Is that universally held? In my Midrash studies (which I admit I know a lot more of than Talmud, though -- from what I've read -- Talmud works the same way), there are normally several comments on each verse, which may agree or disagree (sometimes wildly), and all are allowed to stand and are held in respect.
I defended genuine Sacred Tradition by pointing out that that Tradition is that Cain married his twin sister (and that this was a cause of friction between Cain and Abel).
Is that universally held? In my Midrash studies (which I admit I know a lot more of than Talmud, though -- from what I've read -- Talmud works the same way), there are normally several comments on each verse, which may agree or disagree (sometimes wildly), and all are allowed to stand and are held in respect.
It is true that the Rabbis of the Talmud argued all the time in matters of both Halakhah and 'Agadah (and Halakhah is the more important). However, there is also a very important principal: 'Ellu va'ellu divrei-'Eloqim Chayyim ("both these and these are the words of the Living G-d"). In other words, in some mysterious way that we cannot understand, all the words of the Talmudic Rabbis are true, even when they seem to disagree with one another. In fact, Rav Nachman of Breslov taught that they do not really disagree at all but only appear to for the sake of the student.
NYer, I apologize for my extremely harsh words to you, but you simply make no sense to me. You are supposedly this "ultra-conservative" who posts all this pre-modern, hyper-traditional stuff--shoot, you're a Maronite!--yet when I point out Catholic inconsistencies on a thread supposedly about the validity of Tradition you respond not with Tradition but with the words of "modern scholarship" about "the intention of the author" and "literary genres" (or whatever they're called). Where in your Catholic traditional literature do the church fathers or saints mention "literary forms" or "the intention of the author?" Did Jerome think of this stuff while translating the TaNa"KH from the original Hebrew in Bat-Lechem while on his knees? The attitude of your reply to my initial post merely serves to illustrate the enormous changes that have taken place in the "unchanging" Catholic Church.
Allow me to illustrate. It just so happens that I own a Douay-Rheims bible (TAN). In the commentary on Lemekh's declaration to his wives in Genesis 4 the commentator (Challoner?) mentions the Jewish Tradition about Lamekh's killing of these two men--Cain (whom he shot) and the young lad who led him around in his old age (by accidentally crushing his skull when he clapped his hands together in grief on learning he had accidentally shot his ancestor). Now THAT is Tradition. No "literary forms." No "what was in the mind of the 'sacred author.'" No "the scriptures teach only 'spiritual truth.'" Do you see the difference now? ONE is Tradition. The OTHER is "modern scholarship." The fact that a supposedly ultra-conservative Maronite Catholic confuses the two and mixes them up in order to attack the facticity of the Biblical narrative is emblematic of the Catholic Church, the Walter Cronkite of chr*stian churches: old as the hills and yet liberal as blazes.