No, we have more historical evidence for the Old and New Testament then any other ancient work.
We do not need the 'originals' to be able to reconstruct the correct text with manuscript evidence.
We have noted how carefully the Jews copied their texts.
The TR differs very little between the various manuscripts (unlike the Critical text)
But, yes we do accept on faith the providential preservation of God's word.
You cannot prove one quote in the New Testament came from the LXX As much as you can prove that the five books of Moses came from Moses.
Sure I can, I can quote Christ who stated Moses did in Mt. 8:4; Jn. 5:46; 7:19.
For the Protestant his final authority is the word of God and that is where the final appeal is to No, it's what he considers to be the word of God. Again, it defaults to a man. In which case I would rather go with a consensus. The Protestants claim that what they believe is equal to the word of God. What proof is there of that?
In other words, you are doubting the word of God but are replacing it with the consensus of men.
No, it was put composed by men under the control of the Holy Spirit And you can't prove it. First, not a single father agreed fully on what constitutes Christian canon and, second, it took a consensus to finalize it (and even then it wasn't fully accepted by all, Revelation of John being one case in point!). If the HS had anything to do with, it was in the Church as a whole and not in any individual father.
The entire Canon was accepted by the Body of Christ (the church), long before any 'official' recognition of it occurred.
And the evidence of the correctness of the Books was attested to by Him What "evidence" (proof)?
The proof is in the fruit that it produced.
Christ attested to the complete Old Testament (minus the Apocrypha books) and by the end of the 1st century, we had the complete New Testament Books, the same books we have today and the same that your church accepts as well.
What we have is a perfect preservation of what God wanted to have "Proving" scriptures with scriptures — on faith alone. Preconception is not a proof.
Well, the only way you know of the birth, death, and Resurrection of Christ is through those Scriptures, so you have to accept them.
What you want is the 'freedom' to accept what you want and reject the rest.
So now you are denying the authorship and validly of the book of Matthew? I am merely stating the fact that it is unsigned (anonymous) and that the earliest 'proof' of that authorship comes from two men (Ignatius and papias) who were not inspired to the best of my knowledge, in the second century AD, anywhere from 55 to 65 yrears after the fact, by simply saying that it is!
The Greek heading tell us who the author is, just as it does Hebrews.
You are placing your trust in two men who offer no proof, factual or spiritual, whatsoever that the Gospel of Matthew was written by Matthew.
No, I am not concerned with those two men at all, I have a King James Bible that gives me the correct authorship, coming from the correct Greek text, with the authors name on it.
No, Chrysostom had it right and it is you who are assuming that God can't preserve what He gave to men to have, His perfect words Oh, God certainly can, but men can't.
God certainly did and used men to do so, just as He used men to get the Originals to us.
It is obvious from 2 Timothy 3:16-17 that the Apostles viewed the Scriptures as sufficient for faith and practice.
"All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be PERFECT, THROUGHLY FURNISHED unto ALL good works" (2 Tim. 3:16-17).
The term "perfect" here is not used in the sense of sinless perfection, but in the sense of completion and sufficiency. THE QUESTION WHICH FOLLOWS IS HOW DO WE KNOW THAT THE BIBLE, WITH ITS 66 BOOKS, CONTAINS THE COMPLETE SCRIPTURES WHICH ARE ABLE TO MAKE THE MAN OF GOD PERFECT?
FIRST, THE APOSTLES WERE PROMISED INSPIRATION FOR THE COMPLETION OF SCRIPTURE. The Lord Jesus Christ promised the Apostles that the Holy Spirit would lead them into all truth and that He would shew them all the things they needed to know.
"I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will show you things to come. He shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine, and shall show it unto you. All things that the Father hath are mine: therefore said I, that he shall take of mine, and shall show it unto you" (John 16:12-15).
In fulfillment of Christ's promise the New Testament revelation was completed by the Apostles under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. The apostolic writings which formed the New Testament Scriptures were accepted as Scripture by the first century churches. The Apostle Peter, speaking to the Christians about Paul's writings, referred to them as Scripture and placed them on par with the Old Testament prophets. "And account that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation; even as our beloved brother Paul also according to the wisdom given unto him hath written unto you; As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also THE OTHER SCRIPTURES, unto their own destruction" (2 Peter 3:15,16). The Apostles knew that the Lord had promised them inspiration (John 16:12-15), and they knew that they were receiving revelation. Consider, for example, Paul's statement to the churches in Galatia:
"But I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached of me is not after man. For I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ" (Galatians 1:11,12). Consider the words of Paul to the church at Thessalonia:
"For this cause also thank we God without ceasing, because, when YE RECEIVED THE WORD OF GOD WHICH YE HEARD OF US, YE RECEIVED IT NOT AS THE WORD OF MEN, BUT AS IT IS IN TRUTH, THE WORD OF GOD, which effectually worketh also in you that believe" (1 Thessalonians 2:13).
The Thessalonian believers knew that Paul had given them the WORD OF GOD!
Consider, also, the words of Peter to the Christians in the first century churches:
"This second epistle, beloved, I now write unto you; in both which I stir up your pure minds by way of remembrance: That ye may be mindful of the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets, and of the commandment of us the apostles of the Lord and Saviour" (2 Peter 3:12).
Peter reminded the Christians that the commandments of the Apostles are on par with the Old Testament prophets. Obviously this was something which the Apostles were careful to teach to all of the churches. They could not have been put in remembrance of something which they had not already been taught. The Christians of the first century were a close-knit community. It is ridiculous to think that they did not know these things, that they did not recognize that the Apostles were writing Scripture and that they did not receive the New Testament epistles as such. It was left for the modernists of the 19th and 20th centuries to deny these things and to claim that the forming of the New Testament canon was an almost haphazard thing which did not occur until centuries after the Apostles.
SECOND, WE KNOW THE BIBLE CONTAINS THE COMPLETE WORD OF GOD BECAUSE WE ARE TOLD THE FAITH WAS ONCE DELIVERED TO THE SAINTS.
"Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for THE FAITH WHICH WAS ONCE DELIVERED UNTO THE SAINTS" (Jude 3).
"The faith" refers to the body of New Testament truth delivered by the Apostles through Holy Spirit inspiration. The term "once delivered" tells us that this body of truth was given during one particular period of time and was completed. It refers to the New Testament Scriptures. This verse refutes the idea that the Christian faith has been progressively given through the Roman Catholic Church.
THIRD, A SEAL WAS PLACED ON THE FINAL CHAPTER OF THE FINAL BOOK OF THE BIBLE, SIGNIFYING ITS COMPLETION AND WARNING EVERY MAN NOT TO ADD TO OR SUBTRACT FROM IT.
"For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book: And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book" (Rev. 22:18,19).
Those who claim to have a new revelation or a tradition equal to the Bible fall under the judgment described in this passage. The book of Revelation completes the Holy Scriptures.
FOURTH, THE COMPLETED CANON OF SCRIPTURE WAS RECOGNIZED IN THE SECOND CENTURY. Christian leaders in the second century recognized the completed canon of the New Testament and accepted the apostolic writings as Holy Scripture on equal authority with the Old Testament. Irenaeus (125-192), for example, in his writings which still exist, made 1,800 quotations from the New Testament books and used them "in such a way as to imply that they had for some time been considered as of unquestioned authority" (Herbert Miller, General Biblical Introduction, p. 140). Irenaeus accepted the four Gospels, and four only, as Scripture. Clement of Alexandria (150-217) quotes from and acknowledges the four Gospels and most other New Testament books, calling them "divine Scriptures." Tertullian (150-220) made 7,200 citations from the New Testament books and accepted them as Scripture. The Latin Itala translation which was made in the second century "contained all the books that now make up the New Testament" (John Hentz, History of the Lutheran Version, p. 59). A list of New Testament Scriptures dating to the latter half of the second century was discovered in the Ambrosian Library in Milan, Italy, in 1740. This second-century list contained all of the books of the New Testament canon (Ibid., p. 60).
Thus the completed Greek New Testament Scriptures were being circulated and accepted by God's people under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Many of the modernistic textual scholars who write today about these early centuries deny, or totally overlook, the working of the Holy Spirit in the inspiration and canonicity of the New Testament. The Apostles were not left to their own devices to transcribe the record of Christ, nor were the early Christians left to their own devices to recognize which writings were Scripture. The words of the New Testament are the words of the Lord Jesus Christ through Holy Spirit inspiration, and the Lord's sheep know the voice of their Good Shepherd and can discern His voice from false shepherds (John 10:4,5,27).
FIFTH, THE PASSAGES WHICH URGE CHRISTIANS TO FOLLOW TRADITION REFER TO THE INSPIRED TRADITION GIVEN BY THE APOSTLES, NOT THE UNINSPIRED TRADITIONS OF MEN WHO HAVE FOLLOWED AFTER THEM. Tradition is used in two ways in the New Testament. First it refers to apostolic doctrine given by inspiration (2 Thess. 2:15; 3:6). The churches are bound to obey this tradition as it is recorded in the New Testament Scriptures. Second, tradition refers to uninspired teachings which religious teachers attempt to add to the Word of God and by which they attempt to bind the lives of men (Matt. 15:1-6; Mk. 7:9-13; Col. 2:8). In this sense, tradition is soundly condemned.
"But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men" (Matthew 15:9). "Making the word of God of none effect through your tradition, which ye have delivered: and many such like things do ye" (Mark 7:13).
"Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ" (Colossians 2:8).
We can praise the Lord that He HAS given us a completed revelation and that we are not dependent upon extra-biblical prophecies, visions, voices, tongues, or traditions. In the Bible we have everything the churches need for faith and practice.
http://www.wayoflife.org/fbns/fbns/fbns237.html
Nonsense. We can obtain an 'average' or 'common' baseline but have no proof that they reflect the original writings to any extent.
We have noted how carefully the Jews copied their texts.
How some Palestinian Jews copied their version of the OT.
The TR differs very little between the various manuscripts (unlike the Critical text)
Nonsense. TR is not the norm, and neither is the CR. These are conjectures based on extant copies of copies, mixted with mythology and other manipulations that were applied to Christian writings.
Sure I can, I can quote Christ who stated Moses did in Mt. 8:4; Jn. 5:46; 7:19.
And you have absolutely zero proof that that is exactly what Christ said or that He even said it! You simply take it on faith, based on a copy of a copy or caopy...
In other words, you are doubting the word of God but are replacing it with the consensus of men.
Why should I trust an individual opinion and not a consensual agreement of many as better? The blasphemous claim that somehow individual believers are guided by the Holy Spirit and denying that the same is true of the whole Church has no legs to stand on. There is a much greater likelyhood that an individual will be wrong than the entire Church.
The entire Canon was accepted by the Body of Christ (the church), long before any 'official' recognition of it occurred.
Nonsense. The fathers were arguing over what is scripture and what is not. NT detero-canonicals were probably not even written before the 2nd century.
The proof is in the fruit that it produced.
Really? And what would that fruit be?
Christ attested to the complete Old Testament (minus the Apocrypha books) and by the end of the 1st century, we had the complete New Testament Books, the same books we have today and the same that your church accepts as well.
No, copies of the copies of different and differing texts, altered, manipulated and oytherwise changed by individual scribes, that are accepted as official truth tell us what Christ supposedly attested to.
We don't know who wrote them, or if they simply copied someone else, or spoke on account of a popular myth, or if they actually witnessed it. You accept it on faith what some men wrote.
Well, the only way you know of the birth, death, and Resurrection of Christ is through those Scriptures, so you have to accept them.
Yes, that is unfortunate, isn't it, for we must depend on undependable writings of men to put our entire belief in God in that. On faith alone. However, it is not the only way to know. There is circumstantial evidence to show that the turth may be somewhat different.
What you want is the 'freedom' to accept what you want and reject the rest.
Not much different that wanting the 'freedom' to accept what you want and reject the rest.
The Greek heading tell us who the author is, just as it does Hebrews.
Those are latter-day additions. You obviously know nothing about how the books were titled in 1st century AD, and are not aware of the fact that first clear refrences to authorship (even as hints) did not exist until about 150 AD. For at least 65 years or more after the Gospels were written, no one creditted any of the Apostles in quoting from the Gospels.
No, I am not concerned with those two men at all, I have a King James Bible that gives me the correct authorship, coming from the correct Greek text, with the authors name on it.
The ostrich approach works for some people, I guess.
God certainly did and used men to do so, just as He used men to get the Originals to us.
No He didn't. The Church did nothing to preserve the originals for posterity. Obviously they didn't put much value in originals. We don't have originals of any kind when it comes to the Bible. None, Zip, Zilch, Zero.
But, burying one's head in the sand and pretending the sun doesn't shine is an option, I suppose.