Church History Books
Protestant apologist James White always claims that he teaches Church history. Listening to his show and his debates shows that he doesn’t know the subject as well as he thinks. In 2000 White debated Robert Sungenis on whether the Catholic Mass is Biblical and Ancient. Sungenis was quoting Church fathers while James White was quoting Philip Schaff, Jaroslav Pelikan, JND Kelly and other modern Protestant historians.
James White knows Church history like Ergun Caner knows apologetics. They both teach those subjects but they think they know a lot more than they do. The point of this post is not to attack Dr. White but to point out the important of Church History.
A while ago, I was talking with a Seventh Day Adventist Protestant and he told me that the Spanish Inquisition killed millions of “Bible Believing” Christians. I challenged him to name one and silence followed. After all, if millions died, it shouldn’t be hard to name one. Millions of “Bible Believing” Christians didn’t die. This man was simply lied to by people who didn’t properly study Church history.
The only reason that I knew how to respond to him is because I’ve studied Church history in depth and more importantly from the primary sources. In doing research you can quote modern “scholars” and “historians” but why not go to the source? When I read, I make primary accounts the number one priority.
Right now I’m in an isolated location working and I only have two books with me. They are both books about Church history and they are not written by modern historians. One is a compilation of the Chronicles of the First Crusade written by contemporary writers or those shortly after. The second book is the Ecclesiastical History of the Church by the early Church father Theodoret.
I trust these sources better than others because they’re early. I don’t want to read what a 19th Century Protestant writes about Church History. I want people who were there. This doesn’t mean that all modern historians are bad. It means that they are only as good as they are confirmed by the primary accounts. The is something that James White and Seventh Day Adventists have never understood. Primary sources matter.
If we don’t know Church history, we can easily fall prey to the misinformation of James White, dishonest Puritan writers, Mormons or others. If I had never studied the primary accounts of the Inquisition, I would not have been able to refute my friend.
It is also good to check which sources the book used. When I read any book, I check the sources used. I do this by putting the bookmark in the endnotes section at the back so I don’t have a problem referencing it. This shows whether primary sources were quoted or not.
History is important and should be known by every true Christian. This is done especially through primary accounts. By studying these accounts, people like James White and Seventh Day Adventists can be thoroughly refuted.
I am not sure if I am understanding your post here. Are you saying that just because White cited scholars whose expertise happens to be in church history this somehow means that he doesn’t know or delve in the primary sources? Is this what you are claiming?
If so are you saying that you are unlike James White since you not only read the fathers for yourself but are able to read them in the original languages, whether Greek or Latin?
Hello Mr. Shamoun,
Thank you for taking an interest in my blog. I hope you subscribe so you can get all of the posts when I post them. I am also in the early stages of founding an apologetics organization.
What I am saying is that in the debate with Dr. Sungenis, White was quoting modern Protestant historians while Sungenis was quoting the Fathers. They were specifically debating Augustine and his views on the Eucharist. To his credit, Dr. White quoted Augustine a bit but when he was presented with quotes from Augustine he couldn’t answer, he simply fell back to his modern Protestant historians. He kept quoting Schaff and Kelly. Now, I am not against quoting modern historians but if they contradict what the early Church says, they can’t be trusted. They can be trusted only if they’re in agreement. If the early church is unclear on something, we may be able to give the modern historian the benefit of the doubt, however when he disagrees with a clear early source, its a worthless quote. James White deals with Church history like Shabir Ally deals with scripture.
Other Protestants are better on this than White. Even your friend Keith Thompson has more respect for primary sources than White with his attacks on Catholicism. However, he is far from perfect in this regard.
Out of curiosity, in your recommended reading page you listed the following Bible version:
Douay Rheims Bible
The Bible is the backbone of the Christian faith. Every Christian should know this book through and through. The Douay Rheims is the best translation as it has been approved by the Church for centuries. Most editions come with commentary from the Fathers of the Church as was traditionally done in most Bibles.
Are you saying that Douay Rheims is superior to translations that are based on the original languages of the Old and New Testaments? If so are you saying that the Latin translation is superior to the extant Hebrew-Aramaic manuscripts of the Old Testament and the extant Greek manuscripts of the New Testament, which happen to be the languages these books were originally written in? If so, why?
Hello, the translation of the DR is based off the early Latin. This may seem like a disadvantage at first but the Latin copied the early Greek and Hebrew which we no longer have access to. Let me give you one example. Romans 5:1. I’m not aware of any manuscripts which read it the way the DR does but that is the way that the early manuscripts read it. We didn’t have access to them at the time but the majority of early Greek texts we have now confirm that the DR reading is correct. The major protestant translations such as the NASB, ESV, NIV and KJV all get this one wrong.
Another point is that it comes with commentary from the Fathers and Doctors of the Church. Pope Pius VIII and many other Popes stress the importance of this. I don’t know of any Protestant translation that comes with the commentary from Fathers and Doctors of the Church. As far as I know, Protestants don’t have a Bible like that of Challoner or the Haydock edition of the DR. If you could name one, I’ll pick it up and read it.
To be honest, your statement has further baffled me. Note what you said:
“I’m not aware of any manuscripts which read it the way the DR does but that is the way that the early manuscripts read it…”
To be honest, this contradicts your previous sentence:
“This may seem like a disadvantage at first but the Latin copied the early Greek and Hebrew which we no longer have access to.”
How could you possibly know that the reading of the early Latin is based on the early Greek manuscripts when you just admitted we don’t have access to them anymore? How do you know that the early Latin wasn’t paraphrasing what the Greek said? More importantly, are you suggesting that all of the Latin manuscripts read the same way at Romans 5:1 so that you are certain that some of the earliest manuscripts did not read in the same way that many of earlier Greek witnesses read as represented in modern “protestant” versions like NIV? If you are then can you link to images of the earliest extant Latin witnesses, or a critical edition of the Latin Vulgate where I can examine the textual apparatus to see if there are no variant readings listed for Romans 5:1?
The reason why I put “protestant” in quotations is because it isn’t just the Holy Bible produced by protestants that read differently from the Douay Rheims:
1 So then, now that we have been justified by faith, WE ARE AT PEACE WITH GOD through our Lord Jesus Christ; New Jerusalem Bible http://www.catholic.org/bible/book.php?id=52&bible_chapter=5
Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace* with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,a New American Bible Revised Edition http://www.usccb.org/bible/romans/5
What makes the latter version quite interesting is that they acknowledge the variant reading,
* [5:1] We have peace: a number of manuscripts, versions, and church Fathers read “Let us have peace”; cf. Rom 14:19. http://www.usccb.org/bible/romans/5#53005001-2
But still went ahead and incorporated the reading found in “protestant” Bibles.
I sure hope you aren’t going to accuse them of liberal bias, since liberalism has nothing to do with determining and rendering the correct form of the text. Liberalism may affect their view if the authority and inspiration of the text, but not recovering the original of the text. If anything, since these are Catholic Bibles done by Catholic theologians we would expect them to want to go with the reading found in the Douay Rheims since that agrees more with the Catholic view of salvation.
I have more questions but I will wait for your answers to these first. Lord bless.
Sam
I’m sorry for the late reply. I’ve been travelling a lot. I meant to say that no translation has it like the DR. In the Greek tradition, the difference is between an omicron and an omega. The Latin translation is not dependant on one letter so it would reflect the original translation much easier. St. Jerome must have had one with omega since the Latin reflects what I’m trying to prove.
Let me give you the manuscript evidence from someone who thinks it should be translated your way:
“Brackets have been added to show where the variant lies. As you can see, the NA27 has ἔχομεν (echomen) which is the first person plural present active indicative of ἔχώ (echo) meaning “we have”. This reads, “we have peace with God”. But the earliest and most respected manuscripts (Aleph, B, C, D, K, L, 33, 81, 630, 1175, 1739, pm lat bo) have the subjunctive mood ἔχώμεν (echomen) meaning “Let us have”. See the difference? It is only the later manuscripts (Aleph1, B3, F, G, P, Y, 0220vid, 104, 365, 1241, 1505, 1506, 1739c, 1881, 2464, pm) that contain the reading opted for in NA27.”
This is from http://www.reclaimingthemind.org/blog/2011/08/textual-problem-study-romans-51/
They eventually conclude that it should be translated your way but only on “internal” evidence. They said that it doesn’t swing with Paul’s theology. That is, Paul’s theology according to their interpretation. I believe external evidence should be high priority.
I’ll admit that I don’t have an answer for why these modern Catholic Bibles don’t have the DR reading. I won’t say its liberalism but I might guess that its an overvaluing of the internal evidence vs external evidence. I personally think that it is sloppy textual criticism. Regardless, I do have all of those translations and use them in my study. However, I only recommend the DR as you observed in my recommended reading.
Sorry again for the late reply and thanks for taking an interest in this website.