If you'd rather first hear the 24-minute introductory audio of six objections to Roman Catholicism, download (usually by right-clicking 'Save Link As') http://www.brainout.net/wma/MaryImmaculateAddendum.WMA. What follows below, focuses only on the first objection, the claim of 'pope'.
Back in the first century AD, there was no such thing as "Catholicism". Believers didn't even call themselves "Christians"; unbelievers gave them that name. Back in the first century AD, believers were in an uproar, fighting amongst themselves, because Christ made a New Testamentary Contract with Father about a year before He went to the Cross. This New Contract set aside the Mosaic Law in favor of something entirely new, built upon HIMSELF. That change was necessitated by Jewish rejection of Christ during the First Advent; else, according to God's Rules of Allotting Time, the world should have ended. So time would have stopped, had Christ not Invented A New Covenant for a New Bride Father would Choose To Create: "Church". This invention and election, occurs in Matt16:18. It is ratified in John 17:20-21; the changeover to the new covenant is explained in detail by Paul and whomever was the writer of Hebrews (who wrote just after Paul died). The apostle Paul was first given the parameters of that change; he faced opposition and even persecution, from Peter, James, and the Jerusalem church, not to mention his fellow Jews who remained unbelievers. Peter and James finally realized Paul was right. James was executed by his fellow Jews (and maybe Jewish Christians) as a result. Peter was in Babylon then, among Jews who'd lived there maybe since 586BC; he'd moved there from Antioch, owing to persecution of Christians in the wake of Paul's arrest, release, later re-arrest and execution in Rome (68AD) by Nero.
So: even though you'll see in this page why it's a lie to claim Bible authorizes a pope in Matt16:18 or anywhere else, that does NOT mean the papal office should be abolished. People have the right to choose their own spiritual leaders, and that right is very much in the Bible as we all know, i.e., Eph4:11. You can see the spiritual freedom rules throughout both OT and New, i.e., not everyone listened to the prophets or rabbis, ALL of whom had restricted territories of operation, i.e., Hosea was prophet to Israel; but Isaiah, to Judah; the Levites were severally assigned to given cities. So if you wanted to be under a prophet, you voted with your feet. In the NT, all the apostles had given territories: Paul to the Gentiles, but the 12 including Peter, to the Jews. No one writes to the Gentiles until after Paul is executed by Nero. Paul's rules to Timothy included the congregation choosing who would be their pastor. Same remains true, ever since.
So if people want to be Catholic or anything else, no one on earth has the right to gainsay them. Of course, this spiritual freedom rule means God would never authorize a pope, either. But it also means that if people want to SET UP a pope for themselves, that is their free prerogative. Obviously, the Catholics want to do that. No one can gainsay them voting that for themselves. The evil is to claim that they are the "one true faith" with the RIGHT to rule on earth. But then again, we have many such groups claiming to be the only "right faith" in the world. And all are evil for that reason, Revelation 17 update on the Tower (really ziggurat) of Babel. Only God gets it right. Best we can hope to do, is keep auditing our faith for errors. Religion won't admit error: Satan invented religion in Genesis 3, Tower of Babel, phallic and ascetic cults, Rev17, "harlot" imagery in OT and New, idea of spiritual fornication. And man is free to choose it. That's what the Angelic Trial is all about -- do you pick God's Plan.. or Satan's?
Watch this playlist in HD fullscreen. To do that, you first must start the video (Youtube keeps changing its players badly). Hover your mouse over it to see the controls. I annotate my videos, so be sure to set Annotations ON, and you can see the text without fullscreen, but it's better fullscreen. Also, the vids are in HD (720p). If you want me to put these in my downloads, let me know via Feedback, click here.
To watch in Youtube, either click the 'Youtube' icon in the player above, or Click here.
As you watch, notice how you must lie against all the Christ-is-Rock-of-Salvation verses Bible, to call any pope claim valid. It's criminal, sorry. Those videos trace how that lie was invented IN THE LATIN TEXT, by twisting grammar conventions on case endings. Very clever, very bald, so any Catholic who can read Greek is a liar. No kind words can be said for a whole denomination which cuts Christ's head off.
Extensive videos on this are also in vimeo, starting here, but that whole channel is devoted to exposing the lies you can prove yourself by reading the 'church fathers' in their own words. Those videos are in the above Youtube list as well, until 11/8/13; after that, only the vimeo list has the vids. So the vimeo link takes you to a book which was a dissertation TRACING how the pope lie got started, and that author is much kinder than I am, about the process. (Those vids are in the Youtube playlist above.) Sorry, criminal coverups make my blood boil. 1800 years of lying that keeps on keeping on, deserves censure in the strongest terms. Think of the lives lost, the money wasted, the people who will lose faith, all due to a power-mad elite who can't afford to fix past mistakes. Be Catholic, but be Biblical: well, to do that, you have to reject most of the Vatican arguments!
The Peter-is-head claim is thus easily proven false, embarrassing us all; proving as well that we don't give a flip about the Bible, and thus we don't love God, either. So mankind's hypocrisy is laid bare. To wit:
As to the claim that Christ's Voting for Church trumped Satan in the Trial, search on the word "Mistrial" throughout Part IV; read page 25 of TenWaysThisTimelineDiffers.doc, and the "MISTRIAL" link of "Paradox of Merit" (link at pagetop). I apologize that the "Mistrial" thread is so scattered, but I didn't know about it when first writing up the Thinking series, though my pastor kept on saying (for decades!) that if Satan could stop God from even fulfilling ONE Promise, Satan would win. (See, I get lazy with Bible, too.) In legal terms, that's a Mistrial Verdict: but I didn't recognize the legal meaning until 2004, four years after the Thinking series began. As time passes I'll try to coalesce the material. A brief summary of Mistrial follows below.
As to the claim that a new contract was created by Christ in Matt16:18 et. seq., my pastor has taught that doctrine for over 50 years, and others have, too. Book of Hebrews is quite helpful: it walks you through the contract changeover, demonstrating that His pre-Israel "King-Priest" contract (i.e., in Ps110) is the juridical basis for the switch. Because Bible is often mistranslated and uses specialized vocabulary, because readers who got it already knew about the changeover (so much information is taken for granted), you should read Hebrews at least a dozen times in a translation you best understand, breathing 1Jn1:9 as needed: constantly ask Father for understanding, proof, etc. as you read. We get the term "New Testament" from the Book of Hebrews (he kaine diatheke, in Greek). What one section of Bible treats axiomatically, another section of Bible presents in full. That's why you need all of Bible, not just some. Most of the NT is on the new contract. But some books are easier to grasp in translation than others. Hebrews and Ephesians are flagship books on the topic, as well as 1Jn, and John Chaps 14-17. All of 'my' Part III and IV webpages are on this new contract, as well; a brief summary will follow below.
Right away you should notice one thing: if people couldn't get a Bible, they couldn't know that what they were taught, was a satanic lie. Further, those who had Bibles, were given so much other stuff to do, they didn't get much time to study. Same problem existed in the OT: the Bible as then written would go LOST right inside the Temple, where it was kept. Now, that provokes a kind of empathy for people buying into Catholicism for so long. But frankly, even in the OT and during the Dark Ages, when people wanted to know Bible, they could get it. But they didn't want it, most of the time. So you had breakouts during the Dark Ages and afterwards, of Back-to-the-Bible movements, many of them goofy in their doctrines: but you can't stop being goofy, until you GET BIBLE. So we are all still responsible for our disinterest. After 1889 there is zero excuse, for that's when Samuel Tregelles unintentionally forced the Vatican to publish its own original-language manuscripts, called Codex Vaticanus. So for over a century we've had FREE access to the Real Bible, and look how few of us know those original-language texts, today. So we in the 21st century have a lot to answer for. Very disinterested, very much liable to Divine Discipline. If you don't study God's Word, then you can't know God, so you can't discern a satanic lie. Simple as that.
Briefly, the "DIOS" acronym summarizes how Satan's lies fool humans into defining "God" foreign to the truth in Scripture. So if you do not know BIBLE, you will fall for the lie. Falling for the lie proves you hate God's Word, and Satan wins points in the Angelic Trial (i.e., God will agree to punish). Hence a satanic lie is always blatant, having these "signature" characteristics: Derision, which is Imbalanced to Obfuscate Christ and thus make foreign Substitution that replaces Christ with something Blatantly Derisive.
A quick perusal of the Gospels even in translation proves that all four of the above DIOS characteristics were rife in Judaism too; and the Lord excoriated them at every turn. But then, we don't even peruse the Gospels, or we'd stop aping what was wrong with the Jews back then. It's easier to just fit in with people. Who cares what the Bible says.
All this DIOS got accomplished, by blasphemous and provably wrong usage of Matt16:18. So it behooves us to see how such a lie could be believed for so long, huh. This is not to bash Catholics. They don't mean to blaspheme Christ. Their very blindness is itself evidence of the blindness of all of us. They get to be the poster boy example, only because the blindness is so easy to prove. Once you see the proof, then you can take the same paradigmal characteristics, and see how blind we humans are in many other things. We're all in this blindness, together. We all are so uninterested in the Word of God that we get duped (albeit in other ways), just as much as Catholics --
English: "Now I declare you are Little Rock [=Peter]; in fact, upon This Big Rock [=Christ], I will build My Church [female gender, Greek equivalent of synagogue]; even the gates of Hades will not defeat it (lit., her, matching gender)." Notice Christ is NOT calling him by his name, which is Kephas (Aramaic), but is playing on the meaning of his name, which is "little rock", a stone. So you should translate the verse the way the Greek renders it (since in other Greek verses Kephas is used, when he's called by name). So, that's what I did here. There is a kind of adoption connotation. The Lord is telling Peter he's saved, part of Him. But it's not a renaming; the renaming happened back when they first met (John 1:42). And it's spelled with a "K" in Greek (no "c" in Greek language). It's a very tender, affectionate verse. Even more so, when you realize the HUGE COMMITMENT He's making when He says it.
Latin Vulgate: "et ego dico tibi quia tu es Petrus et super hanc petram aedificabo ecclesiam meam et portae inferi non praevalebunt adversum eam"
In Latin of Christ's time, a rock is not "petrus" or "petra", but "scopulus" for big rock, and "calculus" or "lapillus" for little rock -- in short, Latin was not used in the Vulgate, here. Instead, they transliterated from the Greek. Notice how clever, to mask the size of the two very different rocks, via transliteration. Even so, Latin words have a given gender, so even in this transliteration, the masculine petrus would become petrum (masculine accusative), not petram (feminine accusative). So anyone reading petrus=petram is making a Latin grammar 'mistake', too. So even if you didn't know Greek, petrus and petram are not Latin words, and they are not of the same gender, so they are NOT the same Rock! You have to flunk kindergarten Latin and kindergarten Greek -- or be a liar -- to claim they are the same object.
Greek of 1Cor10:4, where Paul uses Petra=Christ: "kai pantes to auto pneumatikon epion poma epinon gar ek pneumatikes akolouthouses petras he petra de en ho christos"
Douhay-Rheims translation (official English Bible of the Roman Catholic Church, 1610): "And all drank the same spiritual drink: (And they drank of the spiritual rock that followed them: and the rock was Christ.)"
So how did we Protestants also screw it up for centuries, because we essentially accept the Catholic interpretation, lol? Laziness. We do know the Catholic usage is wrong. It's common knowledge among Protties. But do we change the translations to reflect what we know? NO! And why didn't God alert us? Well, God won't give you understanding of His Word when you are in a state of sin per 1Jn1:6,8,10. That's why so many Christians are dufuses: they don't regularly use 1Jn1:9. So I breathe it constantly, lol. That's why to some people, 'my' webpages seem so 'smart'. Yeah, not my brains, baby! So you go get God's Brains, too: make it an instinctive habit to breathe 1Jn1:9, so you can escape the dufus history of Christendom!
You know, people get royally ticked off if you tell them they are wrong. But it's sure okay to misuse Bible, huh. We must respect people's 'interpretations' and 'opinions', but Mangling The Bible is okay, huh. No wonder God won't alert us more often to the many mistranslation and misteaching errors we routinely make in pulpits and documentaries (you just try to find a documentary which gets Matt16:18 right). Why should God bother? His Word gets oodles of lipservice, but ZERO respect! It's positively disgusting that we trash the Word in translation and teaching so much, yet are soooo offended if someone makes even the smallest hint of criticism at us. So Satan&Co. mock us, and we deserve it.
Okay, but why is it so important to distort Matt16:18? Three topics behind this: 1) Time was running out due to Israel's rejection, so Christ had to INVENT a new Bride, even as He had to invent a higher Spiritual Life to do what the Mosaic Law could not do, pay for sins (theme of Hebrews Chapters 5-10). 2) This new Bride would be based on his pre-Israel contract with Father, an award for defeating Satan in the Angelic Trial (ibid and chapters 1-2). 3) Therefore, the contract for Bride would have nothing in common with Israel, except that Israel had been the first Betrothed, but turned the offer down (ibid and Hebrews Chapters 3-4,10:18ff, 11:39, see also Romans Chaps 9-11). These topics are covered in detail in Parts III and IV, so what follows below is but a brief summary so you can see underlying context of Satan's burlesque.
Gist of how He Trumped Satan: when Israel rejected Christ, Satan should have won a Mistrial Verdict, which is also why Time should have ended with the Cross. For, then God isn't keeping His Promise to Israel of a Future Son of David Ruling forever, never mind it's her fault she didn't want Him. Not only that promise, but all the others (like the land grant, the Millennium, etc). For, there were past believers who had voted for Him. Idea is, to claim God's bad. So, by voting for a New Bride, Christ ups the ante, for billions upon billions upon billions of extra sins would exist, if more people do. The number of people was left up to Father, John 17:20-21. Thus the Trial is not over, after all. But a Mistrial issue still looms, for if claimed Evidence is not produced, then the one not producing it CHEATS. Here, that's God. So it still becomes a Mistrial, if even one of those future people paid for, doesn't exist. So if Satan can mask what "Church" and "Bride" and "Head" are, then He can (so he thinks) manipulate God into having to judge the world.. and cancel Time itself, just as he almost succeeded in doing, during the First Advent. That's a real possibility, for God conditions time on believers growing sufficiently. For Time to continue, there only needs to be one believer awarded time each 490 years: Adam then Jared then Enoch then Noah then Abraham then Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, then Moses then David then (via David) Temple then Christ paid for ALL time prior to 30AD. And, a small group of believers worldwide voting for God enough during the intercalated voting periods (between two 490-year periods, principle of Daniel 9:2). But it's possible such a person won't get developed. If not, Time ends. Time also ends if mankind is too negative i.e., the Flood: but for 8 people, the world would have ended.
Gist of the New Bride Contract: Back in eternity past, the central Decree was to Create Christ, Eph1, Isa52:13, Ps110, 1Tim2:5, Gal3 "seed" clause. So that meant, what Roles would He consent to 'play', once Human? One of them was the Bright Morning Star, to defeat Satan (theme of Heb Chaps 1-2). As a result, He'd have 'children' (Heb2), which meant a Bride (passim Betrothed and adultery-complaint theme in the OT, plus Isa53:10-12). So once He "arrived" down here (Heb10:5), He had to vote separately as Humanity, what He wanted. He determined His Own Spiritual Life, and those terms thus govern our own spiritual life contract. That contract is Eph4:13, His Own Royal, King-Priest Maturity Level. It's a Thinking Life, Thinking toward Father, Royal-Priestly, therefore (1Pet2:5,9, Rev1:6, 5:10). Essentially, 'looking' at God and monitoring your thoughts, learning and living on Bible 24/7 like He did (i.e., Matt4:4). Yikes. A summary tabulation versus Israel is in the "Bridal Contract" link of Part IVa. All of Part III is dedicated to its provisions. Unbelievably higher than Israel ever had. It's a Mistrial if the NUMBERS of these spiritually-mature people, don't complete as paid for in Advance. Rapture is based on Promised People Completed, not on historical events, prophecy, or time. Because that's the nature of the contract, "as many as", John 17:20-21.
The above three issues about time, the trumping, and the Trial numbers, are interwoven with the fact we are unseen Witnesses in the Angelic Trial, itself. Hebrews 11:1 in the Greek tells you this plainly, so of course it too is egregiously mistranslated (see Heb111.htm). Followed by, a roster of past OT Trial Witnesses, to show that the issue is Word Believed, Christ-on-Trial, Evidence Unseen (essential translation of Heb11:1, the header topic of the chapter). People are, unbeknownst to them, put in the Trial Docket to demonstrate the inviolability of Word You Live On versus everything else. Winning in that Unseen Testimony begets a crown (you inherit a kingdom you'll own for all eternity), 2Tim4:7-8: so you'll know if you win, before you die. So here we see yet another, interwoven threat: if the Testimony doesn't complete, it's a Mistrial. And here you thought the devil had horns and a tail. Try instead, an Armani suit. And so he is suitor to the human race, to get them into his Fake Church, so he can prevent the Testimony from completing, owing to no one remaining who wants to testify (kinda analogous to the Genesis 6 infiltration, except it's into our souls, not bodies).
So, since Christ invented Church to keep mankind alive, it's important to mock Him. That's what Revelation 17 is, a mock, fake, "mystery" (moniker for Church, in the NT). Invention of New Body by Christ, becomes invention of New Religion by Satan -- tares replace wheat! So Satan considers the Lord mocked, if His Head is replaced with Peter's in Matt16:18, the verse recording the Lord's Commitment for the billions of extra souls which we humans all are (including all future unbelievers, remember). The believer is thus mocked for not caring to learn and thus notice the different Greek gender and the LXX fame of "Petra": most spectacularly, the "Bedrock" (not merely "rock") that Moses struck to give the people water. Same "Petra" rock later became the base for the Ark in the Holy of Holies (on Mt. Moriah later renamed Zion, where Abraham almost sacrificed Isaac). So when Christ says "epi tautei tei petrai" in Matt16:18, He's pointing to HIMSELF, as we just saw in the "Gender..Hoax" subsection. The masculine-gender "petros" is a play on Peter's name, a diminuitive, meaning "chip", from which we get "Little Rock". Chip off the Block, way of saying Peter is saved, in Christ forever.
So it's really important to mask the real meaning of Matt16:18, so that people will buy the Fake Church, and thus not be saved (because you are only saved if you only do John3:16, NO OTHER VERBS). Lots of people who buy into the Fake Church, at some point merely believe Christ paid for their sins, so are saved; the satanic goal is to keep them spiritually childish, afterwards. Thus Satan delays the completion of the Evidence, and maybe can stop Time altogether. Meanwhile, because man has to be responsible for his own screwups, the blatant misuse of Matt16:18 and its matching to Revelation 17, mocks. So no one has any excuse, for buying into it.
Note how bald the signature: gender mismatch, easy to spot, kindergarten Greek or Latin. The layman won't spot it so easily, but the teachers sure should. Yet century after century, even Prottie teachers either won't fess up about the egregious mistranslation of Matt16:18 in English Bibles, or don't know about it. Next, Rev17 is a biography of Catholicism, right down to the colors. The Gospel was added-to, with the result that the Catholic 'gospel' of you having to be baptised in the Church to be saved.. saves no one. Atop that, the historical barnacling of pagan religions, incorporating much of their customs and tenets, is a fact of church history as every reader of Gibbon knows. That's what harlots do: they wear (and shed) whatever it takes to get customers. The sheer incompetence of "Good Friday" despite Matt12:40-41, boggles the mind. Count backwards from Sunday and you get Wednesday, not Friday. See how in-your-face is the satanic signature? And we don't care. Or we'd not be deceived so many centuries. Again, it's not the Catholics, but ALL of us who are to blame. There's no excuse for this: we don't look into Bible. So we are rightly deceived.
This pope lie is therefore a good example of how quickly Satan duped negative Christians beginning immediately after the Crucifixion; and, of how his strategy ensnares us all. Believers right after the Crucifixion, were largely Jews. Paul and the Jews were at loggerheads, because God changed the Covenant due to Matt16:18, and even believing Jews resisted that (Peter, James, the Jerusalem church). There was no "Catholicism" for another two centuries, and it began its morphing with the Jerusalem Church; it developed further with the apostacy we call "the Church Fathers" at the very time God was giving John, but not any of those 'fathers', Bible to write. Humans can't possibly manipulate the entire world and all this history; only Satan&Co. are that powerful. So the RCC is not being bashed. Rather, we all have been burlesqued by Satan&Co. It's important to keep that in mind, as you read the disturbing, easy-to-verify evidence, below.
Consider, if you will, what the Roman Catholic Church lists as its popes, with their reigning dates. (Table comes from Encarta 2004, but its source was the Catholic Encyclopedia.)
| Pope Name | Pope Reign |
| St. Peter | 42-67AD |
| St. Linus | 67-79AD |
| St. Anacletus (aka Cletus) | 79-92AD |
| St. Clement I | 92-101AD |
Next, consider the dates NT books of the period were written. It's long practice in God's Word to write about a thing years after the events covered; or, when large numbers of people want it immediately, so logistically writing is the better medium. The idea is to leave behind a testament (as in testimony, even more than 'legacy') which survives the author. So these books are Affadavits of Official Divine Communication, no matter how much later written versus spoken. God the Holy Spirit recalls facts to the mind of the author; He teaches the author What Message To Craft from them. Hence there will always be a Rhetorical Style used for teaching the Communication. God's Word is precise and precisely multilayered. So, one author is given to stress some things, but to leave out other things. This makes for better learning. So, there are multiple authors with multiple rhetorical styles and hence lessons, in each Book: idea of telling the same information from multiple angles, weaving in new information or new ways of looking at the information previously given, so you can learn better. There are reasons for every jot and tittle in the crafting of each Book. No detail is unimportant, but obviously there is also a hierarchy of importance. You'll tear your hair out if you don't breathe 1Jn1:9 while reading Scripture: especially, the Gospels.
For the tables below, I copied the book dates from my New Scofield KJV Bible (Oxford University Press, 1967, hardbound). I don't agree wholly with the dates, but Scofield does better homework than other versions; especially, they must be more right about Matthew, not Mark, being the first Gospel written. Mark's style is too axiomatic, written to an audience already familiar with the other Gospels.
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More relevant date data to consider...
Next, let's list what, if anything, BIBLE says about the RCC's listing of popes, or about the office of pope. Because, if this pope office is directly from God, then God ought to have talked about it, since NT Scripture was still being written and compiled at the time these popes allegedly ruled. If the "pope" can speak ex cathedra -- which means his word in that status is as holy as the Bible -- then the Bible ought to have some of his words, in it. Or at least, authorize that function. If not, well.. then you have to ask yourself who's arrogating to himself a role which God never authorized. We all can claim to speak for God, 1Jn4:1-6 -- but NOT infallibly.
Moreover, you find no one among the apostles writing again to the Gentiles, until Paul is dead (Peter, Jude, John). So if apostle to the Jews, Peter is not a pope over Gentiles. If there should have been a pope, then it should have been Paul. If there was apostolic succession, which we know there wasn't, since there were 13 apostles living during this time; if there had been apostolic succession to the Gentiles, then Paul was first, followed by Peter, followed by John. And no one follows John. (The Lord has the keys in Revelation: verses on that are covered in the "basic questions" section, below.)
By the way, from the time of Paul's first imprisonment onwards, Jerusalem erupted. Rome finally had to intervene, beginning about 64AD. You can read Josephus for an accounting, or whatever other material you respect. So that means the apostles for the Jews had to disperse, if they hadn't left Jerusalem already: Matt24 would have been too obviously, 'turned on.'
When authority abuses power, it is given very wide latitude by God, since authority is being wielded by a human, and all humans err. The one in authority errs bigger, because his authority makes him bigger. So you won't see bolts of lightning hit authority which errs. What happens instead, is that the authority is given enough rope to hang himself, and God the meanwhile makes even the errors, bless those under that authority. So if our parents or teachers or leaders screw up, we needn't hate them or resent them or crusade against them. In fact, if we do those things, we get punished, and big-time. I learned this the hard way. For God is the God of authority and Justice, so we who are NOT authorities, should never try to redress any injustice by trying to topple an authority. We who are authorities, should be extremely circumspect about how we use that authority. For God will not send us bolts of lightning. We are expected to live on the Word, and by it gain the correction and wisdom needed, to handle whatever life He graciously grants us. Christ is the Top, and voluntarily went all the way to the true bottom, the Cross, so no low-ness in life is demeaning. No high-ness in life, is self-aggrandizing. God alone is important and worth knowing. All else, is but a tool to learn Him better. For all of us.
The meanwhile, one is to test anything claimed by an alleged or real spiritual authority. Even if popism were true, it would have to be tested. Even though it is false, people who accept its claimed authority, have that right. Same is true for any authority, really: if you are accepting someone's authority (i.e., in your church, job, home) then unless it's a valid thing to get out, you must obey. If you get out, you don't try to topple that authority, Romans 13.
Here's where omission is very important. Notice that NT never has a verse where someone wrote a pope, or talked with a pope, or got instructions with a pope; there are no Bible quotes from any popes talking about anything or going anywhere. For a guy who allegedly has the "keys" to decide whether you go to heaven or not -- a power only GOD has -- funny, no mention of such an important person anywhere in the NT? Paul is in Rome most of this time, but we see Peter visit him in Asia, then Peter goes to Antioch, then to Babylon -- but Paul, is in Rome. Ok, why then doesn't Paul have any conversations with any popes? Surely they would be important high spiritual people to work with, no? LOL nothing on the allegedly highest-spiritual-leader-on-earth, in Bible, not even a quote or passing mention of something such an illustrious person said? And people buy popism? Yikes! Do you see the mocking in this omission? By Satan &Co.? For if we knew our Bibles, this omission of such an 'important' person is downright dishonoring. Of course, it's not dishonoring IF NO SUCH PERSON EXISTED.
The Catholic counter to this is that the office of pope was not the same, back then. No kidding. It must have been so very different, no one knew these 'popes' Linus or Anacletus, for of course John never mentions them. Peter never mentions them. Jude, Luke -- no one mentions them. So whatever they may have said, must have been rather unimportant, that no one recorded what was supposed to be the highest spiritual authority, saying. Pretty rude of God, to not even give them mention, huh. Yeah, assuming they EVER EXISTED. Even more rude of God, to not give Clement a byline in the Bible, and rather have John write Revelation in the same year as 1Clement was allegedly penned. Funny how between the two letters, there's no congruence or confluence. As if one didn't know about the other: though written in the same year, or within maybe 18 months? To read Clement, you'd not know Revelation even had been written. And of course Revelation treats the Roman church as if it didn't exist, in Rev 1-3. More about all that, in #14, below.
Here's the point: BIBLE WAS STILL BEING WRITTEN, and these popes allegedly were ruling at the very same time. When Bible talks about other stuff, there's lots of mention of contemporaneous history and people, which is why you can date the NT books. You know, for example, that Acts ended circa 60 or 62, because it ends with Paul leaving for Rome, and mentions all kinds of historical stuff you can check. So well.. an important person like a pope, should be mentioned in the Bible during the same years. Nope. So either no pope or.. God disapproves of the idea so much, it gets no mention. In which case, Peter sure isn't one of them. This is another hand-in-the-cookie-jar, dead giveaway.
Of course, lots of Protties claim apostolic succession, too. They are also unable to read the criterion for being an apostle, you must have seen the Resurrected Christ, since only HE appoints you (it's not an election by people, lol) -- 1Cor15:1-10. And an apostle is just a super-missionary, viz, Paul. Not someone who rules over everyone. Yes, he sets church policy -- and the LAST one was John. Just ask the alleged 'successor' if Christ appeared to him personally and appointed him, k? This is so embarrassing, how we profess love for the Word and Christ -- yet will not read it. Satan&Co. must be rolling on the floor, all the time.
Odd, that no one writes to the Roman believers, but Paul. And that, years before he's chained up and goes there. So if any pope was there, where are the people? They cleared out of Rome from 64AD onward, Nero was busy torching them all. So NO ONE was in Rome then. This was probably when Paul got out, but I'm still trying to verify the dates.
Since so much of Paul, Peter, and John are missing from this guy's letter -- and especially, John -- some massive break with the Roman church must have occurred. 1Clement therefore has to be sometime in the 90's AD, more likely 95 or 96AD when John is on Patmos, else he couldn't even BEGIN to make an argument about succession, 1Clem44:2. There was NO provision for succession by the apostles; never in the Bible is such a thing done. God appoints directly. So to claim any kind of succession, is a flat lie, completely unbiblical. Bible has nothing on it at all, except the appointing of pastors which is by election of the congregations involved, theme of 1and 2 Timothy. So it now makes sense why the Real God and the real apostle remaining, John -- were not on speaking terms with the Roman church. 2Jn and 3Jn are very strident about avoiding such people, but the overall panorama of the problem, is the framework in 1Jn (thread begins in 1Jn1:6, coming up every other or every third verse after that). Now I see why.
See why we all need salvation so badly? Just like Paul says with that fabulous word "panourgia" (all-erring-urges, so to speak) in Eph4:14, that's how we all are. The right succession provided, we reject. And instead, invent our own -- even to the point of obviously reflecting Revelation 17. We learn from Bible that we learn nothing from Bible. Satan&Co. weep with laughter.
Random Observations: There's no familiarity with the apostles (well, Peter and Paul are mentioned as dead in a distant, flowery, vague way). Instead, quotes are often from the OT, James and Hebrews, two allusions to 1Corinthians (Apollos verse and 1Cor13). Very (unintentionally) mocking of Paul's letter about Head and Body, in 1Clem47:1-3, 49:5. There are no quotes from other Pauline letters, or from Peter. So if Peter had been a pope, Clement snubs him by not quoting him. Peter is talked about (1Clem5:4), not as a pope, but merely as an apostle. Same, for Paul (5:5). 1Clement quotes the Apollos verse (1Clem47:1ff) but in a bizarre manner. Two mentions of Peter, never calling him pope, one mention of Paul biographically, 1Clem5:6 -- and that's it. Since 'Clement 1' quotes Scripture haphazardly and in such meaningless volume, he didn't have an up-to-date copy of Scripture, or he'd have poured in those verses as well. And the letter is weird. Notice the flowery stress on how the Corinthians are so nice, in the beginning; the garbage about how important for men to have a good opinion of 'you' -- Bible condemns all this in the OT, James, all Paul's letters (i.e., the "eye service" warning in Eph6, Rom12:1-3, Galatians, lol all over the place). 1Clement even claims a fake bird, the phoenix, is real (1Clem25:2) -- to make a point about resurrection! It gets steadily more blasphemous, after 44:2. Then again, in 1Clem16 nearly all of Isa53 is quoted, which is valuable. Nothing from the Gospels. No mention of Matthew or Mark or Luke. No quotes by the Lord, even. But then, nothing from Ephesians, Colossians, Galatians (well, he'd avoid Galatians, that book is about grace). Nothing from book of Romans. Nothing from Jude (which would have been appropos to his topic of sedition); nothing from Titus (again, would have been relevant). So if he were a spiritual head, Someone didn't see fit to give him all the Divine Writ, available. Clement is too verbose not to use everything he had. Sorry, it's real clear he doesn't speak for God or anyone else, but his ego.
So let's compare the Bible versus Clement idea of spiritual authority. Paul wrote Timothy and Ephesians on congregations having pastors. To sustain a pastor required free will election on who would shepard them. Hence pastors must be elected by a congregation, the office is a gift from God alone, Eph4:11. In the Bible, presbuteroi and episcopoi were administrative, never interpretating Scripture; specific Bible-defined meanings are in the OT. So the presbuteros and the episcopos never interfered with pastor's authority, (OT "teacher", modern term "rabbi"); they were subordinate to him. So too in the NT, individual pastors are "the" authority of individual churches. In the NT, pastor's office was supreme, so he had some presbuteros and episcopos functions (also sometimes diakonos, a "kitchen-help/waiter" and "diplomat"). But that only extended to the local church. Comprehensive description of the pastor's role is in Greek of Eph4:11-16. [It's always mistranslated in Bibles, so you should get the exegesis from your pastor. If you can't do that, in RightPT.htm has a retranslation from BibleWorks.]
By human-manipulation contrast, look at 1Clement 59:1, where he's THREATENING the Corinthians, claiming to speak for God, as if they had no right to vote for their own local authority at Corinth, many miles from Rome. Bleccchh. Totally the opposite of 1 and 2 Timothy.
So the Roman Catholic Church has heroes, alright -- but not the ones it promotes. Rather, the ones God protected for protecting Scripture, for our sakes. The officials of the Vatican kept Scripture under lock-and-key, until Tregelles forced them to publish their Codex Vaticanus, in the late 1800's. And that happened, because Tregelles managed to memorize that Codex. A loyal Catholic, he was allowed to view it -- but not to touch or copy from it. An acolyte or other minor official had to turn the pages for him while he read. Can you imagine? Tregelles, thus hampered, memorized as much as he could; and at night, secretly wrote down what he'd memorized during the time he'd spent standing for 8 hours each day in front of that huge manuscript! So when he published what he memorized, the Vatican was gradually forced to publish the MSS it had. Hence, Sinaiticus and Vaticanus are two of our best manuscripts (aka "MSS", in theologian shorthand). And of course, those manuscripts, as the rest of the Bible, largely disprove 99% of the doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church (and doggone near every denomination, frankly). So we owe these folks who found these original Bible manuscripts, everything!
This section is very outdated. I've done extensive videos proving Mark's text is third and when written, starting here.
What follows below was written years ago, before I had time to do the Synoptics videos and Mark's Greek. You can tell even in translation that Mark wraps his text to Matthew and Luke first, starting here.
============= OLD OLD OLD OLD OUTDATED WRITING ============= This section will be rewritten later, so at present sounds choppy and hurried. Goal here is to sketch out when it was written and why.
According to scholars, Peter called Mark "my son" in 1Pet5:13. "Son" in those days, meant heir apparent, especially if not of the bloodline. It was also a term of affection, as in spiritual son (a Hebraism). By the way, this is yet further indication that Peter outlived Paul, for John Mark was supposed to come with Timothy to Paul (see 2Tim4:11ff). Mark's Gospel being written 68AD then, could be just after Peter's death. But it's not written from Rome, baby. For Timothy was released from Roman custody after Paul was executed (Heb12:23). Hebrews was written from Rome or at least "Italy" (ibid), by an unknown author who had been trained under Paul. Book of Hebrews makes no mention of any successors or popes, but rather that joe average believer is in the Royal Priesthood of Christ, which replaces the Mosaic Law (main theme of the book). Mark doesn't differ at all from that, and in fact dovetails with Book of Hebrews' imminency-of-Temple-destruction theme via his frequent usage of Greek term "euthus": "immediately", "right now", "suddenly", shorthand for wake up, stupid! [I'm not convinced that the "Mark" at the end of 1 Peter, is the same as John Mark, who is attributed as the author of the Mark Gospel. Something's fishy about the claim that the two are the same person, but I need more time to investigate it. So here I'm 'going with the flow', the majority opinion (what a dangerous thing to do), that the two Marks are the same person. The majority opinion is so wrong on Peter not knowing Greek -- they think he didn't know it well, they don't get his wordplay, his penchant for hupo-prefixes and stone words, and his penchant for political incorrectness -- that I am queasy about their opinion on the two Mark referencess being the same person. Especially, since they keep on claiming that Mark got his material from Peter, rather than from the Holy Spirit, aaarrgghh. Absent 1Jn1:9, all the degrees on the planet only make you more foolish, still. Moses knew what Adam said; so by that same Holy Spirit, Mark knew what happened, too, and didn't need Peter. Either you believe in God, or not. You believe in His Word or not. And if it's HIS Word, HE talks about it to the writer. VPI is real.]
Mark probably wrote his Gospel after Paul's (and probably Peter's) death to counter speculation, to reassure readers Mark himself had been there through it all, and yes, the Gospel is true. It makes sense that the roundup of Christians which captured Paul would capture Peter also, especially if the Babylonian government needed a favor from the Roman Caesar. 64AD-70AD is the leftover 'week' from when the 1st Temple ended, so had to be measured back to Israel. [The First Temple ended 126 years before its own 490 time was up. God measured back only 119 years (70+49) in Daniel 9; the remaining 7 could have run concurrently with the 70th week of Dan9:27, had Israel been positive to Messiah. But they weren't. So it got measured back to them after Messiah repurchased time (by dying at the end of the 69th week). Details on this are in the Timeline link at pagetop. The latter makes more sense more quickly, if you've FIRST read through Part IVa. It's a complex story.]
What a scathing Gospel Mark writes! Telling you at once how the world was at the time he wrote it, just before the Temple was destroyed: to a parallel apostate generation of those in the prior generation had rejected Christ. Only this time, it's the Christians who don't believe in Him. You know that for the simplest of reasons: the Jews wouldn't be interested in hearing another Gospel. But every Christian would have poured over its details for 30+ years, at this point. Plus, the 40 year judgement period is about up, and they wonder what to think. Plus -- as you'll see in the Gospel itself -- people at the time Mark wrote were themselves hung up on miracles. Which weren't forthcoming, at this point. What was forthcoming, was a lot of persecution. Read also the Book of Hebrews, which was written at roughly the same time.
There's a lot of stupid controversy over the Mark Gospel. Instead of reading the content to see if God wrote it, people agonize over where Mark got his information, positing he got it from Peter. Sheesh: when God is the Real Author, the brilliance of the word usage is like a signature. Any Author Signs His Work. So just Look At The Content: doesn't matter if Mark wasn't an eyewitness for all of it, just like it didn't matter for Luke or even Moses (who obviously wasn't in the Garden of Eden). Divine Authorship proves itself. God Himself says you test Scripture WITH Scripture. So, then do that, and you'll have zero doubt God wrote the Gospel of Mark. Zero doubt thereby, about the counterfeits which are not Canon, but even today, still pretend to be.
It's very clear God the Holy Spirit had Mark write it, just like all other Canon books are very clearly different from all counterfeits. Moreover, you have to be already very familiar with the prior Gospel reports as well as the OT, to grasp the scathing warning thickly threaded throughout Mark's spectacular re-telling; for, it also predictively focuses on OT judgement metaphors as its conceptual framework (esp. after Chapter 9). For Mark is telling far more than a ho-hum, heard-it-all-before Gospel. No, this is a vibrant, double-entendre story, using the actual Gospel; but applied to the time he wrote it, a generation later. Kinda like an NT Deuteronomy, God has Mark interpret for his post-Paul (and probably post-Peter) audience why the Rapture hasn't come: because people still can't bear His Word. They still only want the razzle-dazzle of the miracles, despite all the witnesses of even the demons the Lord had to repeatedly shut up. And they want to be Pharisees, just like that first generation, who crucified Him. So he tells the story vividly: since after all, most readers just want bread and circus, and can't bear to really learn anything. Well, soon they will get more supernatural evidence, showing God's "490" plays right on time.. when Rome destroys the Temple! (Note how brusquely he handles the Temple's demise in Mark 13, and compare what's stressed and interpretatively quoted, versus other Synoptic accounts.) To make sure the audience 'gets it' that God is doing the telling (i.e., it's not a sermon), God the Holy Spirit provides information you don't get in other Gospels. So you know Who the Real Author and Warner is. So any fake popery should be on guard, see.
Back in those days, people knew how to read and read multi-layer meanings into what they got: all good Greek playwriting, Latin poetry, etc. was deliberately multi-entendre. Also, the very common practice of interpretative quoting and concatenation of Scripture verses, was used to make newly-relevant and explanatory a passage. Which, if the person was from God, was his JOB to do. See, everyone already knew the exact quote; what they didn't know, was the USE of it. So, you'll see the Lord constantly interpretatively use OT verses. Not verbatim quotes, but APPLIED quotes. So you took what He said, and what the original was, and you could see His Use of the verse(s). A whole lot of that goes on in Bible, and especially, in the NT. So don't mistake interpretative quotes for errors: pay closer attention to how the quote is changed when it's used (e.g., Acts 2, when Peter quotes Joel). A prophet (aka "son of man") was expected to do stuff like this, so his veracity, his coming-from-God claim, could be vetted. It's not a mistake, but a deliberate teaching style.
So, if new Scripture was being written, these would be some of the signature characteristics, to look for:
So Mark's very pointed satire and sarcasm, was deeply noticed. Finely-honed. Mark 8's the theme of the book, and 8:12, its heart: okay, you wanna get sign after all this evidence? What a sign will be given! -- Himself as sign#1, and the Temple's destruction, sign#2, both of Dan9:25-26. So flee, leave this village, don't be blind, don't ignore how the Lord can care for you, don't go by what you blindly think you see! I know Mk8:12's usually translated "no sign will be given", treating "ei" plus the indicative of the future passive of didomi there, as a refusal; but you can equally read it as Jewish sarcasm for a sign they won't want -- especially, given the negative connotation of semeion. Especially, in the context of the next verses, i.e., 8:15, which would be very relevant if when Mark was writing, there were these fake popes claiming Peter as one of their own and divine authority. So Mark is refuting them and warning the faithful to stay away from these wolves in sheep's clothing. The Chapter ends with the Greek epilogue, what you should learn: take up the Cross. All, or nothing. Not miracles, not fancy powers, not religiosity, but the 'cross' of learning Him. Get fed, rely on Him. Or you will be fed to the wolves. Very timely, very comforting warning. Euthus.
Rest of Mark after that, is elaboration on what to expect. For what happened to Him, is what will happen to those who learn Him. But also, to those who do not. Stark choice, that. Kinda eliminates the thrill of seeing any miracles, huh. So to illustrate this in Chapter 9, you have scary miracles which don't continue or don't work, absent belief: the vision of the Transfiguration goes, when fear enters; by contrast, the guy's demon-possessed kid is healed, when (9:24) he asks Christ (9:29). For nothing is impossible with God. So don't get cocky (end of Chap9), and do get married; for if you divorce the Lord, as was done a generation ago, well.. watch how God will divorce Israel. Which is prophetic, by telling the history: the cause of the upcoming destruction. So you have the warning to stop being cocky toward those inferior, like children; to stop being religious or trusting in the world, like the rich young ruler was; to shed your blindness and follow him, like Blind Bartimeaus did. To stop believing in politics, like the people did; to stop being Jeremiah's over-ripe and unripe figs, like that fig tree which wasn't ready for its time of visitation. One metaphor after the next, in parallelism.
So Mark is very pointed like the Book of Hebrews, about what 'this generation' receiving Mark's Gospel (and Hebrews), will see happen. Mark's Gospel seems meant to be read in tandem with the Book of Hebrews. The first halves of the latter Book's real chapters (versus our numbering system) stress the current situation, and the last halves, how it got that way. Mark's take-off point seems to be a parallel of the situation back when Christ was here, compared to the current generation. It's a real affadavit story, but with a point current readers need to get, right away, euthus. Kinda like Hebrews 12. In the context of Paul and probably Peter's immediate (euthus, again) death, the hurry of Heb12 seems stressed.
In that context, it makes sense that Mark 16's end would be corrupted by too-eager copyists. The better MSS (manuscripts, Bible in original-language text) have no verses after v.8, except maybe 20 and that weird text about Peter. So let's try to correct that. If you keep to Mark's story line and perfunctory style post-Crucifixion, the verses which seem to be his writing, makes sense as follows. Verses in Mark's writing style, imo, go through v.15; then, pick up again at 19-20. Verses 16-18 look totally bogus, because the Lord didn't talk that way, and neither does Mark: but the counterfeit gospels all talk that way: goofy stuff. V. 19 looks genuine, so follows v.15. V. 20 looks genuine, because it uses sunergew, big Divine Actor keyword in Bible, used by Paul in Rom8:28 and by James in 2:22, which Mark would have known, and which the Lord would have stressed (God does all the work, THE theme of Scripture). Most of the MSS have "Amen" (I believe it) after v.20. So that next text about Peter getting instructions is ludicrous (it's only in the Westcott-Hort MSS), totally wrong. V.16, is bogus where it says you gotta be baptised to be saved: that contradicts all other Scripture, so someone inserted "kai Baptistheis", if the verse is even valid (verse is superfluous, and the verb-tense pairings look funny, so I doubt the whole verse). But God has a way of using even mistakes, like He does with the scribal error of kauthesomai in 1Cor13:3 (should be kauchesomai, a chi instead of a theta -- search in Part IVc for "kauchesomai", if you want details). [Nerd Note: you don't need verses 14ff to justify the Great Commission, by the way. Dingdongs who want to pretend non-whites shouldn't get the Gospel (Christ, not being 'white', shouldn't be our Savior, then?) -- are hot to claim that since Mark 16:9-20 are suspect, thus there is no Great Commission. Well, let them fool themselves -- you have to throw out the entire Bible to make that claim (else why do we have one, huh). But don't you be fooled. Sheesh: if anyone would bother to look at DNA generations for more than 15 generations, he'd realize there's no such thing as white or black or brown or yellow, anymore. We are all, muts! Wouldn't surprise me, either, if Abraham's blood isn't sprinkled over ALL the planet's population, by now. After all, blacks and whites were well intermingled among the Jews from the Exodus, forward, and comprised 2/3rds of the exodusing population. Moses married an Ethiopian, etc. Sure does help to do one's homework!]
In sum, Mark is very selective about what events and what teaching to pair up and repeat; and he packages by subject, picking representative things, juxtaposing the overwhelming evidence with the overwhelming rejection. So he's parallelling events then to show what's happening NOW, at the time of writing. 'Chapter 10 onward, you have a repetition of the initial Divine indictment: but THIS time, explaining in advance why Jerusalem will be destroyed (Chapter 10ff, the "riv", in Hebrew, divorce court case, a familiar theme in the OT). Matthew's Gospel had to be the earliest one, considering it would explain the changeover from Law of Moses to 'Law' of Christ, which Paul was newly writing, back then. That would be the first thing the believers would need to know, so to tie OT to the then-building NT, and to discern the fake versus the Real 'gospels' then proliferating, "euthus". Yeah, euthus, the Greek word Mark repeats every chance he gets: meaning, The Right Way, the Straight Way, the Only Way.. right away! Hint, hint.