Will you then insist that the ancient liturgical churches "don't read the Bible?" Do you think Martin Luther invented it? True, there was no printing press until the "fifteenth century" and Bibles had to be hand written, which means the kind of "Bible-based" church you believe in could not have existed until the renaissance when printing made books cheap and available to all. Do you honestly think the ancient chr*stians (before Constantine) brought their Thomas Nelson Bibles to church with them and read along to make sure the preacher was being faithful, as Protestants do nowadays? You can't possibly be that naive.
As to what the Bible says, at least I can read it, whereas you can only read a translation. And if you truly believe in verbal plenary inspiration you cannot be satisfied with a translation. How ironic that the same people (Fundamentalist Protestants) who insist on verbal plenary inspiration are the same people who (thanks to their roots in the Protestant reformation) insist on the all-sufficiency of translations! Unless you want to claim that the KJV of "1611" was written by G-d (as some do). But if you're going to do that, you lose your right to attack the Catholic Church for claiming their translation (Jerome's Latin Vulgate) was also "divinely inspired!"
I suggest you continue this debate with some of the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox FReepers. The latter (at least) will tell you that their Byzantine Greek text of the "new testament" is the original authentic apostolic text and that your KJV mistranslates in several places. For example, where your nt has Paul saying that all men die because they are sinners, they claim the original says that all men sin because all men are going to die (strangely, Eastern Orthodoxy claims that it is not sin that causes death but death that causes sin). What do you say to this other than to quote your "divinely inspired" translation?
Your assertion that Isaiah and Daniel teach chr*stianity's eternal damnation is based once again on the theory of "progressive revelation," that what is unimportant or hinted at in the Torah is later elaborated upon as the revelation rises to greater peaks of inspiration. One might make the same claim about techiyyat hameitim (the resurrection of the dead), but unlike eternal damnation, that has been a constant teaching of Judaism's Sages from the time of Moses and was thus included by RaMBa"M in his thirteen essential principals of belief. (BTW, Daniel was not a prophet and his book was not written under prophetic inspiration but under ruach haqodesh, which means his predictions are more contingent than those of a prophet.)
It is really heart-wrenching to know the country is full of good Bible-loving people like you who will not even consider that the "new testament" is merely a false revelation just six hundred years older than the "holy qur'an" and that you will spend your life believing that your version of chr*stianity, which exists only in northwestern European cultures and their colonies/mission fields, is the restored original version of chr*stianity, and that you either are totally ignorant of, or else afraid to confront, the actual ancient churches founded by the apostles and which contain the descendants of the original chr*stians simply because they are so old (and thus more authentic) and "halfway around the world" (and thus ethno-culturally more authentic).
It is obvious to me that you are so committed to the "new testament" that you cannot stop invoking it even when arguing with people who do not accept its authority (once again, that logical fallacy). I am afraid I must allow you to continue these Protestant arguments with the ancient churches who claim you are wrong and that they are right. Then when you have convinced them and all chr*stendom speaks with one Protestant voice we'll talk again.
Be well.
That's the equivalent of me demanding that you reconcile every interpretation of, every belief that arived out of and everything that was ever said of the Torah, before you talk to me about it.
The following looks like it was written specifically for you.
Dear Child of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,
I like to think of the Bible as God's letter to us. In it, He reveals His character, His creative power, His love for His people, and His plans and purposes for their future. In places, the perceptive reader can almost catch the scent of His perfume. Elsewhere, divine tears surely stain the pages. The narrative is rich and full. The Author did not mince His words to capture some market. Rather, He reveals His heart to capture ours.
Then why, upon completion of the Hebrew Bible, does the reader have the sense that the story is not finished? No doubt, because we are left to ponder prophecies unfulfilled: regarding the Messiah, and regarding the redemption and restoration of Israel.
Is it not true that the writer of a letter has the right to add a postscript? or even to follow up with a subsequent letter to keep the reader up to date as events unfold?
It puzzles me, then, that some are so violently opposed to considering a volume that claims to be the continuation of God's letter. Yes, I am aware of the warning: "Every word of God is pure, He is a shield unto them that put their trust in Him. Add thou not unto His words, lest He reprove thee, and thou be found a liar."[Proverbs 30:5,6] This prohibition is against counterfeit scriptures, letters written in God's name, but without His authorization or signature. There is no shortage of such so-called holy writings, which are false. They are the work of the Deceiver, who is a liar and the father of lies. But, there is nothing in this passage that forbids God from adding pure words to pure. If He were to do so, we would expect His new words to flow from the former. Their purpose would not be to change or correct, but rather to complete the message already transmittetransmitted.
The Torah was given to us by God through Moses. It was God's Word to His people: complete in itself, to be kept in the heart, taught to the children, and lived out in every area of our earthly walk. Yet, the Lord told Moses that there would be revelation beyond his writings: "I will raise them up a Prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee, and will put My Words in his mouth, and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him."[Deuteronomy 18:18] Moses, the Law giver, would be followed by a greater Prophet bringing God's Word to His people.
In the passage from Proverbs referred to previously, God raises some questions. Don't you suppose He intended to answer them? "Who hath ascended up into Heaven, or descended? Who hath gathered the wind in His fists? Who hath bound the waters in a garment? Who hath established all the ends of the earth? What is His Name, and what is His Son's Name, if thou canst tell?"[Proverbs 30:4]
In a later volume, we read this reply: "No man hath ascended up to Heaven, but he that came down from Heaven, even the son of man which is in Heaven." "No man hath seen God at any time, the only begotten son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared Him."[John 3:13; 1:18] This is the subject matter of the New Covenant (often referred to as the New Testament), from which these lines were quoted.
But, you say, we have no need for any new covenant. Sinai's law still stands. True, the Law cannot be broken. Yet, to the Torah, which also prohibits unauthorized additions [Deuteronomy 12:32], God added the Psalms and the Prophets. They spoke in harmony with, and passed the tests required by the Law [Deut. 13:1-5].
Listen to the words of one of them: "Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah: not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith the Lord: But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord; for they shall all know me from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more." [Jeremiah 31:31-34]
It was to this that Yeshua made reference, at his last Seder before his sacrifice for sin. "This cup," he said, "is the New Covenant in my blood, which is shed for you."[Luke 22:20]
Was what he initiated that day new in the sense of being a departure from God's original intent? Or, was it, rather, the next phase of His plan foretold? David recorded the sound of the son's voice: "Then said I, Lo, I come, in the volume of the book it is written of me, I delight to do thy will O my God, yea thy law is within my heart."[Psalm 40:7,8]
His voice has not changed in the later volume. Listen: "Think not that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill."[Matthew 5:17]
When God fulfills a promise, will He keep secret the news?
You really ought to read the rest of the story.