Smitty City

I would not recommend The Davinci Code.

I think unless you speak Latin you are going to have a hard time with the primary sources. Check B.B. Warfield's Inspiration and Authority of the Bible or the The Arraignment of Error by Samuel Bolton. Those are two I can think of off the top of my head.

Do what I always do...ask Kyle. ;)

yeah...but most primary sources have been translated to english by now. At least you would think they have.

wassup dawg. hey, just letting you know I'm back on the blogspot deal. let everybody know.

breathordeath.blogspot.com

i promise to write

I love your hunger to better understand the ways of the Lord. It seems that you don't have a problem with "what" God used to reveal Himslef to us i.e. "His word and it's authority" but I hear you saying that you do have a problem "struggle" with the process he used, i.e. "history" to bring that word to us. So my friend, as we seek to model our Lord Jesus, would he have us do "intense research" on the "process" His father used to bring His word to man, or would he have us spend that time on the word itself? For as an Apostle once said "We know that we all posses knowledge. Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. The man who thinks he knows something does not yet know as he ought to know. But the man who loves God is known by God." Knowledge is good, as long as you lead with love. So then the question becomes; are we more loving than we were last week? If so, we might do well to pursue the history of God's word. If not, we would do well to spend more time discussing the implications of 1st Corinthians 13. The grace of the Lord Jesus be with you.

Smitty,
I believe we can stand confindent in what we have a Scripture. Two questioins I pose. (1)How do we know we have the right books in Scripture? Answer: We must look to who we are putting our confindence in. We put our faith in a sovereign God who lays out severe punishment for anyone adding to or taking away from what we now have a Scripture. (2)What happens if a "new book" is discored, like another writing of Paul? Answer: That would mean that God has left His people, whom He sacrificed His one and only Son for, with an incomplete revelation of Himself for over 1,900 years. That doesn't fit in well with God's character.
For more on the historical data, check on Grudem in his Systematic Theo and Erickson. You may have already done that, but they lay things out well.
And if you are wanting to look at primary sources, skip the Latin, learn Hebrew and Greek.

thank you for your comments Onesiphorus and Woody...you have both given me stuff to think about.