The first Christians weren't Bible Christians

[Aractus]

This isn't a new topic, and I'll answer all the questions.

I think nothing is quite so ridiculous as those who use private interpretation of a book that is full of hyperbole, poetry, parables, and psychedelic visions; written in Hebrew, aramaic, and Greek, which contain words that lose their meaning when translated into the English language.

We have all 66 books in their respective original languages.

The first Christians weren't Bible Christians

Incorrect, they had the Tanakh (in Hebrew) and at least some of it, possibly all of it, translated in Greek too. More than 50% of the OT quotes found in the NT are quoting from the original Hebrew text, proving that the first Christians did indeed have the Hebrew text; and that itself is a Biblical basis. Furthermore, Jesus teaches from it and quotes from it himself.

The meaning of the words get distorted even more if you look at and understand how words were used in the culture of that time. Bible Christians like to tell Catholics "Call no man your Father". Okay, well pluck your eye out cuz Jesus said to do that as well. Also, go drink poison. Jesus said that those who believe in him will drink poison and it will have no effect on them.

Incorrect. The passage you refer to - Mark 16:18 - is not part of the Bible. Also, Jesus never said "let he who is without sin throw the first stone" (the Pericope de Adultera). You should only quote what is actually part of the Bible and not what is an obvious mistake or addition added by a scribe later.

So who is the authority on which verses are literal? Who decides which ones we are to obey and beat sinners over the head with?

Well generally it's an issue for scholarship, but it's contextual of course and is the same as interpreting any writing, you have to consider what the author meant, etc.

If the Bible was so important why didn't Jesus leave anyone with a Bible? Did the Apostles ever hand out a Bible? Did Jesus ever write anything?

Because he taught from the Hebrew Bible.

So look at how long america has been around. That is comparable to about how long Christianity existed before the Canon of the New Testament was decided and the first Christian Bible was put together.

I'm not exactly sure what you mean by this, but at least get your timeline right. By the mid second century, at the latest, certain NT books were bound together in single volumes. 2 Peter refers to Paul's epistles as scripture and Paul quotes Luke as scripture, and critics need to some extreme distortions of the facts to try and bend their way around to explaining this.

Almost all Christians could not own a Bible before the 15th Century.

Not true, please get your facts right. There exists well over 20,000 and probably well more than 30,000 copies of the New Testament up to the 15th century. There are around 5,800 copies in Greek alone. If Christians couldn't own a Bible for 1300 years then why are there 20-30,000+ manuscripts? I think, and I could be wrong on this, that you calculate one extant manuscript of this age range represents a 1 in 20 chance of surviving and being found (and in fact the odds of finding papyrus is much much slimmer hence the excitement when the DSS were found - and hence there are only about 120 NT papyri), thus if you have say 25,000 copies it means there had to have been 500,000 copies originally from which you found 25,000 - so explain that if Christians "couldn't own a Bible for 1300 years" as you claim?