(August 13, 2014 at 10:47 am)Michael Wrote: If it wasn't read as part of the community practice (as, for example the Hebrew Scriptures were, the gospels were and the letters were) then it would not be up for consideration for the canon. That doesn't mean they didn't value other sources (they clearly did; we have many respected writings of the Church Fathers), but the canon was something different. We just need to be careful to distinguish the canon from all early writings; just because something wasn't canonised didn't mean it was considered worthless.
Thats my point. They wouldn't consider that record worthless. Quite the opposite. And in a culture where copying texts is the only way to conserve them and - more importantly - to make them available in a large region they would have copied it.
Consider Pauls letters. How did they survive? I'm no expert on the subject but I suspect the Ephesians didn't have to send them to the canon making people when they heard a canon was being made. They were copied before they were ever sent (if etc.).
