[arthurus]

All were replaced. We call those replacement bishops. The first bishops were relaced by other bishops and so on down to now. Some replacements were recorded. Loss of records does not mean that the act did not occur or that it was blotted from reality.The paper does not make the reality.

[Quix]

There's nowhere in Scripture that God shows any significant priority at all--PARTICULARLY IN THE NEW TESTAMENT

for a geneological type transfer of authority/power/spirituality from one person to another of the sort you assert was fact.

In fact,

There's plenty of Scriptural examples--particularly in the OT but somewhat in the new--making clear that spiritual authority and power are very idiosyncratic things that MORE OFTEN THAN NOT, HAVE LITTLE TO NOTHING TO DO WITH THE

RELIGIOUS

BUREAUCRACY of the time.

IN FACT, BIBLICALLY, they are usually at odds if not hostile to the

RELIGIOUS
BUREAUCRACY of the time.

One would think that anyone supposedly treating Scripture as a manual,

would take the many clues from Scripture on this supposedly important issue.

Personally,

I don't believe that issues about which reasonable people can differ, will turn out to be as eternally crucial as so many people think they will.

But other issues which are so clear as to provide little room for argument [not counting man's perverse addiction to argue], those issues will have plenty of eternal consequence.