Well guys, it's been an interesting experience here. Given the length of some of the replies and that replies are sometimes hidden by default, I can't really follow the various lines of reasoning. You are welcome to send me a chat message and maybe we can figure out a different way to communicate. May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.

hi again Aaron, it's very difficult for me to follow long posts on this website on my cell phone. I did see something about you saying that I moved the goal posts. Unfortunately, I can't easily check that out to see if I said the 66 book or a 66 book. In any case, does the method you promote only work with existing Bibles used by a group of some size? And I want to add that I may not be able to find your response. So if we don't interact anymore, May the Lord bless you and keep you!

@Aaron Earnest I see. What leads you to believe that it is the KJB?

@tsâphâh Also, if you're not following my train of thought and/or think I am misunderstanding your position, we can always end the discussion, if you wish. Please let me know what you want to do. And peace be with you, my brother!

@tsâphâh So... based on your personal assessment of the history of the Bible, the 66 book Bible is the right one?

@Aaron Earnest Discussion note: there are several different paths we could go in. For the sake of discussion, I'll take some things as a given. But we may wish to come back to them later. Psalm 119 For ever, O Lord, thy word is settled in heaven. So it's in heaven that God's word is settled. Here on earth, possibly, possibly not. Assuming there is a perfect copy here on Earth, which one do you say it is?

@Aaron Earnest Well... I believe you are assuming part of your conclusion as part of your reasoning. Suppose John isn't scripture and the Didache is. There are still 66 books but we can no longer appeal to John 10:35.

@Aaron Earnest (the first part of my response didn't display.) Well... Following the numbers based approach and taking as a given that there are to be 66 books, suppose someone presented you with two different 66 book Bibles. How would you decide which is the right one?

@Aaron Earnestsuppose someone presented you with two different 66 book Bibles. How would you decide which is the right one?

@Aaron Earnest Which of the two positions you cannot hold? Or you cannot hold either one?

@Aaron Earnest I'm not sure if I'm going to catch all the posts on this thread. If I miss something someone wants answered, please let me know. I don't think there is a perfect copy of God's word that you can hold it in your hand right now. I don't think there is a perfect copy of the original manuscripts available on earth. Or if there is, it's not clear which copy is the one.

@tsâphâh I agree, it's not a problem. For the question: Is the Church above the Bible? In the sense of picking out the scriptures and following your train of thought, the answer is No. It is the individual, aided by personal revelation, that decides what the right Bible is. Suppose someone presented you with both a 66 book Bible and a 73 book Bible. They asked you which one was the right one. You would say the 66 book Bible. And that's based on God's personal revelation to you. So in that sense, that personal revelation is above the Bible because it enables you to say what is scripture and what isn't. Am I following your train of thought correctly?

@tsâphâh Right, and I think I agree with what you're saying in your post. But when it comes to which books are in the Bible, or which versions of those books, then I think things get interesting. Consider, if you wish, the longer ending of Mark. Is it scripture? Do we all do our own research and decide for ourselves?

@Aaron Earnest Thank you for the response. Because of its length, the layout of the website, and my being on a cell phone, it's very difficult for me to follow. So... To the question of Who decides which Bible is the one that God determined? Your answer is The individual, by studying the information available in history. Am I understanding you correctly?

@Aaron Earnest Thanks for the scriptures. Would you agree that the person or group that decides if a document is scripture or not is in some sense above the scriptures?

@tsâphâh There are several different Bibles around today. There's the Protestant Bible, the Catholic, the Orthodox (similar to the Catholic but a little different), and some Jews and Christians in Ethiopia include the book of Enoch in the Bible. Who decides which Bible is the one that God determined?

@Aaron Earnest I was thinking of discussing these two things, quoting from your post: Are we discussing who decides what scripture is, or what constitutes the "bible" (ie. books therein, or passages or texts, or even individual words)? Are we discussing whether or not the church is "above the bible", and if so, why so, and if not, why not? I'd just add, in what sense is the church above the bible, if any.

@Aaron Earnest Okay, I started the thread. I couldn't find the video again. But I think I found the quote. If it's not something you had used, hopefully we can still talk about it anyways. Hope to see you there!

@Aaron Earnest Thanks for the information. I saw on your Facebook page there was a YouTube video linked, so I watched part of it. There was something about the church being above the Bible. I think you were disagreeing with that. Are you interested in talking about that, either here or somewhere else?

@tsâphâh (Okay... so it looks like if I try to put "new line" breaks into the post, it only shows the last paragraph. So I'll turn this into one paragraph.) Really? That's cool. Of course, it will be interesting to hear what he says when he comes back. But here's what I saw:" From nearly nothing at first... ...slowly turning up the 'heat'..." That sounds like an evolution. "...the government will at first be uninterested in going that far, but by the end it will want into not only the home, but the mind." That would be totalitarianism imo.