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"The texts for Scripture have been preserved and are available for perusal to verify accuracy."

None of the original texts are preserved.

" So your attempt to use that argument against Scripture falls apart."

I am not making an argument 'against Scripture'. I am making an argument FOR Scripture. Sorry if I didn't make that clear.

I am arguing that Scripture is authoritative because it was verified by the practice of the Church, as it was handed down to us. I.e. Tradition, which means "that which is handed down."

A most obvious example: the Gospels. All four of them are anonymous as far as the text is concerned. None of them are signed or self-attested as to authorship. How do we know their authorship? Tradition. Without this authorship, would these books have been accepted into the canon? No. Therefore they were accepted into the canon on the authority of Tradition, which said that these books were written by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

"Paul was a Hebrew of the Hebrews, a pharisee. Whatever the Jews of those days considered Scripture is going to be what he was referring to." But that can't be "all" he was referring to, because there were at least 34 books written in Greek which the Jews (at least as of ~100 AD) did not accept, including, of course, the Gospels.

Sorry for the confusing formatting at the end. It should look like this:

"Paul was a Hebrew of the Hebrews, a pharisee. Whatever the Jews of those days considered Scripture is going to be what he was referring to."

But that can't be "all" he was referring to, because there were at least 34 books written in Greek which the Jews (at least as of ~100 AD) did not accept, including, of course, the Gospels.

I want to add that while Paul was a Pharisee, the Pharisees didn't represent all Jews, only one faction. Other factions in the late Second Temple period were the Sadducees, Essenes, and Karaites.

This is relevant because they accepted different canons of Scripture. The Sadducees saw the Torah as the sole source of divine authority. That means they accepted only the first five books of Moses as canonical. (Interestingly, like the Gospels, they are anonymous: Moses is not identified is the author in the texts. Only by Tradition.)

In first century Jerusalem there were at least four OT Canons in use by different Jewish Groups. There was the Canon of the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Ethiopian Jews and the Diaspora/Essene Jews. Jesus and the disciples used the Septuagint which was the Canon of the Diaspora/Essenes. We know this because it is quoted in the New Testament. This Canon continued to be the Canon of Christians until well after the Reformation and, in fact until about 200 years ago when the Protestants adopted a condensed version of the Canon eliminating the Deuterocanonicals from their Bibles. Even the AKJ originally contained the complete Christian Canon.

It has been said by some that the Deuterocanonicals were never believed to be inspired; just the opposite is true. The decision by Christians as to which books are inspired and useful for teaching was decided at the African Synods in the late fourth and early fifth century. There was never a question about their inspiration.

Keep in mind that it wasn't based on "the Jews." There was not an OT canon accepted by all Jews.

Here's the other relevant point: the Sadducees rejected the Oral Law as proposed by the Pharisees. Jesus' comment in Matthew 23:1-3 is interesting:

:Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples: “The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat. So you must be careful to do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach."

He didn't object to what they preached. He specifically said it should be practiced. He objected that they did not practice what they preached.

I am arguing that Scripture is authoritative because it was verified by the practice of the Church, as it was handed down to us. I.e. Tradition, which means "that which is handed down."

Scripture is not authoritative because it was handed down as tradition by the church, any church.

It's authoritative based on it being by its very nature authoritative as the very word of God.

It's its God breathed, Holy Spirit inspired nature which makes it authoritative, not some stamp of approval given to it by some church.