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Are your perceptions of truth infallible? Because if they aren't, taking up Timothy's mantle may not be wise. (Or was Paul's letter addressed to you as well as him?)

Nice summary. As to the first three items on your list, one work I have found useful is volume one of Tixeront's History of Dogmas, chapters I and II. I heartily recommend it. When reading a gospel or epistle, I always ask myself "What did the writer's intended audience know about this...

Fairly read, there is nothing metaphorical or symbolic in John Chapter 6: 48 I am the bread of life. 49 Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, yet they died. 50 But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which anyone may eat and not die. 51 I am the living bread that came down...

To my mind the matter remains unsettled. Eusebius, writing in the Fourth Century, quotes a chronicler named Hegesippus (his original works are no longer extant) who wrote several centuries earlier that Joseph had a brother named Clopas. Before I decide to take Hegesippus' statement as gospel...

Yes, I think this is a better translation of the Greek words that Paul used. I hesitate to comment on whether it more accurately expresses Paul's intended message. I think what Paul was attempting to convey is better gleaned from reading the whole chapter. His point is that we can know human...

Whether to believe in transubstantiation, consubstantiation, or that there is no real presence of Christ at all in the Eucharist and the meal is commemorative only, is up to each of us. But to those who deny the Real Presence, I can only echo the fourth century father St. Cyril of Jerusalem...

One of the attacks on Roman Catholicism emanating from the Protestant Reformation was a challenge to the notion that Christ is “sacrificed anew” at the mass―every mass―through literal transformation of the elements of bread and wine into His body and blood. The Heidelberg Catechism (1563)...

Agreed.

Well, I will give you my thoughts: The effort to defend transubstantiation (the essence/substance of bread and wine are displaced by the essence/substance of Christ) over consubstantiation (the elements retain a dual essence/substance) as an explanation of the phenomenon is, at a basic level...

It is indeed a "Catholic thing," although some non-Catholics do subscribe to it. It's simply a theory of explaining the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharistic elements. I happen to agree with the Real Presence of Christ in the consecrated bread and wine, although I am a "consubstantiation"...

A thinker's thoughts can be inferred by others, sometimes with great accuracy, from what that thinker says or does. For this reason, if we translate 1 Cor. 2:11 as “No one can know a person’s thoughts except that person’s own spirit," I'd have to say that Paul is mistaken. But I don't...

John 6:55-58 may suggest otherwise, Ronald. But to me it is the evidence from the early Church Fathers which is compelling on this point. Within the first two centuries after Calvary, we find the testimony of Ignatius, Letter to the Smyrnians ch. 7 (“They abstain from the Eucharist and from...

Not sure what you mean by religious cannabalism, but consider how this ties in to Israel’s historic practice of consuming the flesh of sin offerings. The same God who demanded sacrifice as the price of forgiving sin also prescribed that the flesh be consumed, Lev. 6:29―not because He couldn’t...

Are you sure it is transsubstantiation (the essence/substance of bread and wine are displaced by the essence/substance of Christ) and not consubstantiation (the elements retain a dual essence/substance) that you believe in? Both would acknowledge the Real Presence. I've never seen the point of...

I'm not Roman Catholic (anymore), but let me take a shot at this "keys of the kingdom" stuff: John 20:22-23 tells us that all of the apostles -- not just Peter -- were given the power to "forgive" sins (or, more probably, to declare when God's forgiveness would or would not be obtained). To...

Respectfully, I would take issue with your use of "clearly" and "no doubt" here -- for while you may be right on your agency theory, it is far from "clear." I am normally a big fan of Robertson, but I think translating “δι' οὗ” in 1 Cor. 1:9 as “by whom” (identifying a source) rather than...

Context can tell us more about Paul's theology on this issue. Judging from chapters 1 and 2, it appears that Galatians was written before the Council of Jerusalem settled the burning issues of whether Gentiles needed to be circumcised and whether the Law of Moses needed to be kept. In...

Well, it's obviously not clear cut. I hesitate to rely on a Fragment of Papias for any hard and fast conclusions here. Jerome's and Eusebius's writings quote in the OP do not declare James the Les and James the Just/Bishop/Brother to be the same person. Ditto for Josephus, Clement and...

Here you go, MatthewG: Bible Gateway passage: Leviticus 18:5 - New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

No smarter, but likely more confused than you by some of the things Paul has written. It certainly strike me as foolish to try to gain salvation by keeping the Law given to Israel. Whether one should try is an analytically distinct question from whether it is possible to gain salvation that...