[aMorePerfectUnion]

IF-- IF -- you were to succeed in establishing that there is no real "unbroken chain of custody" as you say, then there is no reliable chain of transmission for Scripture. Hit the Delete key on Tradition, and Scripture vanishes from the screen.

I disagree entirely Mrs. Don-o. You are not the first Roman to make this argument.

I believe it is a false argument. First, It isn't the Church that defines Scripture, as you are assuming. It is God Himself. Yes, He uses people. It remains His sovereign decision to decree that the Holy Spirit moved men to record His truths, that His words will be preserved through every terrible even in history - even being carried off in the Babylonian Captivity.

Second, you assume that Protestants merely said, "Well those Romans thought this was Scripture, so let's go with that." Not so. The canon of Scripture was reexamined along with the historical record and decisions were made - including that Rome got it wrong on the Deuter books.

So, this argument you are putting forth carries little if any weight. Please remember that 2/3 of Scripture came before the Church age. Remember that Peter identified Paul's writings as Scripture.

And most of all, remember that it is God's sovereign work and not the Roman Rooster.

But tell me: who established your Canon? And when? Where? And on what basis? I would be interested to know.

Love it! Let's see if you can match my answer to you... I'll quote you:

"Only a truly ignorant person says there is “no proof” when he has simply not examined the proof. I know where you could start. read reformation history.

:-)

[Mrs. Don-o]

OK! Reformation history! So, I take it, you consider yourself a son of the Reformation? How was I to know? You have been so coy and mysterious about your denominational affiliation, I had no idea where your canon was from.

In fact, I still don't know, because you might be going by:

• the original 1611 King James Bible, where the Apocrypha section includes, in addition to the deuterocanonical books, three books which were not included in the list of the canonical books by the Council of Trent:
  • 1 Esdras (Vulgate 3 Esdras)
  • 2 Esdras (Vulgate 4 Esdras)
  • Prayer of Manasseh

• the Westminster Bibles, which recognize only 66 of the 73 books
• the 1599 and 1640 editions of the Geneva Bible (German), some of which were printed with the seven deuterocanonical books, and some without them;

• The versions standardized among English-speaking Protestants following the 1825 decision by the British and Foreign Bible Society.
• Martin Luther proposed removing these Antilegomena, the books of Hebrews, James, Jude and Revelation from the canon. All of the modern-day Lutheran Bibles include these books, but none of the confessional statements issued by any Lutheran church includes an explicit list of canonical books.

So maybe you'd like to clear that up for me? Come on, don't be shy!

Who established *your* Canon? And when? Where? On what basis? And why?