‘I’m very reluctant to accept something like that, totally without even a single expression of support in the Bible, while this (above) does have several places of support in the Bible. “
I do understand your implication there, and believe me, I have heard this all my life from my grandfather preachers and others from church. “If it were supposed to be in the Bible, God would have made sure it got there” and yes, I totally understand that. But I also understand that the King James Version is a compilation of books that THEY felt was important. And given that they were released later in history, at a time when they would be more widely accepted... well, who’s to say God didn’t have a hand in that? I have a hard time thinking that the last time God would work on getting His word out there was at King James! If new writings were discovered today, would we say “Nope, not valid, it isn’t in the 17th century version!” I would hope not!
It’s hard to argue with a faith based argument on an issue, and “It’s not true or God would have made sure it was in there” is a complete faith based statement. Not that I am saying you are wrong, or saying that your faith in that statement is incorrect. I just have nothing that can counter a belief. *I* personally believe that while God’s word is most certainly in the Bible, politics has played a role in religion since time began. Right up the day Jesus was sentenced to die. And in studying King James and his religious group responsible for translating, choosing content and printing... politics can most definitely play a part and in my opinion most likely did. The idea that woman was originally created as an equal did not fit in with the idea of women of the day. Heck, it took a fear of a Catholic monarch for them to accept a woman on the throne! That was something that threatened men of that time and I can’t see them risking the idea of equality in that regard. For no other reason than King James wouldn’t want to tick off every other monarch in the region. In that respect, I can totally see God saying “I’ll let this part be left out because to leave it in risks people blocking the entire book!” Catholic priests weren’t happy with it in the first place.
Anyway, I’ll let it go at that. I was just saying that those books do support what you were saying.
Since that was Jesus who said that, He would have made it known if something was missing. He spoke and acted and conducted Himself as if all that God had said (which we know what He had...) -- would be fulfilled in its entirety. He made the point that not one jot of tittle would pass away, until all was fulfilled.
Now, that would be a very misleading thing for Jesus to say, if He knew that He was speaking about a part of the Bible (that He knew about) which was missing and that no one else, at that time, knew anything about it.
I think, just by that alone, we can be assured that we have every bit of what Jesus referred to, as not one jot or tittle passing away until all be fulfilled, in that Old Testament that Jesus used all the time.
AND..., thus, we're down to the New Testament, having "dispensed" with the issue as far as the Old Testament is concerned.
And with the New Testament, an advantage is that it's a whole lot easier to deal with, in that respect, than the Old Testament is. That's because it's so much more recent and we have so much material available to us, from the New Testament (from the Church fathers and their writing about it) -- and it was written so soon after Jesus' resurrection.
I won't go a whole lot into the New Testament, because that doesn't seem to be an issue, as far as I can tell, with the overabundance of material we have and that we can track everything written in the New Testament right back to within a mere years and decades of them happening -- with the very oldest book of the new Testament being written within the very same century of when Jesus was here. The very oldest book (the one furthest away from the death of Christ) in the New Testament was written only a mere 60 years (approximately) after Jesus died on the Cross. That's the very last book written.
James 45-49 AD Galatians 49 1 & 2 Thessalonians 51 Mark 50s or 60s Matthew 50s or 60s 1 Corinthians 55 2 Corinthians 56 Romans 57-58 Luke 60 Acts 61 Colossians 61 Ephesians 61 Philippians 63 Philemon 63 1 Peter 63-64 1 Timothy 63-66 Titus 63-66 Hebrews 64-68 2 Peter 66 2 Timothy 68 Jude 68-80 John 85-90 1, 2, 3 John 85-90 Revelation 90-95
Look at that -- everything except Jude, John, 1, 2, 3 John and Revelation -- all written before the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, in 70 AD.
These were books that were circulating and recognized immediately as inspired and thus accepted automatically into the canon of Scripture -- all while the Jerusalem Church was active and growing in Jerusalem.
In other words, we've got Jesus verifying it for us when He was here -- and then with the New Testament, we've got practically all of it written before the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem. And for those remaining few, the rest by (at the "outside") only 25 years after the destruction of the Temple at Jerusalem.
That's pretty amazing -- and you can bet your bottom dollar that nothing is missing there... :-)