How is "abstain from things strangled" not contradictory to "Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man"? The following words from the Lord seem to imply that men can eat all kinds of food:

Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man; but that which cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man (KJV, Matthew 15:11)
Not so, Lord; for I have never eaten any thing that is common or
unclean. And the voice spake unto him again the second time, What
God hath cleansed, that call not thou common (KJV, Аcts 10:14-15)

However, the Apostles' words addressed to the believers from among Gentiles seem to be not so liberal when it comes to food:

...abstain from meats offered to idols, and from blood, and from
things strangled (KJV, Аcts 15:29)
As touching the Gentiles which
believe, we have written and concluded that they observe no such
thing, save only that they keep themselves from things offered to
idols, and from blood, and from strangled (KJV, Аcts 21:25)

So, what the Lord said and what the Apostles wrote to the Gentile believers seem to be a bit contradicting. How are they not a contradiction? I am sure there should be an explanation here.

One way to come at this is not to treat it mathematically. When we treat natural language mathematically we are inclined to say none must mean 0% and all must mean 100%. However often when we use natural language there can be exceptions to statements (i.e. an implicit 'some' or other limitation on the statement). Such as when one says, "but everyone is saying it." It is unlikely that everyone thinks or says the same thing. Unfortunately I am not a linguist so the precise explanation for how natural language differs from mathematical language is currently beyond me.

Another way at this, from a scriptural viewpoint is to consider what Paul later wrote: "All things are lawful for me, but not all things are helpful." In light of this we could state that Jesus is saying it is lawful to eat any food. Later, caring for the flock, the apostles give guidance not to eat certain foods because, though not sinful, they may have a negative spiritual effect on the eater.

The foods in question are:

Food which has been offered to idols
Blood
Animals which have been strangled

Food which has been offered to idols ought to be avoided in case it causes problems for people of weak faith. There's a good article which addresses this question here. As the article points out (based on this scripture), there is actually no question of sin about eating such food, in itself, but one ought not to cause a brother or sister to stumble. This is particularly important when dealing with people that have a background where they offered food to idols and they are sensitive to it.

As for blood. Moses wrote not to eat it. But Jesus and Paul both affirmed that what we eat does not make us sinful. Here I am afraid I don't know the answer. However, I believe it involves the Christian being under grace, and not under law. The caveat is that there is a reason given with the command not to eat blood, which is that the life is in it. Even if the law has been superseded by the law of the Spirit, the underlying reason has not changed. So one might, along with the apostles, abstain from eating blood out of prudence.

As for eating strangled animals I am drawn in two directions: firstly, to apply the principle established in scripture that all foods are clean and then to consider that perhaps the apostles had some concern for us that I don't know of.

The second is to recall the story of Samson, the Nazirite. The nazirite vow included not going near dead bodies. However Samson had no regard for this, and touched a dead body. The LORD is slow to anger. But eventually Samson suffered greatly for not living as a Nazirite.

The reason I bring up this story about Samson is that we have a command from the apostles, given in the Spirit. I think that the reason they gave it was out of care for the flock. Like a mother's or father's commands these are not law, per se, but perhaps a graceful garland to be worn.


Was David mainly upset about Uzzah's death? In I Chronicles 13, why was David upset?  Was it mainly upset about Uzzah's death because of the amount of responsibility that came with being God's anointed and being responsible for the Ark of the Covenant?

Lets take a look at the Passage of Scripture and see if we might determine just what happened.

  1st Chronicles 13:5 through 12 KJV So David gathered all Israel together, from Shihor of Egypt even unto the entering of Hemath, to bring the ark of God from Kirjathjearim. And David went up, and all Israel, to Baalah, that is, to Kirjathjearim, which belonged to Judah, to bring up thence the ark of God the LORD, that dwelleth between the cherubims, whose name is called on it. And they carried the ark of God in a new cart out of the house of Abinadab: and Uzza and Ahio drave the cart. And David and all Israel played before God with all their might, and with singing, and with harps, and with psalteries, and with timbrels, and with cymbals, and with trumpets. And when they came unto the threshingfloor of Chidon, Uzza put forth his hand to hold the ark; for the oxen stumbled.
  And the anger of the LORD was kindled against Uzza, and he smote him, because he put his hand to the ark: and there he died before God. And David was displeased, because the LORD had made a breach upon Uzza: wherefore that place is called Perezuzza to this day. And David was afraid of God that day, saying, How shall I bring the ark of God home to me?

If I am reading this correctly David was not upset as much as he was afraid of God.

So the central question appears to be why was God so angry, and why was David afraid of God. So lets see if we can determine both of these reasons.

  1st Chronicles 13:3  And let us bring again the ark of our God to us: for we enquired not at it in the days of Saul.

According to this they had not even been trying to find the Ark of the covenant since the death of Saul which was some years after it was taken by the Philistines.

  1st Samuel 4:6 and 11 KJV And when the Philistines heard the noise of the shout, they said, What meaneth the noise of this great shout in the camp of the Hebrews? And they understood that the ark of the LORD was come into the camp.

  11 And the ark of God was taken; and the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, were slain.

Although it is not readily apparent from Scriptures it was quite a few years since it had been taken. The Ark of the Covenant was taken several years before Saul's death and it had been several years since Saul's death, as David was king of Judah for 7 years and 6 months before becoming King of all of Israel.

  2nd Samuel 2:11 KJV And the time that David was king in Hebron over the house of Judah was seven years and six months.

We are not told how many years David reigned over Israel until the Ark was sent back by the Philistines, but it was most probably several years.

Apparently over the years they had forgotten that God had given very strict instructions about how the Ark was to be transported and by whom. A situation which David later rectified.

  1st Chronicles 15:1 and 2  And David made him houses in the city of David, and prepared a place for the ark of God, and pitched for it a tent. Then David said, None ought to carry the ark of God but the Levites: for them hath the LORD chosen to carry the ark of God, and to minister unto him for ever.

And he also charged the Levites and Priests with properly transporting the Ark.

  1st Chronicles 15:12 and 13 And said unto them, Ye are the chief of the fathers of the Levites: sanctify yourselves, both ye and your brethren, that ye may bring up the ark of the LORD God of Israel unto the place that I have prepared for it. For because ye did it not at the first, the LORD our God made a breach upon us, for that we sought him not after the due order.

And when this was done properly the Ark was then transported to Jerusalem and placed in the tent David had built for it.

Hope this answers your question, but if you still have questions I will be glad to give you any other Scriptures which may clear it up for you.


Who started the Judensau image? I found about Judensau sculpture when I want to know deeper about Martin Luther. Below is a little bit information about Judensau I read from Wikipedia:

  A Judensau (German for "Jews' sow" is a folk art image
  of Jews in obscene contact with a large sow (female pig), which in
  Judaism is an unclean animal, that appeared during the 13th century in
  Germany and some other European countries

  The earliest appearance seems to be on the underside of a wooden
  choir-stall seat in Cologne Cathedral, dating to about 1210

  The arrangement of Jews surrounding, suckling, and having intercourse
  with the animal (sometimes regarded as the devil), is a mockery of
  Judaism and example of antisemitic propaganda.

I ask the question because I fail to guess which one is more probable between

Christians who are not in the government
Christians who are in the government
The Pope

Why does it seem that Martin Luther did not oppose Judensau? Who started the Judensau?

It seems that the Judensau developed primarily in Germany and in German speaking regions of Europe. Although the oldest known example of a Judensau that is still in existence, although badly weathered, is dated to about 1230 and located in the Cathedral of Brandenburg, there was no know general understanding of what Judensau meant prior to Martin Luther. Who started the Judenau is impossible to ascertain.

The weathered sculpture on Regensburg's cathedral

  The centerpieces of this essay are the infamous and public Judensau
  depictions of medieval Europe, statuary that frequently contained both scatological and COPROPHAGOUS elements. The known examples seem to have
  been in the German realm, even those now found in France, Switzerland,
  Poland, and Sweden; Poland and Sweden were under heavy German influence,
  if not actually populated by Germans.

  The depictions continue to exist even after almost eight centuries,
  though their locations and particulars are not well known. Not until the late
  Isaiah Shachar documented a variety of them did their presence and scope
  in the twentieth century become rediscovered.1 Because Shachar’s pamphlet
  is not generally available, I have created this summary of the subject,
  after visiting the Judensau shown in this essay.

  The Judensau had no standard form, except for an unclear connection
  of unknown origin between Jews and pigs. A Jew, frequently reading,
  might ride on the back of a pig, occasionally in a reversed position. Or else
  a Jew might embrace a pig, sometimes in a position that implied some form
  of copulatory behavior. One or more Jews, sometimes children, may be
  seen underneath the pig, suckling at its teats. There may be a Jew positioned
  behind the pig, being sprayed with or eating excrement, or drinking the
  pig’s urine, or pointing at the pig’s rectum. A Jew might be seen kissing the
  snout of the pig or the pig kissing a Jew.

  Though the term “Judensau” does not allow one to conclude either the
  reasons behind its creation or what its specific content might be depicting,
  the general subject was always the same—i.e., Jews and pigs in a derogatory
  portrayal.

  Rev. Martin Luther gave a personal interpretation of a specific Judensau,
  one still on public display in Wittenburg, Germany, described and
  shown below. Luther entirely invented perspective associated Jews with
  deviltry, while the filth of the pig was given as a metaphor for the Talmud.
  But prior to Luther’s description, there was no general understanding of
  what these Judensau meant, outside of relating a Jew and a pig in some
  unclear way. One interpretation that has been offered expresses the notion
  that the Jews belonged to the sow, the sow to the Jews—i.e., both were
  examples of an abominable category of filthy beings. While early Judensau
  representations may have been nothing more than a repulsive joke of which
  Jews were the targets, Luther’s interpretation has incorrectly often been
  applied retroactively to all Judensau carvings, statuary, and decorations. - JOURNAL FOR THE STUDY OF ANTISEMITISM (Vol. 2 Pages 393- 394).

Judenau of Wittenberg (Judensau 2010, Pages 402-404)

The Judenau seems to have developed in German speaking areas only, rather than one from English speaking regions. We can not say with any surety the origins of the Judensau, nor its' true original meaning at this point in time.

  One of the main questions remains why the Judensau developed primarily in the
  German speaking regions. Isaiah Shachar sees different readings and inter
  pretation of Biblical texts, an aligning of the swine with the Jews in Hrabanus
  Maurus’ De Universo, at the origin of the development, contrasting the German
  tradition with the English that is remarkably void of the Jew sow motif, in spite of the quite numerous examples of sows, often  with suckling piglets, in English churches and monasteries as well as in manuscripts of bestiaries. Both traditions share the idea of the filthiness of the swine, utilizing the animal to symbolize impurity, thus also serving as a symbol for heretics, and the vices of luxuria andgula, yet the sow with piglets seems to be a distinctive feature of the English manuscript illustration. Recently, Israel Yuval has launched the appealing theory that the Judensau motif derived from the vilification of the Messianic donkey, that it is, in fact, it's satiric opposite. - Laughter in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Times

It is not solely Christians who used the imagery of pig in a derogatory fashion.

  The pig as a derogatory image was neither reduced to Jews nor used exclusively by Christians. Both Christians and Jews equated Muslims to pigs. - Laughter in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Times Page 330,  Note #17


What is the Catholic Church's position on recreational marijuana use? Several US states have passed voter initiatives to allow recreational marijuana use for adults.  What is the Catholic Church’s official position on this issue?

Under Respect for health in Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2291 the Church teaches

  The use of drugs inflicts very grave damage on human health and
  life. Their use, except on strictly therapeutic grounds, is a grave
  offense. Clandestine production of and trafficking in drugs are
  scandalous practices. They constitute direct co-operation in evil,
  since they encourage people to practices gravely contrary to the moral
  law.

Thus the recreational use marijuana, considered a drug, would not be permissible.

And from the Vatican?

  Other churches take more of a hard-line approach to marijuana. The
  Catholic Church says that drugs "constitute direct co-operation in
  evil" and does not seem to make exceptions for marijuana. The Vatican
  has condemned legalizing "soft drugs" like marijuana, and its
  newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, recently scolded Italian lawmakers
  for liberalizing pot-possession laws. - Source: What Would Jesus
  Smoke? By Torie Bosch | Slate.

Please see also:

A real cure and prevention | On the campaigns to legalize drugs | L'Osservatore Romano, June 9, 2011.

  In this health emergency, the attempt to muddy the waters by
  classifying as a drug everything from wine to LSD is pathetic. So is
  the attempt to say that one need only know how to take them in
  moderation, without remembering that wine is a food nutrient and
  tobacco does not make you lose your head, but marijuana does. We are
  the first to be scandalized by the early consumption of tobacco and
  alcohol by young people and we ask for strong restrictions for youth
  and a clear campaign to dissuade binge drinking or the use of
  nicotine, but this does not mean that one needs to add a third
  disaster to the first two, especially at a time when the first two are
  showing signs of success.

And the first link below where Pope Francis is quoted as condemning the legalization of marijuana.

Please see also:

Pope Francis condemns legalization of marijuana | Google search.
AMERICA/URUGUAY - The legalization of marijuana will destroy family.
To Puff or Not to Puff, by NISSA LAPOINT | NCR.


What's the tradition behind hand holding during the Our Father at Mass? In traveling around my diocese I've noticed that there are some parishes that are hand-holders and some parishes that are non-hand-holders and some people in the non-hand-holder parishes who persist in hand holding and some people in the hand holder parishes who abstain from hand holding.

Also, there are some parishes where it is common to raise up your hands together for the doxology of the prayer. And some parishes where even unheld hands are held up like the priest does.

I know that pure imitation of the priest isn't good (his hands are blessed, mine aren't), but what I don't know is if spontaneous hand holding by the congregation is totally licit and where the tradition came from.

My mom told me it was, "something Protestants did in the 60's that Catholic's picked up on" is that all it is?  Was there ever a Bishop who told his diocese to hold hands or not to hold hands?

It is not a prescribed part of the liturgy, and appears to be an accretion from Protestant tradition. One authoritative source says

To find the rubrics (regulations which govern the Mass) concerning these gestures, one may turn to the General Instruction of the Roman Missal (1970), On Holy Communion and the Worship of the Eucharistic Mystery Outside of Mass (1973), Instruction on the Worship of the Eucharistic Mystery (1980), and Instruction on Certain Norms Concerning the Worship of the Eucharistic Mystery (1980).
However, in all of the liturgical documents for the universal Church or of those particular ones issued by the United States Bishops Conference, no where is the holding of hands during the Lord's Prayer mandated. Frankly, this gesture arose among the various liturgical innovations in the aftermath of Vatican Council II.

He goes on to surmise (probably accurately)

Perhaps the holding of hands was introduced with good intentions to highlight the unity of the congregation as they pray, "Our Father," not "My Father."

As you say, there are those whose attitude towards the practice ranges from uneasiness to revulsion, and for those people the practice must be counter-productive!
That same commentator goes on to explain why it's not even necessary.

The unity that is sought really comes later and after a spiritual progression: First, we fall on our knees as the priest offers the sacrifice of the Mass: we recall not only our Lord's passion, death, and resurrection but also our need as individuals to offer ourselves to Him. Second, we pray in the words our Savior taught us, the Lord's Prayer, in which we ask, "Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us," even the person next to us in the pew. Third, we offer the Sign of Peace, a gesture found in the earliest Masses to show a genuine unity based on peace and forgiveness. Finally, we receive Holy Communion, which truly brings us into communion with our Lord and with each other. Looking at the logic of this spiritual progression to real unity, the holding of hands at the Our Father is extraneous.

At least one bishop is reported to have explicitly discouraged the practice:

WCPO reports that Bishop Foys [of Covington KY] wrote:

Special note should also be made concerning the gesture for the Our Father. Only the priest is given the instruction to "extend" his hands. Neither the deacon nor the lay faithful are instructed to do this. No gesture is prescribed for the lay faithful in the Roman Missal ; nor the General Instruction of the Roman Missal , therefore the extending or holding of hands by the faithful should not be performed.


How can 1 Corinthians 15:3 be reconciled with Calvinism and limited atonement? I have been studying the 5 Points of Calvinism (TULIP) for some time and I can say that I accept 4 out of 5.

My biggest problem with Calvinism is the doctrine of Limited Atonement that says Jesus died only for the elect. I find this view highly opposed to the Scriptures. I tried pretty hard to reconcile this doctrine with Scripture but it was too hard, there are too many places where it says that Jesus died for the whole world/all/everyone and those can be explained. What really made me lose faith in this doctrine is Paul telling to the Corinthians what the GOSPEL is:

  1 Corinthians 15:1–4 (NIV)
  Now, brothers and sisters, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. 2 By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain.  3 For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures,

It is clear that the gospel contains "Christ died for our sins". "OUR" in this context can refer to the elect but this preaching of the gospel was made before they accepted it so Paul told them (before they accepted it) that Jesus died for their sins.

So when we preach the gospel it is clear that we should say "Jesus died for your sins".

Some will say that Calvinists that believe the doctrine of Limited Atonement believe in a false gospel. I won't dare to say this for I know there are a lot of godly people who are Reformed (James White, Jeff Durbin, Paul Washer, etc)

Is there any way to reconcile 1 Corinthians 15:3 with Reformed Theology?

Thank you very much for taking the time to read this. :)

I've looked in numerous systematic theologies and books on evangelism written by Calvinists, and none of them address this particular issue, even though they address many other challenging verses related to the doctrine of limited atonement.

There are probably two reasons for this:

Some Calvinists are okay with saying "Christ died for your sins" to people who are not currently saved.
Paul's summary in this passage doesn't logically require that he originally preached, without conditions, "Christ died for your sins."

Regarding the first point, here's how Wayne Grudem puts it:

  I do not think we should rush to criticize an evangelist who tells an audience of unbelievers, ‘Christ died for your sins,’ if it is made clear in the context that it is necessary to trust in Christ before one can receive the
  benefits of the gospel offer. In that sense the sentence is simply understood to mean ‘Christ died to offer you forgiveness for your sins’ or ‘Christ died to make available forgiveness for your sins.’ The important point here is that sinners realize that salvation is available for everyone and that payment of sins is available for everyone. (Systematic Theology, 601)

Of course, other Calvinists disagree with him (he spends a fair amount of space in his ST dealing with this debate).  So then how about our second point?  Is there another way to understand what Paul is saying here?

There is.  Let's look at the verse again, skipping over a few parts:

  I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand [...]. 3 For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins [...]. (ESV)

It's not actually logically necessary to draw the conclusion that you did.  Paul is clearly addressing believers here, people for whom Christ died.  When he preached to them, he could have said things that all Calvinists are fine with:

"Christ died for the sins of those who believe in him"
"Christ died for the sins of the elect"
"If you repent and believe, Christ's death cleanses you of your sins"

But now, because he is addressing only those who actually repented and believed, it's fine for him to say "Christ died for our sins."  This isn't inconsistent –
 it's simply referring to the current state of the current audience, and isn't a direct quote.

Here's a (sacreligious) example.  A coach says to two sports teams, "If you win, you get a trophy."  Then the two teams play, and one wins.  Then the coach says, "Congratulations winning team.  Here's the trophy I promised you."  It's obvious that the coach hasn't lied here.  Why not?  Because he doesn't need to repeat the condition of the promise (winning) when addressing those who met that condition (the winning team).

In the same way, Paul can simply be understood here as saying, "Believers, as promised, Christ died for our sins."   Like the coach, he doesn't need to repeat the condition of the promise (repent and believe) when addressing those who met that condition (believers).

All that to say – we can't logically exclude the possibility that Paul used conditional language (if you are elect, if you repent and believe) in his original preaching to the Corinthians.


Who says, "If you are going to Heaven, you will know it"? I heard from some preachers(not prominent) that assurance of going to Heaven is a self-consciousness. You yourself will have the evident, proof or confident that you are indeed going to heaven. If you are saved and are going to Heaven, you will know it. Some kind of consciousness will occur to you that Heaven is yours. Also, if you are not sure of your entry to Heaven, it means that you are not actually saved and are not going to Heaven at all. If you are saved you will know for sure that you are and if you have doubt about your afterlife, you are not saved at all.

Is there any prominent preachers or theologians who teaches that having no confidence about our afterlife implies that we are not actually saved?

The only prominent preacher I could find was Paul:

Hebrews 11 speaks of faith and even faith that leads to a “good report”.  What follows is Hebrews abbreviated to focus on the distinction of this question.  Do we have the benefit of assurance that was not available prior to the completed work of the cross?

  Hebrews 11 Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. This is what the ancients were commended for. By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible…By faith Abraham…was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God…All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth…they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them…These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised, since God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect.

So faith and faith’s effectiveness in a relationship with God has ever been extended to mankind.  We who live on the other side of the cross are not unique because of our heavenly destination but that we have received the promise; we have the benefit of knowing whom to serve as Lord.  And as a result of Christ’s finished work on the cross we uniquely have the benefit of the Holy Spirits presence within our heart.  This unique presence of the promise enables Christ to be made manifest through our lives.

Faith in God’s grace saves the soul of mankind, assurance of God’s grace within the heart of mankind comes when we become less and He (Christ) becomes more, when we take up our cross and follow Him.

Evidence of His presence in our lives gives us assurance that we belong to Him, we are no longer our own.


How did Moses write the events which happened ~2000 years before him? Except the book of Genesis, I believe that it is possible to make some plausible possibilities on how the books of the Bible were written. Moses wrote about himself, Joshua recorded his conquest of Canaan, some priests or prophets recorded the stories of Gideon, Samson and Ruth. Samuel recorded the events in his lifetime, historians recorded the chronicles of the kings of Israel, prophets wrote down their visions and messages from God, the apostles recorded the life of Jesus, apostles wrote letters and John wrote down his visions.

Now, I can't make any hypothesis how Moses could write down the stories which were around 2000 years before him. The Creation story where no one was there to witness is the most astounding account. Genesis contains many complicated contents such as the years of the first men, thousands of names, complicated family trees, detail stories of people and such.

How have historians and theologians explained how Moses wrote the Book of Genesis?

Pretty clearly, there has to be a mixture of revelation and tradition in Genesis. There are several time periods written about in Genesis, and these should be examined individually:

Creation

Clearly the only observer to the Creation was the Creator. (Or no-one if you are disinclined to believe in a Creator, but from a Christian perspective, no one other than the Creator is even claimed to be present.)  That said, it is not unreasonable to assume that the Creator spoke to Adam about his Creation process, and that an oral tradition would have developed around it.

Seeing as we exist, and most people are going to ask 'How we came to be' at some point, it is very easy to assume that a narrative tradition would have been passed down at some point. Indeed, pretty much every culture has a narrative myth of some kind - the Egyptians, for example, thought the world was masturbated into existence - passed down from generation to generation.

Thus the fact that there is a Creation story is not unique.  That the world is created ex nihilo is, however, usually attributed uniquely to the Jews. That alone is a sufficiently startling claim to either be passed down or be something revealed. The startling dissimilarity to other local myths leads many scholars to assume something difference happened to the Jews - regardless of the scholar's status of belief.  This culture either composed something unique or was given a special revelation.  Which it is a clearly a matter of faith in either direction.
Antedeluvian Period of Cain & Abel, Enoch, the Flood, and Babel

One could ask how we "know" that William Wallace tried to liberate Scotland against the rule of Edward Longshanks.  The paper records are scant, but the story is strong and compelling - much like the tales of Genesis 1 - 12.  Indeed, many scholars see this as a special case within Bible, and so if any part of Scripture is going to be questioned for its historical value, it is this one.

That said, it is not an impossibility that this faithfully records the witness of the period.  Indeed, the "list of kings" in Genesis 5 bears a striking resemblence to the historical record of the Sumerian kings of antiquity, lending credence to the idea of traditional narrative being passed down. Christians obviously disagree over how to read Scripture as a whole but there is no compelling archeological or extrabiblical evidence in either direction.

Indeed even "dialog" from these Pilgrim and Settler experiences is "documented", in much the same fashion as appears in these stories, showing that tradition can be documented in an "historical" fashion, even if not with the same precision as modern historians can do with modern history.
The Abrahamic Narrative (Genesis 13 - 50)

By the time of Abraham in Genesis, a qualitative difference appears in Genesis.  While 2000 years of history is glossed over in scant detail in the first 12 chapters, the remainder of the book concentrates on just 4 generations of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph.  The events here probably may take place around 1800 - 1700 BC, and begin to take a much more detailed perspective.  Here, for example, we know the names of all the children and the wives.  We learn about their rivalries and their rise to power.

The situation, from Moses' perspective, would be much more akin to that of a modern American to say, the Pilgrims and Myles Standish, or the founding of Jamestown and Pocohantas.  As part of the founding mythos of Moshe's culture, it is not all surprising that these events would be part of family history, passed down from generation to generation.  And, if Moses lead his people out of Egypt in 1440BC, it would be surprising the history - especially in an oral culture - had not been passed down.  Here, no revelation would have been necessary, as it would have been as common knowledge as say, George Washington "chopping down a cherry tree".

Thus, in sum, Moshe probably would have relied on a combination of passed on historical narrative and special revelation in order to write about the things that happened before him.  But we do the same things today, so it isn't surprising in the least.


According to the Catholic Church, are Jews saved without faith in Jesus? According to recent news stories, the Vatican has issued a report saying that Jews can be saved without faith in Jesus (see for example here).

This sounds very strange, so my questions are:

Does this report really say that Jews can be saved without faith in Jesus?
What is meant by "saved" here? I would assume that it means "going to heaven". Is that correct?
If indeed this report says that Jews can go to heaven (be saved) without any faith in Jesus, then how does this fit with what the Catholic church has taught in the past?

Paragraphs 35 and 36 of the document discussed by the news article you've linked to state (emphasis mine):

Since God has never revoked his covenant with his people Israel, there cannot be different paths or approaches to God’s salvation. The theory that there may be two different paths to salvation, the Jewish path without Christ and the path with the Christ, whom Christians believe is Jesus of Nazareth, would in fact endanger the foundations of Christian faith. Confessing the universal and therefore also exclusive mediation of salvation through Jesus Christ belongs to the core of Christian faith. So too does the confession of the one God, the God of Israel, who through his revelation in Jesus Christ has become totally manifest as the God of all peoples, insofar as in him the promise has been fulfilled that all peoples will pray to the God of Israel as the one God (cf. Is 56:1-8). The document "Notes on the correct way to present the Jews and Judaism in preaching and catechesis in the Roman Catholic Church" published by the Holy See’s Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews in 1985 therefore maintained that the Church and Judaism cannot be represented as "two parallel ways to salvation", but that the Church must "witness to Christ as the Redeemer for all" (No.I, 7). The Christian faith confesses that God wants to lead all people to salvation, that Jesus Christ is the universal mediator of salvation, and that there is no "other name under heaven given to the human race by which we are to be saved" (Acts 4:12).

From the Christian confession that there can be only one path to salvation, however, it does not in any way follow that the Jews are excluded from God’s salvation because they do not believe in Jesus Christ as the Messiah of Israel and the Son of God. Such a claim would find no support in the soteriological understanding of Saint Paul, who in the Letter to the Romans not only gives expression to his conviction that there can be no breach in the history of salvation, but that salvation comes from the Jews (cf. also Jn 4:22). God entrusted Israel with a unique mission, and He does not bring his mysterious plan of salvation for all peoples (cf. 1 Tim 2:4) to fulfillment without drawing into it his "first-born son" (Ex 4:22). From this it is self-evident that Paul in the Letter to the Romans definitively negates the question he himself has posed, whether God has repudiated his own people. Just as decisively he asserts: "For the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable" (Rom 11:29). That the Jews are participants in God’s salvation is theologically unquestionable, but how that can be possible without confessing Christ explicitly, is and remains an unfathomable divine mystery. It is therefore no accident that Paul’s soteriological reflections in Romans 9-11 on the irrevocable redemption of Israel against the background of the Christ-mystery culminate in a magnificent doxology: "Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How inscrutable are his judgments and how unsearchable his ways" (Rom 11:33). Bernard of Clairvaux (De cons. III/I,3) says that for the Jews "a determined point in time has been fixed which cannot be anticipated".

In summary, it appears that the document reiterates previously published Catholic documents that while the Jews are saved through Christ, their "participation" in the salvation of God is not a result of faith in Christ Jesus as Messiah but rather of the promises that God has made to them, which are irrevocable. Since this is contrary to the traditional understanding of salvation through faith and confession in Jesus Messiah, the document refers to the salvation of the Jews through Christ as a mystery. We continue to read in paragraph 37:

Here we confront the mystery of God’s work, which is not a matter of missionary efforts to convert Jews, but rather the expectation that the Lord will bring about the hour when we will all be united, "when all peoples will call on God with one voice and ‘serve him shoulder to shoulder’.

The document does reiterate the Vatican II position on organized mission work directed toward Jews in paragraph 40:

It is easy to understand that the so–called ‘mission to the Jews’ is a very delicate and sensitive matter for Jews because, in their eyes, it involves the very existence of the Jewish people. This question also proves to be awkward for Christians, because for them the universal salvific significance of Jesus Christ and consequently the universal mission of the Church are of fundamental importance. The Church is therefore obliged to view evangelisation to Jews, who believe in the one God, in a different manner from that to people of other religions and world views. In concrete terms this means that the Catholic Church neither conducts nor supports any specific institutional mission work directed towards Jews.

For a thorough exposition of the Roman Catholic doctrines concerning salvation, please read the article on that topic at CARM.
As for the history of relations between Catholicism and Judaism and the Roman Catholic Church's teachings, please read the Wikipedia article on that subject as a touchstone. It appears that the Catholic Church's teachings on the subject have been constant over the ages, and that Vatican II (1962 - 1965) was a turning point in the Vatican's position on the salvation of the Jews, as it was on many other doctrines. Specifically, the document titled Nostra Aetate deals with doctrines concerning the Jewish people. The Wikipedia article, which offers a brief historical background and a few modern considerations, states:

A new understanding of the relationship between Catholics and Jews is also reflected in the revised liturgy of Good Friday in a particular way. The pre-1962 version of the Good Friday Prayer of the Roman Rite had Catholics praying that the "perfidis Judaeis" might be converted to "the truth." The English cognate "perfidious" had, over the centuries, gradually acquired the sense of "treacherous." In order to eliminate misunderstanding on this point, Pope Pius XII ordered in 1955 that, in Catholic liturgical books, the Latin word "perfidis" be properly translated "unbelieving", ensuring that the prayer be understood in its original sense: praying for the Jews who remained "unbelieving" concerning the Messiah. Indeed, the same adjective was used in many of the ancient rituals for receiving non-Christian converts into the Catholic Church.

Here are excerpts from the two Good Friday prayers, before Vatican II,

Let us pray likewise for the unbelieving Jews: that the Lord our God may remove from their hearts the veil of unbelief: and that they may come to the knowledge of Jesus Christ our Lord.

...and after:

Let us pray
For the Jewish people,
The first to hear the word of God,
That they may continue to grow in the love of his name
And in faithfulness to his covenant.

The document under discussion is no new thing, but is meant to be a reflection upon Nostra Aetate on the fiftieth anniversary of its publication. Historically, the change in doctrine toward the salvation of the Jews represented by that document appears to be a recent and legitimate about-face from Tradition, since Church Fathers, Magisterial congregations, and Popes as recent as the twentieth century, have made clear statements that while the Jews should be especially protected from persecution, they can not be justified by their ancestry alone but only by conversion to the Universal Faith.
Again from Wikipedia,

Around 598, in reaction to anti-Jewish attacks by Christians in Palermo, Pope Gregory the Great (c 540–604) brought Augustine's teachings into Roman Law, by writing a Papal Bull which became the foundation of Catholic doctrine in relation to the Jews and specified that, although the Jews had not accepted salvation through Christ, and were therefore condemned by God until such time as they accept salvation, Christians were nevertheless duty-bound to protect the Jews as an important part of Christian civilization. The Bull said that Jews should be treated equitably and justly, that their property rights should be protected, and that they should keep their own festivals and religious practices. Thus, in the Papal States, Jews enjoyed a level of protection in law.


Why was Jesus asleep during the storm? In the Bible, it is said that Jesus was asleep in the boat during the storm.  What is the reason?

Psalm 107:23-29 (DRB)
They that go down to the sea in ships, doing business in the great waters: 24 These have seen the works of the Lord, and his wonders in the deep. 25 He said the word, and there arose a storm of wind: and the waves thereof were lifted up. 26 They mount up to the heavens, and they go down to the depths: their soul pined away with evils. 27 They were troubled, and reeled like a drunken man; and all their wisdom was swallowed up. 28 And they cried to the Lord in their affliction: and he brought them out of their distresses. 29 And he turned the storm into a breeze: and its waves were still.

Here in the Psalms, God is portrayed as testing His redeemed, by willing there to rise a storm and that they would cry out to Him. I see nothing else here in Matthew 8 than this. We would be 'slow of heart' not to see the intended parallel:
(Ps. 107:25-28)

"there arose a storm of wind: and the waves thereof were lifted up.
They mount up to the heavens, and they go down to the depths: their
soul pined away with evils."

(Mk. 4:37-38)

"And there arose a great storm of wind, and the waves beat into the
ship, so that the ship was filled. 38 And he was in the hinder part of
the ship, sleeping upon a pillow; and they awake him, and say to him:
Master, doth it not concern thee that we perish?;"

(Ps. 107:28-29)

"and he brought them out of their distresses. 29 And he turned the
storm into a breeze: and its waves were still;"

(Mk. 4:39)

"And rising up, he rebuked the wind, and said to the sea: Peace, be
still. And the wind ceased: and there was made a great calm."


What does 'first estate' mean in Jude 1:6 (KJV)? Jude 1:6 (emphasis mine):

  And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day.

This verse references a topics that are not thoroughly covered in the Bible (Enoch, Michael, etc). I haven't found the term 'first estate' in the Bible anywhere else, and other translations don't provide much clarity for me.

What are we to understand by the phrase, 'first estate', and who are those angels that did not keep it?

Note:

Just so there's no speculation, I come from an LDS background.  My motivation for asking this question is to know how those outside of my faith understand by this verse, but answers consistent with LDS theology are also welcome.

The Strong's for this is:

  archē
  ar-khay'
  From G756; (properly abstract) a commencement, or (concrete) chief (in various applications of order, time, place or rank): - beginning, corner, (at the, the) first (estate), magistrate, power, principality, principle, rule.

Sounds like it means they gave up their rank or position, in addition to their "habitation" (residence) in exchange for some wicked thing they desired. Now, as a result, they are enjoying their 2nd estate--in chains.


Christian founding of American colonies Were most of the initial founders of the North American colonies really dissident Christians fleeing religious persecution in Europe? I've heard it said a number of times, but I wondered if it is actually the case.

Depends on the colony -

Maryland was most assuredly a refuge for Catholics.
Pennsylvania was explicitly for Quakers under William Penn.
Massachusetts was founded by Puritans & Baptists who had already escaped once to Holland. The Mayflower Compact (linked above) was an explicitly religious document signed by members of a wayward sect who trying to get to Virginia, but couldn't navigate...
Rhode Island was founded by Roger Williams, escaping persecution in Massachusetts (drum roll please!)

In contrast,

New York was all about money from the get-go.  The Dutch didn't really do the religious persecution thing that much.
Georgia was basically a debtor's prison.
My own native Virginia was all about tobacco. Read John Smith's biography if you don't believe me.

Generically, historians have posited there are two influences in American development - God and Mammon.  God is a more northerly thing, and the explanation goes that is the reason the Northeast tends to be more "socialistic" or paternal in its governance.  By contrast, the South was a more money-based thing, in which laisez-faire economics would be more valued - hence Texas' reputation as the reddest of the red states, and Massachusetts' as a blustery blue*.

Finally, the Spanish influence ostensibly mixed both Religion and Money - but in no event was it the persecuted fleeing Europe. Rather, it was the establishment church in much of the West and in Florida that at least came along for the ride.

A decent primer on this is "How the States Got Their Shapes," an amazing book and an okay TV Show

So, short answer - depends on where you're talking.

And now for the obligatory hand-grenade: (Meaning, I'm being a bit tounge-in-cheek here)

*Personally, I've always thought these colors were backwards, as I used to think of Massachusetts as a pinko-communist sort of place....


Does Pope Francis want Catholics to pray both new prayers at the end of the Rosary or just one or the other? So this question might be rather meaningless in a few months, but I figured I might as well ask here in case someone can parse the Pope's meaning

The Holy Father said:

  I am also providing two prayers to Our Lady that you can recite at the end of the Rosary, and that I myself will pray in the month of May, in spiritual union with all of you.  I include them with this letter so that they are available to everyone. - Letter on the Month of May - Full text, including prayers

I know lots of times there are prayers that go at the end of some offices where they're "pray this today and that the other day" and they don't give much more guidance.  It just doesn't make much sense to me to add two prayers to the end of a 20 minute mediation, why not just call it one long prayer?

Anyway, I'm guessing nobody knows the answer to this without asking the Pope, but if there's any similarity to other special prayers, that might answer the question too.

It is obvious by the text that the Holy Father is encouraging the faithful to recite both prayers at the end of the Rosary. However, the pope is simply making this a recommendation in order to help end the pandemic of the covid-19 situation. The faithful may say one or the other, maybe even both of them or neither one at all.

Some are already praying the Holy Rosary to help end the coronavirus pandemic, without these two suggested prayers of Pope Francis. Some will no doubt continue to do so as that is what they are accustomed to do.

As for myself, I will be making the invocation (3 times) Sancta Corona, ora pro nobis (St. Corona, pray for us) at the end of each decade during the Marian Month of May. St. Corona’s Feast day fall mid way during this month (May 14).

For myself, I prefer something that is simple and neither has to be read or memorized.

Nota Bene: On May 3,2020, Pope Francis asked ‘believers of all religions’ to pray, fast, engage in charitable works on May 14 (Vatican Press Office) which happens to be the feast day of St. Corona!

Pope Francis never mentioned any connection that the May 14th date was also the feast day of St. Corona.


Relative popularity of premillenialism, postmillennialism and amillennialism in North America (excluding Catholics and Orthodox)? There has been some discussion on SE about the differences between the various schools of eschatological thought surrounding the 1000 years ('the millennium') described in Revelation chapter 20. I am interested in the relative popularity of these different views amongst North American Christians who are not Catholic or from one of the Eastern Orthodox churches (since these groups are well documented in terms of populations, and have always been amillennialist in outlook).

While some have made claims along the lines of, e.g., "school X has been hemorrhaging members for the last 20 years" etc, this is usually tendentious. I have found it very difficult to find actual statistics and other hard facts about the numbers of adherents these four-ish schools below (premillennialism itself could be divided up and counted as five separate schools of their own!) and their sub-categories have, and how they are changing over time relative to each other:

preterism: considers that all events discussed in Revelation (and the rest of the NT) have already occurred historically, and the 1000 years does not refer to any future events. Common amongst some mainline Protestant groups.
premillennial dispensationalism: considers that believers will be gathered up to heaven in a rapture which could occur at any moment, following which 7 years of tribulation will occur, followed by the Second Coming which will precipitate 1000 literal years of Jesus' rule on earth. This has four sub-categories: pre-Tribulation, post-Tribulation, mid-Tribulation and pre-Wrath, based on differing views about the timing of the rapture in relation to the tribulation. Particularly popular amongst conservative Evangelical groups.
historic premillennialism: same as above, but does not posit a separation between church and the Jewish people, and little emphasis on different 'dispensations' or particular time periods wherein God works differently. Popular amongst a variety of groups.
postmillennialism: the 1000 years is a general description of the post-Resurrection world, where the church will continue to increase until the entire world gradually becomes the Kingdom of God, whereupon the Second Coming will occur. No rapture. A common view amongst Calvinist groups and Christian Reconstructionists, but not limited to them.
amillennialism: the 1000 years is symbolic and does not refer to any actual time period, and there is no rapture, just the Second Coming only. The standard view of Christianity (both Western and Eastern), until the Protestant Reformation. It is still the standard in Catholicism and Orthodoxy, and some mainline Protestant groups.

Can anyone provide any information as to (1) the (rough) numbers of people who support these various views today, and (2) whether these populations have changed significantly over the last 30 years, say since 1980 and (3) what the major drivers possibly underlying such changes could be? (E.g., premillennial dispensationalism was extremely popular across all of North America during the early 20th century [linked to the Scofield Reference Bible], and had another spike in appeal during the 60s and 70s [aided by the Arab-Israeli wars], but seems to have declined since then - perhaps, since my info is anecdotal at best).

I don't believe that a comprehensive answer to this question is possible at this time.
Many denominations refrain from even identifying a preferred eschatological position, let alone require their adherants to support it, so adherence statistics won't cut the mustard. To answer the question properly would require professional surveying on eschatological views. The organization most likely to do have done this is the Pew Research Centre, and they don't seem to have been asking the specific questions that would pin down a person's views sufficiently; the closest related questions that I could find that they have been asking are:

Do you believe in the second coming of Jesus Christ--that is, that Jesus will return to earth someday, or don't you believe this? -- Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life/Pew Research Center for the People & the Press Survey, Jul, 2006

and

Some people say that the state of Israel is a fulfillment of the biblical prophesy about the second coming of Jesus. Do you believe that this is true, or not? -- Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life/Pew Research Center for the People & the Press Survey, Jul, 2003  & 2006

These questions are not only insufficient to pin down eschatological views into the desired categories, but they haven't been maintained within their annual survey.
This leaves more ad hoc surveys with questionable sampling methods, like this one that gives figures for Evangelicals:

A majority of evangelical leaders believe that Jesus Christ will return to earth and then reign with his followers for 1,000 years, a new survey shows.
This end times theology is called premillennialism and 65 percent of surveyed evangelical leaders identify with it.
As part of its monthly poll, the National Association of Evangelicals surveyed its board of directors, which include the CEOs of denominations and representatives of a broad array of evangelical organizations, on their eschatological beliefs.
"It’s in our human nature to want to prepare ourselves – physically, emotionally, spiritually – for what might be ahead," said NAE President Leith Anderson.
The poll, released this week, found that 13 percent of those surveyed are amillennialists – believing that the non-literal millennial reign of Christ is happening now as Christ reigns at the right hand of the Father.
Four percent believe Christ's second coming will occur after the 1,000-year period during which the nations will be progressively converted to Christianity. This is postmillennial theology.
Seventeen percent, meanwhile, identify with "other" end times theology.
-- Christian Post, Poll: What Evangelical Leaders Believe about the End Times, Christian Post Reporter Audrey Barrick, March 9, 2011 (emphasis added)


How do Reformed Protestants interpret Matthew 18:18? How do Reformed Protestants interpret Matthew 18:18?

Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. - Matthew 18:18

I am seeking answers from Christians under the Reformed Protestant denomination (e.g. Presbyterian, Calvinists) which upholds onto the 5 solas of the Reformation (sola fide, sola christus, sola scriptura, sola gratia, sola deo gloria)

Calvin writes a commentary which address this passage in some detail. He summarises it as follows:

The substance of it is this: Whoever, after committing a crime, humbly confesses his fault, and entreats the Church to forgive him, is absolved not only by men, but by God himself; and, on the other hand, whoever treats with ridicule the reproofs and threatenings of the Church, if he is condemned by her, the decision which men have given will be ratified in heaven.

Calvin's point is that since Christ is the head of the church, the church does Christ's will. If the church chooses to forgive or reject, that is because Christ has chosen to forgive or reject.

For, though Christ alone is the Judge of the world, yet he chooses to have ministers to proclaim his word. Besides, he wishes that his own decision should be pronounced by the Church; and thus he takes nothing from his own authority by employing the ministry of men, but it is Himself alone that looses and binds.

Calvin continues to discuss several objections to and particulars of this teaching, which I won't repeat here.


What is the biblical and traditional support for the Catholic Marian devotion? In this answer it was stated that the Bible does support Marian devotion, which the Catholics practice.

In Luke, Mary says "all generations will call me blessed." I can see how this lends credence to Marian devotion, however, I think it is taking more than is given when you start saying things like "She is the Mediatrix of All Graces! She is the Cause of our Joy! She is the Singular Vessel of Devotion!"

So is there more to the Marian devotion as given by the Bible? For such devotion that the Catholics give her I would think there should be. Of course, since I am asking Catholics, I would permit using the other Catholic books, if there is something to be found in them.

Perhaps this should be another question, but if answers to the first are not enough in content I would permit how early Church fathers spoke of Mary as support for the Marian devotion. I would like to see if they said anything similar "cause of our Joy" or mediatrix of all graces." I would prefer writings from as early as possible. I would say later than AD 500 is too late.

Below are some links for a comprehensive "Bible study" about the doctrines and devotions of Catholic Marian theology. They also include many passages from the writings of early Church Fathers. I also highly recommend reading "Hail, Holy Queen" written by Dr. Scott Hahn.

The first 6 links establish a foundation for the Catholic doctrines pertaining to the veneration of Mary from both Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition.

Examples of scripture passages that impliclty/explicitly pertain to “devotion:”

1 Kings 2:19 - in the Old Testament Davidic kingdom the King bows down to his mother and she sits at his right hand. We, as children of the New Covenant, should imitate our King and pay the same homage to Mary our Mother. By honoring Mary, we honor our King, Jesus Christ.

John 2:7 - Jesus allows His mother to intercede for the people on His behalf, and responds to His mother's request by ordering the servants to fill the jars with water.
Matt. 2:11 - Luke emphasizes Jesus is with Mary His Mother, and the magi fall down before both of them, worshiping Jesus.

Luke 1:28 - "Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you." These are the words spoken by God and delivered to us by the angel Gabriel (who is a messenger of God). Thus, when Catholics recite this verse while praying the Rosary, they are uttering the words of God.

Luke 1:28 - also, the phrase "full of grace" is translated from the Greek word "kecharitomene." This is a unique title given to Mary, and suggests a perfection of grace from a past event. Mary is not just "highly favored." She has been perfected in grace by God. "Full of grace" is only used to describe one other person - Jesus Christ in John 1:14.

Luke 1:38 - Mary's fiat is "let it be done to me according to thy word." Mary is the perfect model of faith in God, and is worthy of our veneration.

Luke 1:42 - "Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus." The phrase "blessed are you among women" really means "you are most blessed of all women." A circumlocution is used because there is no superlative in the Greek language. Note also that Elizabeth praises Mary first, and then Jesus. This is hyperdulia (but not latria which is worship owed to God alone). We too can go through Mary to praise Jesus. Finally, Catholics repeat these divinely inspired words of Elizabeth in the Rosary.

Luke 1:43 - Elizabeth's use of "Mother of my Lord" (in Hebrew, Elizabeth used "Adonai" which means Lord God) is the equivalent of "Holy Mary, Mother of God" which Catholics pray in the Rosary. The formula is simple: Jesus is a divine person, and this person is God. Mary is Jesus' Mother, so Mary is the mother of God (Mary is not just the Mother of Jesus' human nature - mothers are mothers of persons, not natures).

Luke 1:44 - Mary's voice causes John the Baptist to leap for joy in Elizabeth's womb. Luke is teaching us that Mary is our powerful intercessor.

Examples of devotion to Mary from  Church Fathers:

"Under your mercy we take refuge, O Mother of God. Do not reject our supplications in necessity, but deliver us from danger,[O you] alone pure and alone blessed." Sub Tuum Praesidium, From Rylands Papyrus, Egypt (3rd century).

"Recalling these and other circumstances and imploring the Virgin Mary to bring assistance, since she, too, was a virgin and had been in danger, she entrusted herself to the remedy of fasting and sleeping on the ground." Gregory of Nazianzen, Oration 24:11 (A.D. 379)

"Mary, the holy Virgin, is truly great before God and men. For how shall we not proclaim her great, who held within her the uncontainable One, whom neither heaven nor earth can contain?" Epiphanius, Panarion, 30:31 (ante A.D. 403).

"Hail, our desirable gladness; Hail, O rejoicing of the Churches; Hail, O name that breathes out sweetness; Hail, face that radiates divinity and grace; Hail, most venerable memory…" Theodotus of Ancrya, Homily 4:3 (ante A.D. 446).

http://scripturecatholic.com/blessed_virgin_mary.html#the_bvm-I
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15464b.htm
http://www.catholicapologetics.org/ap080400.htm
http://www.catholicapologetics.org/ap080300.htm
http://zuserver2.star.ucl.ac.uk/~vgg/rc/aplgtc/hahn/m4/ma.html
http://www.cin.org/users/james/files/key2mary.htm

The next 6 links are simply compilations of writings from the Church Fathers addressing official Catholic teaching.  The 3rd link down specifically pertains to early Marian devotion, which specifically addresses the question of what the “pre-medieval” Church Fathers taught about devotion to Mary.

Examples:

"O noble Virgin, truly you are greater than any other greatness. For who is your equal in greatness, O dwelling place of God the Word? To whom among all creatures shall I compare you, O Virgin? You are greater than them all O Covenant, clothed with purity instead of gold! You are the Ark in which is found the golden vessel containing the true manna, that is, the flesh in which divinity resides."
Athanasius, Homily of the Papyrus of Turin,71:216(ante AD 373),in MCF,106

"Hail to thee Mary, Mother of God, to whom in towns and villages and in island were founded churches of true believers"
Cyril of Alexandria, Homily 11(ante AD 444),in CE

"O Virgin all holy, he who has said of you all that is honorable and glorious has not sinned against the truth, but remains unequal to your merit. Look down upon us from above and be propitious to us. Lead us in peace and having brought us without shame to the throne of judgment, grant us a place at the right hand of your Son, that we may borne off to heaven and sing with angels to the uncreated, consubstantial Trinity"
Basil of Seleucia, PG 85:452(ante AD 459),in THEO,187

"Hail Mary full of grace, the Lord is with thee; blessed art thou amongst women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, because thou didst conceive Christ, the Son of God, the Redeemer of our souls"
Coptic Ostraca (AD 600),in CE  (early form of the Rosary)

Anyone who has attended a Melkite Catholic Divine Liturgy (considered the highest form of prayer in Catholicism) has heard the liturgy that was formulated St. John Chrysostom and has been celebrated in the East since the late 300’s.
The liturgy is saturated with the utmost devotion to The Blessed Virgin Mary.

In the entrance prayers and  1rst 2 antiphons the following prayer is offered to God:

Deacon:
          Remembering our most holy, pure, blessed, and glorious Lady,
          the Theotokos and ever virgin Mary, with all the saints, let us
          commit ourselves and one another and our whole life to Christ
          our God.

http://www.ewtn.com/library/LITURGY/DILITSJC.TXT

One of the most devoted Church Fathers is St. Augustine.  He is known for composing one of the most beautiful prayers to Mary in the Church (among many other great works):

Prayer of Saint Augustine to the Blessed Virgin

O blessed Virgin Mary, who can worthily repay thee thy just dues of praise and thanksgiving, thou who by the wondrous assent of thy will didst rescue a fallen world? What songs of praise can our weak human nature recite in thy honor, since it is by thy intervention alone that it has found the way to restoration. Accept, then, such poor thanks as we have here to offer, though they be unequal to thy merits; and receiving our vows, obtain by thy prayers the remission of our offenses. Carry thou our prayers within the sanctuary of the heavenly audience, and bring forth from it the antidote of our reconciliation. May the sins we bring before Almighty God through thee, become pardonable through thee; may what we ask for with sure confidence, through thee be granted. Take our offering, grant us our requests, obtain pardon for what we fear, for thou art the sole hope of sinners. Through thee we hope for the remission of our sins, and in thee, O blessed Lady, is our hope of reward. Holy Mary, succour the miserable, help the fainthearted, comfort the sorrowful, pray for thy people, plead for the clergy, intercede for all women consecrated to God; may all who keep thy holy commemoration feel now thy help and protection. Be thou ever ready to assist us when we pray, and bring back to us the answers to our prayers. Make it thy continual care to pray for the people of God, thou who, blessed by God, didst merit to bear the Redeemer of the world, who liveth and reigneth, world without end. Amen. (emphasis added)

http://catholicism.about.com/od/prayers/qt/Augustine_BWM.htm

http://www.cin.org/users/jgallegos/assumed.htm
http://www.cin.org/users/jgallegos/immac.htm
http://www.cin.org/users/jgallegos/mary_dev.htm
http://www.cin.org/users/jgallegos/theotok.htm
http://www.cin.org/users/jgallegos/venerate.htm
http://www.cin.org/users/jgallegos/virgin.htm
http://www.salvationhistory.com/library/category/apologetics

Also,the early reformers had a faithful devotion to Mary, and are perhaps good references for understanding Mary's place in salvation history.

"St. Paul says ‘God sent his Son born of a woman, These words which I hold for true, really sustain quite firmly that Mary is the Mother of God." -Martin Luther (Martin Luther’s Works, vol 7, page 592)

"A new lie about me is being circulated. I am supposed to have preached and written that Mary, the mother of God, was not a virgin either before or after the birth of Christ, but that she conceived Christ through Joseph, and had more children after that." -Martin Luther (That Jesus Christ Was Born a Jew, 1523, LW, Vol. 45, page199)

"Helvidius displayed excessive ignorance in concluding that Mary must have had many sons, because Christ’s ‘brothers’ are sometimes mentioned." -John Calvin {Harmony of Matthew, Mark & Luke, sec. 39 (Geneva, 1562), vol. 2 / From Calvin’s Commentaries, tr. William Pringle, Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1949, page 215; on Matthew 13:55}

http://www.ewtn.com/library/ANSWERS/fr94101.htm

Catholics venerate Mary by keeping the commandment to "honor thy Father and thy Mother.  Christians are the adopted sons and daughters of God.  Jesus honored his Earthly mother perfectly.  Catholics just follow in Christ's footsteps through the Biblically based Tradition of venerating Mary.


Mark 5 Jesus encounter with the demons: what is their relationship to Jesus? Reading in Mark 5:1-20 ...

  6 Catching sight of Jesus from a distance, he ran up and prostrated
  himself before him, 7 crying out in a loud voice, "What have you to do
  with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I adjure you by God, do not
  torment me!"  8 (He had been saying to him, "Unclean spirit, come out
  of the man!")  9  He asked him, "What is your name?" He replied,
  "Legion is my name. There are many of us." 10 And he pleaded earnestly
  with him not to drive them away from that territory.  11  Now a large
  herd of swine  was feeding there on the hillside.  12 And they pleaded
  with him, "Send us into the swine. Let us enter them."  13  And he let
  them, and the unclean spirits came out and entered the swine. The herd
  of about two thousand rushed down a steep bank into the sea, where
  they were drowned.

The question that comes to mind for me is about the demons who possessed the man.   They didn’t defy Jesus, they instead begged him not to be sent away.

What is the relationship between these demons and Jesus, and why did Jesus oblige them and sent them into the pigs?

Famed 4th century preacher John Chrysostom gives the best answer, in my view. He says the story illustrates the full malice of the demons and also the restraint that God placed on them to keep them from destroying the possessed man in the same way as they did the pigs.

After reading the story of the demoniac and the swine, he says:

  Thus do Demons govern; and yet to them the swine were of no particular
  account, but with you there is ever a warfare without a truce, and an
  implacable fight, and undying hatred. And if in the case of those with
  whom they had nothing in common they did not even endure that they
  should be allowed a brief breathing space of time: if they had gotten
  unto their power us their enemies who are perpetually stinging them
  what would they not have done? And what incurable mischief would they
  not have accomplished? For for this reason God let them fall upon the
  herd of swine, in order that in the case of the bodies of irrational
  animals you may learn their wickedness, and that they would have done
  to the possessed the things which they did to the swine, had not the
  demoniacs in their very madness experienced the providence of God, is
  evident to all: and now therefore when you see a man excited by a
  Demon, worship the Master. Learn the wickedness of the Demons. For it
  is possible to see both things in the case of these Demons, the
  lovingkindness of God, and the evil of the Demons. The evil of the
  Demons when they harass and disturb the soul of the demented: and the
  lovingkindness of God whenever he restrains and hinders so savage a
  Demon, who has taken up his abode within, and desires to hurl the man
  headlong, and does not allow him to use his own power to the full, but
  suffers him to exhibit just so much strength, as both to bring the man
  to his senses, and make his own wickedness apparent.

Three Homilies on the Devil by John Chrysostom


Is the gender of the Holy Spirit, feminine or masculine? I know the Holy Spirit (רוח הקודש) is usually referred to as masculine. But, what is the reason for that?

The Hebrew word רוח (ruach; "wind; spirit") is one of the few words that is sometimes used as masculine (cp. Eccl. 1:6; 1 Kings 19:11), although it is mostly used as feminine.

In other Hebrew literature, such as the targumim, the Shekhina (שכינה), which some believe to be the equivalent of the Holy Spirit, is also feminine.

Therefore, I find it questionable that all the persons of the Trinity are considered male in gender. Personally, I think connecting more to the feminine side of god can lead to a softer and more understanding and open approach, whereas connecting too much to the male side might lead in my view to a judging, hard, and maybe sometime, even aggressive religious approach.

This place seems to agree with my observation: "Gender of the Holy Spirit"

The Hebrew language only has two grammatical genders: masculine (זָכָר) and feminine (נְקֵבָה). Therefore, every Hebrew noun has an inherent grammatical gender. In the case of the noun רוּחַ, the grammatical gender is feminine. Yet, this does not mean the natural gender of the Holy Spirit is feminine. As for why the Holy Spirit would be "male," so to speak, it is because the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Yahveh (Jdg. 3:10), and Yahveh is a He. I say "so to speak" because Yahveh is "male" in a different way than animals, which are determined to be male or female based on their chromosomes. Rather, Yahveh is described as a male, in part, as a consequence of His headship over all creation.


What is LDS teaching about how Bible verses came to be in the Book of Mormon? The Book of Mormon contains many verses from the Bible, either repeated in whole or in part. For a believing Latter-day Saint, this could be the result of at least two separate processes: (1) these verses were revealed as-is to Joseph Smith, without any reference to a Bible, or (2) a Bible was used when writing these portions of the Book of Mormon, with alterations inspired as the verses were copied.

I doubt the LDS Church has an official position on this, but have any church leaders or scholars ever commented on which of these seems most plausible?

*A previous version of this question had a title that did not match the question, I apologize for this.

The short answer is that some church leaders and others have commented on this subject, with various points of view taken.
On the one hand, some point out that those who witnessed the translation process testified that no materials were used in the translation. For instance, in "The Last Testimony of Sister Emma," first published in the RLDS publication The Saints' Herald volume 26, number 19, Joseph Smith's wife gives the following in response to questions on the subject of the translation of the Book of Mormon:

Q: Had he not a book or manuscript from which he read?
A: He had neither manuscript nor book to read from.
Q: Could he not have had, and you not know it?
A: If he had had anything of the kind he could not have concealed it from me.

Others, however, argue that a Bible was likely used in the process. A passage from B.H. Robert's New Witnesses for God, part 2, volume 3 (see this link for an electronic copy) most clearly takes this point of view. Pages 425–440 quote a letter with a very similar question addressed to Joseph F. Smith, sixth president of the LDS Church, and Smith's response, which begins with the following statement (p. 427):

"The difficulty which you point out [referring to the verbatim nature of the quotations] of course has been recognized by believers in the Book of Mormon, but I do not know that I can say that the Church as yet has settled upon any explanation which could be regarded as an authoritative view on the subject."

However, Smith then goes on to offer his own opinion for the similarities (p. 429–430):

"It should be understood also, in this connection, that while Joseph Smith obtained the facts and ideas from the Nephite characters through the inspiration of God, he was left to express those facts and ideas, in the main, in such language as he could command; and when he found that parts of the Nephite record closely parallel passages in the Bible, and being conscious that the language of our English Bible was superior to his own, he adopted it, except for those differences indicated in the Nephite original which here and there made the Book of Mormon version of passages superior in sense and clearness. Of course, I recognize the face that this is but a conjecture; but I believe it to be a reasonable one; and indeed the only one which satisfactorily disposes of the difficulty you point out."

In addition, there are also some leaders and scholars who have stated that Joseph Smith's use the language of the KJV was a choice, while remaining somewhat more agnostic about the exact process behind how that wording was put in the translation. For instance, LDS scholar Hugh Nibley outlined his thoughts on this in response to a letter to the editor of the Church News in 1961 (reprinted in The Prophetic Book of Mormon, ed. John W. Welch, volume 8):

As to the "passages lifted bodily from the King James Version," we first ask, "How else does one quote scripture if not bodily?" And why should anyone quoting the Bible to American readers of 1830 not follow the only version of the Bible known to them? Actually the Bible passages quoted in the Book of Mormon often differ from the King James Version, but where the latter is correct there is every reason why it should be followed... Since the Book of Mormon is a translation, "with all its faults," into English for English-speaking people whose fathers for generations had known no other scriptures but the standard English Bible, it would be both pointless and confusing to present the scriptures to them in any other form, so far as their teachings were correct.

In addition, in the 1966 edition of Mormon Doctrine (p. 302, entry titled "King James Version of the Bible", electronic copy here), Bruce R. McConkie appears to take this stance:

Joseph Smith read, respected, reverenced, and taught the King James Version "as far as it is translated correctly." (Eighth Article of Faith.) Whenever he found Biblical quotations in the Book of Mormon (they having been copied from the brass plates and preserved by the Nephite prophets), he rendered them into English in the exact language of the King James Version, except in instances in which the language of that version did not convey accurately the original thought.


Meaning of the original Hebrew of "thou shall not" in the ten commandments I noticed that in German (Luther's translation) it says "Du sollst nicht" for "thou shall not."  To me, this sounds more like "thou should not," which makes more sense to me, because if the Almighty says "thou will not" or even "thou may not" it stands to reason that to do so would be impossible.  Saying "thou should not" makes more sense to me because it implies that you have the ability to disobey.

I guess I am sort of asking for a short lesson on ancient Hebrew grammar of, as well as the original Hebrew (and English transliteration) of "Thou shalt not" as it is used in the ten commandments.

I apologize if this is off-topic.  I appreciate if anyone could answer or direct me to a good link.

The syntax of the Hebrew is consistent with other prohibitions throughout the legal texts of the Torah. That is, the negative particle לא (lo) is followed by an imperfective verb.  Although imperfective verbs in other contexts are sometimes translated as simple future tense (i.e. indicative1) verbs in English, those in the Decalogue are clearly volitional — Yahweh is expressing a prohibitive injunction, not merely a statement of fact.

Biblical Hebrew has imperative verb forms, similar to English ("Go and do your homework!"). However, unlike English, imperative verbs in Hebrew can not be negated. Instead, to express negative commands (i.e. prohibitions), imperfective verbs are used. Unfortunately for English translators, this can at times be confusing since the imperfective is also used to express simple present and future tense ideas. One simple (though not fail-safe) test for identifying volitional uses of imperfective verbs is that the verb generally comes first in its clause. This is the case throughout the Decalogue, e.g. Exodus 20:4:

  לֹֽא תַעֲשֶׂה־לְךָ פֶ֣סֶל֙
  You shall not make for yourself an idol....

Perhaps the most straightforward rendering in modern English would be,

  Do not make for yourself an idol.

However, the construction "you shall not..." is consistent with traditional English grammar, where "shall" with second and third person verbs expresses volition (whether desire, injunction, or prohibition). This nuance is frequently neglected in modern English, and the persistence of "you shall not" in most translations of the Decalogue may in part reflect the pervasive nature of the KJV tradition. It's also the case that the use of the particle לא (lo) rather than the alternative negative particle על (al) indicates a more permanent and absolute sort of prohibition. In modern English, the use of "shall" tends to invoke an elevated register which may better accommodate the sort of nuance invoked by an absolute prohibition direct from the mouth of Yahweh.

1. If applied to the decalogue, an indicative verb would entail a translation such as "you will not kill", as a statement of fact. However,  imperfective verbs are not necessarily indicative. This is territory covered by any Biblical Hebrew grammar; see, e.g., Waltke & O'Connor §31.5.


If the dead are already in heaven, how do they rise at the second coming? 1 Thessalonians 4:16 says:

  For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first:

It's my understanding that most people in the Western world believe in Christian immortalism though. If the dead are already in heaven, how are they rising here?

Abstract

The idea that the saved go to heaven when they die is somewhat anachronistic.  Equally anachronistic is the idea that people will be "raptured" into heaven when Jesus returns.  Paul had another meaning in mind when he wrote this verse.

N. T. Wright explains in Surprised By Hope:

  The word parousia occurs in two of the key passages [concerning rapture theology] in Paul (I Thessalonians 4:15 and I Corinthians 15:23), and is found frequently elsewhere in Paul and the New Testament.  It seems clear that the early Christians knew the work well, and knew what was meant by it. People often assume that the early chruch used parousia simply to mean "the second coming of Jesus" and that by this event they all envisioned, in a quite literal fashion, the scenario of I Thessalonians 4:16-17 (Jesus coming down on a cloud and people flying upward to meet him). Neither of these assumptions is in fact correct.—p. 128

Wright then explains the two meanings of parousia that were in play:

"The mysterious presence of a god or divinity, particularly when the power of this god was revealed in healing." (p. 129)
"When a person of high rank makes a visit to a subject state, particularly when a king or emperor visits a colony or province." (p. 129)

As Wright explains it, Paul envisioned Jesus returning to earth to establish His everlasting Kingdom here, not in heaven.  Therefore, the spirits of the already dead will return to inhabit their resurrected bodies and the bodies of the living will be transformed so that we can meet our King.


What happens to people who have never heard about Jesus? There seems to be general consensus inside Christianity that in order to be saved, you must have faith, and that this faith has to be in Jesus Christ. Here is one verse sometimes cited for the necessity of having faith:

  Hebrews 11:6 (ESV)
  And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.

There is also another verse that seems to indicate that this faith only comes from hearing specifically about Jesus Christ:

  Romans 10:17 (ESV)
  So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.

Isn't this kind of rough luck on your average illiterate jungle tribe without contact with the outside world? How is it fair of God to offer salvation only to a limited subset of people who happen to have access to this news? Are they to be dammed for something out of their control?

At the heart of this question (and many similar ones) is another question: Is God fair?

If God requires acknowledgments of truths that people haven't had a chance to hear in order to be saved, then of course He is not fair.

If we begin with the assumption that God will never act unjustly or unfairly though, then we can assume that He will make Divine provision for everyone, including tribes in remote jungles, to respond to Christ. This provision does not need to be a human delivering a message, but can be angels, dreams, visions, or other unknown methods.

Look at the following quote from Jesus:

  Joh 5:24-25 NIV  "I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and
  believes him who sent     me has eternal life and will not be
  condemned; he has crossed over from death to life. (25)  I tell you
  the truth, a time is coming and has now come when the dead will hear
  the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live.

What is meant by "the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God" can be understood different ways, but I think one of the ways we may possibly understand it is those who have died without the opportunity of receiving Christ will have that opportunity.

However God offers this choice to people, if you assume He is good and will always act justly, whatever He needs to do to accomplish this (He is God after all) He will do. Believing in God's essential goodness is in itself a mark of faith (as you quoted in your question):

  Heb 11:6 NIV  And without faith it is impossible to please God,
  because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that
  he rewards those who earnestly seek him.


Why do Roman Catholics consider eating fish on Friday a good work? Please forgive me if there are caveats or circumstances to this idea that I am not aware of.

The "good work" that one can do by eating fish on Fridays is penance. Perhaps it's hard to understand if you love fish and abhor meat, but that's not the case for most people. The following lines contain an excerpt of Keeping Friday, from the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops:

Jesus invited to carry the Cross and do penance for the good of the Church and the world. He died on Good Friday and, from that moment on, we share in the Lord’s Cross each Friday, learning to obey with Him, joining in His death to sin and evil. Every Friday is a promise from God that we who are baptized will rise again with Christ. We suffer and carry our crosses now, but we will share in Jesus’ glory if we are faithful by his grace.

How can we do this penance on Fridays? We may do it through these actions:

Abstinence from meat or some other form of food, drink or entertainment [Note 1: this is where the "eating fish" custom comes from; you exchange one for the other].
Prayer: take part in a service of worship with others, or pray with our family, or spend some extra time in personal prayer.
Good works [Note 2: meaning concrete exercises of charity, because abstinence and prayer are also "good" works]: do good to others by visiting the sick or aged, helping those in any need, or by contributing time or money to a work of charity.


Into whose name should Christians be baptised? Jesus said, "...go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit."

However, the early church apparently baptised in the name of Jesus:

Acts 8:16
Acts 10:48
Acts 19:5

Which is correct? Or is there a way to combine these?

From this article,

  The reason they were baptizing "in the name of Jesus" is not because
  it was a formula, but because the phrase, "in the name of" means "in
  the authority of.

They were baptizing with his authority. They were using his authority to baptize believers into a new life.

Another quote from that same site:

  Therefore, when someone is properly baptized, they are baptized in the
  name of Jesus; that is, by the authority of Jesus.  Therefore, when
  they are properly baptized in the name of Jesus, they should say, "I
  baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit,"
  just as Jesus commanded us to do.


When did the immutability of God become entrenched in Christian literature? The immutability of God means God does not change, and it is considered heresy to disagree. However, this concept seems so close to the Greek's idea of perfection, and to conflict with the well-known idea that God became a Man.

When did this idea appear in the writings of the church fathers, and when did it become enshrined by the church councils? It does not seem to be in the Apostle's Creed for example.

Writings
Very early. At least as early as Justin Martyr, in The First Apology (~AD 150):

For they proclaim our madness to consist in this, that we give to a crucified man a place second to the unchangeable and eternal God, the Creator of all; for they do not discern the mystery that is herein, to which, as we make it plain to you, we pray you to give heed.

Theophilus of Antioch, in Book I of his writings to Autolycus (~AD 170–80):

And He is without beginning, because He is unbegotten; and He is unchangeable, because He is immortal.

Also, Tertullian, in Against Hermogenes (~AD 200):

[B]eing the Lord, He is indivisible, and unchangeable, and always the same.

Origen, around AD 235, wrote On Prayer, in which he writes:

But in the case of God, inasmuch as He is himself ever unchangeable and unalterable, the proper name which even He may be said to bear is ever one, that mentioned in Exodus, "He that is," or the like.

Creeds
With respect to creeds, the AD 325 version of the Nicene Creed specifically mentions the immutability of the second person of the Trinity:

But those who say: [...] 'The Son of God is created,' or 'changeable,' or 'alterable'— they are condemned by the holy catholic and apostolic Church.

The Chalcedonian Definition (AD 451) says something similar.
Considerations
When considering this question, we need to remember that:

We don't have much in the way of early writings of the church (i.e., 2nd century)
Early creeds were not meant to nail down every point of Christian doctrine: they were often written as responses to particular heresies, and if no heretical group challenged the immutability of God, then that phrase would be unlikely to occur in a creed.

The fact that the immutability of God is so well attested in Scripture (in addition to the excellent verses mentioned in Mike's answer, we have Exodus 3:14, Psalm 102:26–28 and Hebrews 1:11–12, among others), it seems likely that no one seriously challenged this doctrine in the early church, except in the case of Christ's nature.  Therefore, there was no need to make more than passing reference to it in writings, and no need to include mention of it in the creeds.


What does Unitarianism think about Judaism? As Christians know, the Christian sect called Unitarianism is very interesting. For example, Unitarians believe in one G-d, rejecting the Trinity. They stress the oneness and unity of G-d. Famous Unitarian Christians are, for example, Sir Isaac Newton.

This Christian sect emerged in Poland, Hungary, and England during the Reformation (16th-17th century). These Christians follow the teachings of the Spanish theologian Michael Servetus, who criticized the Trinity in his book De Trinitatis Erroribus (On the Erroneous Understanding of the Trinity 1531). In short, they believe Jesus was a Jew who was inspired in his moral teachings by G-d and is a savior but not G-d incarnated. In this way, they are similar to the Arian faith, which was an early Christian sect that said Jesus was only a human. They also reject the Christian concept of original sin as well as predestination.

Since Judaism is very similar, and since Unitarians do not put emphasis on belief, what are some other similarities between Unitarians and Jews?

With all due respect, your question is inherently laden with false assumptions, which make its answering impossible (without granting false assumptions). As such this won't be  an answer proper.

For instance, Unitarianism (the beleif that God is one person) is not synonymous with Monotheism (the belief in one God), because Unitarianism refers to the doctrine that God is one person, not that there is one God only, which both Unitarianism and Trinitarianism - both monotheistic doctrines of God - posit. Additionally, the doctrine of the trinity is not synonymous with tri-theism (if for no other reason than that the trinity doctrine is false if there are more than the one true God - similar to how the incarnate is a false doctrine if God is in fact a man). One cannot deny this without strawmanning the doctrine of the trinity or the incarnation.

Second, Unitarianism goes farther back than the Reformation to the times of Marcion ('Old Testament God is evil - Jesus is the one true God') and the Sabellians ('the Father, Son and Holy Ghost are only three manifestations of the one person of God').

Third, Arianism did not view Jesus as 'just a cool bro' (a good teacher/Rabbi/Saviour) but merely denied that His generation from God the Father was from all eternity, but still placing Him before all creatures, and yet somehow after eternity. They definitely viewed Him as God, or at the very, very least, god beyond all other creatures (including angels).  What orthodox Christians were holding a Council over was the fact that they said the Saviour and subject of the entire New Covenant was a creature, although ascribing worship in practice to Him, via the liturgy (especially the Eucharist) etc. They accepted Nicene formulations, with Arian understandings, for example. Arians had no predecessors in the Christian faith - no one ever denied what they novelly - 200 years after Christ - denied.

All forms of Christians until Calvin also denied the presdestination we are familiar with in Calvinism (post 1600s). Predesintination until this point referred to the absolute surety with which God knew humans would behave, and thus end up, and to the surety with which this cannot (therefore) be any other way than it factually was, is and will be. It's just the doctrine that God knows the end already from the beginning, not that God predetermines the end by the beginning point (Isa. 46:10). Foreknowledge does not require God 'rigging' history, in other words.

Denying original sin is as simple as follows:

Saying that..

  John 3:5 Jesus answered: Amen, amen I say to thee, unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Ghost, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.

..is false.

If you do not have need of rebirth spiritually, then original sin is false. If that's not true, original sin is true - for that's all that has been meant by original sin.

Thirdly, Unitarianism is too wide a denominational swathe to determine that they all put "[low] emphasis on belief." And even if they did, what integrity has the group which claims that the New Testament is false in saying belief is at the heart of the gospel of Jesus? None at all - even if Christianity is false or reprehensible.


What arguments do KJV-only proponents give to support that the 1611 translation is better than say, Greek language Bibles? I have an interlinear Bible, called the Apostolic Bible Polyglot, that presents the New Testament (along with the Old Testament, from the Septuagint) in Greek and English. Of the Complutensian Polyglot, the NT Greek source for the Apostolic Bible Polyglot, Wikipedia says,

  Theodore Beza's Greek NT Text was used primarily, along with Erasmus' Greek NT Text and with various readings from the Complutensian Greek NT Text to form the Textus Receptus published by the Elzevir Brothers in 1633, and Erasmus' later editions were a secondary source for the King James Version of the New Testament. The Complutensian Polyglot Bible was a tertiary source for the 1611 King James Version.

What arguments do KJV-only proponents give against the authority of Bibles like the ABP that share, and even indirectly lend, source material to the 1611 KJV? What about the authority of the Greek manuscripts that Erasmus originally used for the Textus Receptus?  Do KJV-Onlyists hold at least those manuscripts in high esteem?

You will find the among some KJV-Onlyists the assertion that the 1611 KJV Bible was directly inspired by God.  That cuts away any need for them to explain why the KJV can be considered the infallible word of God while its immediate predecesors should be viewed with scepticism.

For example, Peter Ruckman:

  The text of the A.V. 1611, in Genesis 27, is the inspired infallible
  text, preserved without error.

and:

  The Holy Spirit has thrust Himself into the AV committee of 1611 and
  said, “WRITE…!

and:

  The “truth” is that translations can be given by inspiration.

Now, it should be pointed out that he seems to make some distinction between "inspired" and "given by inspiration":

  What version of the Bible was the inerrant, infallible, inspired
  translation prior to the AV1611?” Answer: Who cares? Ask the people
  that read it. We believe the one we have is infallible and inerrant
  and is “given by inspiration” (not “inspired”).

but it's hard to see how that distinction makes any difference.

The only conclusion that seems possible is that the KJV-Onlyist believes that the earlier manuscripts used by Erasmus, Beza, Stephanus etc. were good, but probably not perfect.  However when the time came to translate those documents into English, the Holy Spirit supernaturally guided the translators to choose the correct words from their available manuscripts, and replace any errant words with inerrant words as the Spirit inspired them.

There is also a view (put forward, for example, by David Stewart) that the many versions that led up to the final KJV translation represent a fulfilment of Ps. 12:6, where God's word is likened to gold refined seven times.

Personally, I think the claim that the KJV is the result of a supernatural re-inspiration of the translators by the Holy Spirit is an indefensible claim entirely without scriptural warrant.  But if one accepts that as their foundation, it allows them to easily sweep aside questions of which older manuscripts were accurate.  Like Peter Ruckman says, who cares what God's inspired word was before 1611?  Not him.

Citations:

http://www.ruckmanism.org/inspiredornot
http://www.jesus-is-savior.com/Bible/inspired_or_preserved.htm