What I can tell you is your interpretation of what your Bible says contradicts what my Bible says.
Before Christ ascended into heaven, He built His Church and commanded the Apostles to teach the same things He TAUGHT - only with the help of the Holy Ghost.
How on earth do you think folks were saved before there was an official NT? Before there were enough Bibles to go around? Before folks were literate enough to read? - ANSWER: They were TAUGHT and still are because THATS what Jesus Christ commanded.
Private interpretation of Scripture is condemned - even in your Bible.
Private interpretation of Scripture is condemned - even in your Bible.
Well, for the first 16 or so years, they used the Old Testament and studied prophesies about the Messiah.
They also repeated what the apostles were teaching, and took notes and shared them. Then after that, Paul had sent out his epistle of Galatians around 49AD, then new ones every year or so for the next 15 or 20 years.
Each Church copied them as fast as they got them and passed them on to the next church. A good Copyist could probably turn out 4 or 5 copies a day.
I see no problem what so ever with the Christians not having more then enough to read and study.
Lessons were memorized and written down, and as Paul told them in 2 Tim 2:2, And the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also.
Notice that Paul told them only to hear his words that have been verified by two or more faithful witnesses, so there was no traditions or hearsay allowed.
Now as far as your quoting 2 Peter 1:20 Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation.
V-21 For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.
Peter is talking about prophecies such as God gave to the fathers of old, as he explains in the 21st. verse, and they weren’t from the fathers anyway, they were directly from God..
So please don’t confuse reading and understanding God’s word with prophesying, that’s not what Peter was talking about.
JH :).