Let me be clear. It is delusional to think that the Christian Europe of days gone by was KNOWINGLY taking a NON-BIBLICAL approach to their religion, and would they have been presented with CF modern biblical interpretation, they would have said "well of course, but I'm sick and evil and just pretending."
I already gave you the explanation, which you conveniently didn't notice, but for the record, the reason that this is true is because at that era and place
the Bible was not considered the ultimate source of authority for Christianity, Church Tradition and decree was.
They THOUGHT their way was correct/biblical.
Correction, they thought it was correct according to church tradition.
You can state that they were incorrect and had a nonbiblical interpretation, and like I said, I buy that logic, but they sincerely believed whatever was their own interpretation (objectively "incorrect" or not - which you and others in your church say it is).
So? Mormons today believe that all of us, if we live as good Mormons, will all become a gd after we die, and sincerely believe it.
It is a complete stretch and fantasy to suggest that all those priests and all those communities were knowingly distorting their own religion but knew the other (modern) interpretation was the correct one and just chose the incorrect one anyway.
No more or less than Muslims who believe that their religion is true. Do Muslims know that their religion is wrong and persist in believing it anyway? That's up for debate.
They thought theirs was correct-biblical!
For the jillionth time, they didn't use the Bible, by itself, as their guiding light--they went primarily on pontifical rulings (which were deemed incontrovertible and the direct words of G-d himself) and the decisions the church had made in the past. The Bible, during that era, was taken to be a second-tier source of knowledge and authority in Christianity. You don't know Christian history better than I do, and you're not going to prove otherwise.
Whether it was or wasn't, they thought so.
They used a completely different interpretive system than modern Christians. That's why it was fair for me to make the analogy of a Torah debate between you and a secular Jew. It would not be a fair debate--it would be apples and oranges. You each would have totally different sources of authorities in your lives.
It's up to the christian theologians and guys like yourself to determine what the correct interpretation of Christianity is/was. Not me.
Obviously.
But don't tell me that those people didn't sincerely believe that what they were believing and doing was a 'biblical' correct approach. The fact that they did doesn't mean they weren't wrong. So your conclusion about what is 'the thrust of my argument' is completely off.
How difficult is it for you to understand this concept?
Christendom in that era did not view the Bible as the primary source with which to make religious decisions. The sole, guiding authority was Pontifical authority and bull (decree)--meaning that what the pope said, went. The Pope was considered to be a living oracle of G-d, and therefore his declarations carried direct divine weight. After that, authority rested on church tradition and historical precedent--i.e. what past Popes had decided, or what early church fathers wrote and believed. Some of these early church fathers were extremely antisemitic (i.e. John Chrysostom), and they were held in a very high degree of esteem--at least as high as, if not higher, than the actual authors of the N.T. themselves. Their decisions, teachings, and practices were seen as divinely sanctioned. The best analogy that can be made for this for you, within Judaism, would be the belief that the great rabbinic scholars of history are divinely anointed with the authority to make halachic decisions. Medieval Christianity believed similarly of church fathers. (
Note--I am not in the least, even remotely, comparing Jew-hating beasts with the great Torahic/Talmudic scholars of Judaism. I simply was making an analogy in order to illustrate the basis of their authority-system.) The Bible was viewed as the word of G-d, for sure, but it had to be interpreted and implemented by the Church hierarchy for true meaning and substance.
So that is why I can accurately claim what I do. The "Christians" of that era would not have thought of themselves as "biblical Christians"--such a concept did not exist on a wide scale until the Reformation, and really, even after that, not until various small Christian communities that wanted nothing to do with the Old World (such as the Puritans, Quakers, Anabaptists, etc.), sprang up. They would have viewed themselves as "Church Christians" or "Holy Roman Christians", because their lives were based upon the church itself, not a sacred text. If I were having a debate with one today, their first quarrel with me would not be interpretation of Scripture, but why I don't view church dictates as the direct word of G-d.
