How do Christians reconcile archeology with the Bible in the account of the Battle of Jericho?

The consensus of modern scholarship is well described in the wikipedia article to which the question refers.  Most scholars are committed to a view that the Old Testament for the most part contains myth possibly to bolster/justify Jewish claims on the land of Israel.  Many are also committed to the Wellhausen Documentary Hypothesis or similar derivatives.

It would not be welcome to many to discover that there is evidence that the walls of Jericho came tumbling down just as the Bible says and in a year which substantiates the conquest of the land of Israel harmonizing with scriptural testimony.

The testimony of radio carbon dating: Fall of Jericho, about 1550 BC

Before continuing, I must acknowedge that the carbon dating does not at first appear to corroborate the date of the Fall of Jericho presented here: most scholars take these carbon dates at face value and assert that Jericho was destroyed about 1550 BC.  However, it is not the only time that carbon dating has come up with an answer that is doubted by archaeologists.  The evidence of the carbon dating must be weighed against other evidence: in the view of archaeologist Dr Bryant Wood dating middle eastern sites by means of pottery evidence trumps carbon dating methods.  Furthermore the carbon dating method relies on callibration using tree ring data in order to produce absolute year values: it is the assumptions made in the callibration, and the poor quality of the underlying tree-ring data which are disputed:-

  The LB I [Late Bronze Age I] dating has received much opposition from skeptical archaeologists, who insist on dating the pottery at Jericho City IV to Middle Bronze, about 120 years earlier, and who also appeal to radiocarbon dating that is consistent with that estimate. Bryant’s present work is therefore significant in refuting that viewpoint. Support for Bryant’s LB I date comes from the finds at Avaris in Egypt’s Delta, where LB I pottery from the 15th century BC is similar to that found at Jericho City IV. Further, radiocarbon dating for this same area and time of Egypt is about 120 to 170 years too high, the same amount of offset for radiocarbon results from Jericho [emboldening is mine, AS]. These too-early radiocarbon dates for Egypt and other areas of the Mediterranean in the period 1400 BC and earlier have led to a conflict between “science” and what had been accepted as firmly established archaeological dates. Critics of the radiocarbon dates have argued that they are too early, not because of wrong measurements of the 14C/12C ratios, but because of the very dubious, and poorly documented, matching of tree-ring data that provides the adjustments that are used to derive absolute (BC) dates from carbon ratios. In this ongoing debate, those who proclaim that “science” has disproved the Bible account of Jericho have never themselves investigated all the steps that go into establishing the “scientific” dates, but instead direct skepticism only at the Bible.  (Rodger Young, See http://www.rcyoung.org/articles/Wood.html)

So, doubts concerning the dates provided by radio carbon dating are not confined within the heads of narrow-minded, pea-brained, Bible fundamentalists, nor confined to issues relating only to Bible events.  Manfred Bietak, distinguished Egyptologist and archaeologist, but not a Bible believer as far as I know, argues that the radiocarbon date of 1600 BC or so for the Thera Eruption is about 150 to 170 years too early.  The Egyptian archaeological evidence that Manfred Bietak uses to argue this is hard to deny.  The radiocarbon date for the Fall of Jericho is 1550: reducing it by the same value gives a date for the Fall of Jericho of 1400 to 1380, precisely the date to vindicate the Bible account.

In short, once it is recognised that the radiocarbon dating methodology is consistently producing results which are wrong by ~150 years then the radiocarbon dating results for Jericho are no longer vindicating Kathleen Kenyon's date of 1550 BC, but rather confirming a date of 1400 BC.
For further reading see:-
http://www.rcyoung.org/articles/radiocarbontalk.pdf

Biblical and extra-Biblical testimony for the year of the Fall of Jericho.

  In the five and twentieth year of our captivity, in the beginning of the year, in the tenth day of the month, in the fourteenth year after that the city was smitten, in the selfsame day the hand of the Lord was upon me, and brought me thither.  (Ezekiel 40:1, KJV)

You will notice that it says "in the selfsame day" or "on that very day" and yet in the English translation it hasn't yet mentioned any day at all. What it has said is "in the beginning of the year".  The Hebrew that has been translated "in the beginning of the year" is "Rosh Hashanah".  Now the phrase "Rosh Hashanah" appears no where else in the Old Testament.  But in the Old Testament there was the Feast of Trumpets, and it was the first day of the month beginning the agricultural year which is the 7th month (Tishri), starting after the bringing in of the harvest of summer fruits of figs, sycamore figs pomegranites and especially the grape harvest.  (Lev 23:23-25).  The month of Tishri is in about September.  After the exile the Feast of Trumpets on the first of Tishri, became known as Rosh Hashanah, New Year's Day.  But Rosh Hashanah is not always at the New Moon, the first day, of the 7th lunar month.  In Ezekiel 40:1 Rosh Hashanah is said to have fallen on the tenth day of the month, that is on the Day of Atonement (Leviticus 23:27), and this only happened once every 49 years in the Year of Jubilee.  In the year of Jubilee the Feast of Trumpets (which became Rosh Hashanah) was held on the tenth day of Tishri (Leviticus 25:9).

  Then shalt thou cause the trumpet of the jubilee to sound on the tenth day of the seventh month, in the day of atonement shall ye make the trumpet sound throughout all your land.  (Leviticus 25:9)

Now the point is that the Talmud says that the Year of Jubilee noted in Ezekiel 40 verse 1 was the seventeenth Jubilee.  The Seder Olam written in the first century draws attention to this and finds it to be deeply mysterious because the Jewish author of the Seder Olam cannot reconcile this with the lengths of the Hebrew kings in Scripture.   (It wasn't until the doctoral thesis of Edwin Thiele in the 1940s that the lengths of the reigns of the Hebrew kings could begin to be understood.)

A Year of Jubilee happened every 49 years and so 17 Jubilees covers 833 years.  And the Sabbatical and Jubilee cycles first began with the year of entry into the Promised Land (Lev 25:2), which is the same as the year of the Fall of Jericho.  The year of the destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar was either 587 BC or 586 BC and 14 years after this is 573 or 572 BC. So the year mentioned in Ezekiel 40:1 was the 14th after, which was in either 573 or 572, and the Fall of Jericho was consequently either (573 + 833 =) 1406 BC or 1405 BC.  Rodger C Young insists that the destruction of Jerusalem was in 587 BC and so the Fall of Jericho was in 1406 BC.  (See "The Talmud's Two Jubilees and their relevance to the date of the Exodus" - http://www.rcyoung.org/articles/jubilee.pdf and "When did Jerusalem fall?" - http://www.rcyoung.org/articles/jerusalem.pdf ).

Another means of calculation uses Edwin Theile's calculations for the years of the Hebrew kings.  He places the beginning of the reign of Solomon in 971 BC and his fourth year at 968/967 BC. The Bible gives a link from this date to the date of the Exodus:

  And it came to pass in the four hundred and eightieth year after the children of Israel were come out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon's reign over Israel, in the month Zif, which is the second month, that he began to build the house of the Lord.  (1 Kings 6:1)  (See also Judges 11:26)

So subtracting 479 years from 967 gives the year of the Exodus from Egypt of 1446 BC. And 40 years in the wilderness gives the year of the Fall of Jericho as 1406 BC, precisely the same year, with no tricks, and no circular reasoning.  As Rodger C. Young argues this perfect agreement by these two completely different methods puts a serious hole under the water of the Wellhausen Documentary Hypothesis and all that modern scholarship which follows Wellhausen (www.rcyoung.org).

The testimony of the Amarna Letters, and the High Chronology and the Low Chronology of the 18th dynasty

Turning to the Amarna letters, it may not be wise to try to either verify or discredit the Biblical account of the Battle of Jericho by an appeal to the dates of the Amarna letters.  El Amarna was the capital city of Egypt for a very limited period during the 18th dynasty of Egypt and was abandoned in the second year of Tutankhamun.  At Amarna were discovered the Royal Archive containing letters from all over the Levant.  Some of these letters are appeals to the Egyptian pharaoh for help because Canaan is being overrun by "the Habiru". The question is were "the Habiru" the Hebrews?

The 18th dynasty ended about 1300 BCE.  I have in front of me pages 310 and 311 of "The British Museum Dictionary of Ancient Egypt", edited and compiled by the distinguished Egyptologists Ian Shaw and Paul Nicholson.  [A fabulous book for those interested in Egyptian history, but buy the second edition because it contains corrections to minor mistakes found in the first.] Those pages contain a chronology of ancient Egypt, and at the head of the chronology it says

  " All dates before 690 BC are approximate".

But in case you think that a cop out, I shall argue that the dates of the Amarna letters, on minimal conservative assumptions, could fit perfectly with a date of Fall of Jericho of 1406 BC.   The city of El Amarna is most closely associated with the Pharaoh Akhenaten (Amenhotep IV) who is usually said to have reigned from about 1352 to 1336.  However those are not the only possible dates: those dates are using what is known as the "Low Chronology" for the 18th Dynasty.  There is also the "High Chronology" which puts the dates 25 years earlier.

The difference in the two chronologies is all down to a recorded observation of a "heliacal rising" of the Sothis/the Dog Star/Sirius, for which the year is given according to one of the 18th dynasty pharaohs.  Unfortunately the record does not say from which city the observation was made: was it observed at Memphis or at Thebes?  The difference makes a 25 year difference in the chronology of the 18th dynasty.  So Akhenaten might have reigned not from 1352 to 1336 but rather from 1377 to 1361 BC.

As I said Amarna is mostly associated with Akhenaten; but actually some of the Amarna letters are known to have been sent to his predecessor, Amenhotep III, who according to the Low Chronology reigned from 1390 to 1352, but according to the High Chronology reigned from 1415 to 1377 BC.

(There is a known synchronism between the reign of Akhenaten and Ashur-uballit I, who reigned 1365-1330 BC.  Both the High and Low Chronologies allow for this synchronism.)

In short, we cannot tell which pharaoh most of the letters were written to.  Before about 1000 BC it was ancient Egyptian convention to refer to the pharaoh simply as "pharaoh" without specifying the name of the pharaoh.  (This convention is followed in Scripture; after 1000 bc scripture still follows the later Egytian convention of naming the pharaoh.) We are fortunate that in the case of the Amarna letters the name of the pharaoh is known in some cases. Thus it is quite reasonable to argue that the relevant Amarna letters from Canaan without the pharaoh's name were written to Amenhotep III at some time between 1415 and 1377, which fits perfectly with the time of the conquest of the "Promised Land", starting 1406 BC with the Fall of Jericho.

The High Chronology, by the way, fits far better with the life of Moses and the period of the Exodus.  For example, Moses fled from pharaoh when he was 40 years old (Acts 7:23) and was 40 years in Sinai (Acts 7:30) when he was told that the men who were wanting to kill him were all dead (Exodus 4:19).  There are only two pharaohs throughout the 18th and 19th dynasties whose reign lasted longer than 40 years: Thutmose III (1504-1450 BC, High Chron.) and Rameses II (1279-1213 BC, according to Shaw & Nicholson; or 1290-1224 BC according to Douglas Petrovich, see file:///C:/Users/USER%2001/Downloads/Chronology_of_Egyptian_Dynasties_12_18_1.pdf ). Seeing that Exodus 4:19 must include the Pharaoh himself then it fits perfectly with the High Chron. but not the Low Chron. In the Low Chronology Thutmose III died in 1425 BC, which is after the Exodus, 1446 BC, and obviously according to Exodus 4:19 the pharaoh who wanted to kill Moses for 40 years must have died before the Exodus.  Also, when Aaron was born 1529 there had been no order to kill the baby boys, but by the time Moses was born 1526 BC a decree had been passed.  Thutmose I became pharaoh during 1529 (High Chron.) suggesting this change of policy was his soon after he became pharaoh.

The evidence of the scarabs found at Jericho

Scarab amulets are named after beetles because of the similar shape.   They began to be used in Egypt but their use spread to other areas including the Levant.  Individuals used them for various reasons, sometimes for making seal impressions for legal documents and trade documents as the equivalent of signatures.  Immediately prior to the conquest of the Promised Land by the Israelites the city kings of the Levant pledged allegiance to Egypt.  This was because the area had been conquered by Thutmose III.  (He fully established the area as part of the Egyptian Empire by his victory over the Prince of Qadesh and his Mitannian allies at the Battle of Megiddo, 15th May, 1482 BC (High Chron.) (according to Richard A. Parker).)  Because of this the scarabs of the Levant bore not only the name of the owner, but also the name of an Egyptian pharaoh, from which it seems possible to arrive at a date for when a city was occupied.  For these reasons scarabs are precious discoveries to archaeologists.

The reigns of the pharaohs using the High Chronology are thus:-

18th Dynasty

Ahmose - 1575-1550 - 25 years (length of reign)

Amenhotep I - 1550-1529 - 21 years

Thutmose I - 1529-1517 - 12 years

Thutmose II - 1517-1504 - 13 years

Thutmose III - 1504-1450 - 54 years

Hatshepsut - 1498-1483 (a co-regency with Thutmose III) - 15 years

Amenhotep II - 1452-1425 (brief co-regency with Thutmose III) - 27 years

Thutmose IV - 1425-1415 - 10 years

Amenhotep III - 1415-1377 - 38 years

Amenhotep IV (Akhenaten) - 1377-1361 - 16 years

Nefernefruaten - 1363-1361 (another co-regency) - 2 years

Tutankhamun - 1361-1352 - 9 years

Ay - 1352-1348 - 4 years

Horemheb - 1348-1320 - 28 years

19th dynasty

Rameses I - 1306-1305 - 1 year

Sety I - 1305-1290 - 15 years

Rameses II - 1290-1224 - 66 years

Merenptah - 1224-1214 - 10 years

There have been a number of scarabs found at Jericho which relate to the time of the fall of the walls and destruction of the city.  Scarabs have been found containing the names Thutmose III, Hatshepsut, Amenhotep II and Amenhotep III.  There have been no scarabs found after the reign of Amenhotep III at Jericho.

This is powerful evidence for a date of the Fall of Jericho during the reign of Amenhotep III, 1415-1377.

Other Archaeological Discoveries

I only want ot look two pieces of evidence as discovered by three archaeologists, John Garstang, Kathleen Kenyon and Bryant Wood: pottery dating, and those full jars of grain.

Pottery Dating

John Garstang investigated Jericho in the period 1930-36.  He found evidence that the walls of Jericho had fallen down dramatically. And from his examination of the pottery he declared that the fall of Jericho happened about 1400 BC, confirming a literal reading of 1 Kings 6:1.

Kathleen Kenyon investigated from 1952-58. She agreed the walls had come dramatically tumbling down.  But she claimed that the pottery did not confirm the date of 1400 BC or any where near it.

Both these two archaeologists very kindly (?) sent their pottery finds to museums and other instiitutions supporting their digs all over the world.

Bryant Wood studied pottery for several years and his doctoral thesis was in Middle Eastern late bronze age pottery, precisely the skill needed to date the Fall of Jericho. He then decided he would re-examine the pottery finds and other finds of both John Garstang and Kathleen Kenyon and examine their methodology.  So for many years off he went on his holidays on planes all over Europe and the States to all the museums, etc.  He examined every single piece of pottery from both digs.  What he found was a big surprise.  He found he agreed with the methodology and conclusions of John Garstang but neither the methodology nor the conclusions of Kathleen Kenyon.  Kenyon based her date of the fall of Jericho not on what pottery she had found but on what she had not found .. a highly dubious methodology. She was looking for a very expensive Cypriot pottery which is a key indicator for the period and when she did not find it she decided that Jericho could not have fallen during that time period.

According to Bryant Wood she made two big blunders:

Her archaeological dig was in the poor sector of ancient Jericho as identified by the houses being close together.  You shouldn't expect to find expensive pottery in a poor neighbourhood.
She should have realized that the pottery she had found was actually a poor man's imitation of the expensive Cypriot pottery!  So actually what she found was not against the date of the late 1400s BC but confirmation!  According to Bryant Wood, Kathleen Kenyon should have realized she had found confirmation that Jericho fell in agreement with the date arrived at using 1 Kings 6:1 (as described above).

Full Jars of Grain

Bryant Wood, in examining the notes of both archaeological digs found another important discovery.  Both John Garstang and Kathleen Kenyon in their respective digs had found something which is very rarely found in archaeological digs.  They both had dutifully recorded it, but its significance had clearly not struck them.

We need to remember what the Bible says: they came to Jericho after the flax harvest, in the Spring, having celebrated Passover at Gilgal (Joshua 5:10).  They went round the city for a week and the walls came tumbling down.  They then killed all (except Rahab and family); they did not take anything of value, such as food, etc, (except for one act of disobedience by Achan); and they then set the city on fire.

This is in great contrast to a normal siege of a city with strong walls: normally the city would be laid siege to for months until the food had run out; then it would be conquered and anything of value would be taken.

What the notes of the archaeological digs recorded was that they had found many houses with a room containing jars of grain. The jars were full, and the grain had been damaged by the fire. (See Bryant Wood's lecture below, 47:50 minutes).

These full jars demonstrate that:

Firstly, the conquest was soon after the grain harvest agreeing with the Bible's account of the flax on the roof and the Passover celebration (Joshua 2:6; 5:10); second, when Jericho was conquered the food had not run low, so clearly the city had not been put under siege for several months, again agreeing with the Bible account of a seven day "siege" (Joshua 6:4); thirdly, after the city defences were breached the city was not plundered, the jars full of grain would have been well worth taking away before burning the city, but in this case the full jars of grain were left - again this agrees with the Bible which says the whole city and everything in it was cursed (except Rahab and her family; and the gold, silver, bronze and iron were for the treasury of the LORD) (Joshua 6:17-19; 7:1); and finally the city had been burned just as the Bible says (Joshua 6:24).

The unusual discovery of these jars full of grain significantly ties in with the Biblical account.

The Walls which came tumbling down

Archaeology has discovered there were three walls surrounding Jericho which is on a hill, the inner wall which was mud brick; an outer wall which was also mud brick; and then almost immediately under this outer mud brick wall was a solid stone retaining wall which was there to prevent the ground under the outer mudbrick wall from collapsing outwards.

This stone brick retaining wall is still there in places and is about 18 feet high; it did not collapse: what happened was that the (estimated) 20 ft high, 6ft wide mud brick wall above it collapsed and the mud, etc, fell in front of the retaining wall conveniently providing a reasonable gradient for the Israelites to scale and get over the 18ft retaining wall.

It would not make much sense to build the mud brick wall first and then later build the retaining wall.  Surely the retaining wall would have been built first to help prevent the weight of the mud brick wall from causing the ground underneath to collapse outward; only after the construction of the retaining wall would they have felt confident to build the mud brick wall slightly further up the hill on which Jericho is sited.

Kathleen Kenyon agreed that there had been a mud brick wall and that it had come dramatically tumbling down; she agreed that the mud bricks fell and gathered up immediately in front of the retaining wall - she could hardly do otherwise, there was the evidence of the remains of the mud brick plainly to see; but she had said that the walls had come down about 1550 BC, 150 years before the date needed for the Bible to be true.  She based this on the absence of the Cypriot pottery, as has been said already.

Archaeological excavations by an Italian-Palestinian joint collaborative expedition from the University of Rome, starting in 1997, found evidence that the retaining wall had not even been built by 1550 BC: it was finished about 1500 BC! For the date that Kathleen Kenyon says the wall came tumbling down, there almost certainly was no mud brick wall to fall.  For more about this see the 52 minute lecture, starting from 24:50 minutes; and http://www.asor.org/anetoday/2014/03/tell-es-sultan-a-pilot-project-for-archaeology-in-palestine/

THANK YOU FOR READING THIS FAR.

For more information see:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5Fjth9T12U - a 55 minute documentary (for more about the grain discovery start at 27:20 minutes)

and
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJNjhnTe4B0 - a 52 minutes lecture by Dr Bryant Wood.

For more on the interface between archaeology and the Bible for this period of Biblical history see Who was Pharaoh when Moses lived in Egypt?


Will executioners of capital punishments be saved?

There is a fundamental flaw in the logic here.

Genesis 4 clearly applies to a single person - the person who kills Cain.  Generalizing this to any executioner is not supported by the text. To wit:

  'Very well, then,' Yahweh replied, 'whoever kills Cain will suffer a sevenfold vengeance.'

Indeed, if it did call for that, Genesis 9:6 would be unenforceable:

  From his fellow man I will require a reckoning for the life of man.
    “Whoever sheds the blood of man,
      by man shall his blood be shed,
  for God made man in his own image.

As such, generalizing adds a needless tension introduced by the hypothetical.  There is an old joke that conflates "Judas went out and hung himself," followed by "Go and do thou likewise."  Standard hermeneutical approaches say that adding to the text is not warranted.


In the Catholic Church, is there specific canon law on voluntary excommunication?

There is no such thing as voluntary excommunication, in the strict sense of excommunication. There's a good answer by AthanasiusOfAlex which explains the purpose of excommunication; I'll restrict this answer to method, as asked by the question. However, the other answer is valuable in demonstrating that "voluntary excommunication" is absurd.

Excommunication is either latae sententiae (imposed by the unlawful act itself) or ferendae sententiae (imposed by authority).

Neither of those methods of excommunication is voluntary. An act which incurs a latae sententiae excommunication may be voluntary, but the excommunication is not.

If what you are actually asking is about a formal secession from the Church, then yes, any act of formal secession will result in a latae sententiae excommunication: canon 1364 specifically mentions apostasy, heresy and schism.

Canon 1365 prescribes a "just penalty" for prohibited participation in religious rites. Canon 1369 prescribes a "just penalty" for public blasphemy, harming public morals or exciting hatred of, or contempt for, religion or the Church. A "just penalty" could include excommunication, but it will be ferendae sententiae.

All of these acts will be voluntary, but the resulting excommunication is not.


Looking for source of quote about "doing what you should be"

The quote comes from St Catherine of Siena (1347–1380), a third-order Dominican, theologian, and Doctor of the Church. According to the book Saint Catherine of Siena as Seen in her Letters, it is adapted from a quote in her Letter 386. This letter was written to her young friend Stefano Maconi. The original reads:

  Se sarete quello che dovete essere, metterete fuoco in tutta Italia, non tanto costi.

That is,

  If you are the kind of person whom you ought to be, you will set a fire in all Italy, and not only over there  [i.e. where he is currently].

Pope St John Paul II adapted this in an address given in 2000, saying

  If you are what you should be, you will set the whole world ablaze!

And Wikiquote attributes a similar adaptation to Church of England bishop Richard Chartres in 2011:

  Be who God meant you to be and you will set the world on fire.


What is an overview of non-literal methods of interpreting the Bible in Christianity?

A comprehensive overview of sorts is attempted on the Wikipedia page on Biblical Hermeneutics, but it is so comprehensive that it is incomprehensible (at least to me).

I think an abridged overview of sorts can be constructed by looking at what hermeneutic principles were applied within the Church during its first few hundred years.

Justin Martyr (100-165), relied heavily on typology in the interpretation of the Old Testament that he presented to Trypho, a Jew (Dialog with the Jew Trypho).  His typological interpretation of the flood comes close to what you posted in your question.

Irenaeus of Lyon (130-202) relied heavily on a hermeneutic principle of letting Scripture interpret Scripture.  This means that (John Breck, Scripture in Tradition, p.53):

  a.  Every interpretation must be in harmony with other passages of
  Scripture

  b. Obscure passages can be interpreted by those that are clear and
  evident

Following Justin Martyr and Irenaeus, hermeneutics took the form of an Alexandrian "school" and an Antioch (or Antiochene) "school".  Exegesis within the Alexandrian school was generally allegorical, whereas exegesis within the Antiochene school relied on a more literal reading of Scripture.  The most prominent exegetes within each of these schools within the Church were probably the contemporaries Cyril of Alexandria (376-444) and John Chrysostom (349-407).  Although each are classified as belonging to their respective school, neither was strictly allegorical or strictly literal in their exegesis.  Both Cyril and Chrysostom employed all of the aforementioned methods, but employed certain techniques more than others.

I think that any hermeneutic principle that developed after the late 4th/early 5th century can probably be analyzed in terms of how much it employs each of the early methods discussed above:

Typology
Using Scripture to interpret Scripture
Allegory
Historical/factual reading


Is punishment for sins forgiven by baptism? (Catholic perspective)

Yes, baptism removes all punishment for sin.  If a person died immediately after baptism they would enter heaven directly without a need for purification in purgatory.  They would not be required to do penance.  From the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

  1263 By Baptism all sins are forgiven, original sin and all personal sins, as well as all punishment for sin. In those who have been reborn nothing remains that would impede their entry into the Kingdom of God, neither Adam's sin, nor personal sin, nor the consequences of sin, the gravest of which is separation from God.


What did Christian authors of the 7th - 15th centuries say about the Muslim claim of Gospels being direct revelations from God?

Briefly, here are some of the claims made in the Qur’an about Jesus, the Torah or Law of Moses, the Gospel and where they came from:

“Lo! We did reveal the Torah, wherein is guidance and a light” (Surah 5:44a; 2:87).
“And We caused Jesus, son of Mary, to follow in their footsteps, confirming that which was (revealed) before him in the Torah, and We bestowed on him the Gospel wherein is guidance and a light, confirming that which was (revealed) before it in the Torah - a guidance and an admonition unto those who ward off (evil)” (Surah 5:46).
“It is He Who sent down to thee (step by step), in truth, the Book, confirming what went before it; and He sent down the Law (of Moses) and the Gospel (of Jesus) before this, as a guide to mankind, and He sent down the criterion (of judgment between right and wrong)” (Surah 3:3).
“If thou wert in doubt as to what We have revealed unto thee, then ask those who have been reading the Book from before thee: the Truth hath indeed come to thee from thy Lord: so be in no wise of those in doubt. And be not thou of those who deny the revelations of Allah, for then wert thou of the losers” (Surah 10:94-95; 16:43).

The New Testament was completed 500 years before Muhammad received the Qur’an yet Muslims claim the Bible has been corrupted, and so the Bible must be wrong.  It is worth pointing out that when discrepancies in a historical document are alleged, the burden of proof rests on the newer text.  On the question of authenticity and accuracy, an article I found says this:

“In conclusion, many Muslims believe that the Quran contains the literal words of Allah which have been perfectly preserved and transmitted through the ages. Muslims make this claim not based on Islamic history as I have investigated and discussed above, but purely as a statement of faith. I discovered that once the Quran was standardized, there were minor variations over time due to the various readings and transmissions of the Quran; these variations were in addition to the dots and vowel marks that were added over time. When it comes to the Injeel, it is clear from the history of its transmission, that the variations in it are more than those in the Quran. However, I was able to conclude that neither one was 100% pure, and that the variations in the Quran or the Injeel have not altered the teachings of Mohammad or Isa respectively.  At this juncture I was satisfied that the word of God as revealed in the Injeel had not been altered.”  Source: https://www.answering-islam.org/Authors/Farooq_Ibrahim/trustworthy3.htm
Some Muslim scholars have suggested the Injil may be the Gospel of Barnabas or Gospel of Thomas. More commonly, Muslim scholars have argued that the Injil refers to a text now lost or hopelessly corrupted. For example, Abdullah Yusuf Ali, whose translation of the Qu'ran is among the most well known in English, wrote: “The Injil (Greek, Evangel equals Gospel) spoken of by the Qur'an is not the New Testament. It is not the four Gospels now received as canonical. It is the single Gospel which, Islam teaches, was revealed to Jesus, and which he taught. Fragments of it survive in the received canonical Gospels and in some others, of which traces survive (e.g., the Gospel of Childhood or the Nativity, the Gospel of St. Barnabas)."  More information here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel_in_Islam

With regard to the Gospel of Barnabas, it was most likely written by a fifteenth-century European who wrote inaccurately about the life of Jesus (Isa).  The original Barnabas lived during the first century and was not one of the original twelve disciples of Jesus as the Gospel of Barnabas mistakenly claims.  Here is a short extract from an article on the Gospel of Barnabas:

“If the Gospel of Barnabas were written in the first century, it would have been quoted in other documents of the same time period. It is not cited, however, a single time in works of either the church fathers or Muslim clerics until the fifteenth century. Those who claim the early authorship of the Gospel of Barnabas may be referring to the Epistle of Barnabas—a first-century book, though not divinely inspired.  A reading of the Gospel of Barnabas clearly shows that it was written neither in Jesus’ time nor shortly thereafter, as alleged. It contains far too many historical errors. The Gospel of Barnabas contains quotations from Dante Alighieri, references to an edict from Pope Boniface, and descriptions of feudalism. Therefore, scholars place the date of authorship around the fifteenth century.”  Source: https://www.gotquestions.org/Muslim-Barnabas.html

The gospel of Thomas is a Coptic manuscript discovered in 1945 at Nag Hammadi in Egypt. This manuscript contains 114 sayings attributed to Jesus. Some of these sayings resemble sayings found in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Other sayings were unknown until their discovery or even run counter to what is written in the four Gospels.  Here is a short extract from an article about the Gospel of Thomas:

“The gospel of Thomas was not written by Jesus' disciple Thomas. The early Christian leaders universally recognized the gospel of Thomas as a forgery (and it) was rejected by the vast majority of early Christians. The gospel of Thomas contains many teachings that are in contradiction to the biblical Gospels and the rest of the New Testament... The gospel of Thomas is a Gnostic gospel, espousing a Gnostic viewpoint of Christianity. The gospel of Thomas is simply a heretical forgery, much the same as the gospel of Judas, the gospel of Mary, and the gospel of Philip.”  Source: https://www.gotquestions.org/gospel-of-Thomas.html

I can find no reliable Christian source that concurs with the Islamic view that Jesus was given “the Gospel” (whatever that might be) by God.  The four New Testament Gospels are accounts of the life, the teachings and the words of Jesus.  They were inspired by God, just as the rest of the New Testament was inspired by God.   The Jesus (Isa) of the Qur’an bears no resemblance to the Jesus of the New Testament.  And that’s because Jesus was much more than a good man or a prophet. C.S. Lewis explains the Christian view of Jesus in these words:

"I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronising nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to. ... Now it seems to me obvious that He was neither a lunatic nor a fiend: and consequently, however strange or terrifying or unlikely it may seem, I have to accept the view that He was and is God."


Did the apostles teach ideas about God the Father that were contrary to the teachings of first century Judaism?

A great deal of early Christianity is anti-thematic to Judaism at that time.

In Judaism G'd is considered non-corporeal. So a son coming down, being human, dying (human trait), and rising, are all outside of Judaism at the time. Evidence of this belief in Judaism includes that Jews were called "atheists" by other groups of people at that time for their insistence that G'd doesn't have a body nor any worldly presentation.

In Judaism the existence of three G'd presentations, one being human, is borderline worship of idols (a human as a G'd). It's why belief in Jesus by a Jewish person, makes them an ex-patriot to Judaism. It put them outside Judaism and they'd have be make teshuva (repentance) to return.

In Judaism, sins are only the responsibility of the sinner, and can only be forgiven by the actions of the sinner to repent and change. There is no original sin taught in Judaism in any of the sacred or study texts (such as Talmud) which reflect beliefs from  the turn of the millennium. Since you aren't born with original sin, there is no need for saving from it.

In Judaism, the messiah will bring peace on earth and an end to all suffering. There is no 2nd coming concept. It's also not a particularly important concept in the 2 millennia since.  At the time, during the fight with the Roman's it was a hopeful idea being talked about. The messiah is supposed to come from the house of David, be a descendant of King David. Jesus is not. Others at the time were considered for the title, such as  Bar Kokhba who lead one of the most successful rebellions against the Romans, and was thought to be by Rabbi Akkiva. When it was unsuccessful, it was considered a mistaken idea. It's thought that Bar Kokhba met more of the criteria than Jesus.
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/rabbi-akiva

A site with a lot of the basic concepts in Judaism is http://www.jewfaq.org. Reading through, one can see how concepts differ from Christianity.

There are also similarity in how G'd is taught. The idea of one g'd for all the world, being all powerful, was different than the beliefs of others around the Jews, and Christianity continued that belief.

Early Christianity borrows a lot from the pagans around it. However, it used that virtually rather than literally. For example, some local communities sacrificed live people to save their communities from sin. There is much debate how much of that borrowing is by the original apostles, and how much is from later interpretations.

Judaism had considerable elements that were intentionally the opposite of the communities around them. For instance, the belief that someone else can't die to save you from anything. With that, the idea in kosher laws around blood, are opposite to the drinking of blood to gain power that was used around them.

There are books written on the topic. I don't remember the names of ones I read parts of, but there are good sources on these concepts from early Christianity.


How do Christians discern whether they are on the narrow path that leads to life or the broad path that leads to destruction?

“Truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door but climbs in by another way, that man is a thief and a robber. But he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. To him the gatekeeper opens. The sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice. A stranger they will not follow, but they will flee from him, for they do not know the voice of strangers.” This figure of speech Jesus used with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them. So Jesus again said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. All who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture. - John 10:1-9

Jesus is the "strait" gate.  Jesus is the "narrow" way.

Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. - John 14:5-6

To pass through into life one must divest themselves of all pretense regarding sin, righteousness, and judgement.  One must utterly reject the pride of life which claims to somehow either deserve or renders unessential both mercy and grace.  There is but one single, solitary way for any and every person to enter into life and that is through Jesus.  He is the door.  He is the way.
The only thing that will fit through this door is the uncovered man, wretched in his sin and utterly naked and excuse-less before the eyes of the Righteous One.  What else can a man bring to God but a begging hand outstretched and imploring?  Oh sinner, call on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved!
Having thus come, desperate and helpless to be cured of sin, the gracious savior does not turn away or quench the bruised reed, the smoldering wick.

All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. - John 6:37

In Christ transgression is covered.  In Him the power of sin in the flesh is broken, not removed yet but broken, and no longer reigning as master.  The Holy Spirit of God takes up residence in the newly cleansed tabernacle of the body and begins to conform the newly redeemed to the image of Christ.  This activity of God will be carried out unto completion (Philippians 1:6). In Christ one is born again...born from above and they have eternal life.

For as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom he will. For the Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son, that all may honor the Son, just as they honor the Father. Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him. Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life. - John 5:21-24

That which was beforehand dead is now made alive.  The question asks, "How do Christians discern if they are part of the privileged minority walking the narrow path to life?"  This is tantamount to asking, "How does that which was previously dead know that it is now made alive?"
The purpose statement of John's gospel is that one may believe and, in believing, may have life in Jesus' name:

Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. - John 20:30-31

The purpose statement of the epistle of 1 John is that those who have believed may know that they have eternal life:

And this is the testimony, that God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life. I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life. - 1 John 5:11-13

If one has the Son of God (only begotten and equal as in John 5:18) one has eternal life and, according to 1 John, is capable of and expected to know it.  It is apparently possible for one who has life to be yet unsure (or else why the stated purpose of 1 John). If one does not know that they have eternal life it is perhaps because they have not been well taught all that there is in Christ.  1 John is recommended reading for such.
As the Scripture says, however, there are many who do not have the Son of God and who, therefore do not have life.  They have approached a misrepresentation of, a misunderstanding of the Son of God and have apprehended a savior who cannot save.  They have yet to come to the gatekeeper, to the door of the sheep. It is entirely impossible for one who does not have the Son of God and, therefore, does not have life to know life as in 1 John.  They have yet to enter the strait gate...they are on the broad path of the dead who think that they live and the only hope for such is to lift up their eyes, see the Son of God lifted up, and believe.

If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things? No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. - John 3:12-18

One may know that they are on the narrow path when one believes in the name of the only Son of God.  This One who is begotten of God and who is one in being with the Father is the One who saves and is the One who sends the Holy Spirit to live within the believer.  It is this indwelling Spirit that wrestles within us against the sinful desires of the flesh and bringing about conformity to Christ, thus testifying within us that we belong to God:

For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God - Romans 8:14-16

Anyone who does not believe in, trust, and confess this Jesus as the only begotten Son of God cannot possibly have the internal testimony of the Spirit and so cannot possibly know that they have eternal life and will never be condemned.  It is possible to be on the broad way and yet think the narrow is underfoot.  The defining question is "Which Jesus do you confess?"


Does every denomination / sect have a catechism?

No most pentecostals do not have a catechism. Some churches do have introduction to the faith classes but there are no predefined standards.


Do any denominations use the full form of INRI?

The short answer is yes.

First of all, there are several denominations that have the tradition of have of displaying  crucifixes in their church, such as Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Anglicans and Lutherans. Although these churches have  crucifixes in them, the vast majority of these works of art, simply have the abbreviated form of Titulus on the cross.

There is nothing contrary to having a crucifix with the full title within these denominations. It simply is not the prevailing custom of any denomination.

That said, if one looks hard enough, someone will eventually find a few churches here and there that display a crucifix with the full title of Christ’s condemnation, in various Christian denominations throughout the world.

Here is just one example of a crucifix with the full title which I found in a Lutheran church.

A crucifix in the chancel of a Lutheran church.

With a little more research I am confident one could find more examples in other denominations as well.

  The Latin title, being the official indictment, would undoubtedly have been written first on the board. This then would have determined the length of the board and/or the size of the letters required to fit the inscription into one line and for it still to be readable by the crowd from a distance (John 19:20).

  In those days they did not use spaces between the words in any of the languages as we do now, and so John's Latin “title” contained just 26 letters and no spaces.

  Luke's Greek “superscription” contained 30 letters, and so must have been written in slightly smaller letters than was the Latin. It is easy to see that there would not have been room for 16 more letters for the words “Jesus of Nazareth” (i.e. “Jesus the Nazarene”) in Greek.

  Matthew's “accusation” in Hebrew contained just 19 letters, which is rather fewer than the two other languages, because the Jews did not write vowels in Hebrew. Whoever translated the title into Hebrew apparently did not think it worth adding “of Nazareth.” Perhaps he thought that to have lived in Nazareth was not an indictable offense!

  If we put all of this together, it is highly probable that the board with the inscriptions looked as shown above, with the Latin written first, probably at the top, and then either the Greek or the Hebrew. -
  The inscription(s) on the cross


How can the logical impossibility of infinite self reference be reconciled in the case of God?

Nothing to do with religion / God / whatever, but there seems to be a fundamental flaw in your argument here.

  Event A causes event B within the universe.
  God decides that he does not want event B to occur so he stops event A from happening.
  Event A no longer happened and therefore God would never intervene in the first place. Go to 1.

The third bullet does not follow unless you are thinking of God as Marty McFly hopping backwards and forwards.

If I have misinterpreted the logic in the question, please let me know. However, let's put this into more common terms, following your reasoning:

smoking (A) causes cancer (B) and costs money
I decide that I don't want to get cancer or waste money, so I stop this from happening to me by not smoking
I didn't smoke (!A) and I find I don't have cancer (!B) (based on a statistical average) and have spare change in my pocket, therefore my efforts were wasted and there was no need not to smoke

or:

leaving the hob gas on unlit (A) causes houses to explode (B)
I decide I don't want my house to explode, so I check the gas is off when I'm not using it
the gas wasn't on (!A), and my house didn't explode (!B), therefore my caution was unneeded and there was no need to turn off the gas

Even in Human logic, the third bullet is nonsense. It really isn't my intent to defend the religious view here, but this is not a sensible argument against God, and is trivially dismissed even when considering a person with natural knowledge. If we pre-suppose all-knowing, then that not includes possible consequence, but rather: absolute knowledge of consequence (and prior reasoning).

It seems that even in the knowledge that A (and B) hasn't (haven't) happened, having A continue to not happen (to avoid B) is still necessary.


When did the church in the city of Rome first try to impose a tradition on other churches?

I'm frankly dumbfounded. Unless I'm reading wrongly, @Mike has asked this question, and then provided his own answer.

To answer your question, though it hardly seems necessary since you knew your answer before asking your question, before "the church in the city of Rome" tried "to impose a tradition on other churches", whatever that means, other churches were querying the church of Rome for guidance. Pope St. Clement (+AD 96) wrote to the church of Corinth in response to complaints from its leadership. The presbyters and bishop of Corinth had been deposed and chased out of the city and they wrote to Rome asking its bishop to validate their authority as appointees of the apostles. And this happened perhaps while St. John was still even alive.

It is wise, when wondering how Rome started "imposing traditions other churches," to remember that while Rome had armies, the church of Rome had none. How, precisely, is the Bishop of Roman supposed to have imposed anything on anyone?

The appeal to Rome is always an appeal to moral authority. Even in the heyday of her power, the Church of Rome and the Papal States were by-and-large reliant on other nations' for their military protection. When patriarchs in Constantinople and bishops in North Africa ask for the support of the Pope, they are not asking for his armies - at his most militarized he had precious few - they are asking for his endorsement.


Hebrews 13:2 reminds us to show love and hospitality towards all, "for in doing so, some have entertained angels," unaware. When Samsons parents were told they were going to have a child, they too were unaware that they were in the presence of an angel, until after they sacrificed, the angel went away dramatically revealing what he was.

There is nothing to suggest that angels no longer visit Earth*, but nothing says that says we will recognize them as such when they do.

*ok, possibly one could say that because we have the Bible, God no longer requires messengers (and by definition an angelos' job is a messenger) but that would just be speculation.


What is "New Creation" according to Catholicism?

Well, as a Catholic, I'm not going to attempt to interpret the Bible, here's the commentary from the New American Bible:

  A new creation: rabbis used this expression to describe the effect of the entrance of a proselyte or convert into Judaism or of the remission of sins on the Day of Atonement. The new order created in Christ is the new covenant.

I asked a similar question concerning St. Thomas Aquinas' Hymn  concerning the what he meant by the New Rite and apparently he's talking about the New Covenant and the New Covenant is the Gospel message which is Salvation through Christ.

At a superficial level, I'd assume he was talking about Baptism.  When you're baptized you're made a "new creation" in Jesus.  The new creation would be the new life of the spirit dwelling within the newly minted Christian.


What is the biblical basis for the theory that Christians should not eat pork?

The Scriptural basis for the Jewish diatary laws is Leviticus 11.
In particular, verse 7 says:

  And the swine, though he divide the hoof, and be clovenfooted,
  yet he cheweth not the cud; he [is] unclean to you.

(This and all following quotes are taken from King James Version, for consistency.)

These admonitions are repeated in Deuteronomy 14; particularly,
verse 8 says:

  And the swine, because it divideth the hoof, yet cheweth not the cud,
  it [is] unclean unto you: ye shall not eat of their flesh, nor touch
  their dead carcase.

This is all well and good, but up until here we are talking of the
Old Testament and Mosaic Law. Coming into the New Testament, the
Evangelists (Matthew 15:1–20, Mark 7:1–23 and
Luke 11:37–41) report Jesus' words:

  Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man; but
  that which cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man.

Of course, in this case it was an issue of the disciples not washing
themselves before eating bread, but it establishes the precedent for
the question described in Acts 15, which has been described as the
first Ecumenical Council, or the Council of Jerusalem:

  And certain men which came down from Judaea taught the brethren,
  [and said], Except ye be circumcised after the manner of Moses, ye
  cannot be saved.
  When therefore Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and
  disputation with them, they determined that Paul and Barnabas, and
  certain other of them, should go up to Jerusalem unto the apostles
  and elders about this question.

  (...)

  And the apostles and elders came together for to consider of
  this matter.
  And when there had been much disputing, Peter rose up, and said
  unto them, Men [and] brethren, ye know how that a good while ago
  God made choice among us, that the Gentiles by my mouth should
  hear the word of the gospel, and believe.

  (...)

  Wherefore my sentence is, that we trouble not them, which
  from among the Gentiles are turned to God:
  But that we write unto them, that they abstain from pollutions
  of idols, and [from] fornication, and [from] things strangled, and
  [from] blood.

These abstinences referred to in verse 20 are the so-called Noahide Laws,
which are required of all the sons of Noah, i.e., everybody, since all
men who were not sons of Noah perished in the Flood. Therefore, there is
a sound Scriptural basis to argue that Christians are specifically
allowed to eat pork.

That being said, there is nothing that prevents a Christian from deciding
to follow these laws anyway (as Paul himself did, check Acts 21:26). This
gives rise to the so-called Jewish Christianity, who are Christians who
confess the divinity of the Christ while at the same time keeping the 613
Jewish mitzvot.

Finally, I think that your Muslim friends' reactions are probably due to
a misconception that Jews and Christians are bound to their halal
dietary laws, or that they consider that anyone who violates the commandments
given to them in the Quran and/or the Sunnah are going to earn eternal
condemnation, regardless of whether or not they ever converted to Islam
in the first place.


How it is possible to be one God in three persons (Jesus, Holy Ghost, and God the Father)?

God is not a person.  God is a Being.
Within the One Being of God subsist the three persons of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Together, these three make up the One Being of God.
When Jesus was baptised in the River Jordan, all three were present: the Father whose voice was heard from heaven, the Son who was being baptised, and the Holy Spirit who appeared in the form of a dove.
That is why, when the Son died, the Father and the Holy Spirit did not also die.  The Being of God was not killed when the Son was killed because the Son is not the Father, the Father is not the Son, and the Holy Spirit is neither Father nor Son.
There has only ever been the One Being of God and there will only ever be the One Being of God.
Expressions such as "person", "Father" and "Son" are used to help us grasp the concept of a complex creator God, although it must be noted that the pre-mortal Jesus was never created, but was active in creation, along with the Holy Spirit.
The best Bible verses to explain this are in John 1:1-5 and 14:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  He was with God in the beginning.  Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.  In him was life, and that life was the light of men.  The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it...  The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.  We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth."

Jesus is the Word.  Jesus came to earth to be born of a woman.  Jesus was God with us, back then. The Son laid down his life then took it up again and has returned to heaven, from whence he first came.
Edit: To Subsist, within the context of the Being of God, is To Exist, To Be.
Response to additional question: 2 Corinthians 6:18 must be read within the context of the previous verses about Christians not being yoked with unbelievers. They are being told to have nothing to do with pagans and idolatry.  Verse 18 is a quote from 2 Samuel 7:14 where God, through the prophet Samuel, makes promises to David regarding his kingdom.  God says “I will be his father and he shall be my son.  When he does wrong I shall punish him...  But my love will never be taken away from him as I took it away from Saul.”  David was not God’s literal son.  This is the explanation given in the NIV Study Bible notes:

This familial language expresses the special relationship God promises to maintain with David’s descendants... It marks him as the one God has chosen and enthroned to rule in his name as the official representative of God’s rule over his people. ”
The Christians in Corinth are being reminded of their special relationship with God.  Verse 16 explains: “I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people.”
Romans 8:14 says that those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.  In other words, all who have entered into the new covenant Christ Jesus established are adopted into God’s family.  It’s a spiritual relationship.   Ephesians 1:5 explains: “In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ.”

There is only one Son of God, and that is Jesus, who brought with him his divine nature which was added to his human nature.  Those who belong to Christ are adopted into God’s family as sons and daughters, but not physically.  2 Corinthians 6:18 is about our spiritual relationship with God.


What is the Biblical basis for saying Christians are "friends of God"?

I believe we can be friends of God.  (And not just because I'm a fan of the song)

Jesus tells us if we do what he commands we are his friends.

  John 15:13-15 NIV
  13 Greater love has no
  one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. 14 You are my
  friends if you do what I command. 15 I no longer call you servants,
  because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have
  called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I
  have made known to you.


Does the Bible list any "miracles" specifically accomplished by the Devil?

Satan sent a storm to destroy the home of one of Job’s children while they were all feasting. (Job 1) One of the devil’s titles is the “Lord of the power of the air”.
Satan inflicted a skin disease upon Job. (Job 2)


When and why did the Catholic Church first start issuing annulments?

Definition: An annulment doesn't dissolve a marriage; an annulment is a solemn pronouncement that there never was a marriage contract (as explained in the pronouncement) and, therefore, what was perceived as a marriage was in fact null.

Why: In order for a marriage to be valid, it cannot be null.  If a marriage is ruled to be null then the couple can either try to fix the issues regarding the cause of nullity or must separate (which typically already happened).

When: Presumably this practice was with the Church from the beginning. The reason it was so rare previously is that Catholics used to be taught their Faith before seeking to get married, and as part of their marriage preparations they used to be "annulment proofed" both by the priest insuring the couple are mature, sane, morally capable and aware adults, as well as the custom of "reading the bands" which, among other things, was a moral requirement for anyone who knew of an impediment for the couple to get married (which would be grounds for nullifying the attempted wedding contract) to come forward and make it known to the priest.

These days, with inadequate education in the Faith, general immaturity of the populace in general and people seeking to get married in particular, and no moral requirement to make impediments known to the clergy, it can only follow that the number of annulment cases will skyrocket.


What arguments were made against William Carey's missions efforts?

This is unlikely to be the ideal answer you seek, but after 2 years and 9 months it is the only one offered to date.

I have looked through two reputable books on the subject, ones that deal with the events of William Carey's mission to India, seeking to find any information about the difficulties he experienced in starting his overseas mission. However, both those books were written in the late 1970s and not by those who opposed him in the 1790s. From what is written, it appears that there were two main difficulties he encountered. One was theological, the other was more to do with church politics and church governance.

The theological issue is what you seek to explore, so here is a relevant quotation from Stephen Neil's A History of Christian Missions pages 261-2 (The Pelican History of the Church, volume six):

  Carey, who had turned Baptist at the age of eighteen, combined for a
  time the offices of village pastor and village cobbler... One of the
  first fruits of Carey's zeal for study was his treatise An Enquiry
  into the Obligation of Christians to use Means for the Conversion of
  the Heathen (1792).  The title indicates one of the difficulties with
  which Carey and those like-minded with him had to contend; the
  hyper-Calvinism of the day had convinced many that the conversion of
  the heathen would be the Lord's own work in his own time, and that
  nothing could be done by men to hasten it. Carey's answer is a
  patient, methodical survey of the world and of the whole history of
  Christian efforts to bring the Gospel to it. His mind is entirely free
  from the eschatological speculations of the pietists... The appeal of
  this pamphlet was reinforced by Carey's sermon to a group of Baptist
  ministers at Nottingham on 31 May 1792; starting from the text Isaiah
  54:2-3, 'Lengthen thy cords, and strengthen thy stakes', he laid down
  his two great principles of action: 'Attempt great things for God;
  expect great things from God.' Four months later the Baptist
  Missionary Society was formed. In June 1793 Carey left for India with
  his family as the Society's first missionary.

Tantalising clues are given with mention of hyper-Calvinistic views that men could not hasten the work of God in conversion, and of pietistsic eschatological speculations.

  The principles of pietism are the demand for personal conversion and
  for holiness, close fellowship to the Society, and responsibility for
  witness. The expectation that the return of Christ, which cannot be
  much longer delayed, will be preceded by a great outpouring of the
  Spirit of God on Jews and heathens led by a natural gradation of
  thought to a sense of responsibility for ‘foreign’ missions. (Ibid p
  228)

Hyper-Calvinism has long been a problem in Protestantism, giving Calvinism a bad name. Various biblical arguments have been proposed, to imply that those who are saved by the grace of God have to leave the work of the conversion of others to the Holy Spirit; they simply worship God faithfully, 'fence' the Lord's table so that no 'unworthy' person partakes, and teach from the scriptures.  Those who are not saved who hear the teaching might be saved, by the grace of God. Now, when we look at the arguments for the hyper-Calvinists, an interesting point arises. The same scriptures that the Calvinists and the hyper-Calvinists use to uphold the predestining sovereignty of God in election are interpreted differently by both groups. Different interpretations produce different theological conclusions, which either encourage reaching out to the unsaved with the gospel, or discourage that. Great lumps of quotations could be given to show where the groups differ, but no scriptures would be involved. The books that deal with the differing stances are all about interpretations of scriptures, not the scriptures themselves.

There is an excellent book dealing with this, The Story of Christian Theology, pages 455 following, by Roger E. Olson (IVP 1999).  Although it does not deal with missions, it shows the theological issues between Calvinism and hyper-Calvinism. But it does not thrash out scriptures. It traces the development of theological ideas based on different interpretations and emphases of scriptures.  One way of expressing this could be that such debates about predestination and the sovereignty of God showed the limits of where ideas and words could take Christians, theoretically. Carey was not concerned about that; he wanted to take the Gospel to lost souls, trusting in God to do great things as Christians obediently did everything they could to fulfil Christ’s commission in Matthew 28:19-20.

This does not exactly answer your question but given how missions have grown and shown great success, that may indicate why there seems to be such a dearth of information on the objections of the hyper-Calvinists in centuries past. Had their arguments been sound, we could have expected dismal failure on the part of the missionary societies, with hyper-Calvinistic arguments being upheld to this day as proof that they were right. It appears that they were wrong.


Source of the view that the human will is necessitated but not coerced

As is indicated in the comments and attached chat. I am not familiar with the distinction between man's will being "necessarily moved" and "coerced", but it would seem to arise from John Calvin wishing to retain both the idea that man is a free moral agent and totally depraved, so the man must be "necessarily moved" by irresistible grace to accept baptism and become regenerate, but not be coerced.

The idea that man is a free moral agent and the chief cause of evil (i.e. - God cannot be the cause or creator of evil) is a foundational Christian concept that I trust is universally accepted. So the question becomes where does total depravity come from, since this idea of the will being "necessarily moved" logically flows out of it. Thankfully John Calvin is rather explicit in this regard:

Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book 2 Chapter 2, Part 4

  Moreover, although the Greek fathers, above others, and especially Chrysostom, have exceeded due bonds in extolling the powers of the human will, yet all ancient theologians, with the exception of Augustine, are so confused, vacillating, and contradictory on this subject, that no certainty can be obtained from their writings ... still the expression was often on their lips, that man's natural gifts were corrupted, and his supernatural taken away. Of the thing implied by these words, however, scarcely one in a hundred had any distinct idea ... Persons professing to be the disciples of Christ have spoken too much like the philosophers on this subject. As if human nature were still in its integrity, the term free will has always been in use among the Latins, while the Greeks were not ashamed to use a still more presumptuous term ... (autexousion), as if man had still full power in himself.

So John Calvin indicates that his teachings on free-will are, in general, in line with Augustine, but outside of the larger tradition of the Greek fathers and other Western writers.

He practically identifies his doctrine of total depravity (which necessitates irresistible grace) with Christianity itself, shaming those who teach otherwise as being under the influences of unchristian philosophy; which is to say that he thinks the entire Church was confused on a core Christian doctrine, besides Augustine, until he and Luther arrived.

However, its obvious that Aquinas is not referring to John Calvin in his writing. See my discussion with Nathaniel; I would assume with him that Aquinas is referring to some Augustinian interpretive tradition that, like John Calvin, sought to retain the traditional Christian concept that man creates evil while insisting that his nature is corrupted to the point that he cannot choose salvation.

So I suppose this is a partial answer. And thanks Nathaniel for helping me understand some nuances of the topic.


Does the Protestant Bible mention Satan punishing non-believers after death?

Put simply, it doesn't.  Satan will not be the punisher in hell, but among the punished.  Satan is not any any sense the king of hell

  And when the thousand years are ended, Satan will be released from his
  prison and will come out to deceive the nations that are at the four
  corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them for battle; their
  number is like the sand of the sea. And they marched up over the broad
  plain of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints and the
  beloved city, but fire came down from heaven[b] and consumed them, and
  the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will
  be tormented day and night forever and ever.

  Revelation 20:7-10 ESV

So, the idea is a misconception.


How do various Christian traditions view the expression "crossing over Jordan"?

The gospel song "I Am a Poor Wayfaring Stranger" (written in the 1800's) makes reference to crossing over Jordan to the beautiful fields beyond "where God's redeemed their vigils keep."

That's the earliest reference I've found, although there may be others.

This hymnal, dating to 1766, uses the metaphor, but not the actual phrase "crossing over Jordan" (see top of page 147):  https://hymnary.org/hymn/PDIL1766/II.LXVI

In the Bible the Israelites had to "cross over Jordan" to reach the Promised Land.  For Christians, the "Promised Land" is eternal paradise in Heaven, and the barrier one must cross to reach it - the metaphorical "Jordan" - is death.


Is there a scripture affirming the begetting of the Word?

The following is a list of multitudes of Greek words that share the same suffix -γενής, each with possesses the sense of “born”/ “begotten”:
ἀφρογενής = “foam-born”
Αἰγυπτογενής = “born of an Egyptian”
αἰθρηγενής = “born in Aether (clear sky)”
ἁλιγενής = “sea-born” (also, ποντογενής; θαλασσογενής)
ἀλλογενής = “born of another [race]”
ἀρτιγενής = “just now born”
Ἀσιαγενής = “Asiatic born” (also, Ἀσιατογενής)
Ἀτλαγενής = “born of Atlas”
αὐθιγενής = “born here”
βοηγενής = “born of an ox”
βραδυγενής = “late-born” (also, ὀψιγενής)
γηγενής = “earth-born”
Δηλογενής = “born in Delos”
διδυμογενής = “twin-born” (born as a twin) (also, ὁμηγενής)
διγενής = “double-born” (born as both sexes; androgynous)
Διογενής = “born of Dio” (also known as “Zeus”)
Διθυραμβογενής = “born of Dithyramb” (also known as “Dionysius”)
δρακοντογενής = “born of a dragon”
δυσγενής = “low-born” (also, νοθαγενής)
ἑβδομαγενής = “born on the seventh day”
ἐγγενής = “inborn”; “innate”
ἑλειογενής = “marsh-born”
ἐνδογενής = “born in the house” (also, οἰκογενής)
εὐηγενής = “well-born”
ἠπειρογενής = “born or living in the mainland (esp. of Greece)”
θεαγενής = “god-born” (also, θεηγενής; θειογενής; θεογενής)
Ἰδογενής = “born on Mount Ida”
Ἰνδογενής = “born in India”
ἰθαγενής = “legally born”
κακογενής = “evil-born”; “base-born”
κογχογενής = “born from a shell”
Κοιογενής = “born of Koios”
κρατογενής = “head-born”
κρυφογενής = “secretly born” (also, κυθηγενής)
Κυπρογενής = “born in Cyprus”
Λητογενής = “born of Leto”
Λυκηγενής = “born in Lycia”
μελιηγενής = “ash-born”
μεταγενής = “born after”
Νειλογενής = “born in the Nile”
νεογενής = “new-born”
νυμφαγενής = “born of a nymph” (also, νυμφογενής)
ὀφιογενής = “born of a serpent”
ὀμβρηγενής = “born in the rain”
ὀνειρογενής = “born of a dream”
ὀρειγενής = “mountain-born”
παλαιγενής = “born of old”; “born long ago”
πατρογενής = “father born”; “begotten of the father”
Περσογενής = “born in Persia”
πετρηγενής = “rock-born” (also, πετρογενής)
πρεσβυγενής = “first-born”; “eldest-born” (also, πρωτογενής)
προγενής = “born before” (also, προσγενής; προσθαγενής; προτερηγενής)
Πυλοιγενής = “born in Pylos”
πυριγενής = “born in fire” (also, πυρογενής)
Σουσιγενής = “born at Susa”
συγγενής = “born with”; “congenital”
Ταρσογενής = “born at Tarsus”
τετραγενής = “born four times”
τριγενής = “born three times”; “thrice-born”
Τριτογενής = “born of Triton”
ὑδογενής = “born in water”
ὑλιγενής = “born in the forest” (also, ὑλογενής)
ὑπερευγενής = “exceedingly well-born”
φοινικογενής = “born in Phoenicia”
Notice the suffix of all the words. It is -γενής, just like in the word μονογενής.

As for a verse that confirms the eternal begetting, aside from those containing μονογενής, consider John 8:42, in which it is written,

εἶπεν οὖν αὐτοῖς ὁ Ἰησοῦς Εἰ ὁ θεὸς πατὴρ ὑμῶν ἦν ἠγαπᾶτε ἂν ἐμέ ἐγὼ γὰρ ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ ἐξῆλθον καὶ ἥκω οὐδὲ γὰρ ἀπ᾽ ἐμαυτοῦ ἐλήλυθα ἀλλ᾽ ἐκεῖνός με ἀπέστειλεν
Therefore, Yeshua a said to them, "If God were your father, you would love me, for I came out of God and have arrived. For neither have I come of myself, but the same sent me."

In De Trinitate ("On the Trinity"), Hilary of Poitiers strives to refute numerous heresies, one of which denied the force of the aforementioned scripture. In response to these heretics, he wrote,

Postremo quod dixit: Ex Patre exivi, et veni (John 8:42), utrum ambiguitatem reliquerit, quin intelligeretur non aliunde quam ex Patre esse quod Deus est? Ex Patre enim exiens, neque aliam nativitatis habuit naturam, neque nullam: sed eum sibi testatur auctorem, ex quo se profitetur exisse. De his autem demonstrandis atque intelligendis posterior mihi sermo est.
(Pending my English translation)  See link below for Schaff's translation.

Source: De Trinitate ("On the Trinity"), Book VI, §16. | English | Latin |

This pdf contains a list of all the NT verses in which we find a conjugation of the verb ἐξέρχομαι followed by the preposition ἐκ/ ἐξ. What this list demonstrates is that Yeshu'a must have actually come out of God --- not in a figurative way, nor by simply being sent (which is expressed elsewhere by another Greek phrase: ἐγὼ παρὰ τοῦ θεοῦ ἐξῆλθον, cp. John 16:27), but actually, by a spiritual generation.
The peculiar thing about this Greek phrase is that it is also used in the LXX to indicate offspring being begotten from a father (cp. Gen. 15:4: ἐξελεύσεται ἐκ; Gen. 17:6: ἐκ...ἐξελεύσονται; Gen. 35:11: ἐκ...ἐξελεύσονται; Gen. 46:26: ἐξελθόντες ἐκ) and coming forth from a mother's womb (Job 1:21: ἐξῆλθον ἐκ), both acts of generation.
Commenting about the Greek phrase ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ ἐξῆλθον in John 8:42, John Gill notes,

the former of these phrases is observed by many learned men to be used by the Septuagint, of a proper natural birth, as in (Gen. 15:4, 35:11); and here designs the eternal generation of Christ, as the Son of God, being the only begotten of the Father, and the Son of the Father in truth and love; and the other is to be understood of his mission from him, as Mediator:

In his commentary on John 8:42, Henry Alford notes,

ἥκω conveys the result of ἐξῆλθον, as Meyer; who also remarks that mere sending will not exhaust ἐξῆλθον, which must be taken metaphysically, of the proceeding forth of the Eternal Son from the essence of the Father.


Where does the Bible say along the lines of, "The weakest saint is stronger than the strongest demon?"

This seems to be a chapter title from The Recognitions of Clement Book IV:

Chapter XXXIII.—The Weakest Christian More Powerful Than the Strongest Demon.
”Is it, then, that we are of another and a superior nature, and that therefore the demons are afraid of us? Nay, we are of one and the same nature with you, but we differ in religion. But if you will also be like us, we do not grudge it, but rather we exhort you, and wish you to be assured, that when the same faith and religion and innocence of life shall be in you that is in us, you will have equal and the same power and virtue against demons, through God rewarding your faith. For as he who has soldiers under him, although he may be inferior, and they superior to him in strength, yet ‘says to this one, Go, and he goeth; and to another, Come, and he cometh; and to another, Do this, and he doeth it;’[26] and this he is able to do, not by his own power, but by the fear of Cæsar; so every faithful one commands the demons, although they seem to be much stronger than men, and that not by means of his own power, but by means of the power of God, who has put them in subjection. For even that which we have just spoken of, that Cæsar is held in awe by all soldiers, and in every camp, and in his whole kingdom, though he is but one man, and perhaps feeble in respect of bodily strength, this is not effected but by the power of God, who inspires all with fear, that they may be subject to one.

1 Corinthians 10:13 gives a vague reference to this idea, but is not an exact match.

There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.


What makes a Council's conclusions authoritative?

Historically, there have been four sources of theology:

Scripture
Tradition
Reason
Experience.

This formulation goes back quite a ways.  Scripture is always first, Tradition is always second, and reason and experience are a distant third and fourth. The fun comes in when one realizes that it is not possible to read Scripture without a tradition.

As a very banal example, in the Hebrew text, YHWH has no vowels, and yet traditionally the vowels of "Adonai" are used, resulting roughly in "Yahweh" or "Jehovah."  The tradition informs the reading.

The position of the Catholic Church is actually quite rational in this regard - it reserves to itself the power to declare what is traditional and non-traditional when reading Scripture. In a way the standard of what is acceptable within the Roman Catholic Church is what the church says.

The Councils are like that, only unlike a single interpretation (namely that of the Bishop of Rome,) the Ecumenical Councils were the best attempt at the time to convene all of the spectrum of Christianity.  When, in 325, Constantine gathered the church, the whole point was to get as broad a consensus as possible.  The statement at Nicea had no more legal authority or scientific power then a petition signed by, say, 55 leading landowners in the American colonies in 1776.  But, the attendants were sufficiently representative and authoritative that it made sense for them to be considered the standard bearers of what "Christianity" meant at the time.

Were they "right?"  That's actually a non-answerable question.  What they were was representative of what the vast majority of influential Christians believed.  Sure, they asked for the Holy Spirit's guidance, and these were good men - but did God actually physically appear and say "This is my beloved council in whom I am well pleased?"  No.

But then again, did he ever do that when King James' translators presented their work to the King? Or when Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and Paul dropped their parchments in the mailbox? No, again.

I believe wholeheartedly that the way the Christian Faith is practiced is both what God intended and still manages to fall woefully short of what is "right."  Trust me when I say, of all the indiginities God suffered, his church is by far the most recent. It is a flawed creature - but like a little child it seeks to please its Father as best it can.

As a hermeneutic, Christians tend to put more emphasis on those closer in time to Christ. As a matter of practice, we tend to defer to people better at theology than us (I, for one, cannot take on Polycarp or Irenaeus or Augustine, or even the Bishop of Rome).  As an agreed upon set of rules, then we traditionally defer to the traditional interpretation out of traditional accepted theology.

Is it "right"? Who knows. But it is representative of the "standard" against which we measure theology? Indeed, it is the very definition of "the best we can do."


Hierarchy of Catholicism, government, and papal teaching

I believe this ending conclusion and summary - Thus, even if public authority commanded that every religious institution perform same-sex marriages, if the Church believed that such a command contravened the will of God, it would refuse to do so. - in MattGutting's answer to Homosexual marriages in the Catholic church sums it up well.

The Lord Jesus himself said to us to, '[r]ender to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.' He paid his taxes and recognized the authority of Pilate as have been given to  him [Pilate] from above.

We also respect and obey all our lawful superiors as commanded by the fourth commandment.

  cf. Penny Catechism,
  198
  198. Are we commanded to obey our parents only?
  We are commanded to obey, not only our parents, but also our bishops and pastors, the civil authorities, and our lawful superiors.

I believe the difficulty the question seems to present is easily resolved by an understanding of what is the charism of infallibility in matters of faith and morals that Christ endowed the Church's shepherds with. [cf. CCC 888-892]. Key words: faith and morals i.e. to what the infallibility covers and is limited to.

Below is a good example to illustrate what is and is not covered by the infallibility of the Church's shepherds:

  The Mother of the future Cardinal recounted also that on another
  occasion, whist she was explaining to him the meaning of papal
  infallibility, she decided to test him. Taking a book bound in black
  in her hand, she asked him: “Rafael, if the Pope said that this book
  is bound in white, what would you say about that?” The little boy,
  after a moment’s reflection replied: “Mother, the Pope would not be
  able to say such nonsense,” showing – by his reply – the acuteness of
  his most refined intelligence. - If Pope says black is white, that's
  it, right? - a very special young man knew better than that | Rorate
  Cæli.

Do the papal teachings supersede government rules where they conflict? Is there an historic precedence of either?

This is playing out right before our eyes and not only between Church and State e.g. HHS Mandate, Homosexual unions and 'marriages', abortion, stem-cell research, contraception, euthanasia, etc. but also within the Church herself with e.g. Card. Kasper's  proposal.

The trial for the Christian arises whenever Caesar sets himself up as god, an idol really, demanding things that ought to be rendered to God be rendered to him [Caesar].


What are the expected results of sexual sin?

The verses in 1 Cor 6 make clear that sexual sins are a special kind of sin:

  Flee sexual immorality. Every sin that a man does is outside the body, but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body.

The commentary of David Guzik about this:

  Paul isn’t saying sexual immorality is worse than any other sin; but he does teach that sexual sin has a unique effect on the body; not only in a physical way, but also in a moral and spiritual ways.

How this should be interpreted is however not exactly clear. I heard mentioning somewhere: if someone falls in sexual sins and his missteps are somehow made public, it is hard to see this person without thinking about those particular sins he committed. But that is just one interpretation.

One consequence is certain. Sexual immorality will hinder the spiritual life because they pollute the temple of the Holy Spirit:

  Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own?


Do Catholics eat the substance of the Father during "communion"?

Transubstantiation

Transubstantiation is a Latin word consisting of trans (a transition or change) and substantia (substance, or what [makes a thing what] a thing is). Properly, then, it means 'change of what it is.'

This was naturally adopted by a Christians (the East use the Greek equivalent, however, metaousia), who believed that the words of consecration, "This is my body" were literally true of the bread, but not that this demanded the makeup of bread to disappear from it physically—it was a change by God of what the thing now is.

St. Cyril of Jerusalem's words sum this belief up quite well (Catechetical Lectures, 22):

  For you have just heard him say distinctly, That our Lord Jesus Christ in the night in which He was betrayed, took bread, and when He had given thanks He broke it, and gave to His disciples, saying, Take, eat, this is My Body: and having taken the cup and given thanks, He said, Take, drink, this is My Blood. Since then He Himself declared and said of the Bread, This is My Body, who shall dare to doubt any longer? And since He has Himself affirmed and said, This is My Blood, who shall ever hesitate, saying, that it is not His blood? ... Consider therefore the Bread and the Wine not as bare elements, for they are, according to the Lord's declaration, the Body and Blood of Christ; for even though sense suggests this to you, yet let faith establish you. Judge not the matter from the taste, but from faith be fully assured without misgiving, that the Body and Blood of Christ have been vouchsafed to you.

As such, Catholics don't believe that Jesus' body is of one substance with the Father (but that the Son is). The Son is distinct from the body He assumed, given what this sentence just said. Nor do they even believe that Jesus is of one substance with His body (the Son and the body being conflated in such a case). They believe that the substance of the bread has become the substance of the body of Jesus, which is united to His soul and divinity (given that He is a real man with a soul, and the incarnate God).

In other words, they believe it is true when Jesus says, "This is my body" (not 'this bread' is my body; nor a game of charades).

(All accusations of 'cannabalism' will fall on deaf ears, too, when it comes to Catholics, since we know and have always known that there is no change in the accidents—the bread is the same to us before and after and to our body, physically. What has changed alone is the spiritual benefit when recieved, since "God has called" (Acts 10:15; Luke 22:19) it the Bread of Life, which is "[Jesus] flesh" (John 6:51). And so it is in all but appearance.)


Did the Father and Holy Spirit become man?

Thomas Aquinas deals with this question in Third Part, Question 3, Article 4: "Can one Person assume without another?"

He argues that the assumption of a human nature implies two things in Article 2:

  in the word assumption two things are signified--to wit, the principle and the term of the action. Now to be the principle of the assumption belongs to the Divine Nature in itself, because the assumption took place by Its power; but to be the term of the assumption does not belong to the Divine Nature in itself, but by reason of the Person in Whom It is considered to be.

This distinction between the "principle" (the Divine Nature) and the "term" (associated with the Second Person of the Trinity) then plays out in Article 4:

  Now the act of assumption proceeds from the Divine power, which is common to the three Persons, but the term of the assumption is a Person, as stated above (Article 2). Hence what has to do with action in the assumption is common to the three Persons; but what pertains to the nature of term belongs to one Person in such a manner as not to belong to another; for the three Persons caused the human nature to be united to the one Person of the Son.

A Reformed theologian, Louis Berkhof, similarly writes:

  It was not the triune God but the second person of the Trinity that assumed human nature. For that reason it is better to say that the Word became flesh than that God became man. At the same time we should remember that each of the divine persons was active in the incarnation. (ST, 3.2.1.B.1.a)


Daily Bible: A regular bible printed on normal pages and regular footnotes etc.

Devotional Bible: The bible text, packaged with chunks of text by one or more authors, designed to help explain the text or otherwise help the Christian reflect on the scriptures.

Study Bible: Big footnotes. Lots of footnotes. Bigger explanations at the beginning of bible books, bigger sections at the back with maps and reference points and tables and lists. Designed to provide commentary on most verses and passages, so that you always have a reference on the page to help explain the meaning of the text.

Reference Bible: Same thing as a study bible. Depending on who wrote it and why, it may include more reference to key texts or traditions of a group or denomination (e.g. early church material, reformation material, creeds, declarations, councils etc)

Thinline Bible: Thin pages. Lots of stuff in less physical space. It's like going from DVD to Blu-Ray, but in paper form.

The most important thing is having a good, consistent translation which you understand, and you won't go far wrong with the HCSB as you have it - but there are lots of others. Translations exist along a spectrum, depending on how much they try to stick to the original text "word for word" and how hard they try to convey it accurately into your own language "thought for thought". The HCSB is the former, most 'reader' bibles tend to be along the second kind.

Recommendation

I haven't seen a copy myself, but the ESV Reader's Bible should be right up your alley - no section headings, no verse numbers or footnotes, just a solid English translation of the Greek text as we know it. I wouldn't go using it permanently myself (footnotes are useful!), but it sounds fantastic and now that I've found out about it I definitely want one for myself.

ESV Reader's Bible

I would really recommend finding a Christian bookshop in your town/city and have a look through what they have - they could probably help you find what you're after, and order it in too if necessary. I'm not typically one to buy bibles online, they're too personal!


Do Catholics consider Job to be historical?

I don't know if Chesterton speaks for the whole Church, but he says:

  The doctors disagree, as it is the business of doctors to do;

but more to the reality of Job's construction:

  The Book of Job may have grown gradually just as Westminster Abbey grew gradually. But the people who made the old folk poetry, like the people who made Westminster Abbey, did not attach that importance to the actual date and the actual author, that importance which is entirely the creation of the almost insane individualism of modern times.

So, maybe the question, as pertinent as it is to hermenueiticians isn't so important to those who actually want to gain wisdom by reading Job.  Still, the New American Bible (aka the Book we use at Mass) is a little clearer. In the the introduction to Job it says:

  This is a literary composition, and not a transcript of historical events and conversations.

which isn't to say it doesn't have any "historicity" because it tells us exactly what people thought about the reasons bad things happened to good people.

And in any event, the way the Bible is organized, Job is between Maccabees and Psalms.  It is the beginning of Wisdom. (or at least the end of it is) It's not even in the same category as say, Tobit, which I'm pretty sure lots of the doctors would contend is a folk tale as well.


Was Jesus a poor man, in economic sense?

While this topic is heavily debated, Scripture records an interesting detail in Luke 2.  When presented at the table, Joseph and Mary bring the appointed sacrifice:

  22 When the time came for the purification rites required by the Law of Moses, Joseph and Mary took him to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord 23 (as it is written in the Law of the Lord, “Every firstborn male is to be consecrated to the Lord”[b]), 24 and to offer a sacrifice in keeping with what is said in the Law of the Lord: “a pair of doves or two young pigeons.

In Leviticus 14:21, we understand this was the sacrifice of the poor:

  and two doves or two young pigeons, which he can afford, one for a sin offering and the other for a burnt offering.

This, along with the fact that Nazareth was teeny, tiny village outside of Sepphoris together draws a picture of a poor family.

Now, others have taken the gifts of the wise men in Matthew to suggest that Joseph and Mary eventually came into some money.  (Who knows, maybe Joseph pulled a Gary Coleman on Jesus and sold the stuff for himself!)

In any event, by the time of Jesus' ministry, it is pretty apparent that he is poor. Otherwise, it would be very difficult to square a "better off" Jesus with Matthew 8:20:

  Jesus replied, "Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head."

And, considering Jesus' "preference for the poor" in Luke, it all comes together to suggest a less than rich Jesus.

Regardless, these Scriptural clues have made the traditional argument to be that Jesus was poor, although some modern theologians have constructed cases for a richer Jesus.


How much water is necessary for baptism (Catholic perspective)?

The Catholic Church has always taught that the three valid forms of Baptism are immersion, pouring, and sprinkling.  Evidence that the Church has validated the form of pouring instead of immersion is demonstrated by the Didache which was written around A.D. 70:

  "Concerning baptism, baptize in this manner: Having said all these
  things beforehand, baptize in the name of the Father and of the Son
  and of the Holy Spirit in living water [that is, in running water, as
  in a river]. If there is no living water, baptize in other water; and,
  if you are not able to use cold water, use warm. If you have neither,
  pour water three times upon the head in the name of the Father, Son,
  and Holy Spirit."

These instructions were composed either while some of the apostles and disciples were still alive or during the next generation of Christians, and they represent an already established custom.

Perhaps the "minimum" amount of water required to effectively administer the sacrament is impossible to quantify. In order to answer the question as accurately as possible, lets assess which situation would call for the smallest amount.

These days, the rules for administering the Sacrament of Baptism are clearly given in the Rituale Romanum:

  The form for baptism is as follows: I baptize you in the name of the
  Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, and it is absolutely
  essential. In no circumstance can it be altered, and these words must
  be pronounced simultaneously with the pouring of the water. The water
  is to be poured on the head with a triple ablution (or the head is to
  be immersed three times), each time in the form of a cross, saying the
  words simultaneously.

The Rituale Romanum also decrees that in the event of a complicated birth an emergency conditional baptism should be administered to the infant:

  No child is to be baptized while still enclosed in the mother's womb,
  as long as there is a probable hope that it can be properly brought
  forth and then baptized. If only the head of the child has come forth
  and there is danger of its dying, it should be baptized on the head;
  if afterward it is born and lives, baptism may not be repeated
  conditionally. If another member of the body makes its appearance and
  there is danger of death, the baptism should be conferred
  conditionally upon that member; if the child lives after birth it must
  be rebaptized conditionally. Should a mother die in confinement, the
  fetus should be extracted by those obliged thereto by their
  profession, and if there is a certainty that it lives, it should be
  baptized absolutely, otherwise conditionally. A fetus baptized while
  in the mother's womb must be rebaptized conditionally after birth.

  One should see to it that every abortive fetus, no matter of what
  period, be baptized absolutely if it is certainly alive. If there is
  doubt about its being alive, it should be baptized conditionally.

Considering that a new born (or, unborn in the case of an abortion) infant/fetus is about as small as any recipient might be, I would say, "However much it takes to roll 3 beads of water across a baby's forehead.


Where can I find Julia Smith's translation of the Septuagint?

On the Textus Receptus website, Julia Smith's translation is listed on the right hand side column underneath Green's Literal Version.
So, you can look up any verse of the Old or New Testament and see that verse as Smith translated it.
The full text can also be read on Biblehub


What scripture speaks of filling a bag and "compressing" it?

I believe you are referring to Luke 6:38

  Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again. (KJV)