Please keep in mind that this is not the original written by the author of John's Gospel, but a copy. This is all we have to go on, the 'earliest' Gospel.
I understand you need your "Tradition" in order to justify some of your beliefs. The fact remains the only thing we have that we can be absolutely certain is truth are the Scriptures. They were written by the Apostles or those that knew the Apostles. They were not fabricated several generations to hundreds of years after the fact, such as the Protoevangelium of James was to support what has become flawed doctrine.
(But he didn't worship her, lol)
Let me add an LOL to that.
it is protestant "tradition" that holds Constantine made Christiainity the state religion, and lorded over the Councils, however it's a historical falicy.
No, we don't know that for a fact, nor can we be absolutely certain, but some choose to believe it. Some choose to believe that cavemen never existed too.
Even the oldest fragments (containing half a dozen words) of the New Testament are copies of copies. No one can reconstruct an entire Gospel based on those. The oldest fragment is estimated to be from John's Gospel dated 125 AD (P52). You can find our a little more about the facts we do know about the New Testament based on evidence and not myth.
The earliest complete or almost complete Bibles (Codex Vaticanus, Codex Sinaiticus, and Codex Alexandrinus) do not fully agree; the oldest Gospel of Mark ends sooner than the later ones; there is evidence of erasures, additions and so on in many, etc.
Please keep in mind that this is not the original written by the author of John's Gospel, but a copy. This is all we have to go on, the 'earliest' Gospel.
To play the "devil's advocate", I would like you to be aware that the idea that the Apostles writings are "Scriptures" is self-serving. Absolute truth? You are exaggerating. You base your claims on the trustworthiness of men 2000 years ago. That is subject to a proclamation of FAITH! Has God made an unequivocal statement to the entire world that the Christian Bible is Sacred Scriptures and absolute truth? Again, that is a matter of faith.
As to similar writings written during the Apostolic Age, there are a number of contradictory writings - John's epistle mentions the Gnostic teachings. So does Colossians and Revelation. How do you KNOW that some of these writings were not inspired by God? How do you KNOW that what we have is EVERYTHING God inspired?
With this information, we must trust the writers of what we now call Scripture got it right. Thus, in the end, we rely on the witness of the Church. Any other explanation is wishful thinking.
Regards
"I understand you need your "Tradition" in order to justify some of your beliefs. The fact remains the only thing we have that we can be absolutely certain is truth are the Scriptures. They were written by the Apostles or those that knew the Apostles. They were not fabricated several generations to hundreds of years after the fact, such as the Protoevangelium of James was to support what has become flawed doctrine."
WF, both the Eucharistic and ecclesiological theology espoused by +Ignatius of Antioch were from a man who was a disciple and correspondent of +John, the successor of +Peter and likely knew Christ. His letters are not "generations to hundreds of years after the fact" and yet Protestantism utterly rejects everything those letters teach. Why? They lay out the exact Eucharistic theology believed in and the exact Church structure manitained by the bishops who decided what made up the canon of the NT that you have such (justified) confidence in.