It has never been without the Book.
Yes, it has. Without a bible at least. It had the Jewish writings of the Old Testament, and absolutely nothing of the New...as it was either unwritten at the time or simply one of many early writings that various groups adhered to across the Mediterranean. So what you wrote is total baloney.
Exactly wrong - You will note that the Tanakh was declared by Yeshua to be all about Him. And it is. Necessarily, Christianity can work out of the Tanakh (OT) just fine. That means, Jewish Bible, or the Protestant one, the message is the same.
As to your supposition that the Bible was a later assemblage in Christianity, such a notion is largely rubbish - Again, you must abuse the church fathers to make such a claim, as nearly the entirety of the Bible can be assembled from their quotes. Was there some contention? were there some places that had more than others? To be sure. That is simply the nature of something growing by way of distribution. And contention is the method of debate for a free people.
What makes your comments ludicrous is actually the adversity - Marcion was early on (c.150), and in order for him to reject the books he did, the books had to have been in widespread good standing, or there would have been no reason to reject them. The same with Montanism.
And while your contention necessarily stands upon Marcion, You can field no argument
whatsoever to defend him, or the Gospel of Thomas, by any means other than what appears to be it's appeal in your eyes. It has *no* inter-connectivity with the four accepted gospels (which the four do have, in spades), in fact it stands outside of them entirely. It carries forward no themes from the Tanakh. in fact, it again, stands independent from those themes, and lastly, and PROFOUNDLY, it stands against Torah - The touchstone of authority.
TORAH. Unchanging and always.
Torah is not the "biblos" that was assembled in the 3rd and 4th centuries...it was a small part of the larger work. Further, if a text "says" god says its infallible and can't be changed....that's still just a man writing what he believes god thinks/wants. Men wrote the books, not god, and their use of god to validate what they wrote is as unsurprising as it is non-credible. Again, you write MORE baloney. Try knowing your own "books" history for a change.
Oh but I DO know His Book. It is an oddity that I must rise to defend canon, because I extend beyond canon myself, with good reason. But defend it I will, as the Protestant Bible particularly has stood the test of time and every sort of assault. There is *no* book in history with more attribution, more claim on authenticity. If anything is to be agreed upon, particularly as the work of a god, it is those books. To defy the continuity across millenia, often carried by it's opposition in contention, often assaulted beyond all measure, only to survive again and again, is simply put, beyond incredulous.
And as to your claim that a mere man wrote them, particularly Torah, I would invite you to examine the forms of encryption present in the text which guard it (literally to the letter in Torah), and explain to me how such an ingenious thing could be created by scribes of antiquity, not to mention created at all. Even computers fail at subliminal encryption while keeping the text above not only readable and contextual, but actually beautiful and prosaic. It is extraordinary mathematics beyond all hope of explanation this side of the supernatural.
In my attempts to prove against the Bible, I have read the works of every religion possible, to include the oracles and prophets of every god I could get my hands upon. I have gone deep into occult knowledge (enochian, hermetic, druidic), gnostic knowledge (Jewish, Greek, and Roman), and have become familiar with every sort of esoteric literature. I have never seen encryption like in kind, or of ANY kind, in any other book. Nor have I ever seen such brilliant continuity.
There is no doubt in my mind that Torah is supernaturally inspired. Proven.
And it does not end with Torah (albeit more so therewith). The whole of the Bible contains such things. Study the heptatic structures within the NT and show me the like of it anywhere else.
Gnosis... Knowlege... Do you know another word in the Greek with that meaning? Daimon... Demon.
Clearly, you are not an etymologist. The word Daimon is a Greek term referencing "spirit" or a "moving force", it does not mean knowledge nor does it refer to either a good or evil motive. Gnosis on the other hand, is simply a word for "knowledge" or "to know" or even "knowing". It is not related to Daimon, which is a truncation of Eudaimonia which means good "spiritedness". Christians saw pagans worshipping "good spirited forces" and used the word as a negative in referring to Pagan daemon. So you've taken two entirely unrelated things and sought to combine for effect...but you've failed because...well...you simply are incorrect in your understanding of both words.
demon (n.) Look up demon at Dictionary.com
c. 1200, from Latin daemon "spirit," from Greek daimon "deity, divine power; lesser god; guiding spirit, tutelary deity" (sometimes including souls of the dead); "one's genius, lot, or fortune;" from PIE *dai-mon- "divider, provider" (of fortunes or destinies), from root *da- "to divide" (see tide (n.)).
Used (with daimonion) in Christian Greek translations and Vulgate for "god of the heathen" and "unclean spirit." Jewish authors earlier had employed the Greek word in this sense, using it to render shedim "lords, idols" in the Septuagint, and Matthew viii.31 has daimones, translated as deofol in Old English, feend or deuil in Middle English. Another Old English word for this was hellcniht, literally "hell-knight."
The original mythological sense is sometimes written daemon for purposes of distinction. The Demon of Socrates was a daimonion, a "divine principle or inward oracle." His accusers, and later the Church Fathers, however, represented this otherwise. The Demon Star (1895) is Algol.
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=demon
In fact, it does also refer to one's genius. To the inner voice. Knowledge by epiphany. In the occultic sense, knowledge and the demon that gives it, are intertwined.
How very convenient it must be to have nothing written in stone...
God doesn't write in stone, or ink. Men do. God writes in our hearts and in the very air around us. It can be convenient, but its also trying because men often blind themselves to the god who is in and all around them. As for god's love, that is...metaphorically...written in stone and stamped on every atom. So its has a permanence that no book or doctrine can ever compete with.
Alright. PROVE IT. Define it.
You can't, because in this case, there is no guideline, no establishment, no literal communication to be referred. Again, how convenient. It is so polymorphous that it can be anything to anyone. So what you really seem to define is again, 'Do as thou wilt'.
Be careful who you listen to.
Good advice for all. Could not agree more. That includes of course, men who wrote books that were later collected into a "biblos", now called a bible. These fellows of the 2nd and 3rd centuries were plagued by the same failings, inadequacies, biases and foolishness as we are today. Worshipping their collection is idol worship....literally. The only one you should listen to is the voice of God in your heart and in the world around you...that is the true bible.
What you say would be true except in your case, truth is whatever YOU say it is.
We don't worship the Bible. We worship the God who wrote it.
A provable God.
A definable God.
A god so sure of himself that he wrote it all down. What he says will be WILL BE. And he told us all, from the beginning.
Legitimate, proven, and unchanging.
