← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · weisbrot
Thread ID: 7465 | Posts: 17 | Started: 2003-06-18
2003-06-18 20:36 | User Profile
Experts Call Biblical Artifact Fake
by Corinne Heller Reuters
JERUSALEM (June 18) - Israeli archaeological experts said Wednesday an inscription on an ancient stone box suggesting it once contained the bones of Jesus' brother, James, was a forgery.
The burial box and its Aramaic inscription "James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus" had excited speculation it could be the earliest physical reference to the founder of Christianity outside the New Testament.
But the director of Israel's Antiquities Authority, Shuka Dorfman, called it a hoax.
"The ossuary is real. But the inscription is fake. What this means is that somebody took a real box and forged the writing on it, probably to give it a religious significance," Dorfman told Reuters after a news conference on the matter.
James, who was believed to have been stoned to death in 62 A.D., is mentioned in the Gospels as Jesus' brother. Jews and Protestants accept that, but Catholics -- who believe Christ's mother, Mary, was a virgin all her life -- say he was a cousin.
Dr. Gideon Avni, the archaeologist who chaired a committee of archaeological experts investigating the find's provenance since March, told reporters the conclusion was unanimous.
The committee concluded that "even if the ossuary is authentic, there is no reason to assume the bones of Jesus' brother were inside," and that the stone of the box was more typical of Cyprus and northern Syria than ancient Israel.
The committee's report said the inscription of the "James Ossuary" cut through the stone's patina, or natural fossilized sheen, and appeared to be in modern text, written by someone attempting to reproduce ancient biblical fonts.
The experts could not pinpoint when the inscription was forged.
An Israeli antiquities collector bought the ossuary in the 1970s but had no idea of its significance. Last year, he invited Andre Lemaire, a renowned French scholar of ancient texts, to examine it. Lemaire concluded the inscription was genuine.
Ossuaries were used by Jews in Jerusalem from 10 B.C. to A.D. 70 to hold skeletal remains of bodies near caves. Many believed that once decomposed, the dead could be resurrected with the coming of the Messiah.
Only a few hundred ossuaries of the thousands unearthed contain inscriptions, reserved for the dead of high status.
06/18/03 09:43 ET
2003-06-19 16:59 | User Profile
*Originally posted by weisbrot@Jun 18 2003, 15:36 * ** but Catholics -- who believe Christ's mother, Mary, was a virgin all her life **
Please forgive my ignorance, but I was not aware of this. Is this true?
2003-06-19 17:27 | User Profile
** but Catholics -- who believe Christ's mother, Mary, was a virgin all her life ** ** Please forgive my ignorance, but I was not aware of this. Is this true? **
Joseph was more of a hero than most Protestants will ever know, according to traditional Catholicism...
[url=http://www.catholic.com/library/Mary_Ever_Virgin.asp]http://www.catholic.com/library/Mary_Ever_Virgin.asp[/url]
Mary: Ever Virgin Most Protestants claim that Mary bore children other than Jesus. To support their claim, these Protestants refer to the biblical passages which mention the "brethren of the Lord." As explained in the Catholic Answers tract Brethren of the Lord, neither the Gospel accounts nor the early Christians attest to the notion that Mary bore other children besides Jesus. The faithful knew, through the witness of Scripture and Tradition, that Jesus was Mary?s only child and that she remained a lifelong virgin.
An important historical document which supports the teaching of Mary?s perpetual virginity is the Protoevangelium of James, which was written probably less than sixty years after the conclusion of Mary?s earthly life (around A.D. 120), when memories of her life were still vivid in the minds of many.
According to the world-renowned patristics scholar, Johannes Quasten: "The principal aim of the whole writing [Protoevangelium of James] is to prove the perpetual and inviolate virginity of Mary before, in, and after the birth of Christ" (Patrology, 1:120?1).
To begin with, the Protoevangelium records that when Mary?s birth was prophesied, her mother, St. Anne, vowed that she would devote the child to the service of the Lord, as Samuel had been by his mother (1 Sam. 1:11). Mary would thus serve the Lord at the Temple, as women had for centuries (1 Sam. 2:22), and as Anna the prophetess did at the time of Jesus? birth (Luke 2:36?37). A life of continual, devoted service to the Lord at the Temple meant that Mary would not be able to live the ordinary life of a child-rearing mother. Rather, she was vowed to a life of perpetual virginity.
However, due to considerations of ceremonial cleanliness, it was eventually necessary for Mary, a consecrated "virgin of the Lord," to have a guardian or protector who would respect her vow of virginity. Thus, according to the Protoevangelium, Joseph, an elderly widower who already had children, was chosen to be her spouse. (This would also explain why Joseph was apparently dead by the time of Jesus? adult ministry, since he does not appear during it in the gospels, and since Mary is entrusted to John, rather than to her husband Joseph, at the crucifixion).
According to the Protoevangelium, Joseph was required to regard Mary?s vow of virginity with the utmost respect. The gravity of his responsibility as the guardian of a virgin was indicated by the fact that, when she was discovered to be with child, he had to answer to the Temple authorities, who thought him guilty of defiling a virgin of the Lord. Mary was also accused of having forsaken the Lord by breaking her vow. Keeping this in mind, it is an incredible insult to the Blessed Virgin to say that she broke her vow by bearing children other than her Lord and God, who was conceived through the power of the Holy Spirit.
The perpetual virginity of Mary has always been reconciled with the biblical references to Christ?s brethren through a proper understanding of the meaning of the term "brethren." The understanding that the brethren of the Lord were Jesus? stepbrothers (children of Joseph) rather than half-brothers (children of Mary) was the most common one until the time of Jerome (fourth century). It was Jerome who introduced the possibility that Christ?s brethren were actually his cousins, since in Jewish idiom cousins were also referred to as "brethren." The Catholic Church allows the faithful to hold either view, since both are compatible with the reality of Mary?s perpetual virginity.
Today most Protestants are unaware of these early beliefs regarding Mary?s virginity and the proper interpretation of "the brethren of the Lord." And yet, the Protestant Reformers themselves?Martin Luther, John Calvin, and Ulrich Zwingli?honored the perpetual virginity of Mary and recognized it as the teaching of the Bible, as have other, more modern Protestants.
2003-06-19 17:35 | User Profile
*Originally posted by weisbrot@Jun 19 2003, 17:27 * ** An important historical document which supports the teaching of Maryââ¬â¢s perpetual virginity is the Protoevangelium of James, which was written probably less than sixty years after the conclusion of Maryââ¬â¢s earthly life (around A.D. 120), when memories of her life were still vivid in the minds of many.
According to the world-renowned patristics scholar, Johannes Quasten: "The principal aim of the whole writing [Protoevangelium of James] is to prove the perpetual and inviolate virginity of Mary before, in, and after the birth of Christ" (Patrology, 1:120ââ¬â1).
**
I'd never heard of the Protoevangelium of James. Obviously Protestants have less high an opinion of it than Catholics, but the fact that Catholic's did not try to canonize such a crucial document, if it was supposedy written at such a certain date, I think is significant.
2003-06-19 18:10 | User Profile
It is my understanding that traditionalistic Catholics maintain that the Mother of Crist was a virgin during her time on earth as she was a vessel for the Holy Spirit alone.
As to the ossuary it always seemed very strange to me that Christians spend so much time and effort attempting to find historical support for a belief system that is (like all deity centered religious faiths) supra rational as the foundationalisms will never be suitable for empirical verification in the first place. It seems to me more sensible to instead of taking a literalist look at Christian texts that one should simply do what Europeans do Heathens and say that the texts recount Myths which are literary represents of fundamental truths about existence and cosmology rather then an archival account of literal events.
2003-06-19 18:24 | User Profile
*Originally posted by triskelion@Jun 19 2003, 13:10 * ** As to the ossuary it always seemed very strange to me that Christians spend so much time and effort attempting to find historical support for a belief system that is (like all deity centered religious faiths) supra rational as the foundationalisms will never be suitable for empirical verification in the first place. It seems to me more sensible to instead of taking a literalist look at Christian texts that one should simply do what Europeans do Heathens and say that the texts recount Myths which are literary represents of fundamental truths about existence and cosmology rather then an archival account of literal events. **
Because the very heart of Christianity lies in its historical truth. Take away God incarnate in the historical man called Jesus and his resurrection from death and Christianity is nothing more than pagan foolishness and myth.
2003-06-19 18:59 | User Profile
It's less about historical verification than the fact that Christianity was burned in the past over "holy relics" to the point that they started dismissing relics as idol worship.
A Jesuit told me long ago he'd have destroyed the Turin Shoud if he had the chance. His complaint: it isn't "faith" if it must be backed up with material evidence, and material evidence must be subject to scrutiny and interpretation which would be hell on faith even in good times.
2003-06-19 19:36 | User Profile
We obviously differ with respect to defining Myth with you taking it to mean an untrue tale and I as what I previously said.
Putting that matter a side it seems pretty unwise for Christians to claim that the texts they old dear are historical documents that detail specific events as they happened for many reasons that I am sure you are aware of. Physically proving that the personalities of your Holy texts once lived is one thing but doing so does not lend support for said persons being what you view them as so it is best to simply state that one's faith is just that.
In any case, please do not mistake my comments for an attack upon your faith as that is not what I intend.
2003-06-19 19:45 | User Profile
*Originally posted by triskelion@Jun 19 2003, 14:36 * ** In any case, please do not mistake my comments for an attack upon your faith as that is not what I intend. **
No problem at all, triskelion. In a healthy environment for our people, these types of things should be discussed. We are, of course, in an unhealthy environment, hence I share your cautionary approach, in slight deference to ecumenicism. Unity in essentials is what I like to say.
Nevertheless, I do somewhat agree with you on the matter of apologetics, in that if one gets carried away trying to objectively 'prove' Christianity then it only weakens faith.
2003-06-19 20:43 | User Profile
.....Iââ¬â¢ve often wondered, as well, why some felt the need to ââ¬Åproveââ¬Â the Ark of the Covenant, or Noahââ¬â¢s ark, or the Shroud, for that matter; it does appear to be a lack of faith on the surface, but one never knows the motivations of the obsessions of others... To me, the perfect alignment of the text with the events foretold, (particularly in regards to the Babylonian system of the antiChrist ââ¬Åjewsââ¬Â, and their assault of true Israel), is sufficient to verify validity, but the deeper students have looked at the perfection of the numerics, as well as the structures of Scripture, and I donââ¬â¢t believe mortal man could have written in such perfect fashion; add to that the physical application of the first level, in tandem with the spiritual application of the second, and I believe this could only be done by Our Father, utilizing the words within in a manner of dual context that has overlap of two differing meanings, enroute to the selfsame story in the fullness of The word...
.....As to the ââ¬Åjesuitââ¬Â that wanted to destroy the Shroud; I can understand perfectly the veracity of such a claim... the ââ¬Åjesuitsââ¬Â were the militant arm of the RCC, and almost wholly ââ¬Åjewishââ¬Â from their inception, forward...
2003-06-30 20:52 | User Profile
triskelion: *....it always seemed very strange to me that Christians spend so much time and effort attempting to find historical support for a belief system that is (like all deity centered religious faiths) supra rational.... *
rglencheek: But there are more truth affirming methods than empiricism, such as historical research, eye-witness testimony, intuition and deduction. Empiricism is far too constraining for anything but modern science, and the classical nerd is the person who tries foolishly to live on a daily basis by empirical reason.
And though belief in God is 'supra rational' it is not irrational, therefore one should expect one's faith to conform to reason or else one is engaging in a tautology. It then becomes nothing more than a soothing and pleasant fiction, and cannot constrain the emotional excess of life nor provide genuine meaning in times of crisis.
triskelion: *.... one should simply do what Europeans do Heathens and say that the texts recount Myths which are literary represents of fundamental truths about existence and cosmology rather then an archival account of literal events. *
rglencheek: Perhaps this is why the cathedrals of Europe are now empty save for a few old women, while the msoques are filled to capacity. The future of Europe is muslim because Europeans grew too sophisticated for simple faith in a God of Love.
triskelion: ...it seems pretty unwise for Christians to claim that the texts they old dear are historical documents that detail specific events as they happened for many reasons that I am sure you are aware of. Physically proving that the personalities of your Holy texts once lived is one thing but doing so does not lend support for said persons being what you view them as so it is best to simply state that one's faith is just that.
rglencheek: Before we can believe that Jesus is the Son of God, we have to have certainty that there was a historical Jesus. You seem to discount that we can believe the former so we should abandon the latter? This makes no sense to me at all unless one has a rather cynical view of faith to begin with. Am I misreading you?
Texas Dissident: *Because the very heart of Christianity lies in its historical truth. Take away God incarnate in the historical man called Jesus and his resurrection from death and Christianity is nothing more than pagan foolishness and myth. *
rglencheek: Well said!
Texas Dissident: Nevertheless, I do somewhat agree with you on the matter of apologetics, in that if one gets carried away trying to objectively 'prove' Christianity then it only weakens faith.
rglencheek: Maybe, maybe not. There is such an abundance of evidence to support the faith that the failure of any one matter is far from fatal to the faith as a whole. But one can become so obsessed, that is true, but the problems of our day are 99% of the other kind with most Christians having little respect, knowledge or genuine belief in the things that they are taught. I would think that a Josh McDowell here and there merely serves as a welcome anti-dote.
Ragnar: *A Jesuit told me long ago he'd have destroyed the Turin Shoud if he had the chance. ... *
rglencheek: In which case your Jesuit would be physically doing to the Shroud what his order has been doing to the Body of Christ for the last 40 years! Before converting to the RCC, I was repelled by the fact that three of the priests I studied Catholicism with, all Jesuits, were men who did not believe that the resurection of Christ was an historical event, but only a metaphore of some sort for the human condition and God's response to it. Such men do not serve their Church nor God well; it would be better that they left the preisthood entirely.
Patrick: .....Iââ¬â¢ve often wondered, as well, why some felt the need to ââ¬Åproveââ¬Â the Ark of the Covenant, or Noahââ¬â¢s ark, or the Shroud, for that matter;
rglencheek: I am only interested because I expect a person of such reknown as Jesus Christ ot have had mementos kept by His followers. The total absence of such suggests, but far from proves, that there was no historical Christ.
The Shroud of Turin and the Sudarium of Oviedo are excellent examples of how physical evidence about the historical Jesus is obscured and investigations clouded by disparate groups, most with 'axes to grind'.
The debate about the Shroud of Turin built up slowly in the 20th century once it was discovered to have been a photographic negative of a man's body. The body of evidence that supported its legitimacy slowly grew piece by piece, leading many scientists to accept its validity as an historical relic.
Then the carbon datings came up apparently showing it to date from 1260-1390 AD, and all hell broke loose. Many scientists were absolutely shocked at the date because so much other evidence pointed to it being from Palestine (like the presence of travertine argonite, found almost uniquely in Palestine near the Damscus Gate in Jerusalem). Other pieces of evidence like the various pollens found on the Shroud suggest it was in Palestine and then later in Turkey or Anatolia. The Shroud was never taken to Palestine or Turkey after its discovery in France in the 13th century. Also, no one has ever replicated a process that was available to people in the 14th century that can produce the same kind of radiation scorings found on the Shroud that produce its image. It is not, as commonly suggested, paint pigment.
Meanwhile, still more evidence accumulates about the Shroud being authentic. The Sudarium of Oviedo (the head clothe) is known to have resided in Spain since the early 600's AD, and has tested to match the Shroud of Turin exactly in a number of ways, from the positioning of blood stains and the blood type (AB+).
From [url=http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=17660]http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article....RTICLE_ID=17660[/url]
***Part of Jewish burial custom was to cover the face of the dead, sparing the family further distress. The sudarium, from the Latin for "face cloth," would have been wrapped over the head of the crucified Christ awaiting permission from Pontius Pilate to remove the body. Stains made at that time indicate a vertical position with the head at an angle. There are stains from deep puncture wounds on the portion of the cloth covering the back of the head, consistent with those puncture marks found on the Shroud of Turin, theoretically made by the caplet of thorns.
A separate set of stains, superimposed upon the first set, was made when the crucified man was laid horizontally and lymph flowed out from the nostrils. The composition of the stains, say the Investigation Team from the Spanish Centre for Sindology, who began the first sudarium studies in 1989, is one part blood -- type AB -- and six parts pulmonary oedema fluid. This fluid is significant, say researchers, because it indicates that the man died from asphyxiation, the cause of death for victims of crucifixion.
Recently, Dr. Alan Whanger, professor emeritus of Duke University, employed his Polarized Image Overlay Technique to study correlations between the Shroud and the Sudarium. Dr. Whanger found 70 points of correlation on the front of the sudarium and 50 on the back.
"The only reasonable conclusion," says Mark Guscin, author of "The Oviedo Cloth," "is that the Sudarium of Oviedo covered the same head as that found on the Shroud of Turin." Guscin, a British scholar whose study is the only English language book on the Sudarium, told WorldNetDaily, "This can be uncomfortable for scientists with a predetermined viewpoint; I mean, the evidence grows that this cloth and the Shroud covered the same tortured man." ***
There is much evidence for our faith aside from the Shroud, but it is too obtuse with the materialistic/deterministic spirit of our age to accept, especially among our most educated.
Yet the evidence is still there, and many come to have faith because of it.
[url=http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/printer-friendly.asp?ARTICLE_ID=17688]http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/printer-...RTICLE_ID=17688[/url]
A report on the blood stains with a short history of the Shroud [url=http://www.shroud.com/pdfs/ford1.pdf]http://www.shroud.com/pdfs/ford1.pdf[/url]
More skepticism on the carbon 14 dating of the Shroud [url=http://www.shroud.com/scavone3.pdf]http://www.shroud.com/scavone3.pdf[/url]
A summation of known evidence supporting the Shrouds authenticity [url=http://www.theshroudofturin.com/evidence.htm]http://www.theshroudofturin.com/evidence.htm[/url]
2003-07-01 01:50 | User Profile
rglencheek:
The Jesuit in this case was devout, actually. He felt relics were just plain bad for faith. It's a sensible position if you remember that there were times when Catholics wore bones of saints around their necks.
The Shroud of Turin came under a truly interesting investigation by Price & Picknell in the book In Whose Image?. Since most people won't read it, I'll summarize it quick: There's some pretty good evidence that says the shroud was made by Leonardo da Vinci and that it's in Leonardo's image. The dates match and we know his style which would include a secret "pinhole camera" technique that was in fact known to him.
Chemists have actually vouched for the thesis of the book. As for Leonardo's motive... it gets complicated there.
2003-07-01 07:03 | User Profile
Thanks for the info, Ragnar. Some of the info on Leonardo and the Shroud was also mentioned in ** Rule By Secrecy**.
2003-07-01 16:09 | User Profile
Ragnar: *The Jesuit in this case was devout, actually. He felt relics were just plain bad for faith. It's a sensible position if you remember that there were times when Catholics wore bones of saints around their necks. *
rglencheek: Relics can be an obsession, like anything else. Since becoming a Catholic, I have noticed that there is a very strong tradition of enthusiasm that borders on the excessive in many ways that shock me at times, as an ex-fundamentalist (Church of Christ). But the magisterium does the best it can to reign this stuff in without doing the greater harm of dampening the more moderate enthusiasm of the majority. It is a difficult tightrope that they walk and it is one I do not envy them.
As to the Jesuits, I do not think that that order is genuinely loyal to Rome any more, but to their own utopian vision that seems a type of panentheism - God as Nature's Process. So, I am not sure what a devout Jesuit worships these days. But I am sure that they have damaged the authority of the Papacy and have implicitly betrayed the Church, especially in the Western nations. The RCC has a net loss of members in those places most influenced by Jesuits; an ironic situation for the order that once saved the entire nation of Poland for Catholicism long ago.
Ragnar: The Shroud of Turin came under a truly interesting investigation by Price & Picknell in the book In Whose Image?. Since most people won't read it, I'll summarize it quick: There's some pretty good evidence that says the shroud was made by Leonardo da Vinci and that it's in Leonardo's image. The dates match and we know his style which would include a secret "pinhole camera" technique that was in fact known to him.
rglencheek: The advantages of hindsight may make such a thesis seem plausible, but it leaves many more questions unanswered and raises many more.
How would this theory explain the various mid-eastern pollens found in it?
How would it explain the matching of the blood stains with the Sudarium of Oviedo?
How would it explain the Shroud not showing traces of the chemicals used in this process?
Where are the prototypes and any other coraborating evidence that Leonardo ever did do such a thing? Are we supposed to believe that Leonardo developed this in one fell swoop? That is not how development happens.
And is it really plausible that someone would have been so successful in developing such a process centuries ahead of time and then let it be lost? That neither matches the behavior of inventors today, nor that of Leonardo himself.
Ragnar: Chemists have actually vouched for the thesis of the book. As for Leonardo's motive... it gets complicated there.
rglencheek: To those who believe in a closed universe, one in which there is no God that might entervene at any time, any explanation other than the 'miraculous' is more valid by definition.
And of course one can line up any number of experts who can vouch for the idea that some hsitorical nation could have developed a modern instrument if its elements were available. The Chinese could have made primitive arquebuses as they certainly had the technology long before the Europeans did. But the only germane question is, 'Did they actually do such?' The same is true of this rather sensational notion that da Vinci may have invented a type of photographic process half a millenia before it was developed historically, and then told absolutely no one about it. Sure, maybe it could have happened, but did it? There is no obvious evidence to suggest that it actually did, else we would have long known about it.
But to a Christian who does not believe in a closed universe, it is likely far more plausible that the Shroud of Turin might actually be physical evidence of the Resurection, as we do not reflexively rule out the 'miraculous'.
With the rather sensational things we have discovered about our universe since the development of Quantum Mechanics, I do not see how anyone can object to anything 'miraculous' anymore. In quantum physics, sometimes effects occur before the event that caused them. Sometimes the act of perception itself causes change in the nature of a subatomic particle. The universe is now known to not be deterministic, nor to always conform to the notion of causality.
For physicists to object to the 'miraculous' today is to strain out gnats while swallowing a camel.
2003-07-01 17:48 | User Profile
** but Catholics -- who believe Christ's mother, Mary, was a virgin all her life ** ** Please forgive my ignorance, but I was not aware of this. Is this true? **
Tex:
That's right. The Catholic Church teaches that Jesus was her only child, that she remained a virgin her entire life.
Here are some relevent articles of the Catechism.
Walter
To view the context, please visit [url=http://www.christusrex.org/www1/CDHN/creed3.html#MARY]http://www.christusrex.org/www1/CDHN/creed3.html#MARY[/url] 500. "Against this doctrine the objection is sometimes raised that the Bible mentions brothers and sisters of Jesus.[Cf. Mk 3:31-35 ; Mk 6:3 ; 1 Cor 9:5 ; Gal 1:19 .] The Church has always understood these passages as not referring to other children of the Virgin Mary. In fact James and Joseph, 'brothers of Jesus', are the sons of another Mary, a disciple of Christ, whom St. Matthew significantly calls 'the other Mary'.[Mt 13:55 ; Mt 28:1 ; cf. Mt 27:56 .] They are close relations of Jesus, according to an Old Testament expression.[Cf. Gen 13:8 ; Gen 14:16 ; Gen 29:15 ; etc.]"
To view the context, please visit [url=http://www.christusrex.org/www1/CDHN/creed3.html#MARY]http://www.christusrex.org/www1/CDHN/creed3.html#MARY[/url] 501. "Jesus is Mary's only son, but her spiritual motherhood extends to all men whom indeed he came to save: 'The Son whom she brought forth is he whom God placed as the first-born among many brethren, that is, the faithful in whose generation and formation she co-operates with a mother's love.'[LG 63; cf. Jn 19:26-27 ; Rom 8:29 ; Rev 12:17.]"
2003-07-03 22:52 | User Profile
Originally posted by rglencheek@Jul 1 2003, 16:09 * *rglencheek: Relics can be an obsession, like anything else. Since becoming a Catholic, I have noticed that there is a very strong tradition of enthusiasm that borders on the excessive in many ways that shock me at times, as an ex-fundamentalist (Church of Christ). **
Traded one "true Church" for another eh?
Can a man have God the Father without the Church as his mother?( PreVatican II Catholicism)
2003-07-04 06:08 | User Profile
Originally posted by Okiereddust+Jul 3 2003, 16:52 -->
QUOTE (Okiereddust @ Jul 3 2003, 16:52 ) <!--QuoteBegin-rglencheek@Jul 1 2003, 16:09 * *rglencheek: Relics can be an obsession, like anything else. Since becoming a Catholic, I have noticed that there is a very strong tradition of enthusiasm that borders on the excessive in many ways that shock me at times, as an ex-fundamentalist (Church of Christ). ** Traded one "true Church" for another eh?
Can a man have God the Father without the Church as his mother?(ÃÂ PreVatican II Catholicism) **
Well, I spent years looking for what I felt was closer to God's Will for us. I have studied Islam, various Protestant faiths, some Greek Orthodox as well as Catholicism. The bottom line is that I do not think that Sola Scriptura provides us with all the Truth that God has revealed to his church though it does have all that is necesary for salvation, and these are not, IMO, the same set of ideas, the latter being a smaller subset of the former.
The Church of Christ is a great church with solid members. In my heart, I still wish it success, though not in Catholic areas.