The Highest and Most Inspired Authority Available (1982)

[Passage from a letter, 24 August 1982]

Some Jehovah’s Witnesses dropped by the house several times and I did my best to bring them to the Light but I am afraid that my seed fell on deaf ears or I sowed my words on rock—at least, they didn’t see the error of their ways and repent or anything. These people were suffering under the delusion that fulfilled prophecy somehow proved that the books of the bible were all written by Jehovah (as they call Yahweh), as if fulfilled prophecy [means] anything at all (look at the Sibylline Oracles, the Delphic Oracle, and the books attributed to Nostradamus). My question is, how can we be sure that Martin Luther and the Scottish Presbyterian Bible society were inspired when the selected which books were going to be part of the “Bible”? Of course they elected to go with the Old Testament as defined by the Pharisees at the council of Jamnia in AD 90 or so—the hypocrites and whited sepulchers Jesus was so fond of, according to the synoptic gospels. Yes … And Christians of the time (such as Justin Martyr) accused these very people of mutilating the scriptures in order to deny the truths of Christianity. Obviously the highest and most inspired authority available. And what of the New Testament? It was assembled by the Church of Rome which these very people describe as the whore of Babylon—well, anyway, there it goes.