I am angry

blame the Anglican priests whose own studies of the Bible led them to answer my questions inadequately at the time.†

No argument from me here, a lot of bad dogma has been made by bored priests.

Obedient companionship? Like a child… or a dog?

What other relationship can a finite being have with literally the creator of all existence? There can be no illusion of equality if He is who He claims He is. You frame it in derisive tones which tells me your atheism is reactionary. There is no shame in a child having a loving but unequal relationship with their parent. In fact it is exactly the intimacy of this relationship that should characterize our worship (well, my worship).

What I’m asking here is how do you know they got it right

Ok, let's do a thought experiment.

Lets say for class you were assigned the homework of copying down a newspaper article form the 1930s. That's more than a hundred years ago, so it is even longer than the 30-70 year time gap in the Vatican archives from the time of Jesus's death to the first ancient attested sources. You go online and find a scanned archive of newspaper clippings from the 1930s, you find that some of the words are used a little differently in modern times but you really have zero problem reading and understanding the article. So you copy it down letter for letter, even the words you don't necessarly understand or see the context of.

You, making that copy can in the moment verify with your own eyes that you copied it correctly, even if you didn't understand all the context and meanings of how some old words were used.

That is the first part. This is how we know that the oldest dated fragments existing in the Vatican archives all align to a RIDICULOUSLY accurate degree with all that came after.

Next, as far as the meaning of the words changing over time. Yes, we understand this. There are entire branches of scholarship dedicated to how words change over time. And not exclusively Biblical scholarship so you can't play the 'filthy xtians faking the sciences' because all secular academia agrees with the lexical interpretations that are used as the basis of the modern Bible translations.

Thirdly, we know quite a lot about how the world worked in the time of Jesus from archaeological and anthropological studies, again largely from secular sources, and they all align with the descriptions, fashions, word choices, and world events of the time.

Because if that’s what you’re contending

It is amazingly apparent you have very little understanding of this subject. Literally none of those points you presented are actually points of contention made by anyone in modern academia. Sure I bet they were hot talking points during the Renaissance before we had the archaeological artifacts and anthropological studies, but that was six hundred years ago my guy.

I’m not the one who’s cherry picking my reality

You are doing exactly that. I mention a time period spanning two millennia and you focus on two specific periods covering MAYBE a handful of decades to be generous.

You know what, I was prepared to point by point you but you have zero arguments that aren't already worn out atheismtuber thumbnail eyecatches, you really don't understand where our knowledge comes from or the path it took to get us here.

All you know is that magical sky wizard friends make you angie. Bye.