That could be why we have so many “partial” manuscripts and why the originals disappeared after so much use and travel most any kind of scroll or papyrus would have long dissolved.
For the first number of years, that was all there was.
I also said that the persons that wrote the documents we have that are called Holy Scripture, were inspired by the Holy Spirit to record them and that they did so with the intent for them to be preserved.
We believe that many people were inspired to write; that emphaticall does not mean that God wrote them. Let us go to Luke 1:
1 Since many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the events that have been fulfilled among us, 2 just as those who were eyewitnesses from the beginning and ministers of the word have handed them down to us, 3 I too have decided, after investigating everything accurately anew, to write it down in an orderly sequence for you, most excellent Theophilus
There were many Gospels and many people inspired to write. Only four Gospels and the rest of what we refer to as the NT now made it into Scripture. The rest of them were rejected, including such as the Gospel of Peter, the Acts of Peter and Paul, the Shepherd of Hermas etc, some of which made it right up to the final cut.
The oral re-telling, probably was written down by many as even the lowly fishermen that Jesus chose became literate in time. :o)
Correct. Eventually the illerate fisherman Simon became the writer Peter.
That could be why we have so many “partial” manuscripts and why the originals disappeared after so much use and travel most any kind of scroll or papyrus would have long dissolved.
Let us not forget that there were many versions of the same writings which differed from each other either inadvertently, or deliberately.