Dreary weather
The Jews were called THE PEOPLE of the BOOK.
The LAW was written by the "finger of God." Immediately afterward, Moses destroyed the very tablets containing the Law of God. Nobody examined the original tablets.
The Ark of the Covenant supposedly contained those tablets--but those were NOT the originals.
The (Christian Greek) Scriptures were not the New Testament we have today. No, it was the Septuagint, which legend has it, was translated by 70 Elders separated from each other and ALL their copies matched exactly! Clearly a myth.
Christianity was first Jewish Messianic word-of-mouth preaching to Jews. "Faith follows the thing heard."
But, the New Testament is comprised of very strange things.
At first, the "Bible" consisted of the letters of Paul collated by Marcion, a Christianized tycoon who contributed lots of money to the Church.
Marcion darned near created a completely different version of Christianity because his GNOSTIC teachings denied that Jehovah was the true God. Instead, the God of the Old Testament was an evil god. According to Marcion, Jesus was the true God.
The Church (i.e. universal or Catholic) gave Marcion his donations back and disfellowshipped him.
To compete with Marcion's collated writings, a separate canon was introduced approved by Church itself.
This is the first logical disproof of their authority because they approved as true and legitimate MORE books than the Protestants accepted and approved.
Somebody is lying or both or Both are wrong or one is right and the other is wrong.
In other words--it is all up for grabs, for dispute and unprovable.
Assertions are made, certainly, but in any Court of Law of the land, if you claim to be the heir to a fortune and produce a photocopy of a will--it isn't going to fly.
BEST EVIDENCE is the autograph will, written in the hand of the deceased, witnessed and notarized.
The Jews AND the 1st century Christians and the later Protestants are all claiming to be heirs of the kingdom and they can't produce the autograph documents!!
If the Catholic Church did NOT preserve the actual Bible containing proper Christian teaching--they are undoubtedly wrong about most everything else.
This canon of scripture--IF it were wrong--was allowed to go unchallenged for over one thousand years.
Martin Luther was either right or wrong to remove the "extra" books.
Protestant Reformation either wrecked the TRUE church or exposed the counterfeit teachings of the false one.
It isn't a simple matter, is it?
Without a true, verifiable document, we are betting our lives, fortunes and sacred honor ON THE ASSURANCES of mere mortals with quirky ideas.
That's my point.
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