Sirach was removed from the Bible by the arch-heretic Luther. It is not hard to see why he didn't like this Book since he was all about God's mercy and didn't seem to want to have any of God's justice or wrath. A lot of people are like that today. All you ever hear some priests talk about or write about is God's mercy, and you never hear about his Justice or wrath, as though those things are leftovers from the Dark Ages and we should therefore take them with the proverbial grain of salt, if not toss them aside altogether.

Well, here is a good passage about that:


Book of Sirach 5: 1 - 8



1 Do not set your heart on your wealth, nor say, "I have enough."
2 Do not follow your inclination and strength, walking according to the desires of your heart.
3 Do not say, "Who will have power over me?" for the Lord will surely punish you.
4 Do not say, "I sinned, and what happened to me?" for the Lord is slow to anger.
5 Do not be so confident of atonement that you add sin to sin.
6 Do not say, "His mercy is great, he will forgive the multitude of my sins," for both mercy and wrath are with him, and his anger rests on sinners.
7 Do not delay to turn to the Lord, nor postpone it from day to day; for suddenly the wrath of the Lord will go forth, and at the time of punishment you will perish.
8 Do not depend on dishonest wealth, for it will not benefit you in the day of calamity.

I think virtually all Americans presume on God's mercy and forget that he is absolutely JUST as well

Americans are spoiled

They seem to conflate freedom with license and etc...

Luther did not remove Sirach or any other book from the Bible, he moved it to an appendix between the Old and New Testaments, but neither Lither nor any other Protestant ever removed it from the Bible. The Deuterocanon were not removed from ANY Bibles until the 19th century, 300 years after Luther, and even then, this was done only in the English speaking world. The Deuterocanon was part of Luther's Bible and is still included in modernized editions of Luther's Bible today.

In the 1928 Book of Common Prayer, oft used by the more traditional Anglicans in this country, that passage (and the 2 following verses) is the reading appointed for the OT Lesson for the 15th Sunday after Trinity. Memory says I was the Lector, that day last year.

AND...

“... when Luther first proclaimed his doctrine of sola scriptura… (and) sola fides… the Radicals* hailed him and for a while followed him. But when Luther proceeded to criticize certain writings within the canon as not sufficiently solafidest… many of the Radical Reformers balked and in the end most of them in the 16th century fell back upon the pre-Reformation canon in toto…”

Source. Page 817 of Chapter 32, The Bible in the Radical Reformation, in The Radical Reformation by George H. Williams (edition unknown)

*Anabaptists, Waldensians and Mennonites are noted as such in this chapter.

well, i guess some historians are liars

gee, how shocking

God knows which ones, the ones I have read or the ones you have, are telling the truth

Doom is correct.

On Bibles in general, Doom is usually correct.

Or perhaps the problem is your lack of reading comprehension

sola scriptura can be obliterated by ONE comment

namely, that: Nowhere in the Bible does it say that the Bible alone is sufficient. SS is a self defeating "doctrine" of men

The Word is described (within itself) as sufficient for teaching but nowhere does it say that the WRITTEN (key word there) is sufficient for salvation. Most of the New T wasn't written until at least something like 70 years after the Ascension and even then.. written versions weren't available until the printing press was invented in 1440

so what did people do before there were written Bibles?

I guess they were all misled by the horrible evil Catholic Church and are now frying in Hell

(The way things have "progressed" in society in general, I would say more people are Hell-bound today than back in those old dark ages.. though God knows_)

"flying away",

Are you aware that you are like a bull in a china shop with regard to apologetics? If I were a non-Catholic and heard you speak I would run in the other direction as fast as I could go.

God's love is the greatest power in the world.

Peace!

Dorothy

When people write 490 posts in less then two months the content is generally not good.

I agree!

Oh, Dorothy. If you only knew! No, you are so very misinformed. Why, after nine measly years of Bible college and seminary and after only reading a few tens of thousands of pages on biblical exegesis, philosophy, and theology, when I read the underlined comment above, I was shocked and thunderstruck. My worldview was, in a word, totally obliterated. I was left feeling as Saul that scales had fallen from my eyes. If only those great many scholars I have read in my few years of study had made such a simple and obvious observation! Why, I do believe that once I recover from my shock I'll be enrolling in RCIA at my earliest convenience.



edit:

On a less salty note, flyingaway, if you are all open to constructive criticism. Learn a little humility and about the idea of charity. Even granting you the absolute and undeniable truth of the Catholic faith, if you wish at all to be effective in your apologetics, lay off these over simplifications and, more fundamentally, the assumption that those who disagree with you are idiots. In fact, you would do better to presume the opposite. Presume they actually know more than you, especially about their own position. Then you can be in a position to actually hear them and their concerns. You can really learn what they think rather than what you think they think. And maybe you could ask enough well-placed questions that you might actually lead someone to start thinking about the right answers.

Or keep on with your nonsense. Whichever. I do hope you take this criticism as intended, in good faith and charity.