What I want to know is how do you know that "The Holy Spirit" inspired, guided or "spoke to" anyone? It's one thing to make the claim that the words of an ancient religious leader managed to be passed down through oral tradition. It's another to make the claim that they were inspired by supernatural beings.
I'm skipping this question for the moment.
Additionally, if anything was supposed to be written down, wouldn't it have made sense for Jesus to say, "Hey, you guys better take notes." I mean, if he was standing right in front of a bunch of disciples and "God" was going to "inspire" people to write things down anyway, then it seems like that would have been a good time to start, not decades or centuries later.
Obviously, you are not a 1st century Palestinian Jew, and are influenced by Protestant post-enlightment views. Faith is not transmitted by reading a book. That would be like reading romance novels and never being in love. Christianity was not alone in this. The Rabbis forbid the writing down of what latter was redacted into the Talmud: teaching had to be transmitted through a chain of rabbis. A similar idea was acted on among the philosophical schools.
When the generation of the Apostles had started to pass, it consolidated the Church, grooming the next generation, consecrating their successors and establishing them in the major sees, and writing down and having written down their testamony in the NT.
For instance, in the scientific method, scientist conduct a slew of experiments and take copious notes (at least that is what we are told). They then redact this into their results which they publish for consumption by the scientific community to build up the body of science.
I reckon that you are now saying "but the scientists can replicate the results." But so can the Orthodox Christians. As the Gospels say 'Come and See!"
John 4: 39 Many Samaritans from that city believed in Him because of the woman's testimony, "He told me all that I ever did." 40 So when the Samaritans came to Hhim, they asked Him to stay with them; and he stayed there two days. 41 And many more believed because of His word. 42 They said to the woman, "It is no longer because of your words that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is indeed the Savior of the world."
And like I mentioned in another thread, if Jesus/God wanted to "make disciples of all the nations", then why not have a "representative" (i.e. virgin birth/messiah figure) IN all those nations in the first place?
Because He is one God, not several. And He is incarnated, not coming down in an avatar.
There is a genre of Patriistics on "The Preparation of the Gospel" which goes over things in the various cultures that prepared them for the Gospel. Among it is a quotation of Virgil which reads like Isaiah and Luke on the matter. It also played a large role in the evangelization of this continent in Alaska.
IN this season we have hymns that point out that Christ came to be numbered when the census of the world was being conducted, during the first, and only, time that the Mediterranean Basin was united in one government and with one lingua franca, in contact with Iran, India, China and Ethiopia, so that the Gospel could spread rapdily. Which it did.
If people could only be "saved" through Jesus, then people were going to hell simply for not getting the memo.
So you refuse to read and follow the memo you got, because someone didn't get the same memo at the same time?
If the text really was divinely inspired, it seems like people should have had a "Bible" from every continent that conveyed the same history and philosophy.
Your Protestant influences are showing. We Orthodox have a different teaching. I can elaborate later (I'm pressed for time, to get to Church).
I'm just asking these questions to try and parse out the ultimate logic here, because from my perspective, these things just don't really make logical sense as anything other than one of the many mythologies created by man to explain his condition and express his philosophy.
Funny you mention many mythologies, as the the Father utilize those very same in the writings on the "Prepartion for the Gospel."
