[Gathnet] To anyone who has an answer

[Stuart D. Gathman]

On Fri, 6 Aug 2004, Elissa Gathman wrote:

> I was recently in a conversation with my grandmother who is an atheist. 
> A question arose that I could not answer. We were talking about the book 
> of Romans, and I  was explaining how God spoke/speaks through Paul to 
> us. But then she asked how I know that it really is God speaking to us. 
> How do we know that it's not Paul alone? Sure we can back up stories 
> written in the bible through architectural findings. But the bible isn't 
> all stories, how do we back up the parts of the bible that speak simply 
> of gods love, and his commandments to us?

0. The Bible is authentic.  In other words, John really wrote John,
   Luke really wrote Luke, and not some unidentified entity named 'Q'.
  a. Tens of thousands of manuscripts.

1. Jesus is God.  Evidence:
  a. He said so
  b. He rose from the dead
  c. He was a great teacher
  d. He can't be a great teacher and a liar or delusional
  e. The Gospel writers all testify independently to the above

2. Jesus appointed the 12 apostles to teach what He taught them.  
  a. "As the Father has sent me, so send I you."
  b. "But the Comforter, which is the Holy Spirit, will bring all things
     to your remembrance whatsoever I have commanded you."

3. Paul was appointed by Jesus as an Apostle to the gentiles.
  a. "I will show him what things he must suffer for my sake."
  b. His authority was confirmed by the original 11 apostles.
  c. He was an eye-witness of the resurected Christ, a requirement
     for Apostles set forth by the 11 at the beginning of Acts.

4. James was apparently also a witness to the resurrected Christ, although
   I am not aware of any explicit mention of this.  James was accepted
   as a leader in the first Ecumenical council mentioned in Acts.
   Martin Luther wanted to remove James from the New Testament because of
   James' weaker credentials, and because James uses the word 'faith' in a
   different sense than Paul - one at odds with Luther's new found faith 

5. All the new testament writers expound a common Gospel.
  a. "If any preach to you a different Gospel than what you have received
      from us - let him be anathema."

6. Many Ecumenical councils over thousands of years beginning in the fourth
   century have repeatedly come to the same conclusion in the matter of
   which books belong in the New Testament.  Even Luther had to put James
   back in.  The only disagreement is over writings from the 400 years between
   Malachi and Matthew and a few passages from Daniel not found in
   Protestant Bibles.  These books in dispute are called Deutero Canonical
   (or "Apochryphal" by Protestants).
  a. (The Catholic View)  The authority Jesus gave to the Apostles extended
    to their sucessors by laying on of hands (Apostolic Succession).
    Their successors are the (Catholic) Bishops.  These Bishops have
    infallibly discerned in several Ecumenical Councils the True Canon
    of Scripture.
  b. (The Orthodox View)  Same as the Catholic view except that there 
    have been no true Ecumenical Councils since 1000 AD.  Hence the status
    of the Deutero Canonical books has not been infallibly discerned,
    since the Council of Trent was not truly Ecumenical.  The Orthodox
    have more books in their Bible than Catholics, who in turn have more
    than Protestants.
  c. Orthodox, Catholic, Protestant: all agree on the books of the New
    Testament.

-- 
	      Stuart D. Gathman <stuart at bmsi.com>
Business Management Systems Inc.  Phone: 703 591-0911 Fax: 703 591-6154
"Confutatis maledictis, flamis acribus addictis" - background song for
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