If we stay within the confines of the fundamentalist box,
I've never been in that box to begin with, so I can't really quite get the mindset.
To me, it is obvious that Christianity spread by oral tradition. That there was an older set of writings - the Jewish scriptures - of diverse origins, but that the Jews didn't dispute what was "in" and what was "out" much either, because they had a Temple with priests in a line ordained by God, and vested by God with the authority to make such decisions.
It's always been obvious to me that with Christianity, God simply replaced the priests, ending the Jewish line and replacing them with the Christian line.
It used to be Aaron and his sons, succeeded by the High Priest and the Sanhedrin and Levites that were God's priesthood. Then Jesus came as THE high priest with the Apostles and Disciples as the Sanhedrin and Levites.
Then God destroyed the Temple and wiped out the Jewish priesthood, to make it clear that THE High Priesthood thereafter was Peter and his successors, that THE Sanhedrin were the successors of the Apostles, and that THE Levitical assistant priesthood were the presbyters and the diaconate.
And it all continued in an oral tradition whose authority rested on the authority invested by God directly in the priests, with the writings as a backup for the education of priests.
It's always been obvious to me that private reading of Scripture is the work of lay people, who are the descendants of the Pharisees, but just like the Pharisees, lay people were never invested by God with any final authority - that the final authority from the time of Moses until today has always been invested directly by God in the High and lesser priesthood.
It's always been obvious to me that there has been one continuous priesthood in a continuous structure held up by God's spirit from Moses, then, to Francis, today, and that the purpose of the writings has always been to bolster Prophets, Apostles, High Priests and Popes, so that THEY know the past and can discern within that past when the spirit of God and voice of God, which is present in them, is leading them, and when the voice of the Tempter within them is trying to lead them astray.
The notion that a Hebrew in Moses' camp could pick up the things that Moses wrote and challenge Moses' authority has always been ridiculous, and it still is.
And this is why I am a Catholic - because I think that the Mandate of Heaven has ALWAYS been vested in the priesthood, and that the priesthood has ALWAYS been the source of authority, not the book. The book is there to instruct the priests. The priests have the authority to instruct us. We can be Pharisees and read the book to HELP the priests, but we were never invested with the authority OF priests, unless we become priests. That way is open to US, for a price. It wasn't open before Jesus, because the only people who were priests then were in a bloodline, nobody in the bloodline could ESCAPE his duty as a priest, and nobody out of the bloodline could become a priest.
Why? Because God said so. So that is that. When God spoke to Moses and gave Moses the law, he gave Moses final command authority on Spiritual matters over every Hebrew. Moses' authority was from God, and no human could challenge that.
Jesus did the same thing with Peter and the Apostles, and through the laying on of hands that authority has passed to Francis, and the Ecumenical Patriarch, etc. And that is that.
To me, this is perfectly obvious, and when I read the Bible that is what I see.
Human beings never had any authority to wield the Torah against Moses or the High Priest of the Temple - he was the final interpreter, the Supreme Court. God replaced the ethnic Temple of one tribe with the Universal Church of all tribes, but he didn't replace the structure: High Priest, Sanhedrin, Levites, laity - Pope, Bishops, Priests/Presbyters/Deacons, Laity. Same final interpretive authority.
How do we know what IS Scripture? WE listen to the Pope, who listens to his ancestors in the high priesthood, and God directed the earlier Popes and Bishops what they were to use as their sources, and what they were to set aside. The Holy Spirit told the priesthood, and the priesthood was invested by God with the final authority of such things. Such authority has never, ever been given to the common man to make any such decisions. God gave that authority to Moses, and down the line of High Priests to Francis, and to challenge the hierarchy that God chose is to challenge God and to be wrong by definition.
When I read the Bible, this is self-evidently obvious, and I'm always amazed that people are so blind to it.
That's how we got rabbinnical Judaism. Instead of accepting the destruction of the Temple and the Jewish Priesthood as God's final judgment and proof that Jesus came to replace them with the new High Priesthood, the Pharisaic laymen set up their own new religion, based on the written word. This was continued defiance of God, for God continued to be with the High Priest HE ordained, and his name was Peter, followed by Linus, etc. Of course that succession is not in the Scripture, because it didn't need to be. The line of succession of Aaron isn't given in Scripture either, only the fact that Aaron's line continued, vested with the authority God gave to Aaron.
God repeats his pattern of things over and over, because God clearly likes his own opinion of things.
Needless to say there isn't anywhere to go with this particular line of thinking, because it's as different from the text-based belief system as the Priestly Sadducees were from the lay Pharisees. It was only the extermination of the Sadducee priests by God's hand wielding the Roman Army that the Pharisees could EVER advance to the leadership over Judaism, because the Mandate of Heaven was with the Jewish priests (over the Jews) as long as they existed. When they ceased to exist, that SHOULD have been the sign for the Jews to follow Peter and the Apostles, per Jesus, but instead they followed their book and Pharisees.
The analogies in Christendom are obvious, but I won't make them, because it is as I said before: there is nowhere to go with this line of thinking - it just IS - and you believe it or you don't. When I read the Bible and take it as a whole, that is the predominant theme I see in it: God speaks through the prophets and priests he chooses, and once he does, you listen to what they say. The religion of God is the religion of Temple and Church, and its authority reposes in the oral instructions of men who have been appointed by God for that purposes. The book is merely a record of what some of those men said and did. It's history, but the Mandate of Heaven is with the man in the office now, and not with what the dead men said and did. The authority reposes in God, and it is excercised through God's priesthood. The Bible is merely a record of how God and those men exercised that authority in the past, and it exists to be a guide to the present priesthood so they are not tempted by the siren song of the Devil.
Of course WE can read it too, and that's fine. Those well versed in it are modern Pharisees. The notion that this makes us High Priests, however, is defiance of God. The authority does not repose in us as lawyers reading the history book. It reposes in the High Priesthood, and man cannot ever change that. Only God can. And he's not going to until the end of the world.
So, fighting about religious authority is a sterile exercised. God invested it in the High Priesthood, and that's where it always remains. And whoever doesn't like that is at war with the opinion of God on the matter, and is therefore wrong by definition.
That is what the Bible ultimately says. Obviously.
