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1. There is
no final authority but God.
2. Since
God is a Spirit, there is no final authority that can be seen,
heard, read, felt, or handled.
3. Since
all books are material, there is no book on this earth that is the
final and absolute authority on what is right and what is wrong:
what constitutes truth and what constitutes error.
4. There
WASa series of writings one time which, I Fthey had all been put into
a BOOK as soon as they were written the first time, WOULD HAVE
constituted an infallible and final authority by which to judge truth
and error.
5.
However, this series of writings was lost, and the God who inspired
them was unable to preserve their content through
Bible-believing Christians at Antioch (Syria), where the first Bible
teachers were (Acts 13:1), and where the first missionary trip
originated (Acts 13:1-52, and where the word "Christian"
originated (Acts 11:26).
6. So,
God chose to ALMOST preserve them through Gnostics and
philosophers from Alexandria, Egypt, even though God called His Son
OUT of Egypt (Matthew 2), Jacob OUT of Egypt (Genesis 49), Israel OUT
of Egypt (Exodus 15), and Joseph's bones OUT of Egypt (Exodus 13).
7. So,
there are two streams of Bibles: the most accurate—though, of
course, there is no final, absolute authority for determining
truth and error: it is a matter of "preference"—are
the Egyptian translations from Alexandria, Egypt, which are
"almost the originals," although not quite.
8. The most
inaccurate translations were those that brought about the German
Reformation (Luther, Zwingli, Boehier, Zinzendorf, Spener, etc.) and
the worldwide missionary movement of the English-speaking people: the
Bible that Sunday, Torrey, Moody, Finney, Spurgeon, Whitefield,
Wesley, and Chapman used.
9. But we
can "tolerate" these if those who believe in them will
tolerate US. After all, since there is NO ABSOLUTE AND FINAL
AUTHORITY that anyone can read, teach, preach, or handle, the
whole thing is a matter of "PREFERENCE."You may prefer what
you prefer, and we will prefer what we prefer; let us live in peace,
and if we cannot agree on anything or everything, let us all agree on
one thing: THERE IS NO FINAL, ABSOLUTE, WRITTEN AUTHORITY OF GOD
ANYWHERE ON THIS EARTH.
This is
the Creed of the Alexandrian Cult.
From The
Christian's handbook of Biblical Scholarship
by Dr.
Peter S. Ruckman pages 310-311
You may
purchase this book directly from the Bible
Baptist Bookstore. |