Topic: Separation of church and state

[dpogs]

Peter of the Bible

1. has a wife

And when Jesus was come into Peter's house, He saw his wife's mother laid, and sick of a fever. - MATTHEW 8:14


It is biblical that a bishop (pastor, deacon, priest, minister, head of the church) to have a wife.


1 Timothy 3:2-5 (KJV)
(2)A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober, of good behaviour, given to hospitality, apt to teach; (3) Not given to wine, no striker, not greedy of filthy lucre; but patient, not a brawler, not covetous; (4) One that ruleth well his own house, having his children in subjection with all gravity; (5) (For if a man know not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the church of God?)

[RU9]

the subsequent division of the Catholic Church into the Roman Church and the Eastern Orthodox Churches was due to some doctrinal disagreements.  but those disagreements are not as major as the doctrines introduced by the reformists.   

Not only some doctrinal disagreements.

The scism was a long and complicated process, many different influences were at work. The schism was conditioned by cultural, political, and economic factors; yet its fundamental cause was not secular but theological. In the last resort it was over matters of doctrine that east and west quarrelled - two matters in particular: the Papal claims and the Filioque.

Besides these two major issues, the Papacy and the Filioque, there were certain lesser matters of Church worship and discipline which caused trouble between east and west: the Greeks allowed married clergy, the Latins insisted on priestly celibacy; the two sides had different rules of fasting; the Greeks used leavened bread in the Eucharist, the Latins unleavened bread.

  essentially the Catholics and Orthodox still remain true to the Apostle's Creed, and still carry the teachings and traditions of the Apostles.  that is why they are the valid Church. 

The second great difficulty was the Filioque. The dispute involved the words about the Holy Spirit in the Nicene Constantinopolitan Creed. Originally the Creed ran: 'I believe ... in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the Giver of Life, who proceeds from the Father, who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and together glorified.' This, the original form, is recited unchanged by the east to this day. But the west inserted an extra phrase 'and from the Son' (in Latin, Filioque), so that the Creed now reads 'who proceeds from the Father and the Son'.

[barrister]

... you're missing the point there

all those other attributed given to Jesus are attributes, it was never his name.  therefore they don't have to be gender specific.  throughout the Bible, God has been given Feminine attributes, but never was He called God the Mother, its always The Father.  because The Father is His name.

if petra is used to describe Simon as an attribute, then yes.  but Simon was renamed into Peter, thus Petra is unacceptable.  its not an attribute anymore but a name

He was not renamed petros or Peter.  He was renamed Cephas or "Kephas".  

Cephas can mean stone or rock.  But Paul clarified that Jesus meant "stone" rather than "rock":

And when Jesus beheld him, he said, Thou art Simon the son of Jona: thou shalt be called Cephas, which is by interpretation, A stone. (John 1:42, KJV)

It is not true that only names are gender-specific, and adjectives are not.  That may be true in English, but in languages that have gender-specific adjectives, the adjective's gender should agree with the noun's gender.  

In Spanish, "hombre bueno" is "good man"; "mujer buena" is "good woman".  In English, both are "good"; in Spanish, one is "bueno", the other is "buena".  Bueno and buena are not names, they are adjectives.  But the gender of the adjectives must correspond with the gender of the nouns they modify.
  
In Greek, "bonus" is a "good man", "bona" is a "good woman".  In English, both are "good"; in Greek, one is "bonus", the other is "bona".  In Greek, "sophos" is a wise man, "sophia" is a "wise woman".  In English, both are "wise"; in Greek, one is "sophos", the other is "sophia".

In the Bible, personalities are named according to their attribute.  In Exodus 34:14, "Jealous" is one of the names of God, not just an attribute:

For thou shalt worship no other god: for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God  (KJV)

[barrister]

I hope you can see the emptiness of the Catholic argument. They want it to sound that it is obviously clear that Jesus built His church on Peter. It is not so.

That Peter was allegedly the "First Pope" is a foundational doctrine of Catholicism.  That's why they will never agree to a contrary interpretation of Matthew 16:18.

Peter was an apostle to the Jews.  But it was Paul who was the apostle to the Gentiles.

The truth of the matter is that it was James, not Peter, who first presided at the Council at Jerusalem.  At the Council, Peter, Barnabas and Paul spoke first.  Then, to finish the discussion, it was James who gave his judgment:

When they finished, James spoke up: "Brothers, listen to me. Simon has described to us how God at first showed his concern by taking from the Gentiles a people for himself. ...

"It is my judgment, therefore, that we should not make it difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God. Instead we should write to them, telling them to abstain from food polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from the meat of strangled animals and from blood.  (Acts 15:13, 14, 19 & 20, NIV)

In fact, Paul once rebuked Peter in Antioch "to his face", and in public, because Peter was "clearly in the wrong":

When Peter came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he was clearly in the wrong. Before certain men came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But when they arrived, he began to draw back and separate himself from the Gentiles because he was afraid of those who belonged to the circumcision group. The other Jews joined him in his hypocrisy, so that by their hypocrisy even Barnabas was led astray.

When I saw that they were not acting in line with the truth of the gospel, I said to Peter in front of them all, "You are a Jew, yet you live like a Gentile and not like a Jew. How is it, then, that you force Gentiles to follow Jewish customs?  (Galatians 2:11-14, NIV)

That's certainly not how one would address a supposedly infallible Pope.

Who was right, Peter or Paul?  To settle the matter, the Jerusalem Council was held afterwards.  In Acts 15, the Council confirmed that Paul's teaching was correct.

[choy]

Peter of the Bible

1. has a wife

And when Jesus was come into Peter's house, He saw his wife's mother laid, and sick of a fever. - MATTHEW 8:14


It is biblical that a bishop (pastor, deacon, priest, minister, head of the church) to have a wife.


1 Timothy 3:2-5 (KJV)
(2)A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober, of good behaviour, given to hospitality, apt to teach; (3) Not given to wine, no striker, not greedy of filthy lucre; but patient, not a brawler, not covetous; (4) One that ruleth well his own house, having his children in subjection with all gravity; (5) (For if a man know not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the church of God?)

Paul and John on the other hand are celebates

and it is Biblical that Paul instructed that those who serve the Lord, he prefers them to be celibate

1 Corinthians 7:32-33
32 But I want you to be without care. He who is unmarried cares for the things of the Lord—how he may please the Lord. 33 But he who is married cares about the things of the world—how he may please his wife.


also, Paul's letter to Timothy never said that a Bishop MUST be married, but if he's married he must be of one wife.  because in Greece back then it is common for someone to be polygamous or to marry, divorce and remarry, similar to today

[choy]

He was not renamed petros or Peter.  He was renamed Cephas or "Kephas".  

Cephas can mean stone or rock.  But Paul clarified that Jesus meant "stone" rather than "rock":

And when Jesus beheld him, he said, Thou art Simon the son of Jona: thou shalt be called Cephas, which is by interpretation, A stone. (John 1:42, KJV)

It is not true that only names are gender-specific, and adjectives are not.  That may be true in English, but in languages that have gender-specific adjectives, the adjective's gender should agree with the noun's gender.  

In Spanish, "hombre bueno" is "good man"; "mujer buena" is "good woman".  In English, both are "good"; in Spanish, one is "bueno", the other is "buena".  Bueno and buena are not names, they are adjectives.  But the gender of the adjectives must correspond with the gender of the nouns they modify.
  
In Greek, "bonus" is a "good man", "bona" is a "good woman".  In English, both are "good"; in Greek, one is "bonus", the other is "bona".  In Greek, "sophos" is a wise man, "sophia" is a "wise woman".  In English, both are "wise"; in Greek, one is "sophos", the other is "sophia".

In the Bible, personalities are named according to their attribute.  In Exodus 34:14, "Jealous" is one of the names of God, not just an attribute:

For thou shalt worship no other god: for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God  (KJV)

well, Greek is not Spanish nor English.  those are the rules of Greek.  you can't really compare it to the rules of Spanish


and the KJV is a Protestant Bible, the translation is obviously biased

here is the various translations in different versions, to obtained a more unbiased view

http://bible.cc/john/1-42.htm

[choy]

COPIED


Rocks and Stones

Question: Please comment on the following argument which I read in a Catholic website. It can be summarized like this:

• Jesus spoke Aramaic. So, what Jesus said to Simon in Matthew 16:18 was this: ‘You are Kepha, and on this kepha I will build my Church.’
• The Aramaic word kepha is translated petra or petros in Greek. The two words are synonyms in first century Greek.
• Jesus could not have said, ‘You are petra, and on this petra I will build my Church’ because that would have entailed giving Simon a feminine name. So, Jesus changed the ending of the noun to render it masculine. “You are Petros, and on this petra I will build my Church.”
• That is the real reason why Jesus employed two different words and not as Protestants argue, that ‘this rock’ may refer to something or somebody else other than Peter.

Answer: The question about the papacy is broader than the interpretation of petros and petra in Matthew 16:18. Do not be fooled by Catholic apologists who make a big deal about ‘this rock’ as if the papacy is vindicated if it could be proved that ‘this rock’ refers to Peter. This passage says nothing about universal jurisdiction, successors or Roman bishops.

Even if this can be conclusively proven (and I think it cannot), it does not confirm the papacy, i.e. the universal rule of the bishop of Rome over the whole church. In fact there is a sense in which the apostle Peter, together with the other apostles and the prophets, form the foundation of the church because the Gospel was first given through them. This has nothing to do with the claimed universal jurisdiction of the bishop of Rome as the Roman apologist would have us believe.

But let me just deal with the convoluted Aramaic/Greek argument that you kindly sent to me.

It is true that Jesus spoke in Aramaic. But how do the Catholic scholars know what Jesus said in the Aramaic language, since all the existing manuscripts of the Gospel of Matthew are written in Greek? You realize that this business of what Jesus must have said in Aramaic is pure speculation. I don’t know what were Jesus’ original words in Aramaic, neither do our Catholic friends. Should we build an argument - indeed the structure of the church of Jesus Christ - on mere speculations?

The Catholic apologist bends over backwards to convince us that petros and petra are equivalent Greek words that mean the same thing. They say that it is merely a question of different gender ending. The truth of the matter is that these are two distinct Greek words with similar, but not identical meaning. According to the Greek Lexicon, petros is “a rock or a stone”, whereas petra is “a rock, cliff or ledge.” Jesus illustrates the meaning of petra as a massive foundational rock: “Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock” (Matthew 7:27).

Still, assuming they know what Jesus originally said in Aramaic, the Catholic apologist goes on to explain why Jesus employs the two different Greek words. He puts these words in the mouth of a Protestant missionary:

"Wait a second," he said. "If kepha means the same as petra, why don’t we read in the Greek, ‘You are Petra, and on this petra I will build my Church’? Why, for Simon’s new name, does Matthew use a Greek word, Petros, which means something quite different from petra?"

To this the Catholic apologist answers triumphantly:

“Because he had no choice," I said. "Greek and Aramaic have different grammatical structures. In Aramaic you can use kepha in both places in Matthew 16:18. In Greek you encounter a problem arising from the fact that nouns take differing gender endings. You have masculine, feminine, and neuter nouns. The Greek word petra is feminine. You can use it in the second half of Matthew 16:18 without any trouble. But you can’t use it as Simon’s new name, because you can’t give a man a feminine name—at least back then you couldn’t. You have to change the ending of the noun to make it masculine. When you do that, you get Petros, which was an already-existing word meaning rock.”

So that’s why He uses Petros! Not to give Simon a feminine name!

But I’m sure that the reader can think of a third option. Contrary to the Catholic apologist assertion, He had another choice!

Why not use petros in the second part of the sentence if the Holy Spirit wanted to make it absolutely clear that He was building His church on the son of Jona, and avoid the gender problem? If petra and petros mean the same thing (as the Catholic apologist insists), Jesus could have said:

“Thou art PETROS and upon this PETROS I will build my church.”

There, the third option! That way any ambiguity would have been avoided – if indeed Jesus wanted to identify the foundation rock with the apostle Peter! Needless to say, that is not what Jesus said. Rather, He said:

“Thou are PETROS and upon this PETRA I will build my church.”

Christ insisted on a distinction! At the very least we can say that the rock upon which the church is built could refer to something other than Peter.

So, rather than speculate on Jesus’ original words in Aramaic, we should study the inspired words of the Holy Scriptures, and in Matthew 16:18, the Holy Spirit employed two different words to distinguish between ‘Peter’ and ‘the rock’. That is what we can say with certainty.

I hope you can see the emptiness of the Catholic argument. They want it to sound that it is obviously clear that Jesus built His church on Peter. It is not so. And though any Catholic reading this article may not be inclined to trust me, I would appeal to you to listen to St Augustine’s explanation of this message:

“For on this very account the Lord said, ‘On this rock will I build my Church,’ because Peter had said, “Thou art the Christ, the son of the living God.’ On this rock, therefore, He said, which thou hast confessed, I will build my church. For the Rock (petra) was Christ; and on this foundation was Peter himself also built. For other foundation no man lay that this is laid, which is Christ Jesus.” (Augustine, Homilies on the Gospel of John).

"This rock" is Peter's confession; the rock, the foundation is Jesus Christ!
[/list]

Peter's papacy doesn't rely solely on Peter being the rock, but the fact that Jesus gave him the keys of heaven (ie, the authority)

[indie boi]

What I find interesting about the arguments here is that when convenient, historical and cultural context is placed on certain passages of the Bible in order to justify how the Church -- or more generally, the so called religious -- interprets it.

But when it is also convenient, the interpretation of the Bible is absolute despite attempts to introduce the same cultural context in order to show that there is latitude in interpreting other biblical passages.

[choy]

What I find interesting about the arguments here is that when convenient, historical and cultural context is placed on certain passages of the Bible in order to justify how the Church -- or more generally, the so called religious -- interprets it.

But when it is also convenient, the interpretation of the Bible is absolute despite attempts to introduce the same cultural context in order to show that there is latitude in interpreting other biblical passages.

well how can you remove historical or cultural context from the writings when a particular culture or era would greatly influence what is being meant?

its like saying, if someone in the Philippines right now talks about salvage, people think its about murder.  whereas in all other english speaking nations, salvage means rescuing or retrieving something.  so if you take out the Philippine cultural context in salvage, it becomes totally different and people will not understand what is being meant.

to think that Scripture can be easily understood today in today's languages is ignoring the history of it.  language evolves very quickly.  you don't see Pinoys use words like bagets or jeprox today, both of which are common 20-30 years ago.  what more something written 2000 years ago?

[choy]

COPIED


Rocks and Stones

Question: Please comment on the following argument which I read in a Catholic website. It can be summarized like this:

• Jesus spoke Aramaic. So, what Jesus said to Simon in Matthew 16:18 was this: ‘You are Kepha, and on this kepha I will build my Church.’
• The Aramaic word kepha is translated petra or petros in Greek. The two words are synonyms in first century Greek.
• Jesus could not have said, ‘You are petra, and on this petra I will build my Church’ because that would have entailed giving Simon a feminine name. So, Jesus changed the ending of the noun to render it masculine. “You are Petros, and on this petra I will build my Church.”
• That is the real reason why Jesus employed two different words and not as Protestants argue, that ‘this rock’ may refer to something or somebody else other than Peter.

Answer: The question about the papacy is broader than the interpretation of petros and petra in Matthew 16:18. Do not be fooled by Catholic apologists who make a big deal about ‘this rock’ as if the papacy is vindicated if it could be proved that ‘this rock’ refers to Peter. This passage says nothing about universal jurisdiction, successors or Roman bishops.

Even if this can be conclusively proven (and I think it cannot), it does not confirm the papacy, i.e. the universal rule of the bishop of Rome over the whole church. In fact there is a sense in which the apostle Peter, together with the other apostles and the prophets, form the foundation of the church because the Gospel was first given through them. This has nothing to do with the claimed universal jurisdiction of the bishop of Rome as the Roman apologist would have us believe.

But let me just deal with the convoluted Aramaic/Greek argument that you kindly sent to me.

It is true that Jesus spoke in Aramaic. But how do the Catholic scholars know what Jesus said in the Aramaic language, since all the existing manuscripts of the Gospel of Matthew are written in Greek? You realize that this business of what Jesus must have said in Aramaic is pure speculation. I don’t know what were Jesus’ original words in Aramaic, neither do our Catholic friends. Should we build an argument - indeed the structure of the church of Jesus Christ - on mere speculations?

The Catholic apologist bends over backwards to convince us that petros and petra are equivalent Greek words that mean the same thing. They say that it is merely a question of different gender ending. The truth of the matter is that these are two distinct Greek words with similar, but not identical meaning. According to the Greek Lexicon, petros is “a rock or a stone”, whereas petra is “a rock, cliff or ledge.” Jesus illustrates the meaning of petra as a massive foundational rock: “Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock” (Matthew 7:27).

Still, assuming they know what Jesus originally said in Aramaic, the Catholic apologist goes on to explain why Jesus employs the two different Greek words. He puts these words in the mouth of a Protestant missionary:

"Wait a second," he said. "If kepha means the same as petra, why don’t we read in the Greek, ‘You are Petra, and on this petra I will build my Church’? Why, for Simon’s new name, does Matthew use a Greek word, Petros, which means something quite different from petra?"

To this the Catholic apologist answers triumphantly:

“Because he had no choice," I said. "Greek and Aramaic have different grammatical structures. In Aramaic you can use kepha in both places in Matthew 16:18. In Greek you encounter a problem arising from the fact that nouns take differing gender endings. You have masculine, feminine, and neuter nouns. The Greek word petra is feminine. You can use it in the second half of Matthew 16:18 without any trouble. But you can’t use it as Simon’s new name, because you can’t give a man a feminine name—at least back then you couldn’t. You have to change the ending of the noun to make it masculine. When you do that, you get Petros, which was an already-existing word meaning rock.”

So that’s why He uses Petros! Not to give Simon a feminine name!

But I’m sure that the reader can think of a third option. Contrary to the Catholic apologist assertion, He had another choice!

Why not use petros in the second part of the sentence if the Holy Spirit wanted to make it absolutely clear that He was building His church on the son of Jona, and avoid the gender problem? If petra and petros mean the same thing (as the Catholic apologist insists), Jesus could have said:

“Thou art PETROS and upon this PETROS I will build my church.”

There, the third option! That way any ambiguity would have been avoided – if indeed Jesus wanted to identify the foundation rock with the apostle Peter! Needless to say, that is not what Jesus said. Rather, He said:

“Thou are PETROS and upon this PETRA I will build my church.”

Christ insisted on a distinction! At the very least we can say that the rock upon which the church is built could refer to something other than Peter.

So, rather than speculate on Jesus’ original words in Aramaic, we should study the inspired words of the Holy Scriptures, and in Matthew 16:18, the Holy Spirit employed two different words to distinguish between ‘Peter’ and ‘the rock’. That is what we can say with certainty.

I hope you can see the emptiness of the Catholic argument. They want it to sound that it is obviously clear that Jesus built His church on Peter. It is not so. And though any Catholic reading this article may not be inclined to trust me, I would appeal to you to listen to St Augustine’s explanation of this message:

“For on this very account the Lord said, ‘On this rock will I build my Church,’ because Peter had said, “Thou art the Christ, the son of the living God.’ On this rock, therefore, He said, which thou hast confessed, I will build my church. For the Rock (petra) was Christ; and on this foundation was Peter himself also built. For other foundation no man lay that this is laid, which is Christ Jesus.” (Augustine, Homilies on the Gospel of John).

"This rock" is Peter's confession; the rock, the foundation is Jesus Christ!
[/list]

this article is filled with flawed assumptions

first, its arguing that the manuscript was written in Greek and therefore Jesus spoke in Greek?  first, when was the manuscript written?  was it written at the same time Jesus spoke those words?  no.  it was written at least 30 years after Jesus spoke those words

second, who was the target audience?  was it the Jews?  no, it was the Greeks.  so why are you going to write in Aramaic when that language is mostly spoken in Judea whilst the Gospels were being written for people throughout the Mediterranean.

think of it this way.  say Jesus was Filipino and the Apostles were Filipinos.  would they talk to each other in english?  no.  now, the Apostles went throughout the world and they want to teach the Americans and the Canadians and the Australians and even the Europeans.  universally, the language is English, as was Greek in the 1st century.  so why would they write something in their native tongue when only those of their homeland can understand?  the people of Corinthia, Thessalonica, Rome, etc., most if not all of them do not speak Aramaic.  but they all know Greek.

to disregard that fact is disregarding the history within the Bible.  that that is how it is in their time

[choy]

Not only some doctrinal disagreements.

The scism was a long and complicated process, many different influences were at work. The schism was conditioned by cultural, political, and economic factors; yet its fundamental cause was not secular but theological. In the last resort it was over matters of doctrine that east and west quarrelled - two matters in particular: the Papal claims and the Filioque.

Besides these two major issues, the Papacy and the Filioque, there were certain lesser matters of Church worship and discipline which caused trouble between east and west: the Greeks allowed married clergy, the Latins insisted on priestly celibacy; the two sides had different rules of fasting; the Greeks used leavened bread in the Eucharist, the Latins unleavened bread.

The second great difficulty was the Filioque. The dispute involved the words about the Holy Spirit in the Nicene Constantinopolitan Creed. Originally the Creed ran: 'I believe ... in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the Giver of Life, who proceeds from the Father, who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and together glorified.' This, the original form, is recited unchanged by the east to this day. But the west inserted an extra phrase 'and from the Son' (in Latin, Filioque), so that the Creed now reads 'who proceeds from the Father and the Son'.

the Filioque is a doctrine
the issue here is, if the Holy Spirit proceeds only from the Father, what relationship does he have with the Son?  and this opens a whole new heresy, is the Holy Spirit Equal to the Son?  greater?  lesser?  how come Jesus can send the Holy Spirit if the Holy Spirit only proceeds from the Father?

as for the Papacy, the key issue here is scripture.  in scripture is it said that Jesus gave they keys to Peter.  the Orthodox believes the keys were given to all the apostles, though nowhere in scripture was it written.

also, there are many instances where Peter were referred to for authority (Council of Jerusalem where they made a decisioin of Gentiles were to be circumcised or not) and Peter has been always named first among the Apostles.

fasting and use of what type of bread is a non-issue.  the Catholic Church recognizes universal traditions taught differently by the Apostles in the early churches they established.  generally eastern churches uses leavened bread, including Eastern Catholic Churches.  the Latin church decided to follow the Jewish tradition, since the last supper was celebrated during the feast of the unleavened bread.  but its a non-issue really as its not a doctrine, but rather a matter of practice and tradition

[indie boi]

well how can you remove historical or cultural context from the writings when a particular culture or era would greatly influence what is being meant?

its like saying, if someone in the Philippines right now talks about salvage, people think its about murder.  whereas in all other english speaking nations, salvage means rescuing or retrieving something.  so if you take out the Philippine cultural context in salvage, it becomes totally different and people will not understand what is being meant.

to think that Scripture can be easily understood today in today's languages is ignoring the history of it.  language evolves very quickly.  you don't see Pinoys use words like bagets or jeprox today, both of which are common 20-30 years ago.  what more something written 2000 years ago?

Exactly! I agree. That's why I find a disconnect when certain scriptures are also interpreted LITERALLY and when a certain cultural context is applied to it, is immediately dismissed as unimportant. Putting context on scripture arbitrarily is a great disservice to how the Bible should actually be understood. You said it yourself, it needs to have context.

[RU9]

the Filioque is a doctrine
the issue here is, if the Holy Spirit proceeds only from the Father, what relationship does he have with the Son?  and this opens a whole new heresy, is the Holy Spirit Equal to the Son?  greater?  lesser?  how come Jesus can send the Holy Spirit if the Holy Spirit only proceeds from the Father?

as for the Papacy, the key issue here is scripture.  in scripture is it said that Jesus gave they keys to Peter.  the Orthodox believes the keys were given to all the apostles, though nowhere in scripture was it written.

Now you are bashing the Orthodox church, but in previous posting:

 essentially the Catholics and Orthodox still remain true to the Apostle's Creed, and still carry the teachings and traditions of the Apostles.  that is why they are the valid Church.

[barrister]

... and the KJV is a Protestant Bible, the translation is obviously biased

here is the various translations in different versions, to obtained a more unbiased view

http://bible.cc/john/1-42.htm

The King James Version is not a Protestant Bible, and it is not biased.  Although it is not perfect, the King James Version is one of the most accurate English versions because it is a meticulous word-for-word translation from the original languages.



Be that as it may, I do not solely rely on translations.  You might recall that I already posted the original Greek of John 1:42 previously:

ἤγαγεν αὐτὸν πρὸς τὸν Ἰησοῦν ἐμβλέψας αὐτῷ ὁ Ἰησοῦς εἶπεν· σὺ εἶ Σίμων ὁ υἱὸς Ἰωάννου, σὺ κληθήσῃ Κηφᾶς, ὃ ἑρμηνεύεται Πέτρος.

In the original Greek, John said Cephas is, by interpretation, petros, not petra.  The King James rendition of that verse is accurate.

[sardaukar]

and who says the world's population needs to be curtailed?

while China, India and the Philippines are crying because of their population boom, the Western world is worried because they do not have enough population to support funding for their soon-to-be retirees

the problem is not over population.  its just population distribution

Horizon has a documentary worth checking out.

How Many People Can Live on Planet Earth?

Answer: not very many more, says David Attenborough.

In 1950, the world's population was 2.5bn; today, it's 7bn; and by 2050, it's going to be 9bn. Beyond that, our poor old planet is going to have serious problems sustaining us all. And when you factor in all the climate-change stuff, you've got serious problems. The temperature goes up, resources dwindle, the sea rises, land disappears, and there are more and more of us to cram in. Life on earth is going to feel increasingly like one huge and terrifying game of musical chairs.

In a Horizon special, naturalist Sir David Attenborough investigates whether the world is heading for a population crisis.

While much of the projected growth in human population is likely to come from the developing world, it is the lifestyle enjoyed by many in the West that has the most impact on the planet. Some experts claim that in the UK consumers use as much as two and a half times their fair share of Earth's resources.

Sir David examines whether it is the duty of individuals to commit not only to smaller families, but to change the way they live for the sake of humanity and planet Earth.

[barrister]

... as for the Papacy, the key issue here is scripture.  in scripture is it said that Jesus gave they keys to Peter.  the Orthodox believes the keys were given to all the apostles, though nowhere in scripture was it written.

also, there are many instances where Peter were referred to for authority (Council of Jerusalem where they made a decisioin of Gentiles were to be circumcised or not) and Peter has been always named first among the Apostles. ...

In Matthew 16:19, Jesus said he will give (in the future) the keys to Peter: I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven." (NIV)

Catholic doctrine interprets the keys to mean the power to bind and to loose: Behold he [Peter] received the keys of the kingdom of heaven, the power of binding and loosing is committed to him ... (Catholic Encyclopedia).

But in Matthew 18:18, speaking to all His disciples, Jesus gave the "power of binding and loosing" to all of His disciples (including Peter): I tell you the truth, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven (NIV)

Jesus was speaking to all disciples, not to Peter only.  Notice that in His lengthy answer starting from Mat. 18:2, Jesus was talking to all disciples, because He was answering all of them:  At that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, "Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?" (Matthew 18:1, NIV)

Peter did not remain "first among the apostles".  It is true that he was the first in the list of original apostles.  But in the first Church Council, which took place in Jerusalem (not in Rome with Peter as the head), it was James who was the leader.  It was James who had the final word on the issue being discussed: When they finished, James spoke up: "Brothers, listen to me. ...  It is my judgment, therefore, that we should not make it difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God (Acts 15:13;19, NIV)  In Galatians 2:9, Paul confirms James' leadership by listing him first in his enumeration of the pillars: James, Peter and John, those reputed to be pillars, gave me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship when they recognized the grace given to me. (NIV)

Before Peter agreed with Paul's view at the Jerusalem Council, Paul previously rebuked Peter in Antioch "to his face", and in public, because Peter was "clearly in the wrong":

When Peter came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he was clearly in the wrong. Before certain men came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But when they arrived, he began to draw back and separate himself from the Gentiles because he was afraid of those who belonged to the circumcision group. The other Jews joined him in his hypocrisy, so that by their hypocrisy even Barnabas was led astray.  When I saw that they were not acting in line with the truth of the gospel, I said to Peter in front of them all, "You are a Jew, yet you live like a Gentile and not like a Jew. How is it, then, that you force Gentiles to follow Jewish customs?   (Galatians 2:11-14, NIV)

This passage demonstrates that Peter was not occupying the position of an infallible Pope.  It also shows that Paul considered Peter as an equal, with Peter having jurisdiction over the Jews, and Paul having jurisdiction over the Gentiles.  

Thus, Paul says: For God, who was at work in the ministry of Peter as an apostle to the Jews, was also at work in my ministry as an apostle to the Gentiles. ... They agreed that we should go to the Gentiles, and they to the Jews. (Galatians 2:8;9, NIV)

Clearly, if Peter's apostleship did not even extend to the Gentiles, then he could not have been "Supreme Pontiff of the Universal Church".

[dpogs]

+1


and Peter never set a foot in ROme.

[barrister]

Actually, Catholic doctrine misinterprets Matthew 16:19 and 18:18.

Bible versions usually mistranslate the two verses by rendering the perfect tenses of δεδεμένον (dedemenon), λελυμένον (lelumenon), δεδεμένα (dedemena), and λελυμένα (lelumena) erroneously into simple future tenses.

For those verses, Young's Literal Translation is the most accurate rendition I've seen, although its literal rendition unavoidably produces awkward sentence constructions:

and I will give to thee the keys of the reign of the heavens, and whatever thou mayest bind upon the earth shall be having been bound in the heavens, and whatever thou mayest loose upon the earth shall be having been loosed in the heavens. (Matthew 16:19)
Verily I say to you, Whatever things ye may bind upon the earth shall be having been bound in the heavens, and whatever things ye may loose on the earth shall be having been loosed in the heavens. (Matthew 18:18)

The International Standard Version is more understandable.  Slightly less accurate, but still good translations:

I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you prohibit on earth will have been prohibited in heaven, and whatever you permit on earth will have been permitted in heaven. (Matthew 16:19)

I tell you with certainty, whatever you prohibit on earth will have been prohibited in heaven, and whatever you permit on earth will have been permitted in heaven. (Matthew 18:18)

For these verses, a mistake in the tenses will lead to a totally different interpretation.

[indie boi]

Horizon has a documentary worth checking out.

How Many People Can Live on Planet Earth?

Answer: not very many more, says David Attenborough.

In 1950, the world's population was 2.5bn; today, it's 7bn; and by 2050, it's going to be 9bn. Beyond that, our poor old planet is going to have serious problems sustaining us all. And when you factor in all the climate-change stuff, you've got serious problems. The temperature goes up, resources dwindle, the sea rises, land disappears, and there are more and more of us to cram in. Life on earth is going to feel increasingly like one huge and terrifying game of musical chairs.

In a Horizon special, naturalist Sir David Attenborough investigates whether the world is heading for a population crisis.

While much of the projected growth in human population is likely to come from the developing world, it is the lifestyle enjoyed by many in the West that has the most impact on the planet. Some experts claim that in the UK consumers use as much as two and a half times their fair share of Earth's resources.

Sir David examines whether it is the duty of individuals to commit not only to smaller families, but to change the way they live for the sake of humanity and planet Earth.

I doubt if they'll believe this. Hindi kasi galing sa Bible.

[sardaukar]

But it's Sir David Attenborough! Although thinking about it, he's an evolutionist so yeah, they should take the information with a grain of salt.

[dpogs]

Horizon has a documentary worth checking out.

How Many People Can Live on Planet Earth?

Answer: not very many more, says David Attenborough.

In 1950, the world's population was 2.5bn; today, it's 7bn; and by 2050, it's going to be 9bn. Beyond that, our poor old planet is going to have serious problems sustaining us all. And when you factor in all the climate-change stuff, you've got serious problems. The temperature goes up, resources dwindle, the sea rises, land disappears, and there are more and more of us to cram in. Life on earth is going to feel increasingly like one huge and terrifying game of musical chairs.

In a Horizon special, naturalist Sir David Attenborough investigates whether the world is heading for a population crisis.

While much of the projected growth in human population is likely to come from the developing world, it is the lifestyle enjoyed by many in the West that has the most impact on the planet. Some experts claim that in the UK consumers use as much as two and a half times their fair share of Earth's resources.

Sir David examines whether it is the duty of individuals to commit not only to smaller families, but to change the way they live for the sake of humanity and planet Earth.

i believe in this... that the temperature goes up.... if what he observed is the result of entropy law.... well i believe his observation... (by the way its in the bible: the earth will be destroyed sa pamamagitan ng apoy).

from a perfect creation of earth to disorder/chaos.

the end of the world: fire.

[Klaus Weasley]

But it's Sir David Attenborough! Although thinking about it, he's an evolutionist so yeah, they should take the information with a grain of salt.

He's also an atheist.

[alistair]

i believe in this... that the temperature goes up.... if what he observed is the result of entropy law.... well i believe his observation...

Sir, with all due respect, entropy tends to make an isolated or closed system reach equilibrium. Chaos and fire are directly opposed to equilibrium (they imply an energy gradient, which means there's still room for energy to disperse, leading to an increase in entropy).

(by the way its in the bible: the earth will be destroyed sa pamamagitan ng apoy).

from a perfect creation of earth to disorder/chaos.

the end of the world: fire.

Meaning, when the Earth/Universe eventually succumbs to entropy, it'll die of heat death, not of chaos and fire.

[barrister]

The Vatican's wealth was estimated by bankers to be between $10 to $15 billion.

In 1965.

Time magazine article pala ito in 1965?

Roman Catholics: The Vatican's Wealth
Friday, Feb. 26, 1965

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,833509,00.html


Naalala ko tuloy yung Godfather III:

Scandal at the Pope's Bank
By Barry Kalb; Alexander L. Taylor III.
Monday, Jul. 26, 1982

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,922953,00.html#ixzz0hppZ8DwZ

[dpogs]

Horizon has a documentary worth checking out.

In 1950, the world's population was 2.5bn; today, it's 7bn; and by 2050, it's going to be 9bn. Beyond that, our poor old planet is going to have serious problems sustaining us all. And when you factor in all the climate-change stuff, you've got serious problems. The temperature goes up, resources dwindle, the sea rises, land disappears, and there are more and more of us to cram in. Life on earth is going to feel increasingly like one huge and terrifying game of musical chairs.

[/i]

"For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be famines, pestilence, and earthquakes in divers places. All these are the beginning of sorrows." (Mat. 24 v.7-8)


greenhouse effects
sea rises
el nino/el nina
earthquakes
environment disaster
kagutuman...

all these: signs of the end of the world...

[alistair]

all these: signs of the end of the world...

Uhuh. And Christians have been saying that, since, well, the 1st century AD.

Even Jesus himself said:

"Verily I say unto you, All these things shall come upon this generation."
(Matthew 23:36)

But in the next Chapter, Jesus says otherwise:

"But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only."
(Matthew 24:36)

[dpogs]

Uhuh. And Christians have been saying that, since, well, the 1st century AD.

Even Jesus himself said:

"Verily I say unto you, All these things shall come upon this generation."
(Matthew 23:36)

But in the next Chapter, Jesus says otherwise:

"But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only."
(Matthew 24:36)

you are right. no one reall knows when... but the signs are meant for you to believe that there is God. it was meant for us to be ready for the coming of the Lord.

[indie boi]

"For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be famines, pestilence, and earthquakes in divers places. All these are the beginning of sorrows." (Mat. 24 v.7-8)


greenhouse effects
sea rises
el nino/el nina
earthquakes
environment disaster
kagutuman...

all these: signs of the end of the world...

Erm, the El Nino/El Nina phenomenon is a climatological pattern that's been happening for thousands of years (di ko na sasabihin na millions dahil baka magdebate pa tayo).

Saying that it is a sign of the endtimes is like saying that typhoons are also a sign of the end of the world.

Don't get too excited that the end of the world is very near. It's likely going to take millions of years before it happens. Just watch 2012 for your doomsday fix.

[bass_nut]

well, no human knows 100% with certainty when and how.

[indie boi]

Exactly, that's why there's really no reason to keep saying "the end is near" or that "it's a sign that the end of the world is coming."