was saying at that point, and my response to it. So, the genre is not "dialogue", but detailed comment including in some places refutation.

TL;DR of below : J. P. Holding misconstrues what "sufficiency of Scripture" was about, and also partially refutes both this heresy and gives me opportunity to refute the heresy he is promoting on so called "Apocrypha" or "Deuterocanonic Books".

Video

Punch Bowling #1: The Sufficiency of Scripture
tektontv
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvn8lKwa3ks

1:52

The wonderful summersaults of Reformation ideology!

If Luther as a disciple of fairly recent Erasmus who had been alerted by also fairly recent Valla* (all of the three Catholic priests before writing, and the two non-Luther remained so!) that details about less recent and closer to Gospel times Roman Antiquities* were being gotten wrong makes a contextualising comment from purely human scholarship, that is fine with "sufficiency of Scripture".

B u t if Erasmus responds (like he did in De Libero Arbitrio, I think) about the need of reading much less recent and much closer to the Gospel times Church Fathers, like St Jerome, oh, no, that is "human traditions"!

* Valla specialised in showing what the Roman currency of money really was like. De Asse et Partibus eius. I am not making this up! Really relevant for a full understanding of any Gospel text involving Shekels, I suppose, but perhaps a bit superfluous to understanding the theological part of it.

1:58

Catholics rely on specific extra-Biblical, but Biblically endorsed information sources, like St Jerome. Lutherans rely on specific extra-Biblical, Biblically not endorsed information sources, like Valla. And for that matter Erasmus, when it came to pronouncing Koiné as Attic was pronounced by Plato, except where spelling differs.

2:14

"The Original Writings were Greek."

OK, I am into the LXX too, as a good substitute for the lost Hebrew "Vorlage" of it, but LXX is after all a translation ...

Irrelevant to the point? Well, so could Valla's De Asse be irrelevant to any point about parables or events involving money in NT. While the theological analysis by Sts Augustine, Jerome, Chrysostom could be very relevant - the precise thing Luther jettisoned.

If you actually said "Greek and Hebrew", I am watching this in sound off with subtitles. A neat lesson about computers not at all getting language.

2:39

But the "sufficiency of Scripture" was NOT in response to the texts some Catholics term Deuterocanonical and Protestants usually term Apocrypha (a term also covering heretical and spurious wrtitings like infamous Gospel of Thomas, not meaning the Childhood Gospel of St Thomas, but the other one). We had TWO distinct disputes. Just on Scripture.

Sufficiency of Scripture, aka Sola Scriptura, condemned by Trent responding Scripture must be interpreted according to the Church, Fathers as history of the Church being, whenever agreeing, nearly on par with Scripture, Magisterium of the present as rulers of the Church being the present mouthpiece of both.

Judaising OT canon, motivated by St Paul saying they back then received Moses and Prophets from the Jews (who up to very recently - indeed childhood of St Paul himself - had been the true Church of God) and pushed into meaning Reformers ought to take the OT canon from Masoretic version, from Jews having been not the true Church for 1400 and some years. Except the Reformers even then didn't quite do that. This was condemned by Trent responding by reaffirming canonicity of ALL books mentioned by the council of Carthage.

Yep, the very same ancient Church Council which first in so many words gave you 27 books of NT, also in so many words included I and II Maccabees in OT! And Trent stood by it.

Note, I am not sure whether Council of Carthage also said all other books are non-canon, but Trent did not. At least not explicitly.

Depends on exact status of dioceses like Iasi admitting III and IV Maccabees or Susdal/Moscow admitting "I Esra" (in another sense than we use I Esra as your Esra, Russians call that II Esra. Our II Esra and their III Esra is your Nehemia). Or Aksum admitting book of Henoch. Because Trent explicitly stated "as received by the Church".

Argue Orthodox and Monophysites are quite outside the Church and there was no proof these books were admitted by the dioceses before they became Schismatic or Heretic, well, that proves 73 books ("72 books, or 73 if Baruch be counted separately from Jeremiah") are all [there is of the] canon.

Argue either they somehow remained in the Church or the books were at least received by them before the separation from Church, you open up at least some possibility for Catholic Church to confirm these books.

But the question between sufficiency of Scripture vs sufficiency of Scripture, Fathers and Magisterium is separate from the other question about which books belong to the canon.

2:47

That "specific set" of authoritative texts:

• did not exist on the Christian side, since all Christians previous to Reformation admitted Deuterocanonical texts (unless you count as Christians Albigensians who threw out most of both OT and NT, like Marcion!)
• did not exist on the Jewish side either, since the Jews obviously did not admit any of the 27 NT books
• but was a Judaeo-Christian hybrid canon.

3:10

"The Psalms are poetry, not didactic instruction"

While the specific layout of any psalm follows a poetic plan which might be somewhat confusing to certain didactic purposes, the genres do NOT exclude each other.

In other words, the statements in the psalms shall all be taken as true, and at least most of the time even literally true.

I'll give you an example of didactic literature formulated as singable poetry:

A false witness shall not go unpunished:

New blog on the kid : A false witness shall not go un punished, and he that speaketh lies shall not escape ...
http://nov9blogg9.blogspot.com/2017/03/a-false-witness-shall-not-go-un.html

3:18

"There is nothing in the text which says Scripture has a magical power to educate or to find responses to anything and everything ..."

well, neither in the Psalm, nor in the Classical Protestant "proof text" for sufficiency : "all Scripture is useful" etc. Thank you very much for shooting Reformation in the foot once again!

3:35

None of those passages was written after the Bible was finalised!

No shit, Sherlock! I think St Robert Bellarmine and a few more would have said that to Protestant apologists (including, in the case of St Robert, [to] James VI & I of Scotland and England).

4:11

From text given in video, not [from] subtitles.

"1) The doctrine of sufficiency of Scripture wasn't formulated to exclude contextual helps."

Not some of them, not those of the Valla and Erasmus type. To exclude some others, yes, very definitely yes.

"2) The Holy Spirit isn't a magic fact-dispensing-on-request gunball machine, and is never protrayed as such."

Well, there is this text about [Matthew 10:19] : But when they shall deliver you up, take no thought how or what to speak: for it shall be given you in that hour what to speak. Just note, this does not exclude reading apologetics way before that hour, way before being delivered up. But yes, in some context the Holy Ghost will indeed dispense answers when needed. And is here portrayed as going to do so.