If the Bible is to be our only point of reference then several questions arise:
1. Where does it say that in the Bible?
2. How did people know the truth before the Bible was compiled?
3. How could people know what the Bible consisted of since the Bible doesn't contain a list?
Mungo,
You ask 3 excellent questions here. I'll attempt an answer, one at a time:
1. It seems to me that the Bible is 'our only point of reference' according to 2 Tim 3:16-17 (NIV):
16 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17 so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.
It doesn't say that tradition or the Bible teachers are useful/necessary for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness. We are 'thoroughly equipped for every good work' by Scripture. Nothing else is stated.
2. Before the Bible was compiled, people learned the truth through oral transmission - not oral tradition. These facts were transmitted about people, places and times. The evidence points to the biblical text being place into written form soon after the events were described.
Take Luke 1:1-4 (NIV) as an example. The Gospel tells us how he obtained his information :
Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, 2 just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eye witnesses and servants of the word. 3 With this in mind, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, I too decided to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, 4 so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught.
There you have it. He obtained the evidence from 'eye witnesses and servants of the Lord'. He 'carefully investigated' the details for himself and wrote 'an orderly account' to Theophilus. What did that do for the people who read the Gospel of Luke? They knew 'the certainty of the things you have been taught'.
We are not told who wrote the Gospel. There is no subterfuge here. It is estimated the Gospel of Luke was written about A.D. 58 and 65. That's only a period of oral transmission of about 30 years after the death and resurrection of Jesus.
3. This is a good question. People didn't have to know which books were in the Bible - OT and NT - as there were prophets and others in the OT who were there to provide that kind of information. As for the NT, the churches after the apostles identified the authoritative books. There were questionable books, including Hebrews, 2 Peter and the Book of Revelation. However, the churches confirmed the NT books in the canon at the Council of Carthage in AD 397.
Oz