:chuckle: No offense, but your wry humor there is just funny
There are occasions in Scripture where it is lost and then recovered; and this, back when God was intervening in the affairs of men in very direct manner - outside of His Word.
Personally, I believe some on both sides of the fence are actually after the truth of the matter.
As for the balance of people on both sides, well; all is their logic and how that because said logic makes sense to them, there is no other.
Anyway, have you or he personally studied out whether or not there is any concern with Preservation in the Scripture itself - in - their - day - and as to what passages promise what, or not, if any?
Also, as to what its writers and those they describe in their narrative had believed about Preservation - by their words and or actions - as to this issue?
It is obvious from Matt. 4: 4 and 2 Tim. 3:16-17 that both Jesus and the Apostle Paul had held to some sort of a Preservation of the Scripture doctrine.
What is the following if not a Preservation issue...
Matthew 15:
3. But he answered and said unto them, Why do ye also transgress the commandment of God by your tradition?
4. For God commanded, saying, Honour thy father and mother: and, He that curseth father or mother, let him die the death.
5. But ye say, Whosoever shall say to his father or his mother, It is a gift, by whatsoever thou mightest be profited by me;
6. And honour not his father or his mother, he shall be free. Thus have ye made the commandment of God of none effect by your tradition.
7. Ye hypocrites, well did Esaias prophesy of you, saying,
8. This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me.
9. But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.
Obviously, this that follows was also the same Preservation issue...
2 Thessalonians 2:
2. That ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand.
5. Remember ye not, that, when I was yet with you, I told you these things?
6. And now ye know what withholdeth that he might be revealed in his time.
As was this...
2 Corinthians 2:
17. For we are not as many, which corrupt the word of God: but as of sincerity, but as of God, in the sight of God speak we in Christ.
In all those, an emphasis was made in written from as to the need to Preserve the Truth these men had asserted had been "given by inspiration of God" - that it be "profitable for doctrine," etc., in short "for instruction in righteousness.." 2 Tim. 3:16-17.
Obviously, Matthew 4:4's "it is written... man shalt no live by... but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God... shalt man live by" is a Preservation of the Scripture issue.
Case in point of what said Preservation was meant to allow way, way, way before 1769 - Nehemiah 7:
14. And they found written in the law which the LORD had commanded by Moses, that the children of Israel should dwell in booths in the feast of the seventh month:
15. And that they should publish and proclaim in all their cities, and in Jerusalem, saying, Go forth unto the mount, and fetch olive branches, and pine branches, and myrtle branches, and
palm branches, and branches of thick trees, to make booths, as it is written.
16. So the people went forth, and brought them, and made themselves booths, every one upon the roof of his house, and in their courts, and in the courts of the house of God, and in the street of the water gate, and in the street of the gate of Ephraim.
17. And all the congregation of them that were come again out of the captivity made booths, and sat under the booths: for since the days of Jeshua the son of Nun unto that day had not the children of Israel done so. And there was very great gladness.
18. Also day by day, from the first day unto the last day, he read in the book of the law of God. And they kept the feast seven days; and on the eighth day was a solemn assembly, according unto the manner.
They lost it, then found it, and it was a very big deal!
Isaiah 30:
8. Now go, write it before them in a table, and note it in a book, that it may be for the time to come for ever and ever:
Write what?
9. That this is a rebellious people, lying children, children that will not hear the law of the LORD:
10. Which say to the seers, See not; and to the prophets, Prophesy not unto us right things, speak unto us smooth things, prophesy deceits:
11. Get you out of the way, turn aside out of the path, cause the Holy One of Israel to cease from before us.
12. Wherefore thus saith the Holy One of Israel, Because ye despise this word, and trust in oppression and perverseness, and stay thereon:
13. Therefore this iniquity shall be to you as a breach ready to fall, swelling out in a high wall, whose breaking cometh suddenly at an instant.
14. And he shall break it as the breaking of the potters' vessel that is broken in pieces; he shall not spare: so that there shall not be found in the bursting of it a sherd to take fire from the hearth, or to take water withal out of the pit.
15. For thus saith the Lord GOD, the Holy One of Israel; In returning and rest shall ye be saved; in quietness and in confidence shall be your strength: and ye would not.
There is the issue right there - For thus saith the Lord GOD...in the Old, reiterated in the New - Matthew 4:
2. And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungred.
3. And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread.
4. But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.
But, lets not leave Peter out of this - the poor brother is far too often looked down upon as some sort of a fool sub-Apostle.
2 Peter 1:
19. We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts:
20. Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation.
21. For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.
Just look at how serious this Preservation issue had been for them - 2 Peter 2:
1. But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction.
2. And many shall follow their pernicious ways; by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of.
3. And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you: whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not.
2 Peter 3:
1. This second epistle, beloved, I now write unto you; in both which I stir up your pure minds by way of remembrance:
2. That ye may be mindful of the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets, and of the commandment of us the apostles of the Lord and Saviour:
13. Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.
14. Wherefore, beloved, seeing that ye look for such things, be diligent that ye may be found of him in peace, without spot, and blameless.
15. And account that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation; even as our beloved brother Paul also according to the wisdom given unto him hath written unto you;
16. As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other
scriptures, unto their own destruction.
Preservation of the Scriptures appears to have been a big concern to the Lord GOD; to the Spirit, to the Son, and to all these men...way before 1769... as even now, Rom. 11:13; 16:25-27.
you'd have to ask someone who was.