>2 Thessalonians 2:15
>New Testament apostolic teaching to abide by oral tradition
Okay, what we have here is indeed a statement that the teachings of Paul, at least, since he was the one who wrote the verse, were to be held whether through oral teachings (preaching) or epistle.
Does this mean that what Paul wrote and preached are different? No. It would be wise to think that if they were that one or the other would be suspect. Since the scripture is God-breathed, inspired by the Holy Spirit, we know that that cannot be wrong. Thus if there is any contradictions between the oral traditions that Paul taught and the scriptures, the tradition must be wrong, unless you would put forth that the Spirit could make mistakes. I pray that this is not the case.
2 Thessalonians 2:15 just says that you are to stand firm in Paul’s teachings however you find the teachings. Both of us can agree that Paul should be held as an authority of the church. Peter wrote that Paul’s epistles were scripture. (Funny that he said nothing of what Paul taught orally. Good argument that they were one and the same. )
What we do have is inconsistencies in how the Catholic church judges tradition. Ireneaus claimis that Jesus died at age 50 (Against the Heresies, chapter 6 I believe), and that John and the apostles taught that to him personally. And the Catholic church, as far as I know, do not hold to that ‘apostolic’ teaching even though it comes through the very means of transmission from which the Catholic Church suggests it gets everything else. So if a claim is made through traditions what is the standard of measure for them?
I can dig up the list, much like yours, of Early Church Fathers that said that the SCRIPTURES are the measure. Will that hold water with you? No, for like your list, it is easy to cherry pick the massive and contradictory writings of the ECF’s, and as the original article shows, even the translations of their writings are suspect. Do we have as many original manuscripts of the Early Church Fathers as we have Scripture? Or are these ninth century translations which contain many errors, much like the medieval bible.
So what can we do? Well, we still have the actual writings of the apostles. Any traditions must be suspect without direct revelation by God, since there has yet to be a list of traditions which are shown to be canonical, inspired or that can even be verified to be something taught by Jesus, the Apostles, or even in some cases, the early church fathers themselves.
Now as for your list that I must agree is very very long, is there anything there that is taken from older works, which might be mistranslated, on purpose or mistaken? If you read James Swan’s blog, you can see the effects of the writings of the Catholic apologists during the time (and later) of Luther, and their purposeful twisting of Luther’s statements during the heated time of the Reformation.
The echos of such polemics are still being found on the lips of popular apologists who just do not do their homework. Have you done yours, checking the sources of that list? Are you sure you are not echoing the mistakes or possible sins of others?
Do you care enough to check? THAT is why I posted the article.
No thinking man would actually argue what you have argued:
that every valid thing Paul preached was recorded
and
that Paul’s unrecorded preaching must have contradicted what he wrote (or that all preaching of Paul that was not recorded must have been invalid).
If today I say
A (”grass is often green”)
and tomorrow I write down something totally different,
B (”many pigstys are disgusting”)
one cannot say that A contradicts B,
though clearly A and B are quite different.
And an omission is not a contradiction.
If today I say
A (”grass is often green, and so is lettuce”)
and tomorrow I write down
C (”grass is often green, and so is my Mercedes”)
one cannot say that A contradicts C,
or that C is somehow suspect,
though clearly A contains information that is not in C, and C contains information that is not in A.
Scenario A
Charles sends to Ben a text message and then leaves a voicemail, both with the exact same message “please call 234-5678”.
Scenario B
Charles sends to Ben a text message “please call 345-6789” and then leaves Ben a voicemail “please call 567-8900”.
In which scenario is Charles more likely to call Ben and tell him “make sure you call the numbers I left on text and voice”, A or B?