What convinces cessationists, and every other Christian, that miracles occurred in the 1st century is the fact they are recorded in scripture, the highest standard of truth.
Oh, c'mon ... here we go again ... how do you know scripture is the highest standard of truth?
Frankly, the quality of theological commentary was appalling in the Dark Ages and earlier compared to the academic standards of the last hundred years. The quality and availability of bible manuscripts were poor and often incomplete. They didn't have the entire 66 books neatly printed in one volume accurately translated by a team of Hebrew and Greek scholars from the earliest, and thus most reliable, manuscripts. Even the good-for-its-day KJV was translated from 13th century Greek manuscripts (which scribes had hand copied over and over again, often adding their own little 'clarifications'). Mistranslation was common, often being a translation of a translation (eg from the Latin Vulgate). Knowledge of Koine Greek with all its foibles was weak. Greek lexicons were unheard of. You basically had to be self taught in every aspect of Koine Greek as well as being theologically astute, and the number of people properly qualified and equipped for such a task was miniscule. Before the Reformation there was also heavy Catholic bias in favour of tongues and other miracles as they were the necessary qualification for the canonization of their saints. As a result early commentaries were usually vague, confused and unreliable.
Wait a minute? And you are calling that "the perfect" (well ok, "the completeness")? Are you really saying that the church, for many centuries, lacking access to high quality scriptures, which weren't even commonplace to begin with because the industrial production of Bibles only came to be a thing with the invention of the printing press by Johannes Gutenberg in 1440, already had the perfect, the completeness, with no need for spiritual gifts whatsoever? With scriptures in such a precarious and poor condition? C'mon ... your whole "completeness of the canon" argument falls apart when people didn't even have access to Bibles, and the few Bibles that were around at the time were in such a poor quality as you describe. Are you really going to call that "the perfect", "the completeness", people seeing "face to face"? This doesn't make sense at all. And it didn't make sense at all for almost 16 centuries until John Calvin appeared on the scene, who was mad at Catholics because they had miracles and he didn't.
Eh? Calvin's argument must be rejected because he doesn't use Argumentum ad populum????
You didn't understand the point. You were appealing to consensus of scholars in previous posts. By the same logic, I can appeal to the consensus of pre-Calvin scholars who for almost 1600 years of church history didn't believe in John Calvin's cessationist argument, because cessationist arguments of that sort didn't even exist.
Speaking of Carl Sagan, did you know he also formulated the famous and widely accepted Sagan Standard, "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence". Which basically means if you make a fantastical claim (eg a miracle taking place), you'd better have strong evidence to prove it happened (ie. not hearsay).
Sure. Please, show the extraordinary evidence for your extraordinary claim that first century Xenoglossy was a thing.
Although this question has nothing to do with cessationism, I've already given you the answer that settles the matter for Christians, namely that 2 Tim 3:16 says ALL scripture is inspired (including 2 Tim 3:16 itself as that too is scripture).
Again. How do you know that ALL scripture includes Acts? How do you know it doesn't include the Book of Mormon? How do you know it doesn't include the deuterocanonical books?
Accusing Christians of circular reasoning and demanding further scientific proof is arguing as an atheist attacking Christianity.
Which is exactly what you are doing with all the testimonial evidence I've presented to you for the continuation of spiritual gifts, the miraculous and the supernatural in general (which you seem to have an extreme aversion to).
For all practical purposes you are pretty much an atheist with respect to continuationism.
Relevant read: Double standard - Wikipedia
I could give you a deeper reason but a philosophical analysis of MY PERSONAL BELIEF that Scripture is inspired is also NOT related to the subject of cessationism. And so you will be not be getting any further answers from me on that question, at least not on this thread. So you are wasting everyone's time by continuing to thrash this pointless off-topic horse. Start another topic on proof for the inspiration of Scripture and I may well contribute.
Feel free to expand on how you meet the burden of proof for your first century extraordinary claims on this thread: What should I pay attention to if I want to know whether a given piece of text is divinely inspired?
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