Oral Tradition
Oral tradition, How do we know the 66?
The People back in ancient times were majority illiterate. Except scribes and rabbi's.
The people worked their whole lives. They had no distractions such as tv, & basically no entertainment outside of weddings.
They had oral traditions, (Just as Jesus talked on road to Eramaus, and apostles did in Acts while explaining). So the NT info from the eyewitneses was shared spoken, but like the OT, God had the Scriptures written down (for coming generations) to preserve the Word. So, the Apostles (moved by the Holy Spirit at the right time) wrote down (at the right time)what is now known as the NT. And it like the OT was preserved well and we have many manuscripts today.
Back in the day people wrote on animal skins and things like that until parchment was invented. So originals would disintegrate. Paper doesnt last forever either, but this is why copies were made.
We know Jews had the Scriptures on a "roll" and turned it every time at Temple they gave a teaching. So the Scripture copy would lose the ink by fading, deteriorating & disintegrate. Scribes spent their lifetime copying slowly and meticulously letter by letter to make a new copy to replace the old one. So when the old one wore out the new one was ready.
So then it makes sense there are no originals. But because they revered the Word, feared God, and of course rabbi's reading Scripture every time in Temple to teach... they practically had it memorized so if a scribe had something wrong- the rabbi's would know. But... we know that the Jews never used copies with errors. The scribes buried them, and started over. So... worse than our relatives who used typewriters. They had to bury the entire Bible no matter how many years it took them to get to the part where they made an error.
The way Scriptures were handled (every step of the way, from 1st letter, to retiring the old one) very seriously. It is one reason we know it was preserved across time so well.
We know the NT is verifiable and accurate, and full of true history...
So...we can trust the entire Bible. Jesus quoted from every OT book (but 2 or 3), the Apostles did too. Jesus is God. Jesus is The Word. God wrote the Bible. God is easily capable of preserving His Word thru time. Also, Recall that Jesus grew up in the Temple (5-12), taught there since young (12-33), and the OT Scriptures were clearly still in usage, and revered as God's Word. so... if anything was wrong with the OT books, Jesus wouldve said so, and dealt with it well before he went to the cross. In fact, He wouldve done so as a child.
Jesus and the Apostles in NT quoted from the OT [and pointed to it 1000x from almost every single OT book]. And since Jesus is the eternal God, if he quoted that much of it in the NT, and the Apostles did too. And never spoke against or corrected the OT...
HE affirmed it. Therefore the OT is very reliable, just as is the NT proves to be.
We also know the 27 books in the NT are the inspired Word of God (Scripture) because they are the books the early church had and used. In his older years, John oversaw the 7 churches in Asia. They all had a complete copy of the Bible by/when John was in exile (see dates).
*any and all questions you have related to the Bible on this topic will be found here.
Long after the Church already had the 27 NT books... a group of Christians got together, because various "other" "books" were being discussed in Christian community. So they determined which ones were forgeries dated later, not Scripture, and they settled it across all churches so any division/ divisiveness was stopped. Those deligates went back to their churches and explained this so the people wouldnt be duped by lies (about those other books). And they came out agreeing the same ones 1st century churches had all along were still the only ones.
Hope this blessed you 😊
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