They had to go by their best judgement.
We aren’t in that situation.
We have something to know whether it is indeed God speaking to us or not.

Mind you given we know the cross and ressurection and Jesus is coming back to judge I wonder what he would add.

Well Homer, the Pentateuch was written long after the events it described, how did Noah and Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and Joseph and everyone else know it was Yahweh speaking to them?

(yes I know it is a big question …)

Although it seems to me that leaving us the written word (including the whole process of how the documents were written and edited and eventually condified) was part of his plan. Kind of an organic part of his action (words fail me at this point). As to whether his plan this side of glory includes us losing the Bible, well I don’t know and I’m not praying for it!

without the bible how would you know whether it was god or Satan talking to you in a dream/vision?

Without the bible god would not be able to talk to you.

So in that case it appears that everyone is in abundant agreement that we can learn of God through the bible and also in other ways. I might start another thread tonight to move onto other aspects of the discussion.

If we didn’t have the bible then we would be no different to the Jews in the O/T in how they acted when they didn’t have just the torah.
Josiah knew instantly what it meant when the scrolls were discovered.
Remember part of the reaon for reading the O/T is not to repeat their ways.

With respect to the bible (and trying to veer back on track after my diversion with regards to fear, control, and fundamentalism, which was intended to make no point whatsoever, just the lateral leap of a coffee-deprived brain!!!), as far as I am concerned, one thing is absolutely certain. Were we to lose every copy of the bible, the church would suffer a terrible loss. On some levels it would feel like becoming orphans, that the record of our family history is gone. I think also that it would probably result in even greater disunity throughout the church (if that were possible) as people started to argue about whose memory of the bible was more accurate. Which bible do you trust? The Billy Graham version? The N.T. Wright version? What about Tony Campolo’s version? In practice these things would be even messier than they are now (at present, we can’t agree on how the bible should be appropriately interpretted. How would we be were then???).

But, despite that great and tragic loss, I don’t believe that God would be in any way diminished. I don’t believe that the efficacy of Jesus’ work would be dented by that. And therefore, given that (a) God is still God, (b) God’s action for rescuing humanity through Jesus is undiminished, and (c) the Holy Spirit is still present and active in the church and in the world, I would have to conclude that God’s “creation / humanity project” would not be derailed by such an event.

Obviously such a thing is undesirable - we, the church, would suffer a tremendous loss, were the bible lost to us. But if I am right in saying that it wouldn’t be a show-stopper for God - that he wouldn’t just throw his hands up in the air and say “bugger, now they’ve blown it!” - then perhaps we need to reflect upon the ways in which we approach the bible now. What do you think?

I should stop visiting this blog late at night - it hurts my brain but it’s often good exercise for the soul!