And it would appear that I failed to close a block quote. Dammit. This one should be correct:
There should be a close block quote right after: “We’re basically having two distinct conversations here…no, I’m not claiming that we’re necessarily talking past each other; we’re literally doing two different topics in the same thread.
Topic 1, is whether it makes sense for Christians to introduce things external to the Bible as authorities.
As you see it, the answer is no, because only the Bible is the Word of God.
And I have to say that given that premise you are absolutely correct. So when you look upon a church that has added stuff on, there’s basically three possible answers they could make to you: 1) “But this other thing is also the word of God.” (see the Latter Day Saints for an example) 2) “This is how we interpret Scripture, as calling for X” at which point you can get into an argument with them as to who’s interpreting things correctly. I don’t know, but I suspect the Catholic Church would respond to you in that fashion if they deigned to notice you at all. I know in many cases *both* sides in such an argument can point to different passages of scripture that sound, at least to me, like good support for their position, and many of the oldest arguments amongst Christians fall into this bucket. In other words, their response to your complaint is “But we are following the Bible, you nincompoop! You’re the one with your head up your ass!” Not having even a chihuahua in that sort of fight, much less a rottweiler, I generally back away from those, even if I might have an opinion on who was smoking something when they read the Bible. 3) “We don’t think that’s the Word of God, but it’s a tradition we value and cherish.” Which, if that truly is ALL it is, seems like it’d be an OK answer, but it has been my observation that in fact, it’s rarely all it truly is.
I don’t imagine any more talk about this one is going to profit either one of us (since it depends on a premise I don’t accept anyway–you’d have to prove to me first that it is the Word of God before I can be convinced by an argument of the form “It says/doesn’t say in the Word of God that…”), on the other hand if you’re really putting that out there for the benefit of other readers and not me, then by all means respond.
I’ll just say that I don’t see how a Christian can justifiably place stuff that is not the Word Of God on the same level as stuff that is the Word of God, but I can also imagine that there will still be a ton of arguments over interpretation, as well as some few sects who don’t think the New Testament as you and I both understand the category, is the final word.
So that this point I’m now going to skip all the way down to…
I said:

To stick with the New Testament, No, the 66 books, which (by the way) were selected by human beings from a much longer list of potential scriptures, have been gone over by people who can read the original Greek, and there are loads of problems with them from that standpoint (including the near certainty that the pastoral epistles, which claim to be Pauline in authorship, are not).

To which you responded:

There are 66 books total, 39 in the Old Testament and 27 in the New Testament. A few are very brief, only a page or less.

To which I simply smacked my head; I realized after posting that 66 was the wrong number. Mea Culpa, and my kingdom for an edit comment feature. [I know of places where comment editing is allowed and they are edited mendaciously, so that people who complain about what is said can be accused of misquoting; I suspect just having a five minute window where edits are allowed would solve this. But that’s something Wordpus doesn’t allow. If caught in such a place make a policy of doing screen captures before responding to a comment.]

They were not ‘selected’ though, or even the result of a ‘council’, e.g., at Nicaea in the 4th century, as some claim. I have always found that to be a curious argument.

I fear I was unclear. For one thing, I’m certainly NOT thinking of Nicaea, or any other form of people picking and choosing in a room either over a few beers or without them. The books (and epistles) of the New Testament started out as things someone had written down that struck people as valuable enough to be copied and distributed. Some church in Asia Minor gets a letter from Paul, and it strikes them as such a good explanation of the issue, that they copy it onto parchment or papyrus, and maybe even make multiple copies and send them off to neighboring churches, basically saying, “Hey, check this out it’s good!”
Not until quite a bit later did the idea of compiling them into a collection and considering it to be scripture occur to anyone. Marcion (mid second century) is the author of the first surviving list of books to be considered canonical. His list includes everything attributed to Paul today minus the pastoral epistles (1&2 Timothy and Titus), i.e., ten of the Pauline letters. It also includes something closely resembling Luke. But that is it. In fairness, however, Marcion was ultimately denounced as a heretic. He even went so far as to “correct” the manuscripts he had to bolster his beliefs. (Clearly those bits were wrong!) By the end of the second century, there were Christians who had pretty much decided that Mark, Matthew, Luke and John were the gospels, no more, no fewer. But many, many arguments went on. A consensus evolved over time, it was not handed down from on high like the people braying about Nicaea seem to think.
The earliest list that includes today’s 27 books, all of them and no others, that we have today was by Athanasius in…get this…AD 367.
When I say it’s a human creation, that’s what I am referring to. That whole process of coming to an agreement on which books (and epistles) were “legit.”
Now one might argue that this process was itself divinely inspired, and that therefore the 27 can be safely trusted, but one cannot legitimately argue that the canon as we see it today was known and accepted in the early second century. There’s simply no evidence for that.
It’s worse than that, actually, much, much worse, but that touches on other issues and this is going to be overlong as it is.

What did they do, round up all the Scriptures at the end of the 1st century, and hide them in the Vatican basement (which hadn’t been built yet), until 200+ years later, when they got together and “decided” which books were ‘Scripture’ and which weren’t?

Not what I am claiming. In fact that bit about the Vatican basement isn’t even recognizable as a caricature of what I am claiming–though I know some people have indeed made such claims. They’re bullshit.

Was the Lord’s church without the Scriptures from the end of the 1st century until the Council at Nicaea? Was no one saved between the end of the 1st century and the 4th century? Did no one know what to do in order to become a Christian, or live a Christian life, until a group of men declared what ‘was’ and what ‘wasn’t’ Scripture circa 325 AD?

There were certainly copies of the 27 being circulated, copied, and circulated again. But other books were often accepted, and many didn’t accept all 27.
But I’ll make an argument that (I think) might make sense from your point of view. Clearly it must be possible to be saved without those books, or people who were martyred before they were written wouldn’t have been saved. In particular the twelve apostles were probably all dead before anyone wrote John down; if not all then certainly some. Any Christian who died before 49 would have really been in a pickle, because that was, to within a couple of years when the first of the 27 (1 Thessalonians) was written. Now I imagine anyone who had known Jesus *personally* before the crucifixion probably was exempt, after all they got it straight from him and didn’t need a book. But many, many Christians in the first century–probably a majority–did not fall into this category! Yet, if you believe there is anything to Christianity, and I’ll go out on a limb here and say you do, then surely you believe that Christians undoubtedly were saved before AD 49. They were saved even though there was no New Testament scripture whatsoever at the time much less a list comprising a canon.

That doesn’t make any sense.

Maybe it does now. But even if my argument falls flat for whatever reason, I point to this as part of the problem, part of your compartmentalization.
Your *premise* is that the 27 books as we have them today are the Word of God. Information that implies there was no fixed canon for centuries, has to be rejected by you because it contradicts your premise, or you have to find a rationale that lets both be true. There can be no contradictions, therefore the information must actually be bullshit, because you cannot question your premise. If you were to accept that there was no accepted list of what was canon until sometime after AD 367, YOU would go into cognitive dissonance. So you won’t.
Find an ancient source prior to Athanasius, much, much prior, who lists the 27 and only the 27 as canonical. Discredit, somehow, all the sources that quote a different list (subset, superset, or intersecting) as not being genuine. If the canon was set as early as you think it was, you should be able to find evidence. And you should certainly NOT be able to find much evidence that it was still disputed long after AD 200. (In fact, though Athansius was the first to list the 27 and only the 27, he by no means settled things: People continued to make “wrong” lists long after Athanasius, mostly arguing over 2 Peter, 2&3 John, Jude and Revelation)
If you can’t find this evidence where does that leave you? You have to accept something without evidence. Not only that, you have to reject the actual evidence that contradicts it. OR…you could change your mind.
My premise (that the books were works by imperfect humans who never imagined that someday they would be regarded as inerrant scripture, thay they were copied and distributed by imperfect, error-prone humans, and eventually compiled into a canon by imperfect humans often driven by their own particular theological beliefs) isn’t really a premise, because it is supported by a SHIT TON of evidence. And everything I see surrounding the issue makes perfect sense in that light. *Including* the fact that some sects add more stuff to the list you consider to be scripture and claim that their additions are the Word of God. And the fact that yet other religious groups think the entire Bible, Old and New Testament is corrupted and offer up their “corrected” version of God’s Word. And I am sure that somewhere out there, there is some sect that still accepts only SOME of the 27. (I can’t quite nail down whether that’s true of the Syriacs, but it appears to have been true as late as the fifth century.)
Because, fundamentally every one of you is making a judgment call–or letting someone else make that call for you–as to which books are, and are not, the Word of God. As well as whether that means the books must be literally true and whether any translation from the koine Greek can be accurate.

First, the books and epistles of the New Testament were written down during the 1st century, while the Apostles (at least some of them) were still alive and able to confirm which texts were inspired by God, and which texts were not.

There is no known reference to 2 Peter before 220 AD. It doesn’t appear to have become widely circulated until well after that time. On the other hand, the people who study it with an eye towards anacronisms, vocabulary, etc., believe it was most likely 80-90, outer limits 60-130 (and they mostly don’t believe it was written by “the” Peter).
But the major works (Paul’s epistles, the gospels) were written by 90 AD, though that’s the lower limit, I generally see 90-95 bandied about as the date of John being written down. Now an apostle would have to be quite old, especially by the standards of the first century, to have been an adult in AD 30 and still be around at AD 90, but it’s possible.
But even if the apostles did exactly as you said, and said, “Indeed this is *exactly* as it happened,” there is another difficulty: We don’t have ANY copies that old!! Manuscripts from before 200 of any part of the New Testament are *exceedingly* rare. Our oldest fragment, and it is a fragment, is part of John (18:31-33 and on the other side of the scrap, 18:37-38), from about AD 125-150. How many times had this been copied since the original? Was it a copy of the original? A copy of a copy? A copy of a copy of a copy?
Our oldest copy of Galatians is from about 200 AD.
Are you aware of how many differences there are between old manuscripts? Sure, most of them are easily understood and fixed, like seeing a typoe in the sentence you just read. But not all!!! And there is evidence of actual dishonest additions later on, too. Chapter 8 of John does not appear in any of the earliest manuscripts. Neither does the latter part of 1 John 5:7 through the early part of 5:8. That was probably inserted sometime after the fourth century.
To make a very, very long story short, anyone who claims to know exactly what was in the original of ANY book of the New Testament, much less all of them, is either ignorant of the mass of evidence, or a fool.

The Scripture even shows that letters were to be circulated (and certainly copied) among the congregations of the Lord’s church:

Oh, absolutely, positively circulated and copied!

“And when this epistle is read among you, cause that it be read also in the church of the Laodiceans; and that ye likewise read the epistle from Laodicea.” (Colossians 4:16, KJV)
The early Christians had collections of books, including early false books, and distinguished between them.
https://www.bible.ca/indexBible.htm
The book of Revelation is thought to have been completed around 90 A.D., near the end of the 1st century. At that time, “All 27 books of the New Testament were in circulation and all but Hebrews, 2 Peter, James, 2 Jn, 3 Jn, Revelation were universally accepted.” https://www.bible.ca/canon.htm

There is NO unambiguous evidence that 2 Peter was in circulation then. No quotes from it, no cites whatsoever.

I have no interest in trying to ‘get around’ something. What I want to know is whether something is true or not, or at least likely to be true, which requires a clear and credible presentation of evidence or argument, so that it can be cross-examined.
In other words, if something isn’t true or can’t be credibly defended, the last thing I want to do is try to defend it. I see people try to do that all the time, in religion and politics, and it makes no sense to me. Why try to force a square peg into a round hole? If something doesn’t work, it doesn’t work. Better to discard it, and focus on what does work.
Which is a great reason to discard all of the many doctrines, commandments and traditions of men. But we’re talking about a supposed contradiction within God’s Word, so discarding it is not an option.
“But there are a few cases where you can’t do that. The last time I brought this one up, the guy I was conversing with (on CTH–it was that long ago) simply gave a non-sequitur answer, and thereby evaded the point.” [you quoting me]
____________
It’s quite possible that he didn’t know the answer, and didn’t know how to find it. That doesn’t mean he is wrong, it just means he didn’t not know how to answer the question.
If you don’t know, then you don’t know. It doesn’t prove anything one way or the other, except that you don’t know the answer. There are a lot more things I don’t know the answer to, than the things I do 😁

I wasn’t claiming his failure as an argument, but an illustration. I hit him with something he couldn’t answer, so he blanked out.

“As far as I know no one has been able to reconcile this. Mark clearly indicates when Jesus was tried by Pilate (on a Friday). On the preceding day, 14:12 the disciples asked Jesus where he would have them prepare the Passover, and from that point forward, it’s plain that the Last Supper is the Passover meal. (Passover, like all days in Judaism, starts at sunset.) The subsequent events, the trial, the crucifixion (15:25) at 9 AM, are all on Passover. Thus, Passover was Thursday night/Friday daytime.” [you quoting me.]
________________
I am curious to know who came up with this argument, if you know who it was.

I know who I got it from. But he didn’t originate it, this was first noticed decades if not centuries ago.

I have not looked closely at the timeline of these events in order to question them in this regard, but members of the church certainly have. It took a while to find the information. I began by deconstructing the unsubstantiated assertions put forth in the argument. That wasn’t going to end up being a very satisfactory reply, but it did help me to isolate potential areas of contention, and that led me to find good information on the subject matter.
The following website link is to a website that Wolfmoon posted once when doing his own research, which I recognized immediately, because it is the first website that I found after many months of searching for a Christian website that taught plainly what the Scriptures say. I did not realize the website was run by a member of a congregation of the church I became a member of until later. It is still one of my favorite research websites:
https://www.bible.ca/d-3-days-and-3-nights.htm#VII
Apparently there are at least FIVE predominant “crucifixion positions” or arguments, and FIVE different calendars being used for various positions to establish dates, and the one that appears to reconcile does not agree that the Last Supper and the Passover are the same, contrary to the challenge question you posted.
The positions are shown on a grid to make understanding the different positions and comparing them easy, just click the link above and scroll down (or click the page link in the contents section near the top of the page) to “VII: Summary of 5 crucifixion positions” followed immediately by “Calendars Used by the 5 Different Views”.

Actually that grid was profoundly unhelpful as it summarized conclusions; I had to dig back further for evidence. A lot of this page, understandably, is concerned with the resurrection, and spends a surprising amount of time proving that the Bible says Jesus was resurrected on a Sunday (I had no idea that anyone disputed that the Bible said so).
More to my point, I get the impression it’s taking John’s account as its starting point and bending the synoptics to fit. For instance, Jesus cannot have been crucified on Passover, because then he wouldn’t have died at the same time as the lambs. It’s very important to this site that those have taken place at exactly the same time. But that’s exactly the point that is in dispute, simply asserting the plain reading of Mark, Matthew and Luke is wrong because it breaks the symbolism of John doesn’t resolve the contradiction, it ignores it.
My contention, in terms of the grid, is that John is view #1, and Mark, Matthew and Luke are view #2. But see the grid itself doesn’t prove anything. (I’m going to toss 3, 4 and 5 as WTF absurd at this point.)
OK reading down, “Fullfils Passover lamb anti-type” “NO” is apparently used as a reason to reason to doubt that MM & L should be read this way. But that’s _assuming_ the conclusion (that there is no contradiction) that I am supposed to reach. You’re throwing me a site that *begins* with the assumption that a reading that causes a contradiction should summarily be tossed, as evidence that there is no contradiction.

It’s fairly detailed, showing the other positions as well as the author’s position, no trying to get around anything, I think you will appreciate it. Since it is in a grid, I cannot easily copy and paste it here, or I would.
As to the specific assertion that the Last Supper is the Passover meal, I can post the verses which conclude otherwise (found at the same link above, search “The “Last Supper” was NOT a Passover meal”):

The very first paragraph of this is an assertion that it must not be the passover meal because it would break John. Well, duh.

……………………………
(John 13:1) “Now before the Feast of the Passover, Jesus knowing that His hour had come that He should depart out of this world to the Father, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end. And during supper the devil having already put into the heart of Judas Iscariot”
Author’s comment: “John plainly states the “last supper” was the day before the actual Passover lamb meal (seder) of Ex 12.”

Absolutely no dispute that JOHN is saying this.

(John 18:28) “They led Jesus therefore from Caiaphas into the Praetorium, and it was early; and they themselves did not enter into the Praetorium in order that they might not be defiled, but might eat the Passover.”
Author’s comment: “Notice the Jews had not yet eaten the Passover lamb meal (seder) of Ex 12 when Jesus was arrested. Jesus had already eaten the “last supper” a few hours before this.”

Note that I pointed out John 18:28 to you, again I am explictly claiming and agreeing that John is saying it was before passover.

(John 19:14,31) [note: John 19:14 is one of your referenced verses] “Now it was the day of preparation for the Passover; it was about the sixth hour. [6 AM Roman time used here by John] And he said to the Jews, “Behold, your King!”… “because it was the day of preparation, so that the bodies should not remain on the cross on the Sabbath (for that Sabbath was a high day)”
Author’s comment: “ “preparation for the Passover” This is a reference to the preparation that included the Passover lamb (seder) of Ex 12. The lambs would be killed about 9 hours later. Yet Jesus had eaten the “last supper” about 9 hour BEFORE this.”

Again, not in dispute, as to what John is saying.

“John, on the other hand, indicates that Pilate’s VERDICT was on the day of preparation for Passover in 19:14–and remember that Mark had had Passover begin with the last supper! In fact, the reason the Jewish leaders would not enter Pilate’s palace during the trial (which is a detail only John mentions), is they didn’t want to ritually defile themselves before Passover. So every indication in John is that Jesus was crucified the day BEFORE Passover.”
If the Passover and the Last Supper are not the same day (as your original position or argument claimed), then how does that affect your argument?

OK, I’m starting to conclude you didn’t understand my point in the slightest.
You’re quoting John saying it’s the day before passover as if it’s fatal to my point.
It’s not. It IS IN FACT part of my point. John is indeed very explicit about this; my argument would be WEAKER if he weren’t. He is adamant; Jesus died on the day before passover.
The OTHER HALF of my point is that Mark, Mathhew and Luke state that the crucifixion happened ON PASSOVER. Actually and more directly to the point, they indicate Jesus was crucified AFTER the lambs had been slaughtered. And there’s a lot of ducking, dodging and weaving here to avoid this point. III.B.4, for example, simply states that it infers the relevant passages must be using passover interchangeably with the whole festival, because, apparently, if you don’t read it that way, the Crucifixion happened on passover. So they’re basically bending multiple verses of scripture to fit their chosen interpretation, RATHER THAN considering the possibility there might be a contradiction in the text. Anything but that!
To resolve this, one must show that I am reading MM&L wrong, without using John as evidence, because the whole point is that John reads differently from MM&L. Or alternatively one must decide that the Bible is not infallible.
Looking at III.C, 1 is simply a statement that any reading that contradicts John must somehow be wrong. Again very frustrating. Me: John says X. The synopics say Y. They can’t both be right. Him: Well John says X, therefore X. You: Well, John says X, what does that do to your position?
2 & 3 are at least more to the point. But here we go. “On the first day of Unleavened Bread, when the Passover Lamb is sacrificed…” (Mk 14:12). OK, let’s remember the timeline. The Last Supper was the evening before the daytime during Jesus was crucified and died. By Jewish reckoning, that is the same day. The only way Jesus can die when the lamb is slaughtered, according to this, is if the Last Supper happens the same night as Mark 14:12, which is explicitly identified as being the preparation day.
But it doesn’t say WHEN on the preparation day 14:12 happened; it could have been right after sunset, allowing them to whip up the last supper, or it could have been 18 hours later, the afternoon, i.e., near the end of the day. So we have to read a bit further. vv 13-14 he sends two disciples (Luke specifies Peter and John, Matthew is actually a bit vaguer than Mark) to find a room. They then prepared the Passover meal (v 16).
Verse 17 begins with, “When it was evening, he came with the twelve.” That seems to me to be a pretty clear indication that it was NOT evening yet during vv12-16! (Matthew 26:20 concurs, Luke 22:14 makes no mention of evening, but says “when the hour came”.) And if it was not evening in 12-16, the day of preparation the day the lamb was slaughtered, and it was evening in verse 17…then Verse 17 happened the NEXT day by Jewish reckoning, the day AFTER preparation for passover. And therefore according to Matthew and Mark (and probably Luke), Jesus didn’t die the same time the lambs did. And by the way, it’s hard to read this and not conclude this was the passover meal they were going to–after all it had just been prepared–even if they didn’t explicitly connect the dots well enough to satisfy point 2. Bascially, claming otherwise is special pleading. As for point 3, why would Mark, Matthew and Luke have mentioned a lamb at the passover meal? If you go to visit your family for Thanksgiving do you go out of your way to mention you had turkey? You’d be more likely to say something if you did *not* have turkey. Their omission of mentioning lamb proves nothing, and is again special pleading. THey omitted it, because, to them the lamb didn’t matter. (Only John makes a point of equating Jesus to the lamb.)
Oh, and a red herring. Mk15:42 does say Jesus died on the day of preparation…but it’s the day of preparationfor sabbath, i.e., on Friday.
4. Quotes a verse from John as evidence for John’s reading. No, I want something *out of MM&L* that claims Jesus died before passover. Because otherwise it looks like they’re claiming he died ON passover. Yet another citation of what John was saying doesn’t help me figure out what MM&L were saying, unless you assume what you are trying to prove.
5. So what? Was Paul obligated to mention in a reference to that night whether or not it was passover? He didn’t say it was the the day before passover either, so by this logic, perhaps that wasn’t true either.
6. And again, so what? He points to a table that quotes John, and John only. Not helpful to convince me I am misunderstanding MM&L, again, not without assuming what one is trying to prove.
7. He is assuming the John reading, which leads to the conclusion that the year was 33, then back inferring that things would be the wrong day of the week or the wrong day of Nisan. But again that doesn’t help me with MM&L

A central point of your argument appears to be incorrect. I want to give you the opportunity to amend or clarify your argument. If you do, we may eventually get to a point where I am unable to answer further, but the author of the referenced website accepts challenges. If it comes to that, I would be as interested in the reply as you would be.
I have no fear of the truth, or any challenge to God’s Word.
I used to get a little anxious sometimes, because I’ve seen some challenges that were presented very confidently, but every time (so far) they came up short. Watch that play out enough times, and your confidence grows. When you realize these same kinds of challenges have played out for nearly two thousand years now, and the Scriptures remain unbroken, you stop worrying about it. Or at least I did.
So it becomes an exercise in establishing the premises of the supposed contradiction, and along the way, most of the time it turns out that a central premise of the challenge is wrong. And it is that error which then created or led to the apparent ‘contradiction’.
Once the error is corrected, the contradiction is usually resolved.

And the error is assuming the Scriptures are inerrant. Once you dispose of that, then it all makes perfect sense. John, written after Mark, Matthew and Luke (by the way I name them in that order rather than the more usual one, because Mark was the earliest-written gospel), wanted to make a point about Jesus and the Lamb of God, so he shifted his account one day. Easy Peasy, but if you insist that it must be innerrant you have to do a bunch of ridiculous hoop jumping, deliberately ignoring implications, reinterpreting verses to fit the one you prefer, and on and on.
I’m not impressed with that site, not in the least. It excels as a place to go to figure out John’s account, but he simply ignores simple indicative statements in Mark, Matthew and Luke, grasping at straws to claim they’re not saying what they are saying, and his most common bit of evidence for that is that otherwise they’d contradict John. Well, DUH.