Mike Thomas's Pathetic Attempt to Support Sola Scriptura

For a while now, Michael Thomas has been running from debating me on the topic of Sola Scriptura. I can see why. On June 15, 2025, he posted an article attempting to defend this doctrine and principle (indeed, it is the formal doctrine [not principle merely] of the Reformation):

 

Sola Scriptura; is it Biblical?

 

This is just a re-hash of a lot of the points Thomas and other low-tier Protestants have made in the past; for a thorough refutation, see, for e.g.:

 

Not By Scripture Alone: A Latter-day Saint Refutation of Sola Scriptura

 

See also my previous response to Thomas on the Latter-day Saint view of the Bible:

 

Latter-day Saints and the Bible (cf. Listing of articles refuting Mike Thomas and Tony Brown of Reachout Trust)

 

For example, after quoting Deut 18:20-22 and other texts (e.g., 1 Tim 3:12), Thomas concludes:

 

You will not find sola scriptura taught in the Bible as a principle, but you will find it exampled all over the text of Scripture. Passages of Scripture like those above, and many more, only make sense if you have an established canon, an authoritative standard, against which to test yourself, your understanding, your life and faith, and the claims to prophesy. It only works in light of the teaching of sola scriptura.

 

The problem is that this is an impossibility during the times Moses, Paul, et al., wrote these and other passages Thomas quotes from as they were living during times of public revelation and inscripturation of new scriptures. Sola Scriptura is an exegetical impossibility during such periods of time, even according to Protestant theologians. For example, in his article, “A Review and Rebuttal of Steve Ray’s Article, Why the Bereans Rejected Sola Scriptura,” James Whtie wrote that

 

[there is an] errant belief that sola scriptura is somehow contradicted by the [Bereans’] acceptance of “new revelation,” as if sola scriptura is meant to be applied during times of revelation rather than being a normative rule for the Church.

 

As David T. King wrote:

 

Contrary to persistent charges by Roman apologists, Protestant Evangelicals do affirm the binding authority of apostolic tradition as delivered by the apostles. What they preached and taught in the first century Church was authoritatively binding on the consciences of all Christians. . . . To be sure, all special revelation given by God is authoritative and binding. There can be no doubt that the oral teaching of the apostles and their approved representatives was both (1 Thess 2:13). (David T. King, Holy Scripture: The Ground And Pillar of our Faith, 3 vols. [Battle Creek, Mich.: Chrisitan Resources, 2001), 1:55, 145)

 

In other words, other sources than inscripturated revelation, were authoritative and binding during New Testament times, for example, including when Paul wrote the Pastoral Epistles.

 

This also allows us to show how bad an exegete (“piss poor,” to be blunt) Thomas is. In a previous article, in an attempt to downplay the texts speaking positively about “tradition” Thomas wrote that:

 

The word [in 1 Cor 11:2] is paradosis and simply means surrendering, giving up, the passing on of something. In this case, what is passed on is instruction, precepts, teaching. Tradition doesn’t mean the content of what is passed on, but simply the act of passing it on, the definition we agreed on above. (“What is a Magisterium,” Bride of Reason blog, Decemer 1, 2020)

 

However, in reality, this oral tradition is the content of instruction and teaching, not the mere act of passing on something. Consider these sources:

 

Louw-Nida

 

33.239 παράδοσις, εως f: (derivative of παραδίδωμιc ‘to instruct,’ 33.237) the content of traditional instruction—‘teaching, tradition.’ διὰ τί οἱ μαθηταί σου παραβαίνουσιν τὴν παράδοσιν τῶν πρεσβυτέρων; ‘why is it that your disciples disobey the tradition of our ancestors?’ Mt 15:2.

 

BDAG

 

. . .

2. the content of instruction that has been handed down, tradition, of teachings, commandments, narratives et al . . . Pl. of individual teachings 1 Cor 11:2 (w. παραδιδόναι); 2 Th 2:15 . . .

 

TDNT

 

παράδοσις.

In the NT this means “tradition” (→ παραδίδωμι, 6.) only in the sense of what is transmitted, not of transmission. In this sense, it does not occur in the LXX, but is found in Philo and Joseph. and in Greek generally, though it less common than in the other sense.

 1. In the disputation in Mk. 7 (Mt. 15), Jesus calls Jewish tradition outside the Law the παράδοσις τῶν πρεσβυτέρων, Mk. 7:3, 5 (Mt. 15:2). He also speaks of the παράδοσις τῶν ἀνθρώπων in Mk. 7:8 or ὑμῶν in v. 9, Mt. 15:3, 6. In Joseph. we find such expressions as τὰ ἐκ παραδόσεως τῶν πατέρων (Ant., 13, 297); τὴν πατρῴαν παράδοσιν (Ant., 13, 409); τῇ τῶν πρεσβυτέρων παραδόσει (Ant., 10, 51). In Philo Spec. Leg., IV, 150 we have αὐτῶν (γονέων) ἡ παράδοσις. The Heb. equivalent is מסרה sometimes with the addition הַזְּקֵנִים or in the plural. The Pharisees regarded unwritten tradition as no less binding than the Law. . . .  

2. For Paul Christian teaching is tradition (1 C. 11:2; 2 Th. 2:15; 3:6; cf. 1 C. 11:23; 15:1–11), and he demands that the churches should keep to it, since salvation depends on it (1 C. 15:2). . . .(TDNT 2:172)

 

To quote one Lutheran scholar (and proponent of sola scriptura):

 

A “tradition” is any deliverance, any bit of instruction, any principle, and any rule of conduct which Paul handed over to the Corinthians when he was in their midst. (R. C. H. Lenski, The Interpretation of St. Paul’s First and Second Epistle to the Corinthians [Minneapolis, Minn.: Augsburg Publishing House, 1963], 431-32)

 

Let us also examine the Old Testament era:

 

An Example of A Binding, Authoritative Oral Tradition that is part of the “Word of God” but was never part of the Bible

 

Consider the liturgical reforms of Kings Hezekiah and Josiah:

 

And he [King Hezekiah] set the Levites in the house of the Lord with cymbals, with psalteries, and with harps, according to the commandment of David, and of Gad the king's seer, and Nathan the prophet: for so was the commandment of the Lord by his prophets. (2 Chron 29:35)

 

And prepare yourselves by the houses of your fathers, after your courses, according to the writing of David king of Israel, and according to the writing of Solomon his son. (2 Chron 35:4)

 

With respect to these texts, we learn the following:

 

(1)   David, Gad, and Nathan were dead for about 250 years at this point; however,

(2)   they passed on a "command . . . from the Lord" which was prescribed by God's prophets on how worship is to be conducted in the temple (hardly a minor issue; the worship of God is a central issue in theology) and

(3)   such a prescription and commandment is nowhere found in the entirety of the Bible yet King Hezekiah (and later, Josiah with the non-extant writings of David and Solomon) clearly understood them to be as  authoritative and binding as inscripturated revelation.

 

As Gregory Krehbiel (former Protestant) noted:

 

The fact that these words from God were never included in the [Old Testament] canon had absolutely nothing to do with the matter. These words from God, not preserved in Scriptures were consulted and applied authoritatively by the reformers [spoken of in 2 Chronicles]. The passages in 2 Chronicles are very clear and straightforward refutations of sola scriptura . . .  (Gregory Krehbiel, "A Critical Look at Sola Scriptura" (1993), as quoted in Patrick Madrid, "Sola Scriptura: A Blueprint for Anarchy," in Not By Scripture Alone: A Catholic Critique of the Protestant Doctrine of Sola Scriptura, ed. Robert A. Sungenis [2d ed.; State Line, Pa.: Catholic Apologetics International Publishing, Inc., 2013], 14)

 

Neither the New Testament authors nor did the Old Testament authors labor under the belief they had a fixed scriptural canon (which would prove too much for Thomas anyway). Furthermore, nowhere does Thomas support many of the key tenets necessary for sola scriptura to be operative as the final rule of faith and practice for the Christian, such as the cessation of public/special revelation. It is no wonder he will never debate an informed opponent in a moderated public debate on this topic.

Again, we see that Mike Thomas of Reachout Trust is clueless and is a false teacher. He must engage in eisegesis and blatant deception to support the man-made tradition of Sola Scriptura.

Item on Blacks and the Priesthood (pre-1978) in the Heber Cyrus Snell papers, 1896-1974

The following is from Box 19 Folder 4, “Writings on Blacks and the Priesthood” (undated) in the Heber Cyrus Snell papers, 1896-1974, Special Collections, Merrill-Cazier Library, Utah State University:

 

 

You may be interested to know that there will be a Negro who who holds the Priesthood attend BYU this year. The basis on which this is possible is the fact that he is not an African Negro. I have this on the authority of the Librarian of the Church College of Hawaii. They have had a great deal of concern about this in Hawaii because so many South Sea Islanders, who have attended the Church schools, want to join the Church in full fellowship. Kenneth Slack told me that David O. McKay stated that they need not worry about this boy. Incidentally, he is supposed to be a tremendous athlete in basket ball and in track. The basket ball coach at the Y said several years ago that the only hope for his having another national championship basket ball team would be granting the Priesthood to some Negroes. He may get his wish through this side door."

 

(Signed) Kirk

 

This would be between 1955 to 1965, when Kenneth Hurston Slack was a faculty member and first librarian of the Church College of Hawaii (now BYU Hawaii).

Excerpts from Michael E. Stone, “Armenian Canon Lists I—The Council of Partaw (768 C. E.)"

Canon List of the Council of Partaw:

 

And you shall all, clerics and laymen, have sacred books for worship from the Old and from the New Testaments:

The Books of Moses, of Genesis, of Exodus, of Leviticus, of Numbers, of Deuteronomy,
Joshua son of Nun,
Judges and of Ruth,
of Kingdoms IV,
the Days of the Books of Paralipomena II,
of Ezra II Discourses,
the Book of Job,
the Book of Psalms I, [or: I Book of Psalms],
of Solomon, III Books,
the XII Prophets,
Isaiah,
Jeremiah,
Ezekiel,
Daniel.

 

And from outside [i.e., of them] there shall be assigned, for teaching of your greatly learned children, the Wisdom of Sirach. (Michael E. Stone, “Armenian Canon Lists I—The Council of Partaw (768 C. E.),” The Harvard Theological Review 66, no. 4 [October 1973]: 480-81)

 

 

The Armenian translation of Apostolic Canon lxxxiv is published in Kanonagirk’ Hayoc’, pp. 112f. A translation of this Armenian text is offered here:

 

And all your clerics shall have holy books of the Old and New Testaments,
Of Moses, Gensis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy,
Joshua,
Of Judges with Ruth,
Four Kingdoms,
The Days of the Paralipomena,
Two discourses of Ezra,
Job,
Of CL Psalms,
Of Solomon III,
XII Prophets,
Isaiah,
Jeremiah,
Ezekiel,
Daniel,
Maccabees.
And you shall have Sirach for the instruction of your children. (Ibid., 484)

 

 

5. Of especial interest is the situation with regard to the Books of Maccabees. They are lacking altogether in the Canon of Partaw, and are to be found at the end of the list of books given in the Armenian version of the Apostolic Canon. In the Greek form of this latter Canon the Books of Maccabees are to be found following Esther, at the end of the series of historical books, in the middle of the list.

 

6. The position of Maccabees at the very end of the list observed, in the Armenian version of the Canon of Laodicea. In this case the books are missing altogether in the Greek version of the Canon. This appears to indicate a special relationship existing between these various lists of canonical books extant in Armenian.

 

7. The generally doubtful position of the Books of Maccabees in the Greek Canon lists is quite clear. They occur of course in the early Greek codices but are omitted from such early Greek Canon lists of that of Melito (Swete, list 1), Athanasius (Swete, List 3), Cyril of Jerusalem (Swete, list 4), and others.

 

8. It is of further interest to observe that books so well established in the Canon of the Greek Bible as Judith, Tobit, and Wisdom of Solomon do not appear in the Greek or Armenian texts of the Canons discussed here. This, it seems to us, is more evidence of the common tradition of these particular lists than it is reflection on the position of these books in actual usage. (Ibid., 485-86)

 

John A. Witmer (Protestant) Paralleling the Eternality of Jesus With That of the Bible

  

BOTH ARE THE ETERNAL WORD

 

Returning to the parallelism between Christ and the Scriptures as an argument for the inerrancy of the Bible it should be noted that the starting point for both sides of the parallelism is the eternal Word of God. On the one side is the eternal Word as the Son of God, the second Person of the triune Godhead (John 1:1-2); and on the other side is the eternal Word as the eternal decree and plan of God, which He is executing and has expressed in the Bible (Psalm 119:89, 152; Acts 15:18). God’s nature and being have been manifested to men in the Lord Jesus Christ (John 1;18; 14:9; Col. 1:15; Heb. 1:3), and God’s thoughts and plan have been manifested to men in the Bible as God’s Word (Gen. 18:17; Deut. 29:29; John 16:12-15). (John A. Witmer, “The Inerrancy of the Bible,” in Walvoord, A Tribute: Doctrinal Essays in Honor of 30 Years of Academic Leadership, ed. Donald K. Campbell [Chicago: Moody Press, 1982], 122)

 

Menahem Kister on 2 Maccabees 7:28

 

More general statements are found in Hellenistic Jewish writings of the Second Temple period. The author of the Second Book of Maccabees states that “God “made heaven and earth out of things non-existent (εκ ουκ οντων)” (2 Maccabees 7:28), “but here, again, the question may be raised . . . whether the ‘things non-existent’ are absolutely or relatively non-existent,” as Wolfson puts it.” In other words: the things are not considered existent before they are formed, but this does not necessarily mean that the author believed in the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo in the strict sense. (Menahem Kister, “Tohu wa-Bohu, Primordial Elements and Creatio Ex Nihilo,” Jewish Studies Quarterly 14, no. 3 [2007]: 245)

 

Kister quotes from Wolfson’s work on Philo. Here is a fuller quotation:

 

. . . in The Second Book of Maccabees, on the other hand, it is said that God made heaven and earth and all that is therein "out of things non-existent" (εξ ουκ οντων). But here, again, the question may be raised whether the "formless matter" was itself created or not, and also whether the "things non-existent" are absolutely or relatively non-existent. Similarly inconclusive is the position of Aristeas on this question. His argument that the deified heroes are not true gods because the useful things which they invented are only combinations of things already created but "they themselves did not make the apparatus (κατασκευην) of the things"  does not necessarily imply that God's creation of the world was ex nihilo; it means no more than what it says, namely, that the heroes merely took things which were already a constructed apparatus and made new useful combinations of them, whereas the Jewish God, being a true God, made each apparatus itself, but each apparatus itself may have been made out of a formless matter and not necessarily ex nihilo. If, therefore, an answer is to be found to the question of Philo's position on the subject, it will have to be found in some passage in which he definitely and unmistakably states that the preëxistent matter out of which the world was created was itself created by God. (H. A. Wolfson, Philo, 2 vols. [Cambridge: Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1962], 1:303)

 

 

Sacrae Theologiae Summa on the Trinity in the Old Testament

  

322. Scholium. On the revelation of the Most Holy Trinity in the O.T.

 

Since the O.T. is a preparation for the full revelation of the N.T., the question naturally arises, whether and how it includes a manifestation of the primary mystery of our faith, the Most Holy Trinity. For it pertained to the sweet disposition of divine providence that mankind should first be taught clearly those things that pertain to the unity of the divine essence, especially given the fact regarding the errors of polytheism into which a large part of humanity had fallen. However it was also necessary that the revelation of the Trinity might not seem to be so new that its acceptance would be too difficult, since even in itself it greatly exceeds the power of comprehension of the human mind.

 

Therefore we say: the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity is not proposed in the O.T. in such a way “that it pertained to the common faith of the people of Israel,” but certainly in it they are being prepared to receive the revelation of the N. T. in such a way that the N.T. presents an excellent exposition of the teaching actually contained in the O.T., at least with regard to some of its elements. Particularly, the divinity of the Messiah as a person distinct from God the Father is clearly communicated in various places. “The second person,” Franzelin says, “without doubt has been revealed”; therefore the teaching of the N.T. regarding this point is not simply like a new revelation of a truth never expressed, but rather it should be taken as an explanation and more distinct determination of the previous revelation. At least this seems to be the mind of the holy Fathers, who on the one hand often say that the Trinity was revealed only in the N.T., and on the other hand they bring forth many statements of the O.T. in order to prove it. The opinions of almost all Catholic theologians and exegetes agree on this latter point.

 

A distinction must be made between the hints and insinuations of the whole trinitarian mystery and certain statements which either in the light of the N.T. or simply in the very text of the O.T. pertain to the mystery. In this matter, the texts quoted by the authors of the N.T. books must be carefully analyzed, and also certain texts understood to refer to the Trinity by the common consent of the fourth century Fathers in the controversies with the heretics. For since Christ himself quoted the O.T. to prove his divine sonship, and since the Apostles and the Church had received the charism or gift of understanding the Scriptures, it must be said that with these quotes the meaning of the teaching revealed in the O.T. is not magnified, but simply explained and declared, namely where the mind of the N.T. author or the consensus of the Fathers or the authority of the Church is clearly apparent. (Joseph M. Dalmau, “One the One and Triune God,” in Sacrae Theologiae Summa, 4 vols. [trans. Kenneth Baker; Keep The Faith, Inc., 2016], 2A:275-76)

 

 

Hanne Von Weissenberg: 4Q397 Is Not Teaching a Tripartite Division of the Old Testament Canon

  

Regarding the alleged reference to a tripartite canon on line 10 in MS 4Q397 I agree with Ulrich that the placement of fragment 4Q397 17, which does not contain much more than the fragmentary word ]בספר[, is relatively uncertain, and therefore the reconstruction is printed in the translation with cursive (and] the Book[s). Given that the location of this fragment is possible, one should keep in mind that its location is based on an assumption of a tripartite canon, but this does not prove the existence of such a concept at the time 4QMMT was authored. In addition, both Ulrich and Kratz agree about the uncertainty of the reading of ד]ובוי. In other words, the reading of this passage in the better preserved MS 4Q397 can be questioned.

 

Also the meaning and content of the references has been debated. Timothy Lim does not question the editors’ reconstruction of MS 4Q397, but finds other reasons for questioning the meaning of the phrase preserved in 4QMMT as a reference to a tripartite canon. For example, with regard to the term ספר מושה Lim has approached this question by examining the use of scripture in 4QMMT, and he points out that while allusions to Genesis, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy can be found in 4QMMT, there are none to Exodus. He further investigates the use of the term ספר מושה in some other Qumran writings. It seems, that only CD is giving any proof (and only indirect) for assuming that the Qumran community used the term ספר מושה for the whole Pentateuch. He concludes by stating, that no hard evidence can be found to demonstrate that ספר מושה is referring to the whole Pentateuch, though this is a possible definition. Similarly, Emile Puech and Kathell Berthelot have suggested that the three references could refer to three different corpora – but not necessarily to the entire Hebrew Bible and its three parts as they stand in the final form of the Jewish canon; in the pre-canonical period this would seem to be an appropriate way to interpret these references.

 

Importantly, as the synoptic comparison of the manuscripts demonstrates, the parallel manuscript 4Q398 does not contain such a reference (cf. also Chapter 2). Therefore, I must disagree with the reconstruction of a composite text here, contrary to the suggestion by the editors in DJD X. The fragmentary reading of MS 4Q398 contains no reference to a tripartite canon. (Hanne Von Weissenberg, 4QMMT: Reevaluating the Text, the Function, and the Meaning of the Epilogue [Studies on the Texts of the Desert of Judah 82; Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2009], 205-6)