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“the information from those who Christ personally chose”

This “information” did not suddenly fall from the skies in neatly wrapped packages. It was checked out and cross checked with the received oral tradition, sacred ritual, liturgy, and revelation and put together under infallible Petrine authority over some 300 years. Before the Bible, we have the ONE Catholic Church with the authority to assemble and interpret. This authority did not come from thin air. It came from Christ Himself and It did not vanish eleven centuries later with the curse of the Reformation that has spawned the David Koreshs, Moonies etc and every corner street pastor. Indeed some of the writings like the Gospel according to St. Thomas was discarded by the Church, yes the CATHOLIC CHURCH, as being inauthentic. That “interpretive” power on “information” was given to Peter and his successors until the end of time.

And I'm still relying solely on what Jesus and the apostles taught. Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to inspire the apostles to remember what He taught. God promise He would preserve His word for all generations. We can be assured that He did just that. We can be assured that the apostles wrote what God wanted them to write. We can be assured that God preserved that word for all generations.

Catholics claim they have oral tradition and additional revelation. Mormons claim they have revelation and teaching of angels. Muslims have their prophet. Every on of them is based on fallible men who perpetrated evil deeds. We can look at the wicked popes, Joseph Smith, and Mohammed to see.

The Old Testament oracles were given to the Jews. Catholics added to what those Jews held as scripture. Nothing was "taken out" later from those oracles by Protestants. They simply rejected what the Catholics had added and returned to the scriptures God had given to the Jews. The New Covenant information was given to the apostles. They each considered the others writings scripture. The Old Testament God entrusted to the Jews and the New Testament given to the apostles is scripture.

Mormons added the words of their "prophets from God". Muslims have their "prophet Mohammed. Catholics have the "petrine authority" and their sometimes "infallible pope" and their "revelations". The pope claims he's "vicar of Christ". David Koresh claimed he was "final prophet" of Jesus Christ. Sun Myung Moon claimed to be the second coming of Christ. Krishna Venta claimed to be "Christ on earth".

You want to keep bringing up all those names? It's not the Protestants who have similarities to them. It's the Catholics. Believe any one of those self proclaimed "christ on earth" fakes if you want Steelfish. I'm with the oracles entrusted to the Jews and the apostles Christ personally chose for the true word of God. Put your faith in any one of those "vicars of Christ" if you want but I put my faith in Christ alone.