I bet the committee would have preferred one too, if they knew what it was.
The Bible thus becomes an ecclesiological problem, and ultimately a pneumatic problem. Did Jesus commission the 12 (minus 1) as apostles with the authority to retain or forgive sins? Did the Holy Spirit descend upon the twelve? Was the council of Jerusalem correct in saying, "It seems good to us and to the Holy Spirit ...."?
I believe that the Holy Spirit reliably guides the Church in the big stuff, and consequently I think the decisions made on such things like which writings to include in the official documents were reliable.
My belief in this matter is strengthened by what seems to me a very different character to the other writings, and a tendency of many of them to fall into the sort of generic mystery/gnosticism which characterizes many of the popular religions these days.
I mean, honest to goodness, if the "gospel" proclaimed by Dan Brown is really the gospel, then who cares? "Sex is good." Wow, Newsflash! "It's nice to be nice to the nice." Stop the presses, make over page one, this changes EVERYTHING! For THIS the Messiah came?
Sheesh!
I guess I believe that to be true, too. I'm not positive about that, which obviously indicates to most that my faith is too weak.
I believe Noah's Flood was a catastrophic, but local, event and I think the world is billions of years older than 6,000 years.
That's what makes me believe in God, but not believe that the Bible was a fax from heaven, even sent by the Holy Ghost.
>> I mean, honest to goodness, if the "gospel" proclaimed by Dan Brown is really the gospel, then who cares? "Sex is good." Wow, Newsflash! "It's nice to be nice to the nice." <<
Actually, the irony is that the gospel Brown quotes declares that all sex is evil, that YHWH is an evil demigod, and that creation itself was an evil act. Gnosticism is so patently Satanic that it is scarecely unrecognizable from the Vampires' view of the universe from "Buffy the Vampire Slayer." And yes, some gnostics even worshipped those they believed to be vampires, such as Cain.
If you were to study ancient beliefs of Satan, and then create a "religion" from his point of view, it would be damned close to gnosticism.