"He inspired, He gave us the revelation; it is our gift; we need to take care of it. It is on us to preserve it, to safeguard it against corruption. But, alas, the originals have been lost! Imagine, the most precious things God gave us -- all lost. We lost them. God didn't."
It becomes clearer. You believe that the autographs are the only true Scriptures, and that all else is human contaminant. I'm surprised that you buy into the "autograph" approach.
Condemning the Church for losing the "originals" means that you think that the writers of Scripture knew at the time that they were writing Holy Scripture. I doubt very much that any of them had any idea of the kind.
Only after these useful writings had been circulated and copied and circulated would I imagine that the Church came to the conclusion that these were Holy Scripture. By that time, I wonder if anyone would even know which one was the autograph, or where it was, or whether it mattered.
True Scripture is what the Church has.
Did God not decide to drown the whole human lot because of "contamination?" Did Adam and Eve not get banished from the Garden because they contaminated God's Creation that he made good? Did God not declare a New Covenant because the Old one was not "without fault?" Whose fault was it? Not God's. Did the Hebrews not go back and forth to their pagan gods after their Exodus? Did they not reject Christ? Did not +Paul sent epistles to "contaminated" Christians as early as 60 AD (27 years after Christ died)? Did not +Ireneaeus have to fight a Herculean battle with heresies as early as the second century AD? Did not the Church sweat 300years to remove false "sctriptures" from circulation? Did not the Church call eight Ecumenical Councils in a matter of 500 years to deal with "contaminations" (heresies)? Do we not have different Bibles?
Where is there evidence that there is anything humans do that is eternal, unchaining and not subject to decay? Do we not go to repeated confessions and confess the same errors over and over even though we may sincerely repent of them? How can dirty hands not soil clean linen? Do we not believe that only the Ever-Virgin Mary was without sin?
How can we assume that omissions, additions, deletions, discrepancies and other biblical inconsistencies as being of no consequence? Can we really say we believe with anything but imperfect knowledge? Surely, Christ did not deliver imperfect faith. We made it imperfect.
Condemning the Church for losing the "originals" means that you think that the writers of Scripture knew at the time that they were writing Holy Scripture. I doubt very much that any of them had any idea of the kind
I am sure we could say that in their humility they accepted their task but did not boast about it. +John knew what he was writing. He even says that Christ commanded him to do so. +Paul knew what happened to him and what mission he was chosen to do for God. Did Moses know what he was writing? I would say yes, he knew. Surely, the Gospels were written to convey a message of the New Covenant. They were not written as a historical account, as Josephus would have written about it.
The Gospels were not controversial because they were narratives. +Paul's Epistles were already interpretations. As theology based on the New Covenant developed, so did heresies, differences, disagreements, additions, deletions, choosing MT over LXX, diverging Christology, rejection of CHalcedon, etc. All the way to the present day, Agrarian.
Last Sunday, my OCA Church proudly served bagels with cheese and egg sandwiches. When I, after first thanking them for their effort, politely reminded the kitchen volunteers that cheese and eggs are animal products and that we are half-way through Great Lent (the priest calls in only Lent, however), I was told "we are not monks." Yes, Agrarian, our faith is heavily contaminated and it is a real wonder that it even survived this long.