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Writer's pictureBible Brian

Jewish authority > Catholic authority, change my mind


The Catholic apologetics arsenal contains a very small selection of common arguments. Chief among these clichés is the claim that the Catholic Church has authority over the Bible because, allegedly, it is their Church that produced it. There are many problems with this, but perhaps the funniest is that not only could Jews make the same invalid argument, but Catholics actually can't.


It doesn't take much of an education to know that Judaism is the foundation of Christianity. Our Old Testament is their Old Testament. Our prophets are their prophets. Our God is their God. Even the Deuterocanonical books added to the Bible at the Council of Trent are Jewish folklore and history books written during the 400 silent years. Everything we have as Christians, we have because of the Jewish religion.


What's more is that the Jewish New Testament, written almost entirely by Jews (Luke being a possible exception) affirms the historicity and even the authority of the Jews. Jesus tells us to listen to the Pharisees (Matthew 23:2-3), and Paul tells us that it is an advantage to be Jewish because to them God committed His oracles (Romans 3:1-2). And in case Catholics want to argue that they lost this advantage because they were unfaithful, Paul conveniently adds "What if some were unfaithful? Does their faithlessness nullify the faithfulness of God? By no means! Let God be true though every one were a liar, as it is written, “That you may be justified in your words, and prevail when you are judged.”"


Furthermore, why can we say that the Jews were unfaithful? Well, because they don't line up with the oracles with which they were entrusted! We can as easily say the Catholic Church is unfaithful to scripture, using the same logic. Jewish traditions conflict with scripture, and they can't say "but we gave you scripture, so we can say our traditions don't conflict with scripture". In the same way, Catholic traditions conflict with scripture, and they cannot claim "but we gave you scripture, so we can say our traditions don't conflict with scripture".


What makes it even worse for the Catholics is that whereas Jews can prove both their historicity and authority from scripture, Catholics can prove neither their authority nor historicity from any source but themselves. Scripture nowhere mentions the word "Catholic", nor does it give authority to any specific denomination, and certainly no one has authority over scripture. Furthermore, the Catholic Church did not exist when the last New Testament book was written. That is, when the last New Testament book was God breathed (2 Timothy 3:16). Anyone, Jew or Catholic, who claims to have any kind of power over the Bible is literally saying "I am more authoritative than God". What sort of Theist will dare make such a silly claim? If anyone does, let him be anathema.


So the ironic thing is, whereas Catholics can prove neither their historicity, nor their authority, Jews can. Yet, though their claim to authority is stronger than that of the Catholic Church, it is nowhere near strong enough to claim authority over scripture. Why, then, do Catholics think this is a good argument? We find it easy to dismiss Jewish claims that Jesus is not the Risen Lord, even though they genuinely produced the scriptures. Why, then, would we accept any false claim of the Catholic Church, knowing full well that they did not?

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