It is the illumination and the clarity that have been such a help to me, and the very fact that so much "other" material back up what we in the church teach. Just about every book or letter teaches baptism by immersion and the sacredness of that event. I certainly am not looking for another gospel, Heaven forbid, I just want to understand better the one we've been given, seems to me the ones living closer to the time of its events would have a better vision of its meaning. I will follow the link as soon as I have time. They are always good. thanks.Here's the thing on the subject of inspiration: We have the Biblical statements regarding the authenticity and trustworthiness of its own contents (ie 2Tim 3:16, 2Pet 1:29, 3:16, etc.); We have an unbroken chain of evidence and support for those documents. There is nothing else like that. No other ancient (or modern) book has the unbroken chain of evidence and testimony for its reliability and trustworthiness. We use the word inspiration in various ways of course, a person may be inspired to write a piece of music for example, but the "God-breathed" meaning of the term applied to Biblical scripture is unique. As Wanda mentioned, everything else has to be tested against scripture. Other materials may illuminate or clarify scripture, but they cannot add to it or improve on it (cf Prov 30:5-6, Rev 22:18-19). No doubt there were other documents that were God-breathed (Sept. '99 on the LW page had something about that). A previous article on the subject, Iddo the Annotator, doesn't seem to be posted. I'll have to look for that one.
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