Do I believe that? No. But it’s what they believe.

You are certainly right, though, that countless thousands of sects of Protestants/Evengelicals claim that they use nothing but the Bible, and that it’s very debateable whether they really do or not since they often disagree with each other about the meanings of various passages. Seventh Day Adventists, Millerites, Hutterites, Baptists, and Pentacostalists all claim to use nothing but the Bible, yet they disagree with each other vehemently on major issues. This is just the way it is, I didn’t make it so. [shrug]

Dave J: Unitarian Universalism is a breakaway sect with Christian roots but is not Christian. Islam may not be properly called a breakaway sect per se, but it flows straight out of the Christian and Jewish traditions; from an outsider’s perspective, Islam appears to be an attempt at syncretism, to meld those two different religions into one. From an insider’s perspective, Islam would be the final culmination of the incomplete faiths of Judaism and Christianity, with all the Jewish patriarchs and early Christian figures from the Bible considered Muslims, because the Koran completes and corrects Torah and New Testament.

The Koran is vehement and explicit that Muslims worship *exactly* the same God as Jews and Christians. Not “other monotheistic faiths,” but rather, those exact two other faiths. By name. It does not (like the Unitarian Universalists) claim all religions are equally valid, or even all monotheistic faiths; it claims that it is God’s final revelation after the revelations given to the Jews and to the Christians. Jews and Christians can both deny this, just as the Jews deny Christian claims to complete Judaism, but within Islam, that is a core doctrine: they worship the same God, they’ve just got the complete message and the Jews and Christians don’t, the Jews and Christians only have part of the message and due to unintentional errors over the generations the Torah and the Christian Bible had errors in them that the Koran corrects (from their perspective).

Many (most?) of the early Muslims were either Christians or Jews, by the way. Most of their worship practices are directly tied to the worship practices of Jews and Christians who lived in the same time and place as Mohammed. Mohammed even tried to get Rabbis in Israel to accept that he was a prophet, and was spurned, which is part of why Muslims changed from praying toward Israel to praying toward Mecca.

From a Jewish perspective, it’s hard to see why they’d think Islam is more foreign to them than Christianity, as they consider both religions false and foreign to their belief system. From a Muslim position, the Jews are the fore-runners of their faith, as are the Christians.

I dunno, is it really so hard to see all that? Neither Islam nor Unitarian Universalism are Christian, they are faiths within themselves that started with the earlier two and broke away into their own “thing,” which is the only point I was making.

Saying that Islam is as related to Christianity as a breakaway religion from within Christianity itself is just wrong.  All may be related, but Islam is certainly further removed from the other two.  

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Each and every one of my beliefs can be backed up by Scripture – and not my own versions like the Watchtower Society or the LDS.

And that distinguishes you from the Seventh Day Adventists … how, exactly?  Aside from the part about them actually worshipping on the seventh day rather than borrowing a pagan tradition, that is.  On that particular issue, the Bible is squarely on their side, not yours.   Adventists do hold some screwy views, such as Jesus turning water into Welch’s^R Grape Juice rather than wine, but if subscribing to that view makes a person not Christian, most Southern Baptists must not be Christians, either.

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As for blasphemy: that means cursing or reviling God. Not a single one of the groups I mentioned does that.  And, so far as I know, not a single one of the groups I mentioned denies Christ’s divinity, although a few of them believe Jesus was lesser than the Father’s divinity. Some, especially the Mormons, have produced their own scriptures. Some have introduced their own translations, like the Jehovah’s Witness. Others simply claim that modern prophets came along to give a more proper and correct interpretation of scripture. To us, it’s all heresy (false teaching).

As for the Catholic view of scripture: you’re creating a false dichotomy. Scripture does not contradict Sacred Tradition, and Sacred Tradition does not contradict scripture. Scripture is an inseparable part of Sacred Tradition. The Orthodox believe exactly the same thing: Scripture IS tradition, Holy Tradition, the teaching authority of the Church and the Bible being inseparable parts of each other. Or so Catholic and Orthodox Christians believe (and some Protestants too, especially "High Church" episcopalians).

As for Jesus using Tanakh: he did not. The Tanakh is a set of Hebrew books put together by 10th Century anti-Christian Rabbis. The Old Testament used by the early Church was the Septuagint. The New Testament authors very rarely quoted Hebrew scriptures in their writings, they mostly used the Septuagint, which is the real basis of the Christian Old Testament. If you’re using any version of the Tanakh, you’re using a version of the scriptures produced by people who rejected Jesus.

However, Jesus does indeed refer to things found only in the Jewish Oral Torah. Without condemnation or rejection. So do Paul and some of the other New Testament authors–and by the way, when Paul was using scriptures to convince people, he would have been using the Septuagint, and most likely not complete copies of that since those were *hugely* expensive.

Here are a few articles you can read:

Orthodox Christian refutation of Sola Scriptura. This one is by the Our Life In Christ guys, Orthodox Christians who were indispensable to me in my journey back to what I believe is the original Christian faith.

Quick Catholic refutation of Sola Scriptura. See also this article. And for copious scriptural references, it would be hard to top this article.

There’s more out there, but those are good starting points.

From our perspective, Sola Scriptura (both the original Protestant version, and the more extreme form embraced by modern Evangelicals) is a destructive innovation and a major cause of schisms and a plethora of false teachings. You have a different view, obviously. Still, the Eastern Orthodox, the Oriental Orthodox, the Roman Catholics, and a few others are in agreement: Sola Scriptura is false teaching and the cause of numerous errors. All we can do when we are confronted with it is to try to gently lead people back to the original Church as we see it.

This is going on too long, and I’m not even sure if I’ve answered everything. But go ahead and read those articles, it shouldn’t take you too long. But from our perspective, it’s very obvious that if you embrace a false doctrine like Sola Scriptura, it’s going to lead you into very weird places. I don’t say that to give offense, it’s just what we believe. [shrug]

You’re not lumping me in with groups that criticize the modern religion, you’re lumping me in with heretics and you know it.

Each and every one of my beliefs can be backed up by Scripture – and not my own versions like the Watchtower Society or the LDS.

Make whatever "observations" you like.  But do me a favor next time and make sure to be intellectually honest when you do.

I’ll just point out that you can search the entire Bible from Genesis to Revelation and will find the doctrine of Sola Scriptura nowhere in it. [shrug] (Now that might actually piss off some Protestants, but not the Orthodox or the Catholics.)

Please. Every doctrine the Catholic Church uses to establish its own authority is proof texted in the Bible. You state the above but then use Acts in a sola Scriptura way to defend the root of Catholic authority. Which is it? You can’t say that the Bible isn’t sole authority then use the Bible to give yourself authority.

That you’ve failed to produce a single doctrine that isn’t rooted in the Bible as its justification tells me that the Catholic Church feels sola Scriptura is just fine when it needs to establish its own doctrines.

Just no one else better do it.  Pot meet kettle?  How about, "Do as I say, not as I do?"

As for Biblical support for sola Scriptura; it’s all over the place.  But as you’ve pre-judged the case according to doctrine, I don’t expect you to see it.  You’ve already decided a case for it can’t be built.  Therefore, you’ve already closed you heart and mind to it.

But, as I like to beat a dead horse, I kindly direct you to Matthew 4:1-11.  Every time Yeshua is tempted by Satan himself, He doesn’t refer to Jewish oral traditions a single time.  Each and every time He goes to the Tanakh.  The Written Word and the Written Word only.  Satan even uses the Written Word to tempt Him, and Yeshua defeats Satan with the Written Word.  Satan doesn’t even bother using Jewish oral tradition against Yeshua!

So, if Yeshua uses the Written Word of the Tanakh only when face to face with the Adversary, why are you saying believers shouldn’t depend on it in the way their Savior did?

Christians have always believed that you can’t just rely on scripture alone. I can give you some well-sourced articles if you don’t believe it. Why this should offend you I have no idea–it’s just a fact.

No such fact exists. So there’s nothing I can be offended by.  If this were so then the part in Acts 17 about the Bereans is a lie.  The Bereans looked for themselves in the Tanakh to see if what Paul was saying was true.  It says they checked every day.  So, if Acts states that the Bereans checked the Tanakh for themselves, but you say Christians never relied on Scripture alone, who is telling the truth?  You?  Or the Book of Acts?  Or did Paul, after praising their dilligence, tell the Bereans never rely on Scripture alone now that they were Christians?  Scripture alone is good enough for the Jew but not the Christian?  That’s an odd thing to believe, Dean.

Then there’s the fact that Yeshua refers to the Tanakh over 100 times but never once does He use oral traditions to explain or defend a position.  And then the times where He expects audience understanding with the Written Word (friend or enemy) such as in Luke 10:26; 20:17, Mark 12:24, Matthew 22:29; 26:24; 26:54, and John 5:39.

So, with just a few examples, I’ve proven that:

1.  Yeshua always used the Written Word of the Tanakh when explaining or defending a thing, or resisting temptation.  Never once does He use Jewish oral traditions.

2.  Paul celebrated the fact that people searched out the Tanakh for themselves to see if what he was saying was true.  Never once did they refer to Jewish oral traditions for these proofs, and never did Paul direct them to look there.

3.  Yeshua expected those He engaged, whether friend or foe, to be familiar with the Tanakh.  Never once did He direct them to Jewish oral traditions but, instead, often threw down the requirements of traditions in favor of Scripture.

This is just the tip of the iceberg.

There’s nothing wrong with having traditions.  Yeshua engaged in many Jewish traditions that appear nowhere in the Tanakh.  The problem arises when people say those traditions and doctrines take on the weight of Divine Law as the Jews of Yeshua’s time, and the Church of our time, have done.

But, hey, if you want to say Yeshua didn’t know what He was doing by using the Tanakh only, and instead should have deferred to the interpretation of Scripture of the religious leaders of His day, as you think we should of the Church, I guess that’s a comparative religion argument between you and He.

Let me know how that goes.

Basically as I view it, you have the Catholics (largest group of Christians in the world), the Orthodox (the second largest), and the old-line Protestants like the Lutherans and the Episcopalians, all holding to the same basic creeds and tenets. The Presbyterians are sort of on the edges of it, as their elders are sorta like the bishops in the Lutheran and Episcopalian sense, but sorta not. From there the variety of views spreads and the bottom-up approach gets more prevalent.

On restorationism as a common theme, just see the Wikipedia article I noted.

Sorry if I implied that. 

But I do think it is a central tenet of Catholicism.  And more so than in many other Christian religions.  

But then again, I guess all Christian (and Jewish and Muslim) religions are inherently top down.  The differences are a matter of how many intermediaries there are along the way.

Please just read this Wikipedia article on restorationism. How is what I said in contradiction with that? The idea of restoring the original faith that got corrupted by men is common in offshoot varieties of Christianity. The Christadelphians, the LDS, the Seventh Day Adventists, the the Jehova’s Witness, the Millerites, the Hutterites, the Menonites, and a whole ton of other groups all view themselves this way.

What makes me scratch my head is why you think it’s offensive to note this trend. What’s so bothersome about it? You clearly think Christianity got corrupted, by the Catholics as well as by many others. You embrace this notion. So why are you getting your underwear in a bunch when I note that your group isn’t the only one? Are we outsiders not allowed to observe you or something? I don’t get it.

Jaymaster: No, not exactly. If you check what I’ve written, I’ve been quite careful, as best I could. Catholic, Orthodox, and many Protestant Christians (especially Lutherans and Episcopalians, but also others) would basically agree with everything I’ve said so far. I still haven’t really said a word that is Catholic-only (at least, not without saying so openly). I rarely do, although I get accused of that a lot. [shrug] It seems like any time I say anything that would disagree with anything in fundamentalist doctrines, the "that’s a Catholic thing" gets trotted out. No matter how hard I work to be ecumenical and include mainline Protestants and Orthodox and to avoid anything that’s Catholic-only (like, say, Papal supremacy), I get accused of writing the Catholic perspective anyway. [shrug]

Christians have believed in apostolic succession since before the New Testament canon was officially proclaimed, although the Book of Acts explains with perfect clarity how apostolic succession works. The bishops in the ecumenical councils over succeeding generations did indeed put a final stamp of authority on them, and for the same reasons put together the creedal statements and such to make sure that scripture would be preserved and interpreted properly with the proper teachings (teaching=doctrine, doctrine=teaching). Most Christians have always believed that you can’t just rely on scripture alone. I can give you some well-sourced articles if you don’t believe it. Why this should offend you I have no idea–it’s just a fact. You’re free to disagree with the majority of Christians of course. Other than that, I’ll just point out that you can search the entire Bible from Genesis to Revelation and will find the doctrine of Sola Scriptura nowhere in it. [shrug] (Now that might actually piss off some Protestants, but not the Orthodox or the Catholics.)